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Dostoevsky's characters are often portrayed as unhappy people suffering from the deepest personal crisis or going through total life disorder, chaos in thoughts, failure of plans and desires. In fact, such troublesome state of affairs becomes natural to them. They go on emerging in it, feeling constantly unsatisfied with what they are (and usually they are nothings, non-entities), alienated from everything and everyone. Western philosophical tradition sees some not-too-dark version of such state as a dramatic norm of human existence and beginnings — from Heraclites' fate-challenging War and Parmenides' naught-coming-to-being to Plato's Eros longing for what he is and has not and Hegelian Ungluckliche Bewustsein meaning that consciousness in the form of Self is only a sketch that has yet to define and fill itself with true substance. But Russian literary-philosophical discourse (Dostoevsky's being the significant representative of it) regards this situation as catastrophic, and the idea of creature-in-need-of-its-own-being absurd, threatening and finally demonic. Those lost and darkly brooding Selves, if according to it, produce with their unrest a whirl of destructive energy, essentially leading all the world around them to moral devastation, cultural nihilism and murderous revolts. Dostoevsky defies dialectics; there is only Life (real, true, present, godly) and deadly, lying, unshaped Evil confronting and marring it, with no processional in-betweens and mathematically neutral balance. The failed man penetrating the body of Life is indeed an agent of Evil, and his personal failure is the first sign of a more dreadful ruination to come from the dark side of existence, exactly through him.

O objetivo deste artigo é debater a relação entre visão profética e crítica das ideologias no pensamento do filósofo brasileiro Roberto Mangabeira Unger. Procuraremos demonstrar como a promessa messiânica estrutura a obra de Unger, e a diferencia de outros trabalhos relacionados aos Critical Legal Studies (movimento que ele ajudou a fundar). A Modernidade secularizou a Teologia da História bíblico-cristã, interpretando a si mesma como momento derradeiro da trajetória humana, nos quadros de um painel escatológico. Assim, o Apocalipse mantém-se sempre presente em nosso campo de visão – embora, diversamente das Histórias da Salvação de cunho religioso, nosso Armagedom não seja sucedido por uma utopia, um tempo de perdão e reconciliação para os justos. Ora, se as ficções distópicas e pós-apocalípticas configuram-se nas mais completas traduções do Zeitgeist, o utopismo milenarista de Unger (secularizado) impõe-se como um cânon contra-hegemônico consistente. Em um primeiro momento, trataremos do niilismo que configura o capitalismo tardio, e que engendra “falsas necessidades” (na terminologia de Unger). Após, mostraremos como os Critical Legal Studies acabaram se deixando macular como uma lógica antiutópica. Finalmente, discorreremos, tomando como referência principal o livro The religion of future, sobre as visões proféticas de/em Unger.

The article presents the author’s vision of the process of politicallegal and constitutional development of Russia during the twentieth century, features of the dynamics of the values of society enshrined in the constitutions. The fruitfulness of the application of the civilizational approach to the assessment of the lessons of the constitutional development of Russia, the key role of the spiritual and moral values of society, especially the Orthodox tradition, is argued. The constitutional reform of 2020 in our country put an end to the undivided rule of neoliberalism in the state development of our Fatherland, but did not solve all the constitutional and legal issues. An unchangeable part of the Russian constitution, it enshrines not only the foundations of the Russian state system, human rights and freedoms, but also our civilizational capitulation. It is impossible to say otherwise, seeing the regulated inferiority of sovereignty and the constitutional triumph of nihilism, embodied in the prohibition of any state or mandatory ideology, in the equality of all ideologies, that there is an equalization of good and evil.

En este trabajo adopto una perspectiva generacional y tomo como marco de referencia la producción literaria de los autores argentinos de posdictadura nacidos entre 1968 y 1976. Doy cuenta de la existencia de trabajos de investigación centrados en la cuestión de la infancia traumática representada en los textos producidos por escritores de esta generación entre 2007 y 2020 y propongo analizar dos obras, Hasta que mueras (Raquel Robles, 2019) y No derrames tus lágrimas por nadie que viva en estas calles (Patricio Pron, 2016) poniendo el foco en el uso del pasado que se hace en cada una. Para clasificar los textos del período propongo las categorías de melancolía, nihilismo y utopía, las cuales son utilizadas para designar actitudes globales y dominantes en cada texto de acuerdo a su relación con el pasado: una fijación en el pasado, un abandono del pasado o la concepción del pasado como una herencia que se coloca en la base de un proyecto político.

The article demonstrates that the usual interpretations of the novel Crime and Punishment are fundamentally erroneous, since they do not take into account the fact that it was created under conditions of censorship. To assume that the author’s intention has been accurately expressed in the published text is but imprudent. Dostoevsky resorted to Aesopian language on many pages, hiding the fact that his novel was in many ways a response to the “What Is to Be Done?“ by Chernyshevsky. Like the latter, Dostoevsky discusses the burning question: who are Russian revolutionaries? Raskolnikov is interesting to him not as a criminal, but as a talented person infected with Western revolutionary ideas. Dostoevsky imagines the revolutionary as a terrorist arrogating to himself the right to stand above the law, not only human, but also natural one, deciding on his own who will live and who will die. The revolutionary supposedly seeks to bless humanity, but in reality he longs for power over the “human anthill”. Pisarev gave a polemical answer to this line of the novel. He insisted that Dostoevsky described as revolutionary a person of completely different social type and that shedding of blood will be by no means an obligatory feature of the approaching revolution.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s historical analysis of Buddhist philosophy not only fails as a sound interpretation of that tradition, it also well-exemplifies the Western practice of Orientalism as elucidated by Edward Said. I attempt to demonstrate this in three major parts: the nature of Orientalism as a concept and practice, the Orientalist analytical process that Hegel employs in judging Buddhism as well as religions in general, and how Hegel’s understanding does not work against a more charitably interpreted Buddhist defense. Moreover, I argue that the Orientalist erroneousness of Hegel’s reading deeply complicates his hierarchical philosophy of world history.

In 1934, Carl Schmitt, then the crown jurist of the Third Reich, wrote in an essay titled “National Socialist Legal Thought” about “[a] conversation with a world-famous, world travelled, experienced scholar of more than seventy years of age from the United States [which] belongs to the major experiences and encounters which led me as a jurist to National Socialism.” Schmitt never disclosed the identity of the scholar whom he met. Based on Schmitt’s diaries, I reveal that the scholar was Josef Redlich. Born to a Jewish family in 1869, Redlich was the Fairchild Professor of Comparative Public Law at Harvard Law School at the time he met Schmitt in 1931. According to Schmitt’s 1934 essay, the conversation focused on the indeterminacy of legal norms and on a nihilist understanding of the era. Even after discovering the identity of the scholar to whom Schmitt refers in his essay and analyzing the ideas discussed in their meeting, the story of the encounter between Schmitt and Redlich remains mysterious. For some reason, the ideas of a scholar of Jewish descent, who believed in an Austrian multi-national, federal state, inspired and played a profound role in the formulation of a blatantly antisemitic essay promoting National Socialist legal thought by the crown jurist of the Nazi regime. Schmitt repeated the tale of his meeting with an American scholar—without disclosing his identity—in a lecture he gave in Italian, two years after publishing his essay. Based on an analysis of this obscure lecture, his 1934 essay, and various other materials written both by Schmitt and Redlich, I offer three possible explanations for why Schmitt viewed his encounter with Redlich as so influential on his road to National Socialism.

Living in the time of a pandemic, where illness has become a prominent concern, it might do well to consider Nietzsche’s thinking on sickness and health, which is far from a clear-cut delineation and calls for careful and circumspect analysis. I begin by distinguishing three types of sickness and health: physical, psychological, and cultural, where health in each type can initially be understood as flourishing unimpaired by sickness. Physical illness involves some infirmity of the body, such as cancer or viral infection. Psychological illness is some malady of the mind, such as depression. Cultural illness is the kind of thing emphasized by Nietzsche and involves a worldview that is symptomatic of life denial and nihilism when measured against natural life instincts, energies, and needs—for instance, the story Nietzsche tells about slave morality and its production of the ascetic ideal that has contaminated Western thought.

Michel Foucault defines the modern psychiatric hospital as an institution of power that excludes and disciplines those who are deemed immoral, perverse, or abnormal in society. Rather than a facility for healing, as Foucault has taught us, the psychiatric hospital operates more as a punitive method of the body. But what is not considered in Foucault's historical account of the psychiatric institution are the epistemological preconditions that allowed for its original formation. Drawing on the Kyoto School philosophers' critique of modernity, this article will discuss how the biomedical model underlying modern psychiatric care is rooted in a prior epistemological duality that was developed even earlier within Western intellectual history-a duality we will call the "epistemology of nihilism." Foucault's political technology of the body is therefore a symptom of the epistemology of nihilism, that which leads to consequences beyond mere panoptical surveillance. This article will discuss such consequences, in particular the mechanization of human life derived from the excesses of scientific technology, in the service of introducing a new way of thinking about the limits of psychiatric treatment in today's world.

Problem setting. When the defining word «legal» is added to the concept of «nihilism», new meanings arise, which requires checking how correctly this phrase is used in legal sciences. To preserve statehood, it is important to understand the essence and genesis of legal nihilism. Recent research and publications analysis. Despite the presence of attention to this important problem, both in the domestic and foreign literature devoted to the problems of law, there is still enough uncertainty in understanding the essence and causes of legal nihilism, which requires clarification and correction. Paper objective. It is necessary to clarify the meaning of the concept of «legal nihilism» by comparing this phenomenon with various forms of manifestation and thereby concretize its essence and origins. This will allow, in turn, determining the possibilities of overcoming it. Paper main body. The article actualizes the problem of the conceptual apparatus of legal sciences, which is associated with the vagueness and ambiguity of some concepts, including the concepts of «natural law» and «law». Ambiguity of the concept of law both as a goal and as a tool can become a source of legal conflicts. By clarifying this concept, it is possible to come to a deeper understanding of the concept of «legal nihilism», which is important for the field of law. The analysis of types of legal nihilism leads to the conclusion that it is necessary to distinguish between natural law and law, recognizing the primary role of human rights and the instrumental role of law. Two non-mutually exclusive opportunities to avoid nihilism associated with the education of citizens of legal consciousness are considered. The first is related to the education of respect for universal human values and their acceptance. Submission to the moral law, in theory, should prevent the violation of legal boundaries in the action of the subject. In the second case, this is a pragmatic way of bringing to the attention of citizens information about the inevitability of punishment. As a result, the conviction is formed that it is more profitable to comply with laws than not to comply, especially since being in the legal field ensures stability and security. The presence of prerequisites for the effective implementation of these opportunities in the modern world is analyzed. At the same time, modern realities were taken into account, for example, such as the processes of globalization and the factor of postmodernism. Conclusions of the research. The reason for legal nihilism is violations in the development and application of legislative acts associated with a complex crisis affecting the social, economic, political and legal spheres. All calls for the education of legal consciousness will be declarative in nature without eliminating the objective reasons leading to its distortion.

David Benatar and Thomas Nagel are both claiming that life is meaningless if judged from a cosmic perspective and both are claiming that our life is absurd. However, they understand ‘the absurdity of life’ in different ways. Benatar’s understanding of absurdity refers to the impossibility to transcend our limits from the cosmic perspective. This is strictly tied to a negative evaluation of our life. According to Benatar we have therefore a reason to regret our existence. Again, Nagel’s absurdity arises from a clash of attitudes we have when we evaluate our life from the subjective and the objective perspective. Absurdity results from the incompatibility of our attitudes regarding our own life. We should therefore approach our lives with irony. I argue that neither regret nor irony are rationally recommended attitudes we should have to our life. I show that Benatar’s transcending-ones-limits approach to life’s meaning does not necessarily go hand in hand with a negative evaluation of our life. Although a transcending-ones-limits-approach of life’s meaning implies that our life is admittedly meaningless from a cosmic perspective it does not imply that it is to be judged as good or bad. However, the irony that Nagel advises is not recommended either, as subjective and objective attitude do not necessarily collide. As I read Nagel’s position the attitudes must collide because of a difference in evaluative certainty. I think this is not true because the evaluation of life is beset by doubts subjectively as well as objectively.

espanolEl Heavy Metal, como movimiento artistico y de compromiso social nace como una expresion de contracultura en su negacion por formar parte de una sociedad plagada de incongruencias eticas y morales, estableciendo el Existencialismo como su fundamento filosofico dominante. En el contexto religioso decadente que caracterizo al siglo XX, Jean – Paul Sartre engendra dos obras teatrales, A puerta cerrada y El diablo y dios, que vendran a establecer las bases de uno de los infiernos mas trascendentes para el pensamiento contemporaneo: la otredad. En su musica, Black Sabbath, como grupo pionero de este genero musical, contiene en sus letras el concepto sartreano de La Otredad como infierno terrenal. A partir de la deconstruccion simbolica del mito del cielo y el infierno de la tradicion cristiana occidental, Black Sabbath resemantiza el infierno para proponer una explicacion racional a las problematicas de su epoca y convertirlo en la metafora del desencanto y el nihilismo de una Europa moderna, en la que los iconos miticos estan siendo reemplazados por representaciones de la realidad concreta. EnglishHeavy Metal, as a movement of art and social commitment was born as an expression of counterculture in its denial to be part of a society plagued by ethical and moral incongruities, establishing Existentialism as its dominant philosophical foundation. In the decadent religious context that characterized the twentieth century, the french philosopher Jean- Paul Sartre begets two plays, No Exit (1944) and The Devil and the Good Lord (1951), that will come to lay the foundations of one of the most transcendent hells for contemporary thought: otherness. In his music, Black Sabbath, as a pioneering group of this musical genre, contains in his lyrics the Sartrean concept of The Otherness as earthly hell. From the symbolic deconstruction of the myth of heaven and hell from the Western Christian tradition, Black Sabbath re-signifies hell to propose a rational explanation of the problems of his time and to make it the metaphor for the disillusionment and nihilism of a modern Europe, in which mythical icons are being replaced by representations of concrete reality

This article considers Bolton based community drama group, Melodramatics, and the ways in which their practice helps illuminate forms of relational activity that confront the nihilism of the resili...

The alt-right is an online subculture marked by its devotion to the execution of a racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic politics through trolling, pranking, meme-making, and mass murder. It is this devotion to far-right politics through the discordant conjunction of humor and suicidal violence this article seeks to explain by situating the movement for the first time within its constitutive online relationships. This article adds to the existing literature by viewing the online relationships of the alt-right through the genealogy of propaganda. Through situating the alt-right alongside the genealogy of propaganda, the article offers new insights into the social isolation, increasingly extreme social and political positions, nihilism, and violence that have emerged within the alt-right. The article concludes by applying the lessons of the alt-right for online organizing across the political spectrum and argues that a class-based politics of the left is an important part of countering the rise of the alt-right.

Eis aqui uma interpretação da explanação de Heidegger dos fundamentos e desdobramentos do fenômeno do Niilismo, procedida pelo viés da fixação do sentido do Ser enquanto Maquinação. Esta interpretação implica a apresentação dos passos preparatórios do Filósofo para uma Escrita acerca do sentido do Ser orientada por um outro Princípio que o instituído pela Metafísica, e se faz a partir da contemplação de dois textos exemplares de Heidegger, em que ele investiga a determinação metafísica do Ser em dois períodos capitais da história do Pensamento: o período clássico da Metafísica grega, notadamente em Aristóteles, e o período consumado da Metafísica moderna, visado através da Filosofia de Nietzsche. Here is an interpretation of Heidegger's explanation of the fundamentals and developments of the phenomenon of Nihilism, proceeded by the fixation of the meaning of Being as Machination. This interpretation implies the presentation of the Philosopher's preparatory steps for a writing about the meaning of Being guided by another Principle than that instituted by Metaphysics, and it is made from the contemplation of two exemplary texts by Heidegger, in which he investigates the metaphysical determination of Being in two capital periods of the history of Thought: the classical period of Greek Metaphysics, notably in Aristotle, and the consummate period of modern Metaphysics, aimed at through Nietzsche's Philosophy

The article is devoted to the analysis of N.A. Berdyaev’s perception of L.N. Tol­stoy’s work. Berdyaev’s philosophical criticism of the writer requires close at­tention and research because it allows us to formulate the most important ques­tion about philosophical vocabulary of Russian religious thinker. The essay examines not only Berdyaev’s critical interpretation of Tolstoy in its movement, but also the personal perception by the philosopher of Tolstoy as a great Russian writer. This paper explores the evolution of Berdyaev’s views on the problem of religious consciousness of Leo Tolstoy. I reveal the structural elements of Berdyaev’s personalistic metaphysics and analyze the main ideas of his eschato­logical ethics from the perspective of philosophical criticism of Tolstoy. I con­sider the modus of Berdyaev’s assessment of Tolstoy’s nihilism and discuss the ambiguity and complexity of Berdyaev’s attitude to the writer and religious thinker. This problem manifested itself, on the one hand, in Berdyaev’s identify­ing himself as a Russian thinker and a heir to the tradition of Solovyov, Dosto­evsky and Tolstoy, on the other hand, in sharp criticism of Tolstoy for his role in the crisis of Russian religious consciousness, which had irreversible conse­quences for the Russian state and society. This analysis proposes a new opinion on philosophical criticism of Berdyaev, as distinct from the traditional version, and introduces the thesaurus research strategy on Berdyaev’s religious philosophy.

The article aims to analyse the concept of normativity within the philosophy of weak thought developed by Gianni Vattimo. Weak thought refers to the idea of weakening the existence in the era of metaphysical demise, as well as a challenge to the Cartesian concept of the subject. This philosophical tradition does not entirely abandon moral normativity. Vattimo proposes a weak notion of normativity, i.e. persuasion, without claims of universal applicability. Weak normativity derives from dialogue and respect for tradition, as well as recommends compliance with specific moral principles. However, it does not consider their applicability to be universal. This kind of normativity is established on the basis of cultural heritage, agreement and social contract.

The culture of modernity grows out of the traumatic experience of “European nihilism” and “the death of God,” i.e. the break with tradition and the collapse of a universal ontological and social order. One of the manifestations of the cultural trauma of modernity was the emergence of subject-object dualism, as a result of which the disembodied human subject was opposed to the impersonal and unconscious material world, which includes his own body. The problem of nihilism as a trauma of the crisis of meanings has been solved, since the era of romanticism, in a series of attempts to overcome the anxiety of the emptiness of the formal autonomy of the subject and to understand the paradoxes of incarnation. The aim of the article is to analyze the problem of corporeality in the context of the new European subject-object dualism in the work of S. Beckett, as well as in the philosophy of A. Schopenhauer, which had a decisive influence on Beckett. As a result of the research, a special way of working out the new European trauma of disembodiment was formulated, which consists not in a conservative striving to restore what has been destroyed and not in a revolutionary overcoming, but in an aporetic, deconstructive experience of undecidability and hesitation on the border of the subject-object split, which allows maintaining the "promise of happiness" and hope for redemption without shying away from the experience of disillusionment inherent in modernity and maintaining a presence of mind in the comedy of incarnation. The philosophical and artistic understanding of the problem of corporeality in the works of Schopenhauer and Beckett is one of the essential answers to the modern crisis of the foundations of life.

В статье анализируются точки зрения М. Хайдеггера, К. Ясперса и Ж. Делёза об учении Ф. Ницше о нигилизме. Автор предлагает критерии корректной интерпретации учения Ницше о нигилизме. Он формулирует три характерные черты данного учения. Это провозглашение Сократа первым нигилистом, отношение к эпохе «последнего человека» как к апогею нигилизма и акцент на девальвацию всех ценностей. The article is aimed at the analysis of M. Heidegger’s, K. Jaspers’, and G. Deleuze’s approaches to F. Nietzsche’s nihilism doctrine. The author offers criterions of correct interpretation of F. Nietzsche´s nihilism doctrine. He formulates three characteristic features of this doctrine: declaring Socrates «the first nihilist», the attitude to the epoch of «the last man» as the apogee of nihilism, and the accent on devaluation of all values.

Gershom Scholem was always skeptical about the promises of Enlightenment, which did not necessarily accompany the emancipation of the Jews and all too often implied the negation of their collective...

In this paper, I explore the synth-punk band the Screamers and the uncertain futures they represent. After describing punk rock briefly and situating the Screamers in the Los Angeles punk scene of the late 1970s, I analyze the futurity connoted by their use of synthesizers. I discuss the band’s desire for a future in music and examine the American recording industry’s hostility to punk, preferring the safer sounds of new wave. In the conclusion, I consider the purported nihilism of early punk by contextualizing punk’s negativity within debates about queer futurities as well as within what Mark Fisher calls “lost futures.”

A pessimistic strain of thought is fomenting in the health studies literature regarding the status of medicine. Ioannidis's (2005) now famous finding that "most published research findings are false" and Stegenga's (2018) book-length argument for medical nihilism are examples of this. In this paper, we argue that these positions are incorrect insofar as they rest on an untenable account of the nature of facts. Proper attention to fallibilism and the social organization of knowledge, as well as Bayesian probabilities in medical reasoning, prompt us to ask why the cynics expect the results of quantitative studies to be incontrovertibly true in the first place. While we agree with Ioannidis and others' identified flaws in the medical research enterprise, and encourage rectification, we conclude that medical nihilism is not the natural outcome of the current state of research.

Hans Jonas’s establishment of an ethics of responsibility entails the simultaneous rejection of the modern notion of progress and the recovery of a form of “metaphysical speculation” that aids man in his search for an objective standard of value. Looking mostly at Jonas’s philosophical biology in The Phenomenon of Life and Mortality and Morality, this paper shows how Jonas’s thought on value judgments rests upon his critique of progress and science. The ethics of perfectibility and progress, Jonas shows, leads to a predicament in which the modern mind must navigate between the dangers present in the hubristic hopes of technological progress and the nihilism he finds in the thought of Martin Heidegger. Jonas’s philosophical biology serves as a critique of these positions that opens up an alternative orientation toward nature—one that grounds not only the ethics of responsibility but the uniquely human activity of reflection. The critique of progress serves, then, as a propaedeutic to the ethics of responsibility and the recovery of an image of man as the reflective animal. Such a recovery of metaphysical speculation from the dogmas of the physical sciences helps encourage a “new humility” in the face of man’s technological power. Jonas hopes to replace man’s desire for self-overcoming with the fear that his “Promethean immoderation” will lead to the biosphere's destruction. This fear acknowledges the limits of man’s knowledge and is thereby accompanied by a posture of Socratic ignorance and the reengagement with the philosophia perennis. That is, a less hubristic ethical theory depends upon a modest philosophical stance toward the whole. Only on the grounds of this epistemological modesty can we hope to proceed into the future with both caution and wisdom.

The paper examines religious consciousness in the modernist novels of Joseph Conrad’s 1902 Heart of Darkness and James Joyce’s 1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man with the objective of illustrating that though these writers apparently rejected the Catholic faith, they were still spiritually conscious and were thus able to detect and question religious values that were repressive. This consciousness is enriched by autobiographical elements prompted by the nihilism of the early twentieth century. Although Heart of Darkness is a colonial novel and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man traces the development of a potential artist, both converge on the critique of religious hypocrisy and injustice. Using the concepts of psychobiography, the conscious and unconscious of the Psychoanalytic theory as well as the concept of nihilism of the Modernist theory, the paper demonstrates that both Conrad and Joyce effectively make a critique of religion by the inclusion of various aspects of their real life experiences in their novels. They do this not to reject religion per se but for its reformation. In other words, the religious views of the protagonists in both works reflect those of their authors. Both authors portray not what is dominantly fictional but what they were a part of. This paper’s significance is its projection of the notion that it is the exploration of religious consciousness from an autobiographical perspective that gives the British modernist novel its strength and major difference. Conrad and Joyce demonstrate that without sincerity, justice, restraint, controlled freedom and mutual respect, the individual and society degenerate. Literature serves as a fabric of culture with the writer as the voice of conscience.

Being an interdisciplinary field of study in the humanities, literature serves as a vehicle to varieties of philosophical thought. The purpose of this paper is to examine the theme of absurdity and...

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo esclarecer de que forma a noção de valor assume um papel fundamental para compreensão da última fase da obra de Nietzsche. Para levar essa tarefa a cabo, realizaremos um exame de dois temas centrais no pensamento nietzschiano, a saber, o procedimento genealógico e o projeto de transvaloração dos valores. Assim procedendo, o artigo percorrerá boa parte das principais questões da filosofia nietzschiana, tais como: o caráter humano demasiado humano dos valores; a dupla forma de valorar e criar valores; o ressentimento; a morte de Deus; o niilismo e o além-do-homem. A intenção é destacar que a noção de valor – inseparável tanto do aspecto crítico e corrosivo do pensamento de Nietzsche, quanto de sua faceta propositiva – permeia e dá sentido aos temas acima elencados.

O presente artigo assume como hipótese que a análise do sentido da vida é fundamental na filosofia nietzschiana. A argumentação baseia-se no estudo da Genealogia da moral, particularmente no exame da terceira dissertação deste livro, mas registrando que as duas primeiras dissertações constroem as bases que vão permitir a ênfase de Nietzsche na questão do sentido da vida. Nossa linha reflexiva segue a do filósofo, partindo como ele da crítica aos ideais ascéticos e colocando o olhar nos comportamentos dos artistas, dos filósofos, dos sacerdotes e dos cientistas. Chega ao conceito do niilismo, que denota o desespero do ser humano, ao não encontrar resposta para a aparente falta de objetivo na sua vida. No niilismo a vontade de verdade esbarra no vazio, levando Nietzsche a constatar a motivação para a existência do ideal ascético, qual seja, a razão está no afastamento que esse ideal promove do vácuo existencial, o qual, para o filósofo, na nossa percepção, representa o temor humano fundamental.

A aversão de Nietzsche ao cristianismo, à democracia e ao socialismo, pode ser traduzida por sua negação ao igualitarismo. De fato, o filósofo vê no sentimento da esperança secular e na perda do aspecto agonístico da existência, a mais radical forma de décadence. Por sua vez, Leo Strauss, vê no ataque de Nietzsche ao igualitarismo uma forma de proteger a democracia liberal moderna de si mesma. No entanto, para o professor de Chicago, propor um regime político a partir das concepções nietzschianas, certamente, não levaria o mundo a outro lugar, se não, à barbárie. Pois, Nietzsche expõe o homem a uma verdade brutal e inumana, da qual, a maioria dos homens não pode suportar. Sendo assim, Strauss, pretende usar as verdades letais de Nietzsche como uma “caixa de ferramentas”, sua crítica à modernidade lhe é fundamental para a superação do niilismo e à defesa do modo de vida filosófico, que implica na aceitação do drama da vida tal como ela é. Dito isto, esse estudo pretende mostrar que: para Nietzsche a disseminação do ideal moderno de igualdade levou o ocidente à degeneração, ao nivelar todos os indivíduos por baixo, transformá-los em rebanho, promoveu-se o parto do último homem, o que impossibilita o surgimento do gênio criativo que impõe sua vontade de poder, o Übermansch. Enquanto, para Strauss, o Pathos pela igualdade radical como valor supremo da modernidade, além de ter sido a causa das principais catástrofes da contemporaneidade, inviabiliza o surgimento do “gentleman” (homem virtuoso), e com isso, a busca da melhor sociedade, do melhor regime e da melhor forma de viver.

Content and formal structures are inextricably linked in Nietzsche’s texts. Formal qualities convey meaning, for example, by indicating whether an expressed thought should be understood as an assertion, or rather subverted and ultimately negated. The following recent publications explore intermediality and performativity in Nietzsche’s language from different perspectives. Federico Celestini and Rüdiger Görner each examine the musicality of Nietzsche’s language against the grain of the common assumption of the language-like character of music. However, the two authors arrive at different conclusions about the correspondence between language and music in Nietzsche’s work. A volume edited by Christian Benne and Dieter Burdorf draws connections between Nietzsche and the philologist Rudolf Borchardt in terms of their concept of language. While Nietzsche and Borchardt exhibit parallels with regard to language skepticism and the self-creative process of writing, they fundamentally disagree in their conception of art. Finally, Diemo Landgraf sees Nietzsche’s work as the culmination of nineteenth-century decadent literature, grounding his critique of Nietzsche’s unique approach, which arises out of a music philosophical perspective, by labelling it as nihilistic.

Adorno and Horkheimer’s legacy is incomplete without reference to their infamous political quietism. To thinkers such as Habermas, this was the unfortunate consequence of their alleged evacuation of reason. Attending to the treatment of Nietzsche in Dialectic of Enlightenment illuminates the distinct irony of such charges. Here, in their most popular book, Nietzsche is presented as precisely that which they praised him for warning against elsewhere: an advocate of cruelty animated by a reactionary morality. I contend that this exaggeration is not accidental, but rather illustrative; the authors present a consciously hyperbolized version of Nietzsche in order to articulate how he made possible his own misappropriation, and to distinguish themselves sharply from Nietzsche given their disagreements about the necessity of reason. Ultimately, however, even though Adorno and Horkheimer performatively differentiate themselves from the nihilism they saw in Nietzsche, their alternative would ironically be subject to precisely the same charges of irrationalism and political aporia that they sought so desperately to avoid.

If we reread carefully some main texts written long ago by Walter Benjamin and Jean Baudrillard, we may find a scene of problematization not only of contemporary art but also of the contemporary state of the world, where nihilism in its different shapes should be met with resistance, both political and artistic. It really has become the world of simulacra, as Baudrillard would say, or the art in the age of technical reproducibility, as Benjamin suggested. To add to this problematic, the ambiguous status of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain , produced, or, rather re-produced during the First World War and revived in art criticism and art practice after the Second – an oeuvre which is deemed as “the most influential work of art in the 20 th century” – we are faced with the enigma of questioning our own response as a start of resistance to the historical nihilism we live today. This text of ours does not seek to give all, nor even some answers to this enormous problematic, but rather to sketch a framework of the ways we could look at the questions we need to ask ourselves. Article received: April 23, 2020; Article accepted: June 30, 2020; Published online: September 15, 2020; Original scholarly paper How to cite this article: Milic, Novica. "Resistance to Nihilism: Benjamin, Baudrillard, and Duchamp." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 22 (2020): 15-22. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i22.377

espanolEn el articulo se explica y se aboga a favor de la propuesta de Quentin Meillassoux de “filosofia irreligiosa” o “irreligion filosofica”, es decir, de una tercera postura entre religion y ateismo que plantea la concepcion de un Dios inexistente y por venir (Dios virtual) y de una recuperacion etico-filosofica de las nociones de esperanza, iortalidad, justicia y divinidad. Con referencias a distintos pensadores de la historia de la filosofia se busca enmarcar el significado y valor de la concepcion de Meillassoux. Despues de una exposicion breve de la filosofia del pensador frances, se realiza en sucesivos apartados la recuperacion critico-filosofica de conceptos religiosos basicos para concluir con una breve exposicion de la refutacion del “nihilismo” que hace Meillassoux, tarea filosofica importante como ninguna en nuestro tiempo. EnglishThe article explains and advocates in favor of Quentin Meillassoux’s proposal of “irreligious philosophy” or “philosophical irreligion”, that is, of a third position between religion and atheism that defends the conception of a nonexistent God and a God to come (virtual God), as well as an ethicalphilosophical recovery of the notions of hope, immortality, justice, and divinity. With references to different thinkers in the history of philosophy, we seek to frame the meaning and value of Meillassoux’s conception. After a brief exposition of his philosophy, the critical-philosophical recovery of basic religious concepts is carried out in successive sections, to conclude with a brief exposition of Meillassoux’s refutation of “nihilism”, an important philosophical task like none in our time.

The article has a double task, considering the content of Mira Marcinуw’s book, which is important in two controversial topics: madness and its conditions on Poland and its societal psyche, in particular the specifics of Polish melancholy. The author’s views on the status of melancholy in culture and its unique position in public life are presented. The question is: does the melancholic doubt his life? A fairly justified hypothesis would be that the melancholic sees himself as a dead rather than a living body. The significance of the quoted book is that it raises troubling questions but doesn’t give easy answers. First of all, it becomes obvious an unclear – how to develop the epistemological history of melancholy, which is understood as a scientific idea that seeks coherence and adequacy of the medicine language while the political history of melancholy is interpreted as a symptom of this sociocultural context, in this case in relation to Poland. Science in this case creates or selects concepts, although it always systematizes them in a certain place and time. Secondly, it is not clear today how to distinguish the language of melancholy itself, which is the language element of the emergency state, from the language of medicine, which is a means of describing a certain medical disorder. Medicine to a greater extent than we might think refers to normality than to the problematic concept of health. Medicine, while managing human life, adopts a normative attitude, which does not amount to providing advice on how to live wisely, but allows to influence the physical and moral relations of citizens that connect them with society. Thirdly, it is argued that the very concept of melancholy remains dynamic and changeable. The proposed “erotic constellation of melancholy” shows that the subject of melancholy loses the ability to find new objects of love. This incapacity simultaneously leads a person to open nihilism, which is not only the “nothingness of the will” and the usual “will of nothingness”, but also the discovery of the nothingness of knowledge and the futility of the cognition process. The inability to find items worth loving is due to the difficulty of finding items worth the effort to know. Thus, the causes of melancholy go beyond the trivial case of loss and cover all resentments, rejections, failures, disappointments, including despair in the process of cognition. Melancholy brings the subject to ruin, so it is the limit of all medical knowledge, stating that there is no secret of «disorder» in clinical cognition, that there is no secret of madness, and that there is nothing but the study of madness itself. It turns out that madness is recognition of nothingness of the world.

This article consists of a phenomenological refection about the indigence of our time. It discusses another understanding of the harm that the current moment has been causing to the human being, when instilling a life model offered since modernity, that involves several concerns, creating new pathologies. It is a historical movement, known as Nihilism, that gave us a “new dwelling place”, one that, paradoxically, shows itself as a non-dwelling-place, a non-place, namely, a strange place. Existing restlessness such as tiredness, stress, anxiety, boredom, melancholy, depression, etc., are present at this place. However, these existencial crisis are interpreted by the natural sciences as something that is solely inherent to the biological body. This interpretation is widely questioned here, since we understand that these phenomena will only be properly understood through the existential analytic of the human existence, since this entity is constituted as a being which temporality is the horizon., Este trabalho consiste em uma reflexão hermenêutico-fenomenológica sobre a indigência do nosso tempo. Traz, na verdade, uma outra compreensão acerca dos malefícios que o atual momento tem causado ao ser humano ao imprimir um modelo de vida oferecido desde a modernidade e que implicou em uma série de inquietações, criando novas patologias. Trata-se de um movimento histórico, conhecido por Niilismo, que nos deu uma “nova morada”, a qual, paradoxalmente, se mostra como não morada, um não-lugar, ou seja, um lugar estranho. Nesse lugar, residem desassossegos vigentes, como cansaço, stress, ansiedade, tédio, melancolia, depressão etc. Todavia, essas crises existenciais são interpretadas pelas ciências naturais como algo exclusivamente inerente ao corpo biológico dado. Essa interpretação é amplamente questionada aqui ao compreender que tais fenômenos só serão devidamente compreendidos mediante a analítica existencial do ser-aí humano, haja vista esse ente constituir-se como um ser-no-mundo que tem como horizonte a temporalidade.

Tonkens (Mind Mach, 19, 3, 421–438, 2009) has issued a seemingly impossible challenge, to articulate a comprehensive ethical framework within which artificial moral agents (AMAs) satisfy a Kantian inspired recipe—"rational" and "free"—while also satisfying perceived prerogatives of machine ethicists to facilitate the creation of AMAs that are perfectly and not merely reliably ethical. Challenges for machine ethicists have also been presented by Anthony Beavers and Wendell Wallach. Beavers pushes for the reinvention of traditional ethics to avoid "ethical nihilism" due to the reduction of morality to mechanical causation. Wallach pushes for redoubled efforts toward a comprehensive account of ethics to guide machine ethicists on the issue of artificial moral agency. Options, thus, present themselves: reinterpret traditional ethics in a way that affords a comprehensive account of moral agency inclusive of both artificial and natural agents, or give up on the possibility and “muddle through” regardless. This series of papers pursues the first option, meets Tonkens' "challenge" and pursues Wallach's ends through Beavers’ proposed means, by "landscaping" traditional moral theory in resolution of a comprehensive account of moral agency. This first paper sets out the challenge and establishes the tradition that Kant had inherited from Aristotle, briefly entertains an Aristotelian AMA, fields objections, and ends with unanswered questions. The next paper in this series responds to the challenge in Kantian terms, and argues that a Kantian AMA is not only a possibility for Machine ethics research, but a necessary one.

This article explores the ambient affect of contemporary nihilism through a conjunctural analysis of key image macros from the ‘nihilist meme’ stash. Drawing from Berlant’s theory of cruel optimism, the author identifies an active form of nihilism unique to the present moment that suggests a loosening of traditional American cruel attachments to open new possibilities for what it means to live a good life.

L'articolo mette a confronto la psicologia analitica con le trasformazioni ideologiche e sociali che hanno dato luogo a quella che è stata chiamata crisi dellatarda modernità e, successivamente, alla cosiddetta "post-modernità. Prendendo le mosse dalle parole diNietzschesul significato del nichilismo, richiama alcune testimonianze significative della crisi dei valori e alcune reazioni caratteristiche a tale crisi (la risposta "gnostica" e quella "narcisistica"). Viene poi illustrata la posizione assunta dal pensiero junghiano, utilizzando a tal fine soprattutto il tema dell'Ombrae quello della "morte dell'eroe". Infine, dopo aver delineato alcuni caratteri della post-modernità, ne descrive la tendenza a rendere obsoleta e inutilizzabile ogni articolazione dialogica degli opposti, così centrale nel pensiero di Jung.&nbsp

We discuss the “axioms of dark ontology” proposed by the US philosopher Levi Bryant. The axioms are analyzed in a context of the historical development of diverse philosophical viewpoints united by the concept of the denial of consciousness. The “deniers” declare the direct conscious experience to be an illusion. As for the philosophical provisions that will not fit into their very limited conceptual straitjacket, they proclaim those inimical to science and therefore subject to elimination from the epistemological discourse altogether. Analyzing the viewpoints of the denialist philosophers, we show their inner contradictions that primarily are related to their inability to apply their assertions about consciousness to their own methods, arguments, and conclusions. We review the historical development of the critique regarding the denialists’ views taken from sometimes very diverse philosophical corners. We show that Bryant’s assertions are not axioms in any logical sense, but rather a scientism manifesto created in response to a technocratic demand for dehumanization. We also show how Bryant’s rejection of the human-centered position of philosophy follows from deconstruction practices undertaken by the structuralists and poststructuralists. To advance his ideas, Bryant imitates Ludwig Wittgenstein’s forms of discourse. He also engages moralizing and sophistry. We show that Bryant’s failure to create a robust, coherent system demonstrates weaknesses in the poststructuralist ideas that his concepts stem from. We conclude that the process that the doctrine of the denial of consciousness becomes mainstream attests, in Heidegger’s terms, the final stage of European nihilism and the crisis of science and philosophy of knowledge.

This article seeks to firstly demonstrate in which manner the philosophies of history, through the signifiers of crisis and apocalypse, amount to a form of nihilism by persistently surmounting, each in their own manner, the singularity of historical events by integrating and comprehending these in a teleological and eschatological narrative of meaning and truth. In this sense, our attempt is to deploy a novel manner of rethinking our relation to catastrophic historical events where their very singularities engage a historical responsibility which renounces the recourse to the determined logics of crisis and apocalypse in history. Consequently we focus on the spectralityof historical events incessantly returning as occurring singularly to our present, and where each event in history denies its integration in an appeased historical consciousness. This article intends thus to deploy a relation to temporality where the idea of justice provokes a hyperbolical responsibility towards past andfuture deaths and lives in history.

This investigation intends to look at the history of Western metaphysics as a central narrative of the modern project, since it is associated with the development of the will to truth as a preponderant value to the supposed epistemic superiority of the West and the supposed right to conceive parts of the world as resources. Western metaphysics is thus the basis not only for the practice of Western coexistence in the world, but also for the technique and science attached to it. The investigation intends to explore the idea that some important links between Western metaphysics and the history (and destiny) of modernity can be clarified by a parallel reading of the critique of ontologism that Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida promote and of the post-colonial literature that diagnoses the consequences of western world domination. Ontologism is understood as the thesis of the preponderance and sufficiency of being, as Levinas articulated in large measure in contrast to Martin Heidegger and his diagnosis about the era of the history of being in which things are gradually and indiscriminately made available (but not available to any particular entity). Thus, the research exercise Just started here is not intended to represent the “other”, nor does it seek to give it legitimacy, but only to see the other in the same the Levinasian way, as well as to inquire, through the presentation of said oppositions, the scene of the production of thought at the time of nihilism, that is, at the time of the extraction of any and all intelligibility, and not only human., Esta investigação pretende olhar para a história da metafísica ocidental como narrativa central do projeto moderno, já que se associa ao desenvolvimento da vontade de verdade como valor preponderante à suposta superioridade epistêmica do ocidente e ao suposto direito de conceber partes do mundo como recursos. A metafísica ocidental é assim a base não apenas para a prática de convívio ocidental no mundo, mas também para a técnica e para a ciência acoplada a ela. A investigação pretende explorar a ideia de que alguns importantes elos entre a metafísica ocidental e a história (e o destino) da modernidade podem ser aclarados por uma leitura paralela da crítica ao ontologismo que Emmanuel Levinas e Jacques Derrida promovem e da literatura pós-colonial que diagnostica as consequências do domínio ocidental do mundo. O ontologismo é entendido como a tese da prepoderância e da suficiência do ser, tal como Levinas articulou em grande medida em contraste com Martin Heidegger e seu diagnóstico acerca da era da história do ser em que as coisas vão ficando progressivamente e indiscriminadamente postas à disposição (mas não à disposição de nenhum ente em particular).Assim, o exercício de pesquisa aqui apenas iniciado não pretende representar o “outro”, nem busca dar-lhe legitimidade, mas tão somente dar a ver o outro no mesmo, ao modo levinasiano, bem como inquirir, por meio da apresentação de ditas oposições, a cena da produção de pensamento na época do niilismo, ou seja, na época da extração de toda e qualquer inteligibilidade, e não somente humana.

The article examines the importance of Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality for a formulation of nihilism and explores Blanchot's reading of the problem.

Objective: The prevailing paradigm in suicide prevention continues to contribute to the nihilism regarding the ability to prevent suicides in healthcare settings and a sense of blame following adverse incidents. In this paper, these issues are discussed through the lens of clinicians’ experiences as second victims following a loss of a consumer to suicide, and the lens of health care organisations. Method: We discuss challenges related to the fallacy of risk prediction (erroneous belief that risk screening can be used to predict risk or allocate resources), and incident reviews that maintain a retrospective linear focus on errors and are highly influenced by hindsight and outcome biases. Results: An argument that a Restorative Just Culture should be implemented alongside a Zero Suicide Framework is developed. Conclusions: The current use of algorithms to determine culpability following adverse incidents, and a linear approach to learning ignores the complexity of the healthcare settings and can have devastating effects on staff and the broader healthcare community. These issues represent ‘inconvenient truths’ that must be identified, reconciled and integrated into our future pathways towards reducing suicides in health care. The introduction of Zero Suicide Framework can support the much-needed transition from relying on a retrospective focus on errors (Safety I) to a more prospective focus which acknowledges the complexities of healthcare (Safety II), when based on the Restorative Just Culture principles. Restorative Just Culture replaces backward-looking accountability with a focus on the hurts, needs and obligations of all who are affected by the event. In this paper, we argue that the implementation of Zero Suicide Framework may be compromised if not supported by a substantial workplace cultural change. The process of responding to critical incidents implemented at the Gold Coast Mental Health and Specialist Services is provided as an example of a successful implementation of Restorative Just Culture–based principles that has achieved a culture change required to support learning, improving and healing for our consumers, their families, our staff and broader communities.

In the midst of the earth's sixth mass extinction, there has been a turn to the redemptive power of biological life in various new materialisms, neoanimisms, neovitalisms, and affirmative biopolitics. In this essay I outline a series of historical and conceptual cautions against staking our lives or others' on such reconsiderations of life. Exploring the fascination with hylozoism (the theory that all matter is alive) in turn-of-the-twentieth-century biology, philosophy, and fiction, I demonstrate a recurring link between theories of universal life and eugenic racism that troubles any attempts to base political and ethical norms on supposedly biological ones. An examination of Mark Twain's “Three Thousand Years among the Microbes” reveals an alternative philosophy of life that uncouples hylozoism and imperialism but does so at the cost of a deadening nihilism. Such examples suggest that we look elsewhere than to life for our animating principles.

Some scholars are still thinking that Arabs in Pre-Islamic era were immersed in ignorance, and they had no knowledge and sciences to help them wade through their tough life. Those scholars even believe that Pre-Islamic Arabs confined themselves with a life of passiveness, negativity and nihilism. This paper aims to demonstrate a scientific refutation of the above allegation by proving that Arabs were dealing at high level with every facet of their environment. The researcher will specify his defense of this case, by taking one issue as a model which is The Rain and its predictions. Abundant poems have mentioned rain and rainfalls in their odes. Moreover, in the documentation era, a lot of books have been authored and appeared, which are called "Anwa'“; i.e. meteorological observations. Some of such books are published nowadays, while many are still kept as manuscripts or have been lost. I concluded that Arabs have dealt with the predictions of rains and established rubrics in exploring the rainy clouds. They knew the times of rainfalls by the clouds' colors and lightening. In addition, there were persons and tribes who were the most knowing in this regard. Another conclusion in this paper, worth mentioning is that Arabs have achieved integrated Knowledge, and this paper represents a response to those who defame the Pre-Islamic Era and its people as being satisfied with eloquence, orations and poets. Furthermore, I found out that Arabs have linked up with other countries and benefited from their knowledge and was not isolated in the Arabic Peninsula.

espanolEl presente articulo aborda algunos de los aspectos centrales de la filosofia propuesta por Philip Mainlander. La intencion se enfoca en vislumbrar las implicaciones que suscita el pensamiento de este autor, principalmente en lo tocante a la actitud que se deriva de la contemplacion del exterminio de lo humano como una solucion consecuente al suicidio y muerte de Dios. Se analiza la intencion del hombre en el mundo desde tal perspectiva y se ofrecen vinculos con autores que han acogido para si los escabrosas y complejos senderos del nihilismo comprometido. El texto termina con una serie de alternativas de redencion de lo humano a traves de una filosofia sobre la muerte y no en funcion de la muerte misma. EnglishThis article addresses some of the central aspects of the philosophy proposed by Philip Mainlander. The intention is focused on glimpsing the implications of this author’s thinking, mainly with regard to the attitude derived from the contemplation of the extermination of the human as a consequent solution to the suicide and death of God. The intention of man in the world is analyzed from this perspective and links are offered with authors who have welcomed the rugged and complex paths of compromised nihilism. The text ends with a series of alternatives for the redemption of the human through a philosophy about death and not as a function of death itself.

espanolEste articulo explora el concepto de corrupcion siguiendo la categoria nietzscheana de decadencia en los ambitos religiosos, morales, metafisicos y epistemicos en el horizonte del nihilismo. El campo de interes estuvo centrado en la constante presencia de la decadencia como elemento definitorio de nuestra cultura occidental segun el diagnostico genealogico nietzscheano. Sobre la base del analisis hermeneutico de las obras de Nietzsche, se evidencio que la corrupcion no solo rompe la confianza como pilar antropologico y politico, sino que quiebra la promesa como fundamento teologico y filosofico, y reemplaza el ethos de convivencia por el pathos de la sospecha. Se concluye que esta cualidad de corruptibilidad del hombre surge en la actualidad como una condicion causal en la arquitectonica del abuso y para el crecimiento decisivo de un nuevo tipo de nihilismo: el nihilismo de la consciencia. EnglishThis article explores the concept of corruption following the Nietzschean category of decadence in the religious, moral, metaphysical and epistemic realms in the horizon of nihilism. The focus was the constant presence of decadence as a defining element in our Western culture according to the Nietzschean genealogical diagnosis. Based on the hermeneutic analysis of Nietzsche's works, it is demonstrated that corruption not only breaks down trust as a pillar of anthropology and politics, but it also breaks promise as a theological and philosophical basis and replaces the ethos of cohabitation with the pathos of suspicion. It is concluded that this quality of man's corruptibility arises as a causal condition in the architecture of abuse and for the decisive growth of a new type of nihilism: the nihilism of consciousness.

Juan Gil (1911) de José Eustasio Rivera presenta en verso la desintegración de una familia tolimense en Bogotá, la agonía de la mentalidad aristocrático-rural y la condición de falsía que exige la naciente sociedad burguesa. El drama riveriano es una interpretación de la sociabilidad bogotana y del espíritu nacional de la primera década del siglo XX, esto es, la integración de Colombia al capitalismo, una expresión teatral de escepticismo y desgarramiento ante el quebranto de los valores tradicionales y la vida perdida en la “hacienda lejana”. Por ello, este estudio presenta la asimilación del “más crudo materialismo” de la familia, instalada en la capital, y el fin de la trascendencia en la muerte del “ideal” como la apuesta central de la dramaturgia riveriana.