The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that suggested responses to nihilism include detachment, resignation, defiance, disruption, and the creation of new values?
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Dictionaries commonly define nihilism as rejecting the basis or foundation for a variety of ideas: the basis for moral beliefs, religious values, political ideals, etc. "Aspects of existence" is needlessly vague and broad. What exactly is an aspect of existence? Nihilists reject things like meaning, knowledge, and morality. The category there is something like "values" or "abtract concepts that human cultures emphasize as fundamnetal." Meanwhile, "aspects of existence" can mean nearly anything from physics to biology to ecology to anthropology to culture: evolution, reproduction, energy transfer, entropy, etc. Let's please find a way to be more precise. Wolfdog (talk) 11:46, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Wolfdog and thanks for bringing this to the talk page. You are right that the expression "aspects of existence" is vague and broad. I'm not sure that this is a disadvantage: different forms of nihilism do not have much in common except for denying something. The missing precision in the first sentence is given right in the next sentence, which lists several denied aspects. A simple solution to your concern would be to merge the two sentences into one: "... certain aspects of existence, such as ...". However, MOS:FIRST states "Do not overload the first sentence by describing everything notable about the subject. Instead, spread the relevant information out over the entire lead." I prefer the current version since it is more accessible, going from general to specific. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:14, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your collegiality. We can certainly try to avoid overloading the sentence. What do you think of my possible tweaks to the "aspects of existence" phrasing though? I think words like "basis" or "values" seem a bit more precise, while understanding that nihilism is certainly an umbrella. Wolfdog (talk) 16:26, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not particularly happy with the specific phrase either but haven't yet found good alternatives. One could say "certain fundamental principles" or "the basis of certain ideas", but I'm not sure that they are improvements. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:43, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would be happy with "the basis of certain fundamental ideas". I think even better would be "the basis of certain fundamental moral, political, or religious ideas". (I said "philosophical" in my original edit to cover moral, epistemic, metaphysical, etc.) Here's some dictionaries I looked at: MerrWeb includes that "traditional values and beliefs are unfounded" and "a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truth", so to me here the key words are something like values, foundation, (objective) ground. Collins talks of "all political and religious authority"; "denial of all established authority and institutions"; and " rejects all values", so authority and values. Cambridge doesn't seem to discuss one common noun (it says "all political and religious organization are bad" which makes me laugh). American Heritage says negativity "suggesting an absence of values or beliefs". So the major abstract nouns are values (the top one), foundation, ground (basis is the synonym we seem to be moving towards), and authority. Perhaps then the best-case sentence is: "the basis of certain fundamental moral, political, or religious values"? Wolfdog (talk) 12:16, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I went with "the basis of certain ideas", a modification of your first suggestion: Given we already have the term "basis", adding the term "fundamental" introduces redundancy. I'm not convinced that the change is an improvement, but it should work. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:18, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I still think an adjective would be great. Me randomly imagining a pink elephant is an "idea." But we're talking about ideas that are fundamental to learning, morality, culture, and human understandings of the universe. That's why I used "fundamental". Is there something better? ("Philosophical"?) Wolfdog (talk) 20:46, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To include the term "fundamental", we could say "reject certain fundamental ideas" without the expression "basis of". Either way avoids the pleonasm. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:14, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies for omitting to check the talk page. Thoughts on this?
>Nihilism, defined narrowly, is a family of philosophical positions that deny the existence of inherent meaning, value, or purpose in life, morality, or the universe. Defined more broadly, nihilism can refer to any viewpoint that rejects or denies the existence of something commonly believed by others to exist (eg mereological nihilism). [rest of intro] --krimin_killr21(talk) 03:13, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello krimin_killr21 and thanks for bringing this to the talk page. The position you describe seems to be existential nihilism. This is already discussed in the second paragraph. Since there are also other forms of nihilism, I think the current first sentence is better. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:46, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How would you feel about keeping the two sentence broad and narrow intro, but replacing the first sentence as:
Nihilism, defined narrowly, is a family of philosophical views arguing that life is meaningless, that moral values are baseless, or that knowledge is impossible. --krimin_killr21(talk) 13:41, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The current first sentence already covers the most important types of nihilism, so characterizing it as a narrow definition is misleading. We should also be careful about the broad claim that nihilism covers "any viewpoint that rejects or denies the existence of something commonly believed by others to exist". For example, materialism is commonly believed today, but that doesn't mean that idealism is a form of nihilism. To implement something similar to your idea, we could keep the first sentence as it is and use a modified version of the second sentence: Nihilism is a family of philosophical views arguing that life is meaningless, that moral values are baseless, or that knowledge is impossible. In a broad sense, it encompasses viewpoints that reject the basis of certain ideas. Nihilistic views span several branches...Phlsph7 (talk) 17:40, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I actually quite like your "family of philosophical positions that deny the existence of inherent meaning, value," etc. followed by a broader second defintion. Though I don't love the "believed by others to exist" bit. We should narrow that, as it tends to be core, fundamental, almost pan-human, widely-held views that are rejected. Otherwise, while I admit the page's current definition is quite narrow (a definition by examples), a definition like "rejects aspects of existence" or "certain ideas" seems excessively vague to me. However, I could be persuaded by your current take but with some tweaks, along the lines of a family of philosophical positions that deny the existence of inherent meaning, value, purpose in life, morality, the universe, or other fundamental aspects of existence (or maybe, widely held views?).Wolfdog (talk) 12:03, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I thinking keeping at as two sentences serves two important purposes.
One, it helps to distinguish that nihilism is used in two pretty distinct ways. There's Nihilism™, which is existential or even just total nihilism about the value of anything. And then there's little-n nihilism, which only denies specific ideas.
Two, it prevents a run on sentence and gives us the opportunity to describe this second kind of nihilism more fully.
Could we agree to a revision of the second sentence along the lines of:
Defined more broadly, nihilism can refer to any viewpoint that rejects or denies the existence of [something, some philosophical concept] widely held [by human beings, by others] to exist [(eg mereological nihilism)]. --krimin_killr21(talk) 13:47, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly approve of a basic usual (narrow) vs broad distinction. I think we still need some tweaks on the second sentence to incorporate Phlsph7's idealism concern. To me, the broader type is something like "an active rejection of a belief/s without usually any offer of a positive replacement belief." But still unsure of the wording. Wolfdog (talk) 23:13, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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