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
Why does everyone refer to it as “epistemic nihilism”?
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.
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.