Nihilism and existentialism both start from the same observation — life has no inherent meaning. But they arrive at completely different places. One stays in the void. The other climbs out and starts building. Here's how to tell which one you are.
There’s one thing in common for all people. Every person faces questions about what is the purpose and meaning of life, what we are doing here, and what life is all about. Recently, I came across a video about Nihilism and Existentialism that made me wonder — every thought and feeling we have has a philosophical definition. And we all want the feeling of belonging to a group, or someone who can understand us.
Each individual lives with their own philosophy and carries it wherever they go. Philosophy has helped people solve their problems, improve critical thinking, and make better decisions. After all, the story of happiness is vague and subjective — and how you answer the question of meaning shapes everything else about how you live.
Nihilism and existentialism are considered each other’s opposites and, at the same time, deeply related. Both begin from the same observation — that life has no pre-given, inherent meaning. But they arrive at completely different places from there. So how would you know which one you are?
“Both philosophies start from the same abyss. Nihilism stays there. Existentialism climbs out and starts building.”
What Is Nihilism?
Nihilism is derived from the Latin word nihil, which means “nothing.” Its origin is found in related terms: annihilate, meaning “to bring to nothing,” and nihility, meaning “nothingness.” It is a philosophy that rejects general or fundamental aspects of human existence — objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning.
Nihilism is essentially the belief in nothing. That there are no answers to the “why” questions. A nihilist would say: there is no God, no heaven, no hell. There can be no right or wrong. That you can screw up because we’re all going to die anyway. As Alan Watts put it: “I am what happens between the maternity ward and the crematorium.”
Different versions of nihilism push this in different directions. Moral nihilism holds that there is no such thing as objective right or wrong — that morality is a human construction with no foundation in reality. Epistemological nihilism goes further, arguing that genuine knowledge is impossible. Existential nihilism — the most commonly encountered form — holds that life has no meaning or purpose, and that searching for one is futile.
Friedrich Nietzsche is the philosopher most associated with nihilism, though his relationship to it is more complex than is often understood. Nietzsche did not embrace nihilism — he diagnosed it. He saw nihilism as the inevitable consequence of the death of God and the collapse of traditional moral frameworks, and he spent his career trying to find a way through it rather than accepting it as the final word.
A clear introduction to nihilism and what it actually means
What Is Existentialism?
Existentialism emphasises the existence of the individual person as free and responsible for determining their own development through acts of the will. Where nihilism says “nothing means anything,” existentialism says “nothing means anything — but that means you get to decide what means something to you.” It is the same starting point, radically different conclusion.
Existentialism holds that our lives have no inherent meaning or purpose built into them from outside, but that the purpose we create for our lives gives them a sense of meaning. An existentialist doesn’t wait to discover what their life is for — they decide. They choose who they want to become, and they take responsibility for that choice.
The existentialist philosophers — Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir — differ enormously in their specific positions, but they share this core commitment to radical human freedom and its accompanying weight of responsibility. Sartre’s famous formulation — “existence precedes essence” — means that there is no pre-given human nature or purpose; we exist first and define ourselves through our choices.
This freedom is not comfortable. An existentialist creates their own meaning, but that very freedom can lead to what Sartre called “bad faith” — the temptation to pretend we have no choice, to hide behind roles or rules and avoid the anxiety that comes with genuine freedom. And when the framework a person has built collapses — the athlete who can never play again, the professional whose career ends suddenly — the existential crisis that follows is the confrontation with the necessity of rebuilding meaning from scratch.
Existentialism explained — the philosophy of freedom and responsibility
Compare and Contrast
| Question | Nihilism says… | Existentialism says… |
|---|---|---|
| Does life have meaning? | No — and the search for meaning is itself meaningless | Not inherently — but you can create it through your choices |
| Does morality exist? | No objective morality exists — all moral claims are baseless | Not objectively, but we are responsible for the values we live by |
| What is freedom? | Freedom is meaningless without purpose | Freedom is the defining condition of human existence — and its burden |
| How should we respond to meaninglessness? | Accept it — struggle is pointless | Embrace it — and create your own answer |
| Key thinkers | Nietzsche (as diagnostician), Schopenhauer | Sartre, Camus, Heidegger, de Beauvoir, Kierkegaard |
In a nutshell: nihilists believe in nothing — that life is meaningless and without purpose, that there is no such thing as good or evil, no foundation for values of any kind. Existentialism agrees that life has no inherent meaning or purpose built in from the outside, but insists that we can create our own — through the choices we make, the commitments we honour, and the lives we build.
Nihilism vs Existentialism — the key differences explained
What About Absurdism?
There is a third position worth knowing — one that sits between nihilism and existentialism and offers its own answer. Albert Camus called it absurdism. Camus agreed with the nihilist that life has no inherent meaning and no rational answer to the question “why?” But he disagreed that this should lead to despair or indifference. Instead, he proposed that the right response to the absurdity of existence is rebellion — to continue living and creating meaning even in full knowledge of the meaninglessness underneath.
Camus’s image is Sisyphus — the mythological king condemned to push a boulder up a hill for eternity, only for it to roll back down each time. Camus concludes: one must imagine Sisyphus happy. Not because his task is meaningful, but because the struggle itself is enough. He owns his fate. That is the absurdist position: not nihilism’s despair, not existentialism’s project of self-creation, but a kind of defiant contentment in the face of the void.
“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942
So — Are You a Nihilist or an Existentialist?
Now that each philosophy has been defined and differentiated, what do you actually believe?
Are you a nihilist — someone who believes that life is meaningless, that there are no right answers, that the search for purpose is itself a kind of self-deception? Or are you an existentialist — someone who accepts that life has no pre-given meaning but takes that as a liberation rather than a defeat, and gets on with the business of defining your own?
Here is one way to think about it. If you are reading this article — if you are searching for a framework, trying to understand where you fit, looking for language to describe your sense of the world — then you are probably not a nihilist. A true nihilist wouldn’t bother. The search itself implies that the answer matters to you. And if the answer matters, you already believe that something does.
That makes you, most likely, closer to an existentialist. Welcome to the club. Or — as a nihilist might say — there is no club. Which itself tells you something.