This post is courtesy of The Tragic Sense of Life, who links to this interview with Simon Chritchley. This bears upon the concerns with nihilism we have been considering here. Chritchley says the question of nihilism is what he puts at the centre of his philosophical agenda, thereby placing himself at odds with much philosophy in the English-speaking world. It is refreshing to see someone dealing with this. What is of interest is how he understands, and interprets, Nietzsche's conception of nihilism.

The interview starts with Nietzsche's phrase God is dead'...'And we have killed him' from the Gay Science. Chritchley then adds:

"...the death of God in a sense is unimportant; what's important is that it raises the question of the meaning of life. What is the meaning of life if there can be no religious basis to the meaning of life? There are various responses to that. One obvious one is that if religion is no longer the realm in which the question of the meaning of life is to be thought through, then what other realm is?.....

Nietzsche is traumatised by the death of God, because he realises that it's a collapse of the basis of meaning.... The name for this problem is nihilism. In my work I've tried to place the question of nihilism at the centre of philosophical concerns. Nihilism is the situation where, as Nietzsche says, the highest values devalue themselves."

So how does he understand Nietzsche's response to his diagnosis? Chritchley is clear on this.After mentioning different modes of nihilism (eg., passive and active) he says:

"Nietzsche [is] neither a passive nor an active nihilist. He comes up with a third option which he calls eternal return or eternal recurrence...Nietzsche's response to nihilism is the doctrine of eternal return. You could read that in a cosmological way, as a belief that the universe is cyclical and is going to recur. Or, as you hinted, Vico's notion of cycles of history could be seen as signalled. I don't think that's what Nietzsche means. For him, eternal return is much more of a moral doctrine...."

Eternal return as a moral doctrine is on the right interpretative pathway. But what does it mean?

Chritchley is clear on this:

"What would it be to fully affirm the fact that God doesn't exist? To fully affirm the complete meaninglessness of the universe? And to be able to do that again and again and again. If you're capable of that thought, of affirming that this universe is not for us, that we're just here by sheer chance, and you can do that again and again, then you're equal to the force of eternal return. It's a sort of moral test ...[it's] an almost physical practise: to be able to physically withstand that vertigo of meaninglessness and then transfigure oneself in relationship to that. I've got my doubts about that, but that's what Nietzsche says."

"what people get excited about in [Nietzsche's] work is this notion of affirmation: an affirmation in relation to death. I can affirm the meaninglessness of the universe and the ultimate meaninglessness of my own life, and heroically assume that."

What is also missing from Chritchley's interpretation is the idea of affirmation as the revaluation of all values and the creation of new values in relation to the will to power. In chapter 9 of Nihilism Heidegger remarks that Nietzsche does not regard something as null; rather he sets it aside, overturns it and creates an open field. This classical nihilism:

'emerges from "life" as it used to be, cuts a path "for a new order," and grants whatever wants to die off its "longing for the end." In this way nihilism makes a clean sweep and at the same time introduces new possibilities.'