A Philosopher's Ruminations

  NIHILISM   Nietzsche defines nihilism as the situation which obtains when "everything is permitted." If everything is permitted, then it makes no difference what we do, and so nothing is worth anything. We can, of course, attribute value by an act of arbitrary resolution, but such an act proceeds ex nihilo or defines its significance by a spontaneous assertion which can be negated with equal justification. More specifically, there is in such a case no justification for choosing either the value originally posited or its negation, and the speech of "justification" is indistinguishable from silence.     ------ Stanley Rosen     Nietzsche defines nihilism as the situation that arises when everything is permitted. It is a sense of direction-less-ness where there is no reason to choose one path over another and so every path is equally open. This gives us a sense of freedom but if every path is equally open it also means that one has nowhere to go. It l