Nihilism: Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Now

Abstract

AbstractIn this article, I discuss how Nietzsche’s critique of nihilism concerns the complicity between Christian morality and modern atheism. I unpack in what sense Schopenhauer’s ascetic denial of the will signifies a return to nothingness, what he calls thenihil negativum. I argue that Nietzsche’s formulation of nihilism specifically targets Schopenhauer’s pessimism as the culmination of the Western metaphysical tradition, the crucial stage of its intellectual history in which the scientific pursuit of truth finally unveils the asceticwill to nothingnessthat motivates it. I contend that Nietzsche’s critique of Schopenhauer anticipates current scholarly debates around the significance of thenihil negativumand offers a compelling objection against contemporary proponents of philosophical nihilism such as Eugene Thacker and Ray Brassier.