Philosophical Dictionary

Why is Derrida so hard to read? And what can he tell us about the way we communicate? Join us as we discuss his work on deconstruction and finding meaning.

A meme claims absurdists are nihilists who fell for their captor. Nietzsche’s notebooks split nihilism into a weary kind and a destructive kind, Camus warned that the absurd can make murder look indifferent, and Stockholm syndrome itself is a contested label. Is the joke unfair, or does it land a real hit?

Absurdism, existentialism and nihilism start from the same uncomfortable silence: the universe does not answer our questions about meaning. Nihilism shrugs, existentialism builds its own meaning, and Camus called the believers’ leap philosophical suicide. So is absurdism just existentialism with good vibes?