ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the origins of the term ‘nihilism’ (first used by Götze, and then Obereit) and connects it to the historical threat of atheism in the 18th century and the theme of the meaning of life. It shows how the negative status of nihilism emerged from philosophical attempts to supplant God with Deus-surrogates in modern culture (Reason, Human Will, Being), which, in turn, has given rise to the conviction that, God or no God, human life ought to have meaning. This onto-theological view underlies its now-standard understanding in Jacobi and Fichte, and its conceptual development in the works of Kierkegaard, the Russian nihilists, Nietzsche, and Heidegger.
