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The limits of nothingness | Peter van Inwagen

Summary

The episode begins with the host Avi introducing Peter van Inwagen, who will discuss the philosophy of nothingness, specifically the question famously posed by Leibniz: ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ Van Inwagen frames this as the ‘ontological question’ and immediately tackles the preliminary challenge of defining what ‘nothing’ even means. He adopts a Fregean approach, suggesting ‘there is nothing’ means ‘the number of things is zero,’ but clarifies that by ‘things’ he means ‘beings’—entities that can enter into causal relations, thereby excluding abstract mathematical objects.

Van Inwagen argues that neither physics nor cosmology can ultimately answer the ontological question. Physics, he contends, always presupposes something (like quantum fields or space) to explain other things; explaining why there is something from a state of absolute nothing is beyond its scope. He then turns to philosophy, not to provide a definitive answer, but to explore interesting arguments and their limitations. He sets up the discussion by defining key terms: necessary propositions (cannot be false), contingent propositions (could be true or false), necessary beings (could not possibly not exist), and contingent beings (like us, which could possibly not exist).

The core of the talk is van Inwagen’s presentation of a three-premise logical argument designed to prove that it is impossible for there to be nothing (no beings). Premise one states simply that there are beings. Premise two states that for any kind of being, if it’s a contingent truth that beings of that kind exist, then there is an explanation for their existence. Premise three states that any such explanation must involve beings that are not of that kind. Through a series of logical forks, the argument concludes that if contingent beings exist, their explanation would require necessary beings, and thus it is impossible for there to be no beings at all.

However, van Inwagen dedicates the latter part of the episode to a thorough critique of his own argument, highlighting its many ‘weak points.’ He questions the precise meaning and definitions of terms like ‘being,’ ‘causal relation,’ ‘necessary being,’ and ‘kind of being.’ He particularly targets premise two, arguing that inductive support from explanations for specific kinds of beings (like elephants) does not guarantee an explanation for the entire category of ‘contingent beings.’ He also notes the lack of philosophical ‘axioms,’ illustrating how different philosophers could use the same logical structure to argue for opposite conclusions.

In his concluding lesson, van Inwagen states that neither physicists, cosmologists, nor philosophers can answer the ontological question of why there is something rather than nothing—at least not without appealing to divine revelation. The episode ends with the host thanking the listener and promoting the podcast series, emphasizing that philosophy can offer exploration and clarification even for questions that may ultimately be unanswerable.

Recommendations

People

  • Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz — The 17th-18th century philosopher and mathematician who was the first, according to van Inwagen, to formally ask the question ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ in his work ‘The Principles of Nature and Grace’ (1713).
  • Gottlob Frege — The mathematician and philosopher whose work on logic and mathematics is referenced for the idea that ‘existence is nothing more than denial of the number zero,’ which van Inwagen uses as a starting point for defining ‘nothing.‘

Works

  • The Principles of Nature and Grace — A semi-popular work by Leibniz written in 1713, cited as the source where he first posed the fundamental question about why there is something rather than nothing.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:44 — Introducing Leibniz’s question and defining ‘nothing’ — Peter van Inwagen begins by stating his topic: ‘Why is there something and not, rather, nothing?’ He attributes the question to Leibniz and then tackles the preliminary issue of defining what ‘nothing’ means. He proposes, following Frege, that ‘there is nothing’ means ‘the number of things is zero,’ but immediately raises the problem of how to count ‘things.’ He narrows his focus to ‘beings’—things that can enter into causal relations.
  • 00:05:15 — The ontological question and the limits of science — Van Inwagen formally names the core issue the ‘ontological question.’ He argues that physicists and cosmologists cannot answer it because physics always requires pre-existing entities to build explanations. He critiques physicists who claim to explain ‘something from nothing,’ arguing they mistake a quantum vacuum (which is still something) for absolute nothingness. Newton’s ‘immense vacuum,’ he notes, still had properties and was not nothing.
  • 00:07:40 — Defining necessary and contingent propositions and beings — To set up his argument, van Inwagen defines key logical and metaphysical concepts. A necessary proposition cannot be false (e.g., 7+5=12), while a contingent proposition could be either true or false. A necessary being is one that could not possibly not exist, while a contingent being (like humans) could possibly not exist. He clarifies that the argument does not assume necessary beings actually exist.
  • 00:11:08 — Presenting the three-premise argument for the impossibility of nothing — Van Inwagen outlines his formal argument. Premise one: There are beings. Premise two: For any kind of being, if it’s contingently true that such beings exist, there is an explanation for their existence. Premise three: Any such explanation must involve beings not of that kind. Through logical analysis of the possibilities (contingent beings exist or not; their existence is necessary or contingent), he concludes that all paths lead to the existence of necessary beings, making it impossible for there to be no beings at all.
  • 00:18:19 — Critiquing the argument’s premises and conceptual clarity — Van Inwagen turns to a detailed critique of his own argument. He states that while the logic is formally valid, the premises may be wrong or even meaningless due to ill-defined terms. He lists problematic terms like ‘being,’ ‘causal relation,’ ‘necessary being,’ and ‘kind of being,’ noting they lack the precision of scientific terminology. This conceptual vagueness undermines the argument’s force.
  • 00:20:47 — The major weakness of Premise Two and the lack of philosophical axioms — The critique focuses intensely on Premise Two. Van Inwagen questions whether ‘contingent being’ constitutes a legitimate ‘kind’ of being, suggesting that examples like ‘elephants’ (a specific subset) provide weak inductive support for a general explanation of all contingent beings. He also highlights the absence of indisputable axioms in philosophy, illustrating how two philosophers could use the same logical structure to defend opposite positions, leaving the question unresolved.
  • 00:26:47 — Conclusion: The unanswerability of the ontological question — Van Inwagen delivers his concluding lesson: neither physicists, cosmologists, nor philosophers can answer the question ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ Barring divine revelation, the question may be fundamentally unanswerable. The value of philosophy, he implies, lies in the rigorous exploration and clarification of such profound puzzles, even if definitive answers remain elusive.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Philosophy For Our Times
  • Author: IAI
  • Category: Society & Culture Philosophy
  • Published: 2025-08-20T09:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:27:44

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] But if there could have been nothing, if nothing exists as a statement of a perfectly possible

[00:00:05] way for reality to be, and yet there just happens to be something, well, that’s just

[00:00:11] weird.

[00:00:14] Hello, and welcome to Philosophy for Our Times, bringing you the world’s leading thinkers

[00:00:23] on today’s biggest ideas.

[00:00:25] It’s Avi here, and today we have Peter van Ingwin talking about the philosophy of nothingness.

[00:00:33] This is high-level philosophy, guys, so stay tuned for all the logic around nothing.

[00:00:41] Without any further ado, I’ll hand over to Peter.

[00:00:44] I am to speak on the topic why there is something and not, rather, nothing.

[00:00:51] Leibniz was the first person to ask this question, or at least the first of whom we have record.

[00:00:57] In a semi-popular work that he wrote in 1713 called The Principles of Nature and Grace,

[00:01:06] he wrote this,

[00:01:07] I have spoken thus far of what goes on in the natural world.

[00:01:12] I must now ascend to the metaphysical level by making use of a great, though not very

[00:01:18] widely used principle, which says that nothing occurs without a sufficient reason.

[00:01:24] Given that principle, the first question we can fairly ask is, why is there something

[00:01:29] rather than nothing?

[00:01:32] After all, nothing is simpler and easier than something.

[00:01:39] This is me again.

[00:01:40] That’s the question I mean to consider, but first a preliminary question.

[00:01:46] What does the statement, there is nothing, or nothing exists, or there isn’t anything,

[00:01:53] what do any of those statements mean?

[00:01:56] I propose that we take our answer to these questions from the mathematician Gottlob Frege,

[00:02:02] who said, existence is nothing more than denial of the number zero, and say that, we’ll say

[00:02:12] is nothing means the number of things is zero.

[00:02:16] But this answer, whatever its merits, raises serious questions that are at least as difficult

[00:02:22] as what is existence.

[00:02:25] Questions like what is a thing?

[00:02:28] What does the word thing mean?

[00:02:30] How do we count things?

[00:02:32] How do we know whether we have one thing or two things or 17 things?

[00:02:36] If we don’t know how to count things, then the phrase the number of things is at least

[00:02:41] problematical.

[00:02:42] Now, I’m going to say that by things, I mean causal things, that is things that enter into

[00:02:48] causal relations with one another.

[00:02:51] This rules out the objects of pure mathematics, numbers, transcendental functions, vectors

[00:02:58] and matrices, rings and groups, things like that.

[00:03:02] Even if the Platonists are right, and there are such things as mathematical objects, and

[00:03:09] they exist in the same sense of exist as donkeys and aircraft carriers and pulsars, they’re

[00:03:14] not the things I’m interested in.

[00:03:17] But since if the Platonists are right, mathematical things are, well, things, I’ll find another

[00:03:24] word for the things I’m interested in.

[00:03:26] I’ll call them beings.

[00:03:28] Beings are, then, things that enter into, or at least can enter into, causal relations.

[00:03:36] Now this, I admit, is an idea that needs a lot of work.

[00:03:40] To give just one example of a question this definition raises, what about numbers?

[00:03:46] They’re certainly mathematical objects, but for example, the number 2 figures in the explanation

[00:03:53] of the fact that the planetary orbits are elliptical, since that explanation involves

[00:03:58] an inverse square function.

[00:04:01] But if I talk about this, about how to rule out this kind of entering into causal relations,

[00:04:08] I’ll have no time for anything else.

[00:04:10] I hope, therefore, that you’ll allow me to use this term without further explanation.

[00:04:16] Our question then becomes something like, why is the number of beings zero?

[00:04:23] But then what about the counting problems?

[00:04:25] Who’s to say how many beings we have in a given situation?

[00:04:29] And if I can’t answer that question, then I don’t have any business speaking of the

[00:04:35] number of beings, do I?

[00:04:37] Well, to that objection, I could say, well, let’s grant that there are probably lots of

[00:04:44] ways to count beings.

[00:04:46] It’s obvious, however, that in none of these senses are we going to get a count of zero.

[00:04:53] So we can define the number of things as zero to mean, the number of beings as zero to mean,

[00:04:59] for every possible way of counting beings, on that count, the number of beings is zero.

[00:05:05] So we’re examining the question, why is the number of beings not zero?

[00:05:09] Let’s have a name for it.

[00:05:12] Let’s call it the ontological question.

[00:05:15] The ontological question is a question that is interested theologians, philosophers, physicists

[00:05:22] and cosmologists.

[00:05:24] I think we’ll leave the theologians side.

[00:05:28] And although I’m not qualified to speak on this issue, it does not seem to me that physicists

[00:05:35] and cosmologists can answer the ontological question.

[00:05:39] For physics needs something to work with.

[00:05:42] If physics is going to explain why there are Xs, its explanation must be in terms of the

[00:05:47] doings of some more fundamental physical entities, or at least in terms of some things

[00:05:56] that are not Xs.

[00:05:59] Physicists who claim to explain why there is something and not nothing always seem to

[00:06:03] me to be explaining why some quantum field does not remain in its lowest energy state,

[00:06:09] its vacuum state.

[00:06:11] In my ignorance, it seems to me that these physicists have mistaken a vacuum for nothing.

[00:06:17] Newton knew that what he called an immense vacuum was not nothing.

[00:06:23] After all, it had a size.

[00:06:25] It was immense.

[00:06:26] In fact, if there were no material things, the absolute space in terms of which he defined

[00:06:32] rest and motion would be just that, an immense vacuum.

[00:06:38] And to return to the physics of the present day, even if all fields were in their vacuum

[00:06:44] states, there would not be nothing.

[00:06:47] There would still be fields in their vacuum states.

[00:06:50] That is to say, it would still be the case that the number of quantum fields was not

[00:06:54] zero.

[00:06:55] Can philosophy answer the question, why are there beings?

[00:07:01] Not in my view.

[00:07:03] Certainly not in the sense, provide an answer to this question that will compel a scent

[00:07:07] from everyone who understands it.

[00:07:10] Philosophy cannot do that for any question.

[00:07:13] For even the best answers any philosopher has given to any philosophical question of

[00:07:17] any importance have been rejected by other equally well-trained and able philosophers.

[00:07:25] What philosophy can do with the question, why are there beings, I contend, is to offer

[00:07:30] various interesting answers to it and explain the limitations of those answers.

[00:07:37] That at any rate is what I am going to try to do.

[00:07:40] Now, and this discussion that follows will require a few very simple definitions.

[00:07:46] So by a necessary proposition, or a necessary truth, I am going to mean a proposition that

[00:07:53] can’t possibly be false.

[00:07:56] So for example, the proposition that 7 plus 5 equals 12 can’t possibly be false, and so

[00:08:02] that is a necessary proposition, or a more controversial example, but I think right,

[00:08:09] the proposition that the atomic number of iron is 26 can’t possibly be false.

[00:08:17] Any stuff that had atomic number 26 is going to be iron, and any stuff that doesn’t have

[00:08:25] it can’t be iron, it’s something else.

[00:08:28] And by a contingent proposition, that’s a necessary proposition, by a contingent proposition

[00:08:34] will mean a proposition that could be either true or false.

[00:08:37] In other words, a proposition that isn’t a necessary proposition, and isn’t impossible

[00:08:43] either.

[00:08:44] A contingent truth is a true contingent proposition, and a contingent falsehood is a false contingent

[00:08:51] proposition.

[00:08:52] If a proposition P and a proposition Q are so related that if P is true, then Q can’t

[00:09:01] be false, then we say that P entails Q.

[00:09:07] So for example, the proposition that the Supreme Court, the US Supreme Court has nine

[00:09:13] members, entails the proposition that if every member of the US Supreme Court votes either

[00:09:19] aye or nay on some issue, the vote will not be a tie.

[00:09:24] I have some things to say about why Leibniz’s only answer to the question why there is something

[00:09:30] and not rather nothing here, but it strikes me now that this is sort of breaks the line

[00:09:38] of thought.

[00:09:39] So I’m going to leave that aside.

[00:09:41] The answer that I’m going to consider will take the form of an argument for the proposition

[00:09:48] that it is impossible for there to be nothing, impossible for there to be no beings.

[00:09:54] I think it’s an interesting argument, but I also think it has many weak points.

[00:09:59] In order to avoid having to say the same thing twice, I’ll identify most of these weak points

[00:10:07] only after presenting the argument.

[00:10:11] The argument will involve a few simple metaphysical concepts.

[00:10:15] First, the concept of a necessary being, that is the concept of a being that could not possibly

[00:10:22] not exist.

[00:10:24] There are unfortunately no uncontroversial examples of necessary beings.

[00:10:31] Mathematical objects may be things that could not possibly not exist, but they’re not beings.

[00:10:37] But our argument will not depend on the assumption that there are any necessary beings or even

[00:10:43] on the assumption that there could be any.

[00:10:45] A necessary being could be as impossible as a round square, and that would not render

[00:10:51] the argument invalid.

[00:10:52] And then finally, a contingent being is a being that’s not a necessary being, that

[00:10:59] is a being that could possibly not exist, a being like you and me.

[00:11:04] The argument I shall offer has three premises.

[00:11:08] One of them, premise one I’ll call it, is simply that there are beings.

[00:11:14] There are cats, and neutrinos, and milk bottles, and social workers, and lots of other ones,

[00:11:21] and lots of other beings.

[00:11:22] The premise doesn’t say anything about what kinds of beings there are, it just is that

[00:11:27] there are beings.

[00:11:29] The next premise, premise two, is a generalization of statements like this one, like these three.

[00:11:36] There is an explanation of the fact that elephants exist.

[00:11:41] There is an explanation of the fact that multicellular organisms exist.

[00:11:47] There is an explanation of the fact that pulsars exist.

[00:11:53] We might try to state the generalization like this.

[00:11:57] For beings of any kind, there is an explanation of the existence of beings of that kind.

[00:12:04] But I’m not sure that necessary truths have explanations.

[00:12:09] So I’ll state premise two this way.

[00:12:13] For beings of any kind, if it is a contingent truth that there are beings of that kind,

[00:12:18] then there’s an explanation of the existence of beings of that kind.

[00:12:25] But what does it mean to say that there’s an explanation of, say, the fact that elephants

[00:12:30] exist?

[00:12:31] For present purposes, I’ll say that it means that there’s an answer to at least one of

[00:12:38] Why are there elephants?

[00:12:40] And how did it come to be that there are elephants?

[00:12:45] By an answer to a question, I mean a right or correct answer, but I’ll be very liberal

[00:12:53] about what counts as a right or correct answer to these why and how questions.

[00:13:00] For example, suppose this statement is true.

[00:13:07] Homo sapiens separated from other primate lines about 300,000 years ago.

[00:13:13] If that statement is true, I’ll count it as an answer to the question, how did there come

[00:13:18] to be human beings?

[00:13:20] Granted, there’s a lot more to say about human origins, but then no matter how full an answer,

[00:13:30] one gives to any question about how beings of a certain sort came to be, there would

[00:13:37] always be more that could be said.

[00:13:41] Now I’m going to assume, in applying this premise, that the statement beings are beings

[00:13:48] of a certain kind is false.

[00:13:51] That is, I’m going to assume that beings of a kind X are always members of a subset of

[00:14:00] beings.

[00:14:01] Well, let me put it yet another way.

[00:14:05] The word beings doesn’t mark out a kind of being.

[00:14:11] Kinds of beings are always some subset of the set of beings.

[00:14:17] And the third premise, premise three is this.

[00:14:22] For beings of any kind, if it is a contingent truth that beings of that kind exist, then

[00:14:29] any explanation of beings of that kind must involve beings that are not of that kind.

[00:14:37] For example, any example of the existence of elephants must involve things that are

[00:14:43] not elephants.

[00:14:47] Even our very sketchy proposed answer to the question, how did there come to be human beings

[00:14:54] involved things that weren’t human beings, namely other primate lines from which the

[00:15:01] homo sapiens separated.

[00:15:04] So here, finally, is the argument.

[00:15:09] This is an argument for the impossibility of there being nothing in the sense of there

[00:15:15] being no beings or the number of beings being zero.

[00:15:20] So first of all, remember, contingent beings are beings that can possibly not exist.

[00:15:27] So we begin by saying either contingent beings exist or no contingent beings exist.

[00:15:33] Well, if no contingent beings exist, then since there are beings, that was premise one

[00:15:39] that there are beings, and since every being is either necessary or contingent, there are

[00:15:46] beings, every being is necessary, contingent, and there are no contingent beings, then all

[00:15:53] beings, then there are necessary beings.

[00:15:56] If there are necessary beings, it’s impossible for there to be nothing.

[00:16:00] Okay, well, suppose then that contingent beings do exist.

[00:16:06] We just had an argument if no contingent beings exist, it’s impossible for there to be nothing.

[00:16:12] Now, but suppose, so suppose contingent beings do exist.

[00:16:17] That contingent beings exist is either a necessary truth or a contingent truth.

[00:16:23] If it’s a necessary truth, then it’s impossible for there to be nothing.

[00:16:28] Okay, suppose then that contingent beings exist, and it’s a contingent truth, that contingent

[00:16:35] beings exist.

[00:16:37] Then by premise two, there is an explanation of the existence of contingent beings.

[00:16:45] Premise two, remember, was that for any kind of being, there’s an explanation for the existence

[00:16:52] of beings of that kind, either an answer to the question, why are there such beings or

[00:16:59] an answer to the question, how did such beings come to be?

[00:17:04] An explanation that by premise three is going to involve beings that are not contingent

[00:17:10] beings.

[00:17:12] No explanation of the existence of contingent beings would involve only contingent beings,

[00:17:19] because that’s the thing to be explained.

[00:17:21] You would have to appeal to contingent beings to explain why there are contingent beings.

[00:17:30] Beings that are not contingent beings are necessary beings.

[00:17:34] And therefore, if it’s a contingent truth, the contingent beings exist, necessary beings

[00:17:39] exist.

[00:17:40] And if necessary beings exist, it’s impossible for there to be nothing.

[00:17:44] Therefore, it’s impossible to be nothing.

[00:17:47] Well, we’ve found out all the roots, all the possible roads, all the possible logical forks

[00:17:53] in the road, and they all lead to the conclusion that it’s impossible for there to be nothing.

[00:17:58] All right, so there’s the argument.

[00:18:01] Is it any good?

[00:18:02] Does it establish anything?

[00:18:05] Well, there’s nothing wrong with the logic of the argument.

[00:18:09] All the therefores are formally correct.

[00:18:12] If there’s any fault to find with the argument, that fault must lie with its premises or with

[00:18:19] some sort of non-formal conceptual confusion to be found in the reasoning.

[00:18:24] There are two things that can be said against the premise of an argument, that it is wrong

[00:18:31] or that it is meaningless.

[00:18:34] In Pauli’s words, that it’s not even wrong.

[00:18:37] And reasoning that is formally unobjectionable can nevertheless fail to make sense.

[00:18:44] Consider for example, the first sentence of the argument, which was, either contingent

[00:18:50] beings exist or no contingent beings exist.

[00:18:55] I did not include this statement in my list of the argument’s premises because it’s of

[00:19:01] the form P or not P. But if the words contingent beings exist are meaningless, it’s not right.

[00:19:09] It’s not even wrong.

[00:19:13] Now I’m going to give you a list of words and phrases used in the argument that are

[00:19:18] either not words or phrases of our ordinary, common language or everyday speech, nor are

[00:19:26] they technical terms of one of the hard sciences, which I will presume that technical terms

[00:19:33] of the hard sciences are all well defined.

[00:19:36] Now some of these words didn’t occur in the actual statement of the argument, but occurred

[00:19:41] rather in the explanations and definitions that led up to it.

[00:19:46] The words and phrases are being, causal relation, proposition, necessary proposition, contingent

[00:19:55] proposition, necessary being, contingent being.

[00:20:01] I don’t think that these terms have been supplied with meanings as precise as the meanings with

[00:20:07] which the terms like linear momentum and torque and moment of inertia are supplied with in

[00:20:14] any introduction, any decent introductory physics text.

[00:20:21] If I had more time, I could have done better with them. Better, but not well enough for

[00:20:27] the argument to be unobjectionable because of the ill definition of the terms used in

[00:20:37] the argument.

[00:20:40] And then there’s premise 2. There may be difficulties with premises 1 and 3, but if so, they are

[00:20:47] far smaller. They pale into insignificance beside the difficulties that in fact premise

[00:20:55] 2.

[00:20:57] For one thing, there is this phrase, kind of being. What does it mean?

[00:21:03] Premise 2 speaks of beings of any kind, and the argument tacitly assumes that contingent

[00:21:11] being is a kind of being. This could be regarded as a suppressed premise of the argument. But

[00:21:20] the examples that perhaps lend some inductive support to premise 2, that is that for every

[00:21:28] kind of being, if it’s a contingent truth that there are beings of that kind, then there’s

[00:21:34] an explanation. Maybe only a very weak explanation, but some sort of explanation of the existence

[00:21:42] of beings of that kind.

[00:21:45] But the examples that lend some inductive support to that, examples like there’s an

[00:21:51] explanation of the existence of elephants, and there’s an explanation of the existence

[00:21:57] of pulsars. These refer to contingent beings that are proper subsets of the set of contingent

[00:22:04] beings, and really small subsets of that, and small subsets that can be defined by the

[00:22:11] specification of certain empirical properties of their members. Perhaps statements like

[00:22:19] there is an explanation of the existence of elephants, and there is an explanation of

[00:22:24] the existence of pulsars are true, but the statement there is an explanation of the existence

[00:22:31] of contingent beings is false. Or perhaps whether that last statement is true or false,

[00:22:41] whether it’s true or false that there’s an explanation of the existence of contingent

[00:22:44] beings. These statements like, listing statements like there is an explanation of the existence

[00:22:52] of elephants, and there’s an explanation of the existence of pulsars, and there’s an explanation

[00:22:59] for the existence of social workers. And so when they don’t do anything to make that,

[00:23:08] to provide evidence for the proposition that there is an explanation for the existence

[00:23:13] of contingent beings.

[00:23:17] And then there’s the fact that there are no, or at least there are precious few axioms

[00:23:23] in philosophy. So what I mean by that is, a philosopher Alice, let’s say, will present

[00:23:31] an argument for, oh let’s say the argument, if we have free will, determinism is false.

[00:23:38] We have free will, therefore determinism is false. And another philosopher, Bertram, will

[00:23:46] come along and counter with, I agree with you that if we have free will, determinism

[00:23:51] is false. But I say determinism is true, therefore we don’t have free will. And his argument

[00:23:59] is logically valid if hers is. And he used to say which of them is right. We can suggest

[00:24:07] how such a thing might happen in the present case. Suppose that is the argument that we’ve

[00:24:14] been looking at. Suppose Bertram, the guy I just introduced, believes that all beings

[00:24:19] are contingent beings, and argues as follows, all beings are contingent beings. Then he

[00:24:26] has premise three, for beings of any kind, if it’s a contingent truth that beings of

[00:24:32] that kind exist, then any explanation of the existence of beings of that kind must involve

[00:24:38] beings that are not of that kind, our premise three. And it follows from there are no contingent

[00:24:45] beings, and premise three, that if it’s a contingent truth that contingent beings exist,

[00:24:51] there is no explanation of the existence of contingent beings, and that implies that our

[00:24:58] premise two is false. And who’s to say who would be right in a dispute like that? Also

[00:25:08] someone can say, but if there could have been nothing, if nothing exists as a statement

[00:25:13] of a perfectly possible way for reality to be, and yet there just happens to be something,

[00:25:20] well that’s just weird. And Bertram can reply, really? I don’t find it weird. As I say, there

[00:25:27] are no axioms in philosophy. This is not the end of weak points in the argument. Here’s

[00:25:33] another one. Then I’ll leave it to those of you who are interested in such things to

[00:25:38] figure out. There’s a place in the lead up to the argument in which I made a stipulation

[00:25:44] that’s entirely ad hoc. The stipulation being that the statement beings are being of a certain

[00:25:52] kind, beings are beings of a certain kind is false. That is, one of the kinds of being

[00:25:59] is being itself. That might be true. You know, we have in philosophy, we have this tendency

[00:26:11] to include extreme cases in our definitions. For example, a set is one of its own subsets.

[00:26:18] A set is one of its own subsets. A subset is so defined that for any set S, S is a

[00:26:26] subset of S. In mereology, that is the theory of parts and wholes, every object is regarded

[00:26:35] as a part of itself, the biggest one. Well, maybe being is a kind of being, a kind of

[00:26:41] being, the biggest kind, the one that includes everything in being.

[00:26:47] Well, my lesson, the lesson of this talk, if I have any, is this. Physicists and cosmologists

[00:26:55] cannot answer the question, why is there something and not really nothing, and philosophers can’t

[00:27:01] answer it either. Therefore, at least if we leave aside the possibility of an answer provided

[00:27:07] by divine revelation, no one can answer it. And I thank you very much.

[00:27:15] Thank you for listening to Philosophy For Our Times. What did you think of the episode?

[00:27:20] Please let us know in the email, in the show notes. And if you want more of the world’s

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[00:27:31] to ii.tv for much, much more. In any case, we will see you next week for more philosophy.

[00:27:40] Bye.

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