Beschreibung:
Nietzsche’s thought and work, it could be argued, is quite paradoxical and contradictory in places. But it has generated a number of ideas and concepts that, as the great philosopher himself suggested, may have emerged well ahead of their time. In this contribution the focus is on the notion of ‘nihilism’, and its uses for anyone who wishes to make sense of what some might wish to call the calamitous 21st century. In Nietzsche’s work, ‘nihilism’ appears in many contexts and guises. Here we explore four shapes of nihilism (continuous recycling of the old; decadence; slave morality; and active nihilism) and apply those to developments and phenomena that became quite ubiquitous in this calamitous age of ours.