Abstract
The deep sense of losing ground, of fading authenticity, and of meaningless existence lays at the heart of Nietzsche’s work. In the footsteps of Pascal, he contemplates the empty universe and trembles in front of the dark void. His inner suffering raises the question about what would replace the failing God, now that pessimism and despair have engulfed Western world. If the answer is science as a new goddess of progress and reason, this is the wrong answer, since modern science is not the opposing ideal to religious faith. By destroying the external appearance of the previous religious ideal, the modern science has not the inner power to create value, a trustworthy value. All it has done is to have replaced religious faith with a philosophy of the sensitive reality, yet science has no upper, transcendental ideal. Therefore, science does not lead mankind in a meaningful path. Left with no superior light, the Western man stumbles into darkness, nihilism and despair.
© 2026 Dragoș Dragoman, published by Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.