[MD] Thoughts on Nihilism

[Steven Peterson]

Hi DMB,

On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 6:03 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Steve said:
> A believer such as Warren is not likely to recognize the nihilism behind his statement and his belief that without some external source of worth our world would be worthless. ... The complete lack of nihilism is not to deny the "objective" meaning of life but to stop thinking of the question as one even worth asking--to stop looking for the justification the world to come from somewhere else. The complete opposite of nihilism is not to be able to affirm the objective meaning of life, but to never need to go looking for meaning. Meaning abounds.... Meaning abounds for all those who love so long as they don't get fooled into thinking that love needs a philosophical foundation--that "why love?" is a question that needs an answer. Only the psychopath needs a reason to love.
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> dmb says:
>
> I don't quite buy it. The difference between denying an objective source of meaning and taking a stance that meaning is not something we should look for. What's the difference? If you take the stance that the question of meaning is not even worth asking, then you'd be saying the question of meaning is meaningless. But then you add some Hallmarky comments about love, as if love were the same thing as meaning. I don't know, but that seems like some kind of bait and switch deal.
>
> Maybe that's why we differ on Rorty. When he says that truth is not the sort of thing we should have a theory about, I take that as a form of nihilism. It's epistemological nihilism. He thinks truth is not the sort of thing we should talk about, and isn't that because he thinks there is no such thing?
>
> Seriously, please tell me how the stance that meaning isn't worth asking about is different from the stance that says there is no meaning. As I see it, those are just two ways to say exactly the same thing and they are equally nihilistic.

Steve:
What I was trying to portray is what a complete lack of nihilism would
be like. It is not to to say that meaning is not worth asking about.
The complete lack of nihilism is the perspective where the question of
meaning is not a question one even has. It is not a question when
meaning is self-evident. One who is complete in the lack of nihilism
never thinks to go looking for the justification for the world in some
other more true world because life is already meaningful.

I was trying to get to the question Pirsig asked in ZAMM, when you say
that something means something, what does that mean?  As a pragmatist,
I find that it gives clariy to thought to try to understand beliefs in
terms of their consequences in lived exerience. To say "what does this
mean?" or "what is this for?" whether talking about the usage of a
term or the purpose of a hammer amounts to "how is this used?" So, to
ask, "what is the meaning or purpose of life?", is to ask, "how is
life used?" Life is clearly used in lots and lots of different ways.
We can talk about what ways are better and worse than others, but on
this view where meaning and purpose are pragmatically understood as
use the complete lack of meaning can never be a problem for anyone who
lives and thus uses life.

The question of the meaning of life can also refer to the possibility
of affirming life as it is now in spite of the sorrows of the
world--about finding a way to participate joyfully in this world of
sorrows. One way we do that is through our hope that the world can be
made better than it now is--that our suffering and the suffering of
others can be mitigated in the future and humanity can be more that it
has ever been. Meaning is found in the notion that our personal
efforts may play some part no matter how small in making such a better
world. As Yann Martell wrote, just as music is noises that make sense
and art is colors and lines that make sense, so stories are life that
makes sense. Having meaning or making sense of life is then a matter
of being able to tell a story of progress toward a better world. Some
attach themselves to a grand epic offered to them by one of the
world's religions or a down to earth political cause or performing a
particular social role or in some other way of having meaning that is
offered to us by our societies, and some, the poets of life among us,
even eschew such existential comforts and heroically make their own
new stories such that others may later find meaning in unheard of ways
that no one before ever imagined. Perhaps the future will not just be
better, it will be unimaginably better. This is a hope I share with
many of the religious.

Best,
Steve