Il nichilismo e la domanda sul senso dell'essere

The aim of the article is to examine the Heideggerian idea about the great theme of nihilism, which has characterized our time since the end of the 19th century. In my opinion, starting from the comparison with the first important thinker of nihilism, Nietzsche, and with another influential and acute writer who experimented the nihilistic power, namely Jünger, Heidegger offers a singular and original perspective on the matter. In fact, in imagining a possible overpassing of nihilism, the German philosopher does not think, as according to him first Nietzsche and then Jünger did, of an "Überwindung", that is to say of an overpassing understood as overcoming, as going beyond leaving nihilism behind him, but rather to a "Verwindung". In the language of techniques, the term is used to indicate a twist, an envelopment; for Heidegger, this means that nihilism must therefore be wrapped around itself in order to study its essence and fathom its ground (Grund). Through this meditation (Besinnung), he discovers that nihilism actually lays bare the structural abyssality that conditions existence, its lack of ground (Ab-Grund) due to the concealment and making nothingness of Being. Nihilism thus reveals itself as "Nichtung des Seyns", and its only “overpassing” lies in becoming aware of what it tells us about our existence. In this regard, again on the basis of the Heideggerian speculative horizon, in the second part the article will take into consideration the σήματα, the various nihilistic signs that Being as "Nichtung" leaves ofitself in existence, such as for example "molestia", ruinance, angst, death and pain. In this way, in certain cases it will also be possible to see the prodromes of the theory of "Nichtung" in writings of the German philosopher that do not yet directly deal with nihilism, demonstrating the fact that he has always interpreted existence in a nihilistic way.