WE> What's a nihil?
 DM> "nothing"
 DM> It is not an easily defined word as even Webster gets lost in the "nihil
 DM> - ism",  associating the term with a diverse of negative implications.
 DM> 
 FM> NihilISM basically presents a "system" of opinion which denies the
 FM> validity of philosophy as a valid approach as it grew from the time of
 FM> Parmenides through the various revelations of human reason down through
 FM> centuries of western civilization to the present. It became intensely
 FM> popular with young Russian intellectuals in the extremity of the western
 FM> intellectual breakdown of the 19th century.  It is a kind of "escape
 FM> valve" for those who see reality as nothing more than a pressure of
 FM> "systems of opinion" for one of them to emerge as "truth."  Under the
 FM> "nihil" the conflicting opinions of human beings constitute the only
 FM> possible reality and since none of them have any ultimate validity there
 FM> is room only for suicide or utter boredom, seeking relief in drugs or
 FM> the equivalent. To accept the nihil as THE reality leaves nothing
 FM> further to discuss.  There is a reluctance, however, even on the part of
 FM> those who embrace it to carry it out to this logical end.
 DM> Frank! You are playing the "partial true" card. By garnering some
 DM> historical samples and extending them on the backs of some well chosen
 DM> words (and through a few convolutions of convenient psychology), you
 DM> present some half-truths and partial definitions.
 DM> I see the "nihil" as essentially positive (if seeming dark in todays
 DM> thinking). I see it not an "escape valve", but as just
   I must plead ignorance of what a "partial true" card is but as opposed, I
assume to your "full truth" I am dealing in my deep and shallow ignorance 
nly
in "half-truths and partial definitions."  So be it.  
   I continue to see the nihil as an ever present possibility for society 
ven
in the dim past when the intra-cosmic gods were the symbols of divinity and
human order could break down again and again as it did in important aspects 
f
the 18th century enlightenment with its special symbol, "pessimism."
     I know you dislike "historical samples" so citing the situations facing
those in 3rd millenium Ancient Egypt that gave rise to "Song of the Harper"
and "Dispute of a Man Who Contemplates Suicide With His Soul" and similar
literature of the breakdown circa the First Intermediate Period.  We have
similar moods developing from Homer to Hesiod and expressed so well by the
latter and later in the attempt at restoration of some confidence of man in
his humanity by Plato and Aristotle, the pneumatic prophets of Israel
culminating in the challenge of the Christian theophany to the senselessness
of ecumenic conquest and death will make no impression on you.  
   I was attempting to reveal the essence of nihilism, not to talk you out of
it.  If, as you seem to believe quite firmly, there is in the immense welter
of opinions floating around in the "climate of opinion" (Whitehead) of
modernity some one of them that holds THE truth to emerge victorious over all
of the others I can only express the hope that against the reality "I" see in
history that perhaps you will find that "pot of gold at the end of the
rainbow."  I surely would not wish to deprive you of it.  
   I really do have nothing to sell.  I hope to remain a philosopher with
questions to ask - questions that are far more important to frame than the
various "answers" that dominate the scene.   Perhaps it is puzzling that I am
really not SEEKING for any of those.  I fancy that I've reviewed most of the
important ones already.  I freely disclose and have disclosed all along my
helpers and mentors in the search.  At the moment I am rediscovering William
James and even reviewing my notes on Bergson.  My most important game is one 

play with myself.
Sincerely, 
                                     Frank
                                                                              
                                                       
--- PPoint 2.05
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