Nihilism

Published: Nov. 16, 2000, 9 a.m.

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of Nihilism. The nineteenth-century philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, wrote, \\u201cThere can be no doubt that morality will gradually perish: this is the great spectacle in a hundred acts reserved for the next two centuries in Europe\\u201d. And, with chilling predictions like these, \\u2018Nihilism\\u2019 was born. The hard view that morals are pointless, loyalty is a weakness and \\u2018truths\\u2019 are illusory, has excited, confused and appalled western thinkers ever since. But what happened to Nietzsche\\u2019s revolutionary ideas about truth, morality and a life without meaning? Existentialism can claim lineage to Nietzsche, as can Post Modernism, but then so can Nazism. With so many interpretations, and claims of ownership from the left and the right, has anything positive come out of the great philosopher of \\u2018nothing\\u2019?With Rob Hopkins, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Birmingham; Professor Raymond Tallis, Doctor and Philosopher; Professor Catherine Belsey, University of Cardiff.

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