Nihilism is a doctrine stating that no objects have an intrinsic characteristic of truth. Therefore everything that we perceive to be true can only be mere individual or social constructions, or the meanings that we attach to them. Therefore nihilism views the world as a social construct with no objective truth.

The philosophy is presented with a paradoxical statement: "There is no truth". This statement at the very first glance is self-contradictory. It propounds that there is no truth. But for this to be true, the doctrine itself would have to be false. Therefore the doctrine is claiming simultaneously that there is no truth, while at the same time that it, itself, is true. Hence the nihilist paradox.