Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Orientation as a Response to Nihilism. Philosophical Reorientation with Nietzsche --- Friedrich Nietzsche did not create the term “nihilism,” but he certainly coined it. Nihilism is often associated with the sentence “nothing is true, everything is permitted,” which seems to involve complete uncertainty, rulelessness, destructiveness, and violence. Nietzsche himself also emphasized its abysmal character. Therefore, for a long time, under the predominant impact of Martin Heidegger’s interpretation, one tried to “overcome” nihilism. But Nietzsche, in his late notes, spoke of “the most fundamental nihilism” as “a normal state” that cannot be overcome. We must and we can live with it. We do this by abstaining from final “truths,” which we, as already Kant pointed out, cannot “have” anyway. Instead, we always “orient ourselves” provisionally and for time. In doing so, in all fields, but in different ways, we usually gain certainty in our orientation to an extent that we can act successfully, exist circumspectly and prudently, and create adequate structures of coexistence. From the approach out of the human orientation, a new humanism and a new ethics arise as well.
Author: Stegmaier, Werner
Institution: Universität Greifswald
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7051609841
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