Thinking about Thinking Nothing: A Review of Nolen Gertz’s Nihilism (MIT P, 2019)

“Nihilist” is a very convenient epithet to hurl at someone. Everyone understands that it describes someone who holds objectionable, if not dangerous, views or ways of life. And yet it remains a fuzzy notion: workaday definitions of nihilism differ greatly from—and indeed are surprisingly often diametrically opposed to—what prominent European philosophers have understood it to mean. Nolen Gertz’s Nihilism is an engaging study that sets out to analyze various conceptions and misconceptions of nihilism. Any such enterprise has to survey the intellectual history of what today has come to be known as nihilism, and this Gertz delivers in almost exemplary fashion in the second chapter. In his history of nihilism from Socrates to Friedrich Nietzsche via René Descartes, David Hume and Immanuel Kant, the author manages to summarize key tenets of these most influential thinkers while dexterously driving forward his discussion of nihilism, thereby demonstrating that Western philosophy developed alongside, and frequently in reaction to, the epistemological and existential threat of nihilism, which so often lurks ominously around those who dare to explore the shadowy byways of scepticism. It might have been expedient to mention Gorgias of Leontinoi, as well (whose moniker, “Gorgias the Nihilist,” though hotly disputed, nevertheless attests to his relevance to this subject), or to speak more about the idea of solipsism (mentioned only in passing on p. 27), but that might be asking too much of an informative but slim book that makes no claim to exhaustion of the topic at hand. This admirable synthesis of Western thought from the point of view of the conceptual development of nihilism is then followed by an equally accomplished chapter which establishes helpful parallels—and, perhaps more importantly, vital differences—between nihilism and kindred concepts Text Matters, Number 11, 2021 https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-2931.11.27