Russian and West European philosophical nihilism: similarities and differences

The phenomenon of nihilism consistently reflected in domestic and western culture over the past two centuries, it testifies about dynamism and contradictions of historical and cultural events, about the mobility of borders of the world that engulfed the search out of the crisis. For a man of west European culture the philosophical nihilism implements critical function of culture, an important factor of historical and philosophy process is the issue of transformation faith into the mind of a critical attitude to its capabilities. Russian nihilism distinguishes the compound of a critical attitude to the existing society and the need to develop and implementing a program of radical reform. Of particular interest and the problem of the research in the article presents a solution to the problem of synchronization, convergence and unification of Russian and Western lines in understanding the phenomenon of nihilism. The article reveals general and specific features of philosophical nihilism in line with these traditions. Russian nihilism in contrast to Western European nihilism is not the expression «culture fatigue», it is a contradictory expression of the needs of Russian life, looking to the future, described the revolutionary-minded thought. The destruction of the old in Russian nihilism is directly related to the search for a new science, new art, new man, a new society. The unifying force in the development of the two traditions is to understand the value of the person as a carrier of culture and cultural values.