Published in: The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Theory, 5 volumes, ed. Bryan S. Turner (Editor), Chang Kyung-Sup (Editor), Cynthia F. Epstein (Editor), Peter Kivisto (Editor), J. Michael Ryan (Editor), William Outhwaite (Editor), Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2017. Title: Nihilism Author: Arran Gare Affiliation: Swinburne University Email Address: agare@swin.edu.au Abstract Nihilism, the view that life has no meaning, had been identified as problem before Friedrich Nietzsche; however, Nietzsche is taken as the reference point for characterizing, explaining, and striving to overcome the condition. Nietzsche explained nihilism as the will to power turned against itself. Later, Martin Heidegger explained it as the forgetfulness of Being. Existentialists, embracing an active nihilism, argued that it could be overcome through commitment. Deconstructive postmodernists, neo-classical economists, and reductionist psychologists have effectively capitulated to passive nihilism, which accepts the destruction of the ecological conditions of civilization as unavoidable. Each of these diagnoses, proposed solutions, and responses are examined. Also examined are philosophers who have identified scientific materialism as the problem leading to nihilism, and tried to provide new metaphysical foundations for the sciences. The most important cultural struggle today, it is suggested, is between passive nihilists, and Nietzscheans, Heideggerians, speculative philosophers, and allied scientists aligned with the Green movement. Main Text The most famous and influential definition of nihilism was provided by Nietzsche (1844-1900): “The radical repudiation of value, meaning and desirability … That the highest values devaluate themselves. The aim is lacking; ‘why?’ finds no answer” (Nietzsche 1968, p.7 & 9). Nihilism was used by Nietzsche to characterize the modern age, wherein either a debilitating, passive nihilism is accepted, or an active nihilism is embraced. The latter would remove residual ideas and ideals from the past, which can no longer be believed but that block efforts to overcome nihilism. However, Nietzsche was not the first philosopher to identify nihilism as a problem. The term “nihilism” was first used in print by F.L. Foetzius in 1733. Later, F.H. Jacobi (1743-1819) used the term to characterize the fatalism and atheism that is the inevitable consequences of resting belief in God on demonstrative reasoning. Spinoza was the original target, but Jacobi also criticized Kant and Fichte for extolling reason in a way that dissolves everything into the “nothingness” of subjectivity. However, it has been Nietzsche’s work that has been the reference point, whether acknowledged or not, for diagnosing nihilism, explaining it and searching for a way to overcome it.