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Eitan_Zohar comments on My Skepticism - Less Wrong Discussion
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Why does everyone refer to it as "epistemic nihilism"? Philosophical skepticism ('global' skepticism) was always the term I read and used.
Everyone? In this discussion right here, the only occurrences of the word "nihilism" are in Ishaan's comment and your reply?
In general. I hear the word used but I haven't ever encountered it in literature (which isn't very surprising since I haven't read much literature). Seriously, Google 'epistemic nihilism' right now and all you get are some cursory references and blogs.
Maybe I wasn't clear: I'm questioning whether the premise of your question
is correct. I don't think everyone does refer to it that way, whether "everyone" means "everyone globally", "everyone on LW", "everyone in the comments to this post", or in fact anything beyond "one or two people who are making terminology up on the fly or who happen to want to draw a parallel with some other kind of nihilism".
I've heard it from various people on the internet. Perhaps I don't have a large sample size, but it seems to consistently pop up when global skepticism is discussed.
"Epistemic nihilism" is not a name, but a description. Philosophical skepticism covers a range of things, of which this is one.
At first I just made it up, feeling that it was appropriate name due to the many parallels with moral nihilism, then I googled it, and description that came up roughly matched what I was talking about, so I just went on using it after that. I'm guessing everyone goes roughly through that process. Normally I add a little disclaimer about not being sure that if it is the correct term, but I didn't this time.
I didn't know the term "philosophical skepticism", thanks for giving me the correct one. In philosophy I feel there is generally problem where the process of figuring out the names that other people who separately came up with your concept before you did use to describe the concept you want ends up involving more work and reading than just re-doing everything...and at the end of the day others who read your text (as if anyone is reading that closely!) won't understand what you meant unless they too go back and read the citations. So I think it's often better to just throw aside the clutter and start fresh for everything, doing your best with plain English, and it's okay if you redundantly rederive things (many strongly disagree with me here).
I feel that the definition of "Epistemic nihilism" is self evident as long as one knows the words "epistemic" and "nihilism". The term "Skepticism" implies the view that one is asking "how do you know", whereas nihilism implies that one is claiming that there is no fundamental justification of the chosen principles. If indeed I'm describing the same thing, I kinda think "epistemic nihilism" is a more descriptive term from a "plain english" perspective overall.
(Also, re: everyone - I haven't actually seen that term used in the wild by people who are not me unless explicitly googling it. Maybe your impression results from reading my comments somewhere else?)
'Global skepticism' is really the correct one. 'Philosophical skepticism' is just a broad term for the doubting of normative justifications or knowledge.
I doubt it very much. But some of the comments gave me the impression that it is in literature somewhere.