Absence and nothing : the philosophy of what there is not /
This book argues that nothing is not and explains how we can meaningfully speak about what is not.
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Online Access: | Electronic book from Oxford Scholarship Online |
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Main Author: | |
Format: | eBook |
Language: | English |
Published: | Oxford ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2021. |
Edition: | First edition. |
Subjects: |
Summary: | This book argues that nothing is not and explains how we can meaningfully speak about what is not. Nothing is not. Yet it seems that we invoke absences and nothings often in our philosophical explanations. Negative metaphysics is on the rise. It has been claimed that absences can be causes, there are negative properties, absences can be perceived, there are negative facts, and we can refer to and speak about nothing. Parmenides long ago ruled against such things. Here we consider how much of Parmenides' view can survive. A soft Parmenidean methodology is adopted in which we aim to reject all supposed negative entities but are prepared to accept them, reluctantly, if they are indispensable and irreducible in our best theories. We then see whether there are any negative entities that survive this test. Some can be dismissed on metaphysical grounds, but other problems are explained only once we reject another strand in Parmenides and show how we can think and talk about nothing. |
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Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xi, 222 pages) illustrations. |
ISBN: | 9780192567284 0192567284 9780191869303 0191869309 9780192567277 0192567276 |
Access: | Access limited to authorized users. |