u/SaltTeach4416

I’ll define nihilism broadly as “the lack of belief in intrinsic, universal meaning or purpose.”

It seems like, in order to make that claim about the universe, one must accept that truth and meaning exist solely within subjective, human affairs. That’s all fine and dandy with me, yet making this claim also forces one to presuppose the existence of intrinsic meaning in order to dismiss it.

By taking a nihilist position, any notion of purpose or meaning, by virtue of it being purely subjective, must be viewed in relation to an impossible standard according to nihilists themselves: the objectivity of meaning.

To me, what the self-identified nihilist believes is the equivalent of believing “chairs do not exist” in a universe where, if that WERE the case - that there aren’t any chairs - the claim couldn’t be sensibly asserted because there aren’t any chairs, so you can’t make any positions regarding their existence, i.e, “chair” is just nonsense.

Thus, in the same way, nihilists can’t make claims using any notion of objective meaning because their argument is that it doesn’t exist.