Negatyvi nuotaika kaip vienintelis ontologinio patyrimo lokusas

This article is a Heideggerian inquiry into the possibility of ontological experience, that is, the possibility of experiencing the ontological difference, something wholly distinct from beings. Heidegger, as we know, articulated this as the question of Being. It is a paradoxical question that cannot, at first sight, be answered phenomenologically (in the Husserlian style): if any conscious experience presupposes the constitution of an intentional object in the act of experience, there must be something in any experience.In this article, I set out to defend the position that ontological experience is possible and central to the human existence. This view rests on the Heideggerian notion of the affective grounds of all thinking, the attunement of any experience by moods. I will argue that: 1) any thinking is attuned by moods; 2) ontological experience (i.e. experiencing something wholly distinct from beings) occurs in certain negative moods. 3) ontological experience is possible only through failure, a malfunction in the fulfilment of meaning; 4) ontological experience is possible in art rather than in science (or in some rigorous philosophy).Straipsnyje pasitelkiama heidegeriška prieiga siekiant sužinoti, ar ontologinis patyrimas yra galimas; t. y. ar egzistuoja galimybė patirti ontologinį skirtumą kaip kažką visiškai skirtingo nuo esinių. Heideggeris artikuliavo šią problemą kaip buvimo klausimą. Tai yra paradoksalus klausimas, į kurį iš pirmo žvilgsnio negalima rasti fenomenologinio (huserliško) atsakymo: jei bet koks sąmoningas patyrimas numato intencionalaus objekto sukūrimą patyrimo metu, vadinasi, bet kokiame patyrime turi būti kažkas. Šiame straipsnyje siekiama apginti nuomonę, kad ontologinis patyrimas yra įmanomas ir yra esminė žmogiškosios būties dalis. Ši nuomonė remiasi heidegeriška idėja apie afektyvųjį viso mąstymo pagrindą ir nuotaikos įtaką bet kuriam patyrimui. Straipsnyje teigiama, kad (1) bet koks mąstymas yra derinamas prie nuotaikos, (2) ontologinis patyrimas (t. y. akimirka, kai patiriama kažkas visiškai skirtingo nuo esinių) įvyksta esant tam tikrai nuotaikai, (3) ontologinis patyrimas galimas tik per nesėkmę, prasmės įgyvendinimo sutrikimą ir kad (4) ontologinis patyrimas galimas veikiau mene nei moksle (ar griežtame filosofiniame mąstyme)

Sissejuhatus. Faktid, vaidlused ja argumendid tõejärgsuse ajastul

Käesolev Studia Philosophica Estonica erinumber sisaldab läbilõiget 13. Eesti filosoofia aastakonverentsil kõneldust. Tartu Ülikooli poolt korraldatud konverents toimus 11-13. mail 2017 Käärikul ning selle teemaks oli „Faktid, vaidlused ja argumendid „tõejärgsuse” ajastul”. Kuulanud kolme päeva vältel sisukaid ja mitmekesiseid analüüse tõejärgsuse teemal jõudis ajakirja toimetus järeldusele, et konverentsi põhjal tuleks välja anda ajakirja erinumber, lisamaks ka Eesti ühiskonnas vohavasse debatti filosoofilist täpsust ja sügavust

Sissejuhatus. Faktid, vaidlused ja argumendid tõejärgsuse ajastul

Käesolev Studia Philosophica Estonica erinumber sisaldab läbilõiget 13. Eesti filosoofia aastakonverentsil kõneldust. Tartu Ülikooli poolt korraldatud konverents toimus 11-13. mail 2017 Käärikul ning selle teemaks oli „Faktid, vaidlused ja argumendid „tõejärgsuse” ajastul”. Kuulanud kolme päeva vältel sisukaid ja mitmekesiseid analüüse tõejärgsuse teemal jõudis ajakirja toimetus järeldusele, et konverentsi põhjal tuleks välja anda ajakirja erinumber, lisamaks ka Eesti ühiskonnas vohavasse debatti filosoofilist täpsust ja sügavust

Ülev ei Kivisildniku luules. Üks lugemisviis. The Sublime „No” in Kivisildnik’s Poetry: A Way of Reading

This article aims toward a phenomenological interpretation of the unmediated experience of reading Sven Kivisildnik’s poetry. As the basic theoretical thesis of the article, I assert that there is always an inherent negativity in the feeling of the sublime, since this feeling is caused by unrepresentable experience. Likewise, I claim that this negativity is not merely a lack in aesthetic representation, but that it has deep ontological meaning in itself. I make connections between the inherent negativity in the feeling of the sublime and the concept of failure of linguistic utterance worked out by Jaan Undusk, Jaak Tomberg and Jüri Lipping. I come to the conclusion that the „no” in the feeling of sublimity is given to us in unmediated form. The practical (or applied) intention of this article is to show that the dominant sociocentric interpretation of Kivisildnik’s poetry is one-sided and limiting. From the theoretical positions I have worked out, I outline the fundamental motifs of Kivisildnik’s poetry, and by means of examples drawn from the text, demonstrate how the „no” of the sublime is found there. I come to the conclusion that the dominant direction in Kivisildnik’s poetry is destruction. The article consists of an introduction, five sections, and a summary. In the first section („Approaches”), I briefly introduce the phenomenological approach. My position is that the work is always created during the act of reading, as the outcome of the union of text and reader. However, I leave the reader as subject open to definition, leaving it to drift as it were, since I am sceptical about the possibility of defining the subject. I do not claim that the sublime is the only possible conceptual framework for understanding poetry; rather, I consider the sublime as one proper theoretical metaphor for conceptualizing personal experience of reading. In the second section of the article („Defining poetry”), I make use of Rein Raud’s distinctions to provide a preliminary definition of poetry, as located between cognition-centred, grammar-centred, and sociocentric approaches. Due to my phenomenological leanings, I am inclined toward the cognition-centred approach. Next, I discuss the difference between poetry and prose, using Maurice Blanchot’s interpretation of the two slopes of literature. In the rest of the article I focus on the second of these slopes, the one that reaches outward from the world of literature – that is, on poetry. The third section („The Dissolution of the Sublime in Failure”), I rebound from the positions of Undusk, Tomberg, and Lipping, according to whom utterance is unavoidably failure, and that the main goal of the aesthetic text is a drive toward silence. I connect the experience of hearing the silence within utterance with the concept of the sublime, using as bridging concepts Immanuel Kant’s classic definition of the sublime and the subsequent development of this idea by Jean-François Lyotard. According to Lyotard, the general purpose o modern art is striving toward negative representation, that is, toward the avoidance of representation. In the fourth section („Ontological Excursus: The Sublime (No)Thing?”), I use Rodolphe Gasché’s arguments to critique Lyotard’s fundamental ontological position, according to which the universe of the phrase is all-encompassing (and contains silence), and something is always happening. According to Gasché’s interpretation – with which I concur, there is within the sublime of non-representability the possibility of non-being as the final phrase. I go on to deepen the latter possibility using Martin Heidegger’s discussion of the unmediated experience of no-thing in anxiety. In order to emphasize the processuality of this possibility, in the following line of reasoning I abandon the concept of no-thing in favour of the more ambiguous „no”. The fifth section („Poetry’s ways of „no”-ing”), I distinguish between three possible types of no-ing poetry, without pretending to any comprehensiveness in this list: metaphysical poetry; poetry that is undergoing weakening or decline, and the poetry of destruction. I then discuss the poetry of Kivisildnik in the framework of this typology, and come to the conclusion that for Kivisildnik, what dominates is the poetry of destruction. In the sixth section, („Great viperous lines...”), I briefly consider the three key motifs of Kivisildnik’s sublime poetry of destruction: terror, abortion, and Estonia as an empty signifier. In the concluding section I demonstrate that the question raised by postmodern art – what is art? is also relevant to Kivisildnik’s poetry. I examine four stylistic figures through which Kivisildnik’s poetry falls into essential uncertainty: mechanicalness, the dispersal of authorship, the turning-into-itself of poetry, and the text’s transmissions into emptiness

Tõejärgsusest tõsiselt—tõetus kui nihilismi ajastule vastav intellektuaalne hoiak

Tõejärgsuse mõistet kasutatakse enamasti moraliseerivalt ja irooniliselt, naeruvääristamaks erinevaid irratsionaalseid retoorilisi praktikaid, kuidas väidetele omistatakse tõeväärtust ning omandatakse seeläbi uskumusi n-ö faktidest hoolimata. Käesolevat ajastut iseloomustavate tähendusloomepraktikate puhul on täpsem rääkida pigem uustõest, väga mitmekesiste õigustusviiside vohamisest subkulutuuriti (nt ühismeedia „kajakambrid“, alternatiivmeedia jms). Nagu on õigesti tähele pandud, kujundavad säärased retoorilised praktikad üha rohkem ka poliitilisi jõujooni maailmas. Artiklis keskendun küsimusele, milles seisneb tõejärgsus kui omaksvõetud intellektuaalne hoiak. Erinevalt erinevate tõdede kemplusväljast seisneb antud hoiak, mis ulatub tagasi vähemalt antiikaja skeptikuteni, otsustamatuses, väidetele tõesuse omistamisest loobumises. Kasvõi kulunud relativismi paradoksi abil on lihtne näidata, et antud hoiak ei saa olla täiesti järjekindel ja kogu inimelu läbistav, näiteks sõelume argielus kogu aeg informatsiooni, lähtudes elulises situatsioonis edasiviivast infost, seda protsessi võibki juba nimetada tõeväärtuse omistamiseks. Selle kimbatuse selgitamiseks kasutan Gianni Vattimo poolt paljuski Nietzsche toel välja arendatud hermeneutilise nihilismi kahetasandilist käsitust tõest, mille kohaselt kuulub iga mingis kontekstis (keelemängus) omaksvõetud uskumusega kaasas üldisemal arutlustasandil moodustatud vastuväide, et tegemist on üksnes ühe võimaliku otsusega teiste seas, milles puudub „tõesuse kullaproov“. Olen seisukohal, et planetaarne nihilism on vältimatu ajalooline olukord, millega tuleb leppida ning tõejärgsus on sellele olukorrale vastav intellektuaalne hoiak. The concept post-truth is mostly used ironically and in the moralised manner, to ridicule different irrational rhetorical practices, how there are ascribed truth-value to the propositions despite of facts. More precise concept to describe current sense-making practices is new-truth, very multifarious set of justifying practices, what are proliferate in different sub-cultures. As there is correctly mentioned, such practices are more and more affect the political field all over the world. In my paper I will focus on the question, what could be post-truth as accepted intellectual attitude. This attitude does not enter to the battlefield of different truths, but it makes no decisions about truth-value of propositions. Already well-known relativist paradox demonstrates, that mentioned attitude cannot be fully consistent, for example in the everyday life we screen out all time information, choosing that information, what is useful in our practical context - already this procedure could be named as ascribing truth-value. To clarify this aporia I will use the two-level understanding of truth, which is borrowed form Gianni Vattimo's hermeneutical nihilism and it is elaborated using Nietzsche's ideas. According to this understanding we espouse for sure some beliefs in different language-games, but in the general level there is always objection, that our particular belief is just one possible belief among others, without any strong proof for truth. In my paper I try to defend position, that global nihilism is our ineluctable historical situation, we need to accept it and post-truth is proper intellectual attitude to that situation

Eimiski-kunst. Nihilistlikust loomest eesti luule näitel

Artiklis käsitletakse nihilistliku kirjandusloome võimalusi eesti luule näitel. Nihilismi ei mõisteta artiklis väärtusprobleemina, vaid ontoloogilise probleemina. Nihilistlikku kirjandusloomet käsitletakse taotlusena tuua sõnasse teine, eimiski. Artikli teoreetiline raamistik toetub põhiliselt Gianni Vattimo languse ontoloogia kontseptsioonile, aga ka Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heideggeri ja Maurice Blanchot' töödele. Samuti analüüsitakse artikli teoreetilises osas eimiski väljendamise võimalusi eesti keeles, tuginedes Uku Masingu ning Jaan Kaplinski mõttekäikudele. Luuletajatest käsitletakse artiklis enim Jaan Oksa ja Juhan Liivi. Analüüsi käigus tuuakse esile järgmised eimiskiga seotud poeetilised figuurid: ootus ja luhtumus, langus ja loojak, hullus, surm. Analüüsi tulemusena selgub, et nihilistlik loome on eesti luules tugevalt esindatud, kuid ei filosoofias ega luules pole võimalik saavutada otsest juurdepääsu eimiskile, tuleb piirduda aimamisega, vihjamisega. The paper discusses the possibilities for creating nihilistic literary works, using Estonian poetry as an example. The paper regards nihilism as an ontological problem, and not as a problem of values. Nihilistic literary creativity will be treated as an attempt to introduce nothingness. The theoretical framework is provided by Gianni Vattimo's ontology of decline, as well as by the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger and Maurice Blanchot. The paper also analyzes, relying on the ideas put forward by Uku Masing and Jaan Kaplinski, the possibilities of expressing nothingness in the Estonian language. As to Estonian poets, the paper will focus on the works of Juhan Liiv and Jaan Oks. The analysis of their works highlights the following poetic figures related to nothingness: anticipation and failure, decay and decline, madness, death. The analysis will demonstrate that nihilism is strongly present in Estonian poetry. However, since neither philosophy nor poetry has direct access to nothingness, one must remain content with presentiments and allusions

Eimiski-kunst. Nihilistlikust loomest eesti luule näitel

Artiklis käsitletakse nihilistliku kirjandusloome võimalusi eesti luule näitel. Nihilismi ei mõisteta artiklis väärtusprobleemina, vaid ontoloogilise probleemina. Nihilistlikku kirjandusloomet käsitletakse taotlusena tuua sõnasse teine, eimiski. Artikli teoreetiline raamistik toetub põhiliselt Gianni Vattimo languse ontoloogia kontseptsioonile, aga ka Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heideggeri ja Maurice Blanchot' töödele. Samuti analüüsitakse artikli teoreetilises osas eimiski väljendamise võimalusi eesti keeles, tuginedes Uku Masingu ning Jaan Kaplinski mõttekäikudele. Luuletajatest käsitletakse artiklis enim Jaan Oksa ja Juhan Liivi. Analüüsi käigus tuuakse esile järgmised eimiskiga seotud poeetilised figuurid: ootus ja luhtumus, langus ja loojak, hullus, surm. Analüüsi tulemusena selgub, et nihilistlik loome on eesti luules tugevalt esindatud, kuid ei filosoofias ega luules pole võimalik saavutada otsest juurdepääsu eimiskile, tuleb piirduda aimamisega, vihjamisega

Üleinimese võimalikkusest digiteeritud elu kontekstis / The possibility of overman in the context of digitalised life

Artikkel analüüsib meie digitaalsusest küllastunud elu Friedrich Nietzsche filosoofia perspektiivist, lähtudes küsimusest, kas digikeskkondades töös olevad suundumused senise inimliku iseduse fragmenteerimiseks võivad olla sillaks üleinimese suunas liikumisel. Esimeses osas visandatakse Zygmunt Baumani ja Rein Raua dialoogi põhjal peamised digikeskkondade laialdase levikuga kaasnevad isedust kujundavad aspektid, mis on autorite meelest ohtudeksväljakutseteks senisele inimsusele. Teises osas esitatakse tõlgendus üleinimese tähendusest ja mõiste seostumisest teiste peamiste ideedega Nietzsche filosoofias. Arutluse tulemusena asutakse kaitsma üleinimese hoiakulist tõlgendust. Viimases osas hinnatakse kõiki eelnevalt piiritletud digikeskkondade levikuga seotud aspekte ning jõutakse järeldusele, et kuigi need süvendavad üldjoontes juba Nietzsche ajal ilmnenud massiühiskonna tendentse, ei determineeri tehnoloogia üheselt iseduse moodustamise mehhanisme ega välista üleinimese suunas liikumist.   The article analyses our digitally saturated life from the viewpoint of Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy, starting off with the question whether the trends, which are at present actively fragmenting human selfhood in digital environments, could act as bridges for the movement towards overman. The first part of the article sketches, based on the dialogue between Zygmunt Bauman and Rein Raud, the main selfhood-shaping aspects which accompany the spread of digital environments and which could, according to the authors, challenge or threaten the humanity. The authors point out seven main problems: the fragmenting of selfhood in online environments; impossibility of developing or expressing originality; excessive convenience, especially in human relations and communication; wide-spread dependence on the content offered by digital environments; damage to mental capacity; too little physical activity, and the polarisation of viewpoints due to the sound box of virtual communication. Many of the listed problems are still older than the accelerated spreading of computer networks, but they have become more pressing due this process. The second part of the article offers an interpretation of Nietzsche’s concept of overman. The use of the concept of overman is not strictly specified in Nietzsche’s work, it is often presented in the form of hints and metaphors. In order to reach the interpretation, the concept under discussion has to be put into relation to several other unclear concepts, which makes the developing of the interpretation the most complicated and substantial task in the article. To establish the first starting point, the article argues that Nietzsche was not a humanist, that the overcoming of man is a clear intention in his thinking, expressed also by the concept of overman. For Nietzsche, the future of man was not decided by biological or technical aspects but, rather, by cultural-psychological aspects. Nietzsche believed that a whole set of preconditions and beliefs, which are essential for being a human and which he called higher values, were disintegrating during his lifetime. Thus, overcoming man was not only his normative objective, but also an inevitable process which had already started in the conditions of the well-established cultural contingency.   Next, the article specifies the aspiration to overcome man, listing the main attitudes and characteristics of the modern man which should, by Nietzsche, be overcome. These include: life-denying and weakness-cultivating monotheistic religion and the morals it supports; all kinds of beliefs in the primacy of the soul (and its immortality) and the marginalisation of the body; herd instincts and the moulding of humans into an identical mass, including the cult of equality and democratism; any kind of belief in progress, including belief in scientific progress as a hidden form of teleological explanation of the world; techniques of self-creation which cultivate the persistent identity and stability of a person and discourage experimentation; hedonism, and the avoiding of suffering and making it pointless. These attitudes are deeply rooted in in the modern Western people, but according to Nietzsche’s view, they are unavoidably disappearing in the nihilistic processes of the era. Nietzsche outlines five possible strategies for coping: conservatism, the attempt to preserve the existing absolute-based values; passive nihilism, fading and declining, and Doomsday predictions; active nihilism, the destruction of everything and the enjoyment of this process; retreating into hedonism and refusing to think about great matters – in Nietzsche’s terminology – the last man; striving to live towards overman, or the total and extreme nihilism.    The article proceeds to analyse the reasons why Nietzsche believes that man should overcome these characteristics also in the normative meaning. The question why Nietzsche despises hedonism and man’s search for a stable form of existence acquires a central position here. In order to find answers, it is necessary to move from Nietzsche’s anthropology to his metaphysics and to introduce the concept of the will to power. The article avoids robustly vitalistic interpretations of Nietzsche’s philosophy and interprets, using the model of the hermeneutic circle, the will to power and perspectivism and their interactive aspects. The article states that for Nietzsche, the world, which is understood as the will to power, does not submit to inevitability or laws but is indeterminable, and man is indeterminable as well. Nietzsche denies the self-sufficiency of selfhood as a Cartesian subject, as well as the freedom of will, which does not mean the acknowledgment of determinism in the light of mechanism, but means the affirmation of indeterminism. For Nietzsche, human selfhood has two opposing characteristics – self-preservation and self-overcoming. He believes that the soul is formed by the plurality of urges and affects, and self-preservation or self-control manifests in the ability to mould this plurality into a hierarchical unity and to preserve this unity. However, a person with open senses, a “free soul”, can be overwhelmed by the abundance of life and the multitude of competing urges and affects. The experimental existence, suggested by Nietzsche, means that a person does not retreat into a stable pattern of self-preservation, but moves further, does not avoid suffering and in the dusky regions of self-creation, risks the disintegration of selfhood in the sea of affects. Following these lines of interpretation, the article reaches a clear interpretation of the concept of overman, stating that overman is not, and cannot be, a (future) being, expressed by describing a set of certain characteristics, but it is an attitude – a risky experimental break from the mechanisms of identity preservation – openness to unknown. The third part of the article examines, based on the above results, all the seven digitalisation-related problems, listed in the first part, and evaluates their status from the viewpoint of living towards overman. Results of the evaluation are divided into unambiguously good – for the phenomena that develop the overhuman potentiality, unambiguously bad – for the phenomena that favour the retreat into the existing selfhood, and relatively good – for the phenomena that break down the existing humanity and accelerate the processes of nihilism. According to the author, fragmentation of selfhood is unambiguously good from the overhuman point of view; excessive convenience and impossibility of originality are unambiguously bad. Polarisation is a relatively good phenomenon. The rest of the problems – damage to mental capacity, too little physical activity and the spread of dependencies – cannot be unambiguously evaluate and the article points out both their good and bad aspects.   The article concludes with the statement that some of the trends, which are at present actively fragmenting the existing human selfhood in digital environments, could act as bridges for the movement towards overman (in the meaning of attitude, of living towards overman, given to this concept in the article)

FILOSOFIJOS IR LITERATŪROS SUSILIEJIMAS NIHILISTINIAME MĄSTYME

Šiuo straipsniu siekiama parodyti, kad postmetafizinė filosofija turėtų liautis mėgdžiojusi formalias mokslo taisykles ir verčiau suintensyvintų dialogą su menu, o ypač – su literatūra. Daugiausia remiamasi Gianni Vattimo, pasak kurio turėtume priimti nihilizmą ir sutikti, kad joks teorinis naratyvas nėra teisingas epistemologine prasme ir negali pretenduoti į atitiktį realybei. Remiantis nihilizmu kaip prielaida, tenka pripažinti radikalų kontingentiškumą, vadinasi, sutikti, kad jokia samprotavimo linkmė nebus amžina. Taip filosofinis mąstymas tampa silpnuoju, atsisako savo paties validumo pretenzijų, ir prasideda nauja filosofijos ir literatūros dialogo epocha, paženklinta jų susiliejimo žyme.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: nihilizmas, hermeneutika, literatūra, niekis, postmodernus.The Fusion of Philosophy and Literature in Nihilist ThoughtLeo Luks SummaryIn this paper, I will attempt to demonstrate that post-metaphysical philosophy should cease its attempts to imitate the formal rules of science and rather intensify its dialogue with art, especially literature. I will draw on the philosophy of Gianni Vattimo, according to whom we should accept nihilism and admit that no theoretical narrative is true in the sense of corresponding to reality. Acceptance of nihilism amounts to the acceptance of radical contingency, where no line of argument is everlasting. As philosophical thinking is weakened in this manner, and as it lets go of the presumption of its own validity, a new era will arrive in the dialogue between philosophy and literature by their fusion.Keywords: nihilism, hermeneutics, literature, nothingness, postmodern.: 18px;">&nbsp

FILOSOFIJA IR LITERATŪRA: DVI SUSILIEJIMO KRYPTYS

Straipsnyje „Filosofijos ir literatūros susiliejimas nihilistiniame mąstyme“ (Problemos 2010, 77) rašiau, kad postmetafizinė filosofija turėtų suintensyvinti dialogą su literatūra ir galų gale su ja susilieti. Šiame straipsnyje siūlomos dvi galimos šio susiliejimo kryptys: 1) ribų tarp realybės ir išmonės išnykimas. Kartu su G. Vattimo atsisakę korespondentinės tiesos teorijos, prieisime prie išvados apie principinę galimybę bet kuriam naratyvui būti teisingam (angl. truthful). Nihilistiniam mąstymui būdingas silpnesnis realybės jausmas, skeptiškas požiūris į sveiko proto ar natūralistinę poziciją. Tokia situacija,aprašyta Nietzsche’s, skirtį tarp realaus pasaulio ir net neįtikėtinų pasakų daro iš principo neįmanomą. Iš to plaukia keletas toli siekiančių epistemologinių ir etinių konsekvencijų. 2) Susiliedama su literatūra, nihilistinė filosofija ieško kalbos, galinčios artikuliuoti niekį, reprezentuoti tai, kas nereprezentuojama. Straipsnyje šis siekis analizuojamas pasitelkiant postmodernaus diskurso sąvokas – literatūros erdvė, nerimas. Remiamasi Maurice Blanchot, Rolando Barthe’o ir Jeano-François Lyotard’o kūriniais. Susiliedama su literatūra nihilistinė filosofija gali gyvuoti ir neturėdama ką pasakyti.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: nihilizmas, hermeneutika, pramanytumas, niekis, postmodernus.Philosophy and Literature: Two Lines of FusionLeo Luks SummaryIn the article “The Fusion of Philosophy and Literature in Nihilist Thought” (Problemos 2010, 77) I argued that post-metaphysical philosophy should intensify its dialogue with literature to the point of their eventual fusion. In this paper I will start from the conclusions of my previous article and will highlight two possible lines of this fusion:1) The disappearance of the boundary between reality and fiction. Once we let go of the correspondencetheory of truth, as Vattimo recommends, we will arrive at the principled possibility of the truthfulness of any and all narratives. Nihilist thought is characterised by a weakened sense of reality, a renouncement of common sense and naturalism. This condition, described by Nietzsche,where making a distinction between the real world and tall tales is impossible in principle, has several far-reaching epistemological and ethical consequences.2) In its fusion with literature, nihilist thought seeks for a language to articulate the nothing, to represent the unrepresentable. In the paper I will analyse this pursuit by way of the concepts of postmodernity, the space of literature, and anxiety. I will draw on the views of Maurice Blanchot, Roland Barthes and Jean-François Lyotard.By fusing with literature, nihilist philosophy can continue in a situation where it has nothing to say.Keywords: nihilism, hermeneutics, fictionality, nothingness, postmodern