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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Bibliographic Details
Online Access:Electronic book from Oxford Scholarship Online
Main Author: Mumford, Stephen (Author)
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published:Oxford ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2021.
Edition:First edition.
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Description
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.
Physical Description:1 online resource (xi, 222 pages) illustrations.
ISBN:9780192567284
0192567284
9780191869303
0191869309
9780192567277
0192567276
Access:Access limited to authorized users.