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  1. Lowe's argument against nihilism.G. Rodriguez-Pereyra - 2000 - Analysis 60 (4):335-340.
    By nihilism I shall understand the thesis that it is metaphysically possible that there are no concrete objects. I think there is a version of an argu- ment, the subtraction argument, which proves nihilism nicely (see Baldwin 1996 and Rodriguez-Pereyra 1997). But E. J. Lowe, who is no nihilist, has a very interesting argument purporting to show that concrete objects exist necessarily (Lowe 1996, 1998). In this paper I shall defend nihilism from Lowe’s argument.
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  • Don't Ask, Look! Linguistic Corpora as a Tool for Conceptual Analysis.Roland Bluhm - 2013 - In Miguel Hoeltje, Thomas Spitzley & Wolfgang Spohn (eds.), Was dürfen wir glauben? Was sollen wir tun? Sektionsbeiträge des achten internationalen Kongresses der Gesellschaft für Analytische Philosophie e.V. DuEPublico. pp. 7-15.
    Ordinary Language Philosophy has largely fallen out of favour, and with it the belief in the primary importance of analyses of ordinary language for philosophical purposes. Still, in their various endeavours, philosophers not only from analytic but also from other backgrounds refer to the use and meaning of terms of interest in ordinary parlance. In doing so, they most commonly appeal to their own linguistic intuitions. Often, the appeal to individual intuitions is supplemented by reference to dictionaries. In recent times, (...)
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  • Metaphysical Nihilism and Necessary Being.Tyron Goldschmidt - 2012 - Philosophia 40 (4):799-820.
    This paper addresses the most fundamental question in metaphysics, Why is there something rather than nothing? The question is framed as a question about concrete entities, Why does a possible world containing concrete entities obtain rather than one containing no concrete entities? Traditional answers are in terms of there necessarily being some concrete entities, and include the possibility of a necessary being. But such answers are threatened by metaphysical nihilism, the thesis that there being nothing concrete is possible, and the (...)
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  • Nothingness.Roy Sorensen - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  • The Empty World as the Null Conjunction of States of Affairs.Rafael De Clercq - forthcoming - Erkenntnis:0-17.
    If possible worlds are conjunctions of states of affairs, as in David Armstrong’s combinatorial theory, then is the empty world to be thought of as the null conjunction of states of affairs? The proposal seems plausible, and has received support from David Efird, Tom Stoneham, and Armstrong himself. However, in this paper, it is argued that the proposal faces a trilemma: either it leads to the absurd conclusion that the actual world is empty; or it reduces to a familiar representation (...)
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  • Metaphysical Nihilism and Modal Logic.Ethan Brauer - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 179 (9):2751-2763.
    In this paper I argue, that if it is metaphysically possible for it to have been the case that nothing existed, then it follows that the right modal logic cannot extend D, ruling out popular modal logics S4 and S5. I provisionally defend the claim that it is possible for nothing to have existed. I then consider the various ways of resisting the conclusion that the right modal logic is weaker than D.
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  • (1 other version)Here Goes Nothing.Lee Barry - 2016 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 12 (1):27-45.
    Subtraction arguments support the view that there might have been nothing. The best-developed SA to date, due to David Efird and Tom Stoneham, is claimed by its authors to entail that there are worlds in which there are space-time points but no concrete objects: Efird and Stoneham hold that space-time points are not concrete and that a world made up from them alone contains nothing concrete. In this paper it is argued that whole space-times are concrete and subtractable, so that (...)
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  • Nothing, Everything, Something!Achille C. Varzi - 2022 - In Fosca Mariani-Zini (ed.), The Meaning of Something: Rethinking the Logic and the Unity of Metaphysics. Springer.
    Universalist and nihilist answers to philosophical questions may be extreme, but they are clear enough. Aliquidist answers, by contrast, are typically caught between the Scylla of vagueness and indeterminacy and the Charybdis of ungroundedness and arbitrariness, and steering a proper middle course—saying exactly where in the middle one is going to settle—demands exceptional navigating powers. I myself tend to favor extreme answers precisely for this reason. Here, however, I consider one sense in which Something may claim superiority over its polar (...)
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  • Genuine modal realism and the empty world.David Efird & Tom Stoneham - 2005 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 1 (1):21-37.
    We argue that genuine modal realism can be extended, rather than modified, so as to allow for the possibility of nothing concrete, a possibility we term ‘metaphysical nihilism’. The issue should be important to the genuine modal realist because, not only is metaphysical nihilism itself intuitively plausible, but also it is supported by an argument with pre-theoretically credible premises, namely, the subtraction argument. Given the soundness of the subtraction argument, we show that there are two ways that the genuine modal (...)
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  • The actual challenge for the ontological argument.Marco Hausmann - 2022 - Analysis 82 (2):222-230.
    Many versions of the ontological argument have two shortcomings: First, despite the arguments put forward, for example, by Hugh Chandler and Nathan Salmon, they assume that S5 is the correct modal logic for metaphysical modality. Second, despite the classical arguments put forward, for example, by David Hume and Immanuel Kant or the more recent arguments put forward, for example, by John Findlay and Richard Swinburne, they assume that necessary existence is possible. The aim of the paper is to develop an (...)
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  • Metaphysical nihilism defended: reply to Lowe and Paseau.Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra - 2002 - Analysis 62 (2):172-180.
    I believe in metaphysical nihilism, the thesis that there could have been no concrete objects, because I believe in a version of the subtraction argument, the subtraction argument*, that proves it. But both Jonathan Lowe (2002) and Alexander Paseau (2002) express doubts about the subtraction argument*. Paseau thinks the argument is invalid, and Lowe argues that invoking concrete* objects is unnecessary. Furthermore Lowe attempts to rebut my objections (Rodriguez-Pereyra 2000) to his anti-nihilist argument (Lowe 1998). In this paper I defend (...)
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  • Metaphysical nihilism and the subtraction argument.E. J. Lowe - 2002 - Analysis 62 (1):62-73.
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  • Much Ado About Nothing: A Study of Metaphysical Nihilism.Ross P. Cameron - 2006 - Erkenntnis 64 (2):193-222.
    This paper is an investigation of metaphysical nihilism: the view that there could have been no contingent or concrete objects. I begin by showing the connections of the nihilistic theses to other philosophical doctrines. I then go on to look at the arguments for and against metaphysical nihilism in the literature and find both to be flawed. In doing so I will look at the nature of abstract objects, the nature of spacetime and mereological simples, the existence of the empty (...)
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  • The subtraction argument for the possibility of free mass.David Efird & Tom Stoneham - 2009 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80 (1):50-57.
    Could an object have only mass and no other property? In giving an affirmative answer to this question, Jonathan Schaffer (2003, pp. 136-8) proposes what he calls ‘the subtraction argument’ for ‘the possibility of free mass’. In what follows, we aim to assess the cogency of this argument in comparison with an argument of the same general form which has also been termed a subtraction argument, namely, Thomas Baldwin’s (1996) subtraction argument for metaphysical nihilism, which is the claim that there (...)
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  • It's not the end of the world: when a subtraction argument for metaphysical nihilism fails.A. Hoffmann - 2011 - Analysis 71 (1):44-53.
    Metaphysical nihilism is the thesis that there could have been no concrete objects. Thomas Baldwin (1996) offers an argument for metaphysical nihilism. The premisses of the argument purport to provide a procedure of subtraction that can be iterated until we reach a world where no concrete objects exist. Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (1997) finds fault with Baldwin’s argument, modifies it, and claims to have proved metaphysical nihilism. My primary aim is to show that Rodriguez-Pereyra’s alleged proof rests on a false assumption. The (...)
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  • La posibilidad combinatoria de nada:una consecuencia para universales inmanentes.Sergio Rodrigo Parra Paine - 2018 - Revista de Humanidades de Valparaíso 11:75-91.
    This paper focuses on the possibility of conceiving a form of ontological nihilism, starting from D. M. Armstrong’s combinatorialism. This possibility has been suggested by Efird and Stoneham, by means of proposing an alternative strategy to the ‘subtraction argument’. They claim that it is possible to sustain such nihilism trough the concepts of construction and totality state of affairs. However, this hypothesis will require the acceptance of non-instanciated universals, that is, platonic universals. Yet this is opposite to requirements that are (...)
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  • The myth of when and where: How false assumptions still haunt theories of consciousness.Sepehrdad Rahimian - 2022 - Consciousness and Cognition 97 (C):103246.
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  • Why there is something rather than nothing.John Shand - 2016 - Think 15 (43):103-115.
    The answer to the question of why there is Something rather than Nothing is that there has to be Something and that Nothing is impossible. There cannot not be Something so there cannot be Nothing. The paper justifies this conclusion, while also explaining why we might believe there may be Nothing. In the course of this, the so-called subtraction-argument is shown to be inadequate and question-begging.
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