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Actually i think most powerful people are nihilists

Actually i think most powerful people are nihilists — Gregory

I wouldn't know.

"Why do many people say Camus "solved" nihilism?"

My theory is that he posed it as a mathematical theorem, and then he solved the theorem.

Debate still continues whether his theorem expressed in mathematical terms was a precise description of the "Nihilism problem". I say not. But many say yes.

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Seriously speaking, I hear a lot of people talk and nobody I know or overheard on the bus or watched on the tube or talked or listened to has ever said "Camus "solved" nihilism".

Who are in the circle of people in which you move? I really am curious what demographic has a social chitter-chatter over nihilism as solved by Camus.

From what I can tell nothing mattering isn't what Buddhism says though it appears that way.

I still stand by my last point. Nothing mattering would just evaporate any reason for living.

How exactly do you figure?

I still stand by my last point. Nothing mattering would just evaporate any reason for living. — Darkneos

This would seem to be true. But I have met too many nihilists who enjoy life. I have rarely met anyone for whom nothing matters, even those who say they are nihilists. Generally what they do is draw a circle around a range of subjects they say don't matter, but they still enjoy, let's say; work, food, sex, alcohol, movies, whatever.

The person who is a nihilist and dismisses all human experiences too is generally someone with a mental illness, with the classic symptoms of anhedonia (an inability to experience pleasure). I am unsure if we would count someone with chronic anhedonia as a nihilist.

"Why do many people say Camus "solved" nihilism?"

My theory is that he posed it as a mathematical theorem, and then he solved the theorem. — god must be atheist

I'd love to see this theorem stated somewhere.

My understanding of Camus' solution is:life has no transcendent meaning but you can create your own meaning and joy. It helps if you realize all of life is intrinsically absurd - this will keep you sane. The ultimate expression of this absurdity is that we all die in the end. One of the best statements of Camus' philosophy is found in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life a kind of existentialist epic poem.

Why do many people say Camus "solved" nihilism?
— Darkneos

Who? — Banno

Anyone?

I'm not aware of a lot of philosophers even talking about Camus anymore. It's more about science, post modernism, ethics, New age, ect. nowadays



to have free will only makes sense if you can abuse it to the point you go to Hell. Freedom without the potential of self damnation doesn't make logical sense. I can't put it into a mathematical theorem though. Nothing in philosophy can it seems

Free will is very paradoxical in that we impose morality on ourselves. Morality is our own law yet it comes with the feeling of necessity to it. Fitche (1) wrote a lot about this in the 1790's, after Kant originally came up with ideas years before. People were encouraged by religious leaders before this to accept morality as coming from God and thus to stop asking "why" to everything. The religious folk think "asking why" about God doesn't make sense.

(1) Nazis after World War 1 were really into Fitche, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, but those thinkers weren't Nazi. Nazism tarnished itself right from the start with cruelty and strange sexual practices and ended in serious drug abuse and mass murder.. Fitche and Heidgger had anti-Semitic moments and this is sad, but their philosophies have no necessary relation to hate and murder. I see much of Fitche's works as proto-Husserlian phenomenology

Meh, when people post about their existential problems online, often, someone will chime in with a reference to Camus, which can then come across as, "See, Camus figured it out! So why are you still going on and on about this, when the problem's already solved!"

I know only one guy who thinks Camus solved the problem of nihilism, but this guy also happens to be miserable as hell. So I'm discinclined to believe he actually believes Camus solved any problem, other than perhaps the one with taxes (by dying early enough).

Beyond that, I haven't seen anyone actually claim that Camus solved the problem of nihilism. I do think that Camus' work can be useful for reflection on existential issues.

(1) Nazis after World War 1 were really into Fitche, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, but those thinkers weren't Nazi. — Gregory

Well, one of them was a party member, and stayed a member until the bitter end, in 1945. That makes him a Nazi, I'm afraid, the silly goose. Guess which one?

Heidgger had anti-Semitic moments — Gregory

You should read the Black Notebooks for examples of those "moments."

Yes, I've read the Wikipedia article on him and Nazism. There was a book written awhile ago that said that his philosophy is inherently Nazi. I think a Nazi is necessarily Heidegarrian, but a Heidegarrian is not necessary a Nazi

I think a Nazi is necessarily Heidegarrian, but a Heidegarrian is not necessary a Nazi — Gregory

That's a sensible conclusion.

...so some guy Baker knows says Camus "solved" nihilism, not "many people".

"...solved...".

From where I stand he didn't, he just dodged the question of the meaninglessness of existence and says we should revolt instead of suicide. — Darkneos

Camus objected to Sartre, not by disagreeing that "Existentialism" is what happens when the grounds for one's being has to be discovered in the context of experience, but that such a realization gave one a key to the rest of the world.

Is nihilism there to be "solved"? Like this forum aren't we in time and so was Camus and then that reveals our limitations as well as our potential (if disregard taken for granted assumptions about subjectivity in political bonds, economic bonds, and other "seen as successful" social status institutions)... There is love and Camus does speak of it...

here is love and Camus does speak of it... — Cate

Perhaps we are to assume he was too busy being estranged from life, experiencing absurdity to truly see other people.

Camus doesn't matter. The relevant one is Jean Genet. Life is not a pleasure, but suicide consists of a low level of serotonin in the nervous system. You will live it as you see fit, but on a neurological level it is what it is. You has a very simple point of view on the "underdeveloped" world. Since the 1990s, in Southeast Asia the world of yesterday (underdeveloped) is considered to be in Europe and the United States. In any case, you are more likely to commit suicide in Japan, Sweden or Canada than in a shitty country. The Jews wanted to survive in the hell of the concentration camps with one idea fixed in their minds: revenge.

It doesn't really give you a key though. Camus is still dodging by assigning meaning and value to living. Nihilism says there is no meaning or value.

amus doesn't matter. The relevant one is Jean Genet. Life is not a pleasure, but suicide consists of a low level of serotonin in the nervous system. — Miguel Hernández

I like some of your points here. No doubt that a person with a reason for living will more likely endure even in a concentration camp. Therapist Dr Victor Frankl devised Logotherapy as a consequence of his time in a concentration camp (he wanted to understand why some people survived and others did not) and his ideas are far more relevant that what we can offer.

Camus used suicide as a frame for his version of existentialism. It's a device.

It doesn't really give you a key though. Camus is still dodging by assigning meaning and value to living. Nihilism says there is no meaning or value. — Darkneos

I don't see the connection between there being no meaning or value and not having any personal meaning or values. The entire point of Camus is that if there is no transcendent meaning then we are radically free to choose our own. Millions of people have done this with no problems.

perhaps the absurd opens relations with others once the usual drudgery of unquestioned social armour has been cracked and experience can be shared (like through books)?

Values and life goals are pretty much the reasons why anyone is alive at all.

Life is not a joyride, it's hell unless you're in the developed world. — Darkneos

Do you say that from own experience? Don't forget most of us non-academy guys have poverty just a few generations back. My grandfathers and grandmothers was from the scandinavian plebeys, born late 1800-s. They for sure enjoyed life. But using the Rosling measurements they sure grew up in the lowest of those 4 clasiifications. Food on the table was the level of life.
Also, most people, if you read both Rosling and Pinker is NOT on that poverty grade any longer.

Myself born in working class with no mothers curling or enthusiasming have absolutely no need of "goals in life" or "meanings". If we go further than have a job and make sure the kids are fine. As long as all catastrophies are taken care of, give me an Ipad or a book, and I do need no more "goals"

I am born in working class but stumbled into university since I did good in school, I have no problem understanding complex problems, so I ended up, doing the work I was alotted, living in a semi-posh neighbourhood. Kids here do definitely get curled. And they do have that "meaning of life" karma hammered into them from the semi-posh parents. I can see that a lot of these kids end up as "entrepeneurs" or "social justice warriors". It seem like, the more you are spoiled the more you have to be a utilitarian. Know what's best for the world. And MUST have those meanings and goals.

While the good folks I grew up with and people I have met travelling in "poorer countries" seem to enjoy life a lot. Without all that fancy meaning.

Ah but they do have meaning though, otherwise they wouldn't be enjoying life. They find meaning in those little things and food on the table. They haven't lived without it they just express it differently. Even you did, though you seem largely unaware of it. The people you met were the exception not the rule, I've seen the norm (it's pretty ugly).

As I said, values and life goals are the only reason people live. The folks you met haven't even pondered nihilism so I don't get what you thought was going to overturn what I said.

That actually was not the point of Camus at all. He said that making personal meaning was not a solution and just a way to avoid dealing with the absurd. We are not radically free to choose our own (wrong author).

Have you read him?

No need for a cheap snipe D.

Making meaning, despite all absurdity, is Camus' solution. That's not the same thing as saying he resolved it. But he does see this as a pathway to a rewarding life. I'm saying we are radically free to choose our own meaning, but admittedly that reads more like Sartre.

Therapist Dr Victor Frankl devised Logotherapy as a consequence of his time in a concentration camp (he wanted to understand why some people survived and others did not) and his ideas are far more relevant that what we can offer. — Tom Storm

No, that's not the right chronological order.

Logotherapy is based on an existential analysis[6] focusing on Kierkegaard's will to meaning as opposed to Alfred Adler's Nietzschean doctrine of will to power or Freud's will to pleasure. Rather than power or pleasure, logotherapy is founded upon the belief that striving to find meaning in life is the primary, most powerful motivating and driving force in humans.[2] A short introduction to this system is given in Frankl's most famous book, Man's Search for Meaning, in which he outlines how his theories helped him to survive his Holocaust experience and how that experience further developed and reinforced his theories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logotherapy

It's fair to say that Frankl was "prepared" for the concentration camps. He already studied existential problems prior to being incarcerated. He wasn't "thrown in at the deep end", he already knew how to swim.

Which is why his theory is of little use to someone who has fallen on hard times before they were even able to develop some kind of resilient theory of life.

What would be relevant is the outlook developed by someone who was thrown in at the proverbial deep end and who didn't yet know how to swim, but who learnd to swim anyway. On their own.
I'm still looking for such a person.

Like the saying goes -- A tree with strong roots can hope to withstand a harsh storm, but it can scarcely hope to grow them once the storm is already on the horizon.

Millions of people have done this with no problems. — Tom Storm

Really? And you have empirical data to back this up?

No, that's not the right chronological order. — baker

Err... what order? I was simply saying that Logotherapy was developed with this in mind. I was not trying to classify it in any context other than the obvious.