Nothing: a philosophical history
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Genesis 1:1-2 Creation stories try to explain how everything originates from nothing. They leave something out. Nothing also has a history. This book aims...
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| Format: | Buch |
| Sprache: | English |
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New York, NY
Oxford University Press
[2022]
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| Online-Zugang: | Inhaltsverzeichnis |
| Zusammenfassung: | "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Genesis 1:1-2 Creation stories try to explain how everything originates from nothing. They leave something out. Nothing also has a history. This book aims to tell it. Books about nothing go back for billions of years. So say astronomers who conjecture that civilizations formed soon after the universe cooled to form stars and planets. What did the antennas of these historians miss that might be captured in this book? The hominid side of nothing. I start with a cousin of homo sapiens who picked up a pebble with holes that seemed to make faces (figure 0.1). Many faces later (each chapter pairs a philosopher with an absence), I conclude with Bertrand Russell's precise analysis of how Caspar does not exist' could be true (chapter 22). About the fifth century BC, three civilizations independently and simultaneously began to philosophize about nothing: China (chapter 3), India (chapters 4 and 5), and Greece (chapters 6-10). They had previously focused on what is the case. Light poured on nature, architecture, and society. But then, in a cross-civilizational black-out, emerged disparate nay-sayers who shifted attention to what is not the case. Behold, the holes in a sponge are absences of sponge! Holes are what make the sponge useful for absorbing liquid. The sponge can exist without the holes. But the holes cannot "exist" without the sponge. They are parasites that depend on their host. Yet the two get along well. Without holes, there would not be so many sponges in your house. Your shadow is a more complex parasite. It is a hole you bore into the light. Your shadow depends on both you and the light. You and light are rather mysterious. Your shadow partakes of both mysteries. Omissions have a yet more complex relationship with action. Actions are events and so are not "things." When you refrain from voting, you do not subtract from what is but rather from what might be. When you regret not voting, your emotion requires counterfactual history: If I had voted, my friend would have won. You are in the land of near-misses. Being is riddled with non-beings. Why are the riddles first posed 2,600 years ago? Why all at once? This negative turn in world philosophy is the coincidence that inspired me to write Nothing: A Philosophical History. My hope was to find some common factor that could explain the simultaneous and independent shift in perspective. The common cause I postulate in this book is the deployment of a cognitive trick dreamed up cave dwellers. Any waking experience of an event can also be explained by the parasitical hypothesis 'he event was merely dreamt.' The parasite takes over the consequences of the host hypothesis The event was perceived"-- |
| Beschreibung: | xxii, 339 Seiten Illustrationen 22 cm |
| ISBN: | 9780199742837 |
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| 520 | 3 | |a "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Genesis 1:1-2 Creation stories try to explain how everything originates from nothing. They leave something out. Nothing also has a history. This book aims to tell it. Books about nothing go back for billions of years. So say astronomers who conjecture that civilizations formed soon after the universe cooled to form stars and planets. What did the antennas of these historians miss that might be captured in this book? The hominid side of nothing. I start with a cousin of homo sapiens who picked up a pebble with holes that seemed to make faces (figure 0.1). Many faces later (each chapter pairs a philosopher with an absence), I conclude with Bertrand Russell's precise analysis of how Caspar does not exist' could be true (chapter 22). | |
| 520 | 3 | |a About the fifth century BC, three civilizations independently and simultaneously began to philosophize about nothing: China (chapter 3), India (chapters 4 and 5), and Greece (chapters 6-10). They had previously focused on what is the case. Light poured on nature, architecture, and society. But then, in a cross-civilizational black-out, emerged disparate nay-sayers who shifted attention to what is not the case. Behold, the holes in a sponge are absences of sponge! Holes are what make the sponge useful for absorbing liquid. The sponge can exist without the holes. But the holes cannot "exist" without the sponge. They are parasites that depend on their host. Yet the two get along well. Without holes, there would not be so many sponges in your house. Your shadow is a more complex parasite. It is a hole you bore into the light. Your shadow depends on both you and the light. You and light are rather mysterious. Your shadow partakes of both mysteries. | |
| 520 | 3 | |a Omissions have a yet more complex relationship with action. Actions are events and so are not "things." When you refrain from voting, you do not subtract from what is but rather from what might be. When you regret not voting, your emotion requires counterfactual history: If I had voted, my friend would have won. You are in the land of near-misses. Being is riddled with non-beings. Why are the riddles first posed 2,600 years ago? Why all at once? This negative turn in world philosophy is the coincidence that inspired me to write Nothing: A Philosophical History. My hope was to find some common factor that could explain the simultaneous and independent shift in perspective. The common cause I postulate in this book is the deployment of a cognitive trick dreamed up cave dwellers. Any waking experience of an event can also be explained by the parasitical hypothesis 'he event was merely dreamt.' The parasite takes over the consequences of the host hypothesis The event was perceived"-- | |
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Datensatz im Suchindex
| _version_ | 1804183475072270336 |
|---|---|
| adam_text | Contents List ofFigures Preface Acknowledgments ix xiii xxi I. NOTHING REPRESENTED 1. The Makapansgat Hominid: Picturing Absence 2. Hermes Trismegistus: Writing Out Absences 3 12 II. RELATIVE NOTHING 3. Lao-tzu: Absence of Action 23 4. Buddha: Absence of Wholes 38 5. Nagarjuna: Absence of Ground 63 III. ABSOLUTE NOTHING 6. Parmenides: Absence of Absence 77 7. Anaxagoras: Absence of Total Absences 90 8. Leucippus: Local Absolute Absences 102 IV. POTENTIAL NOTHING 9. Plato: Shades of Absence 119 10. Aristotle: Potential Absence 138 11. Lucretius: Your Future Infinite Absence 152
viii CONTENTS V. DIVINE NOTHING 12. Saint Katherine of Alexandria: The Absence of Nonexistent Women Philosophers 161 13. Augustine: The Evil of Absence Is an Absence of Evil 164 14. Fridugisus: Synesthesia and Absences 179 15. Maimonides: The Divination of Absence 190 VI. SCIENTIFIC NOTHING 16. Bradwardine: Absence of Determination 207 17. Newton: A Safe Space for Absence 226 18. Leibniz: Absence of Contradiction 238 VII. SECULAR NOTHING 19. Schopenhauer: Absence of Meaning 255 20. Bergson: The Evolution of Absence 275 21. Sartre: Absence Perceived 289 22. Bertrand Russell: Absence of Referents 309 References Index 325 333
|
| adam_txt |
Contents List ofFigures Preface Acknowledgments ix xiii xxi I. NOTHING REPRESENTED 1. The Makapansgat Hominid: Picturing Absence 2. Hermes Trismegistus: Writing Out Absences 3 12 II. RELATIVE NOTHING 3. Lao-tzu: Absence of Action 23 4. Buddha: Absence of Wholes 38 5. Nagarjuna: Absence of Ground 63 III. ABSOLUTE NOTHING 6. Parmenides: Absence of Absence 77 7. Anaxagoras: Absence of Total Absences 90 8. Leucippus: Local Absolute Absences 102 IV. POTENTIAL NOTHING 9. Plato: Shades of Absence 119 10. Aristotle: Potential Absence 138 11. Lucretius: Your Future Infinite Absence 152
viii CONTENTS V. DIVINE NOTHING 12. Saint Katherine of Alexandria: The Absence of Nonexistent Women Philosophers 161 13. Augustine: The Evil of Absence Is an Absence of Evil 164 14. Fridugisus: Synesthesia and Absences 179 15. Maimonides: The Divination of Absence 190 VI. SCIENTIFIC NOTHING 16. Bradwardine: Absence of Determination 207 17. Newton: A Safe Space for Absence 226 18. Leibniz: Absence of Contradiction 238 VII. SECULAR NOTHING 19. Schopenhauer: Absence of Meaning 255 20. Bergson: The Evolution of Absence 275 21. Sartre: Absence Perceived 289 22. Bertrand Russell: Absence of Referents 309 References Index 325 333 |
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| spelling | Sorensen, Roy A. Verfasser (DE-588)1089306121 aut Nothing a philosophical history Roy Sorensen New York, NY Oxford University Press [2022] © 2022 xxii, 339 Seiten Illustrationen 22 cm txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Genesis 1:1-2 Creation stories try to explain how everything originates from nothing. They leave something out. Nothing also has a history. This book aims to tell it. Books about nothing go back for billions of years. So say astronomers who conjecture that civilizations formed soon after the universe cooled to form stars and planets. What did the antennas of these historians miss that might be captured in this book? The hominid side of nothing. I start with a cousin of homo sapiens who picked up a pebble with holes that seemed to make faces (figure 0.1). Many faces later (each chapter pairs a philosopher with an absence), I conclude with Bertrand Russell's precise analysis of how Caspar does not exist' could be true (chapter 22). About the fifth century BC, three civilizations independently and simultaneously began to philosophize about nothing: China (chapter 3), India (chapters 4 and 5), and Greece (chapters 6-10). They had previously focused on what is the case. Light poured on nature, architecture, and society. But then, in a cross-civilizational black-out, emerged disparate nay-sayers who shifted attention to what is not the case. Behold, the holes in a sponge are absences of sponge! Holes are what make the sponge useful for absorbing liquid. The sponge can exist without the holes. But the holes cannot "exist" without the sponge. They are parasites that depend on their host. Yet the two get along well. Without holes, there would not be so many sponges in your house. Your shadow is a more complex parasite. It is a hole you bore into the light. Your shadow depends on both you and the light. You and light are rather mysterious. Your shadow partakes of both mysteries. Omissions have a yet more complex relationship with action. Actions are events and so are not "things." When you refrain from voting, you do not subtract from what is but rather from what might be. When you regret not voting, your emotion requires counterfactual history: If I had voted, my friend would have won. You are in the land of near-misses. Being is riddled with non-beings. Why are the riddles first posed 2,600 years ago? Why all at once? This negative turn in world philosophy is the coincidence that inspired me to write Nothing: A Philosophical History. My hope was to find some common factor that could explain the simultaneous and independent shift in perspective. The common cause I postulate in this book is the deployment of a cognitive trick dreamed up cave dwellers. Any waking experience of an event can also be explained by the parasitical hypothesis 'he event was merely dreamt.' The parasite takes over the consequences of the host hypothesis The event was perceived"-- Nichts (DE-588)4042122-3 gnd rswk-swf Philosophie (DE-588)4045791-6 gnd rswk-swf Nothing (Philosophy) / History Philosophy / History Nothing (Philosophy) Philosophy History Nichts (DE-588)4042122-3 s Philosophie (DE-588)4045791-6 s DE-604 Erscheint auch als Online-Ausgabe 978-0-19-991232-2 Digitalisierung BSB München - ADAM Catalogue Enrichment application/pdf http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&local_base=BVB01&doc_number=033261304&sequence=000001&line_number=0001&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA Inhaltsverzeichnis |
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