Nihilism
In 1733, the word "nihilism" was used by a German writer named Friedrich Leberecht Goetz. He used the word as a literary term. A Swiss thinker called Jacob Hermann Obereit also used the word in 1787, and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi did in 1799. This is where it first became part of philosophy. The belief that no one can know true reality is what Obereit called "nihilism". He used this definition to call Immanuel Kant a nihilist. This was because Kant said people cannot be certain of real things, but can only be certain about their experience of real things. Jacobi also used this definition to say Kant and his followers were nihilists. For example, he famously called Johann Gottlieb Fichte a nihilist. Jacobi thought German idealism and humanism were kinds of nihilism that came from the Age of Enlightenment. According to him, these so-called rational philosophies were the total opposite of rational.