c) Is Nihilism a Kind of Scepticism?

Nietzsche does not equate nihilism with scepticism; he regards scepticism not as an illness but as a strength of will and intellect. For Nietzsche, scepticism is a mark of strength because it represents intellectual honesty: I put aside a few sceptics, the types of decency in the history of philosophy: the rest haven't the slightest conception of intellectual integrity ¹.

Scepticism is, moreover, synonymous with fortitude, since it resists confinement to any particular belief, while the need for belief—like any need—is a sign of weakness:
Do not let yourself be deceived: great intellects are sceptical. Zarathustra is a sceptic. The strength, the freedom which proceed from intellectual power, from a superabundance of intellectual power, manifest themselves as scepticism. Men of fixed convictions do not count when it comes to determining what is fundamental in values and lack of values. Men of convictions are prisoners. […] On the contrary, the need of faith, of something unconditioned […], is a need of weakness. The man of faith, the "believer" of any sort, is necessarily a dependent man—such a man cannot posit himself as a goal, nor can he find goals within himself ².

The scepticism Nietzsche admires here is in all likelihood that of Montaigne, with whom he shared deep intellectual affinities ³. On Christmas Day 1870, Nietzsche received Montaigne's Essays as a gift from Cosima Wagner. He later expressed his admiration for Montaigne on several occasions: Basically it is a small number of the older Frenchmen to whom I return again and again ⁴, and referred explicitly to the author of the Essays: I have something of Montaigne's mischievousness in my spirit, who knows? Perhaps also in my body ⁵. Like Montaigne, who saw himself as always learning and making trial ⁶, Nietzsche claimed for himself the perilous prerogative of spending a life in experiment and of running adventurous risks ⁷.

What links nihilism and scepticism—making them comparable in the eyes of certain authors, such as B. de Saint-Sernin—is their shared tendency towards a radical rejection of the world. This common thread provides grounds for examining them together.

d) Criticism of This Confusion of Nihilism with Pessimism and Scepticism

These difficulties likely arise from a conflation of the authentic meaning of nihilism with its historical meaning. We now see that this historical meaning fluctuates and is frequently attributed to doctrines that may not be nihilistic at all. In other words, the search for the essence of nihilism relies on examining examples labelled as nihilistic—but without any certainty that the label fits. The logical circularity here is plain.

We will therefore take a different approach. We will set aside the supposed examples of nihilism, since we cannot be certain of their genuinely nihilistic character—which means we will not attempt to define nihilism by examining pessimism, Christianity, or similar doctrines. This raises the question: how are we to seek the meaning of nihilism now that the conventional routes to understanding it appear to have been closed off?

Our answer is to examine nihilism from the one thing we know with certainty: its name, 'nihilism'.
What does 'Nihil' truly signify—this 'nothing' that nihilism announces in its very name? What is the 'nothing' that defines the 'man of nothing'? I believe it points to the following claim: in reality, if we truly understand the nature of things, nothing possesses any real, objective value.

From this initial definition, which nihilism carries in its name, we can apply the principle that a concept only has meaning if it is distinguishable from neighbouring concepts. Rather than assimilating nihilism directly to scepticism, pessimism, or Christianity—which would cause it to dissolve into these doctrines rather than acquire a meaning of its own—we will examine whether it can be distinguished from them.

Pessimism may be defined as the axiological doctrine that views life, the world, and things as devoid of value, giving rise to a state of sadness, resentment, and even suicidal despair. This points to a radical distinction between pessimism and nihilism: while nihilism holds that life, the world, and things have no real value, it equally maintains that death, sadness, resentment, and nothingness are no less devoid of real value. These 'contents of meaning' suffer the same fate the nihilist inflicts on all contents of meaning: the denial of any real value. This distinction might appear purely formal, even sophistical—a case of splitting hairs. Yet I believe it carries a significant consequence: nihilism is not pessimism.

Pessimism is a doctrine that, in its own way, values sadness or death—perhaps as the only authentic attitudes available to the wise person (even if it does not explicitly invoke the concept of 'value' in its reasoning). As such, pessimism is one of those positions that 'still attribute value to something'.
What is distinctive about the nihilist is that he places no value on anything—on any content of meaning whatsoever. He may attribute meaning and truth to things and concepts, but no value. He therefore stands on radically different ground, which calls for further reflection.

Nihilism as presented by Nietzsche is not authentic nihilism but rather a form of classic pessimism. Nietzsche portrays the 'nihilist' as someone who despairs of the world upon realising that his three ideals—purpose, unity, and truth—find no embodiment in reality. It is on the basis of these ideals that the 'nihilist' condemns the world; Nietzsche thus depicts a nihilist who holds ideals—a genuine contradiction in terms—essentially someone who still places value (and the highest value) on a great many things.

This incoherent conception of an idealist nihilism is captured here: The philosophical nihilist is convinced that all that happens is meaningless and in vain; and that there ought not to be anything meaningless and in vain. But whence this: there ought not to be ⁸.

We can thus see how pessimism and nihilism are distinct, forming two coherent axiological positions: whereas nihilism denies the value of any content of meaning, pessimism ascribes value to certain actions and thoughts—its painful emotions and negative reflections potentially arising from… an ideal.

1. The Antichrist, 12
2. The Antichrist, 54
3. N. Panichi, in the Revue Noésis, n°10, 2006, p.93-112
4. Ecce Homo, Why I am so clever, 2
5. Ibid., 3
6. Essays, II, 2, 805 B
7. Human, All Too Human, Preface, §4
8. The Will to power, Book 1 : the European Nihilism, 36, p. 49