Graham Priest: The Metaphysics of Nothingness | Robinson's Podcast #38
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ก.ค. 2024
- Graham Priest is a Distinguished Professor in the philosophy department at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is one of the most influential living philosophers, and has done important work on a wide range of topics, ranging from the philosophy of mathematics (his doctorate is in mathematics from the London School of Economics) to logic and eastern philosophy. In this episode, Robinson and Graham discuss the metaphysics of nothingness and non-being, touching on-among other things-Zen Buddhism, Quine’s conception of ontological commitment, impossible worlds, and why there’s something rather than nothing.
00:00 Introduction
04:59 Graham's Path to Philosophy
08:45 On Analytic and Continental Philosophy
17:33 On Quine
27:23 Quine, Quantifiers, and What There Is
41:51 On Nonexistent Objects
47:02 Noneism and the Philosophy of Mathematics
01:14:14 On Impossible Worlds
01:24:35 Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
01:30:55 Zen, Buddhism, and Nothingness
01:46:36 The Nyāya Philosophy of Nothingness
01:52:59 Graham's Interest in Eastern Philosophy
02:01:04 Philosophy as World-Building
02:05:36 Sylvan's Box
02:10:06 Zen and How to Live One's Life
02:20:28 Zen on Mind and Language
02:30:08 The Basics of Buddhist Ethics
02:52:08 Graham the Martial Artist
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So amazing I managed to watch the entire 3 hour podcast in 10 minutes
Because so much of it was nothing? 🤔
Wow, you are consistently covering interesting topics and having on guests at the top of their fields that don't get enough air time. No other podcast has such a concentrated roster of notable academics in these fields (philosophy, math, logic, and philosophy of___)
Graham is one of the best! I'm glad to hear you're enjoying it. Hopefully things are just getting started, because it still feels like my feet haven't even got off the ground yet.
Always so insightful man. Keep the good work! 😊
Based on the Theravada canon, violence and war is not condoned or accepted. Certain forms of violence are generally an afterthought (suicide for example) to Gautama. I’ve also checked in the library archives and journals, and there hasn’t been anything i could find to suggest that sutta exists in the Theravada canonical texts. Maybe in the Mahayana tradition however.
I really enjoy your podcasts that includes many pre-eminent philosophers in their specific domains. Can you invite Charles Parsons to your podcast?
I would love to speak with him!
Just a grammar/linguistics comment: as someone who knows quite a bit about linguistics in general and grammar in particular, I find it odd to make a distinction between “noun phrases” and “quantifier phrases”. These so called quantifier phrases (some people, many cats etc) are all just noun phrases that happen to contain quantifiers. The quantifier is not the head of the phrase - the head is still the noun, so it is still a noun phrase. Maybe it is reasonable to make this distinction for a logician or philosopher, but it doesn’t make any sense grammatically or linguistically. I guess it is okay for philosophers to use grammatical terms “incorrectly” if it is beneficial to their analysis, but it becomes very confusing to people like me.
What's the name of the author you were reading at 58:52?
This is the second time I listen to it, and I’m still just as confused about how he uses grammatical terminology (like “quantifier phrase”) as the first time, haha!
Thanks for an interesting video! This comment is long, so sorry up front about that.
1. Is “nothing” in the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” (WSRTN) a quantifier or a noun?
- I disagree that “nothing” is used as a quantifier and think it’s the noun. We think of “nothing” as a quantifier from the viewpoint of our minds, which exist. Our minds, that exist, have to define “nothing” as the lack of all existent things, or no thing. But, our minds would not be there in “nothing”, so “nothing” itself, whether or not it exists, is independent of our having to define it as no thing, the quantifier. But, nevertheless, I’m fine with substituting Dr. Priest’s “nothingness” for “nothing” in the question.
2. What is “nothing” (or “nothingness”)?
- “Nothing” is not such a peculiar object as was suggested. As above, our minds, and therefore our talking about “nothing” as an object, would not be there in “nothing”, so whether or not “nothing” is an object is independent of our talking about it. That is, talking about “nothing” does not turn it into an object, or reify it.
3. In regard to the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” (WSRTN), my view is:
I think that to ever get a satisfying answer to this question, we're going to have to address the possibility that there could have been "nothing", but now there is "something". If any existing solution were satisfying, we wouldn't still be asking the question. Another way to say that you start with "nothing" is by using the analogy that you start with a 0 (e.g., "nothing") and end up with a 1 (e.g., "something"). We know you can't change a 0 into a 1 (ex nihilo nihil fit), so the only way to do this is if that 0 isn't really a 0 but is actually a 1 in disguise, even though it looks like 0 on the surface. That is, in one way of thinking, "nothing" just looks like "nothing". But, if we think about "nothing" in a different way, we can see through its disguise and see that it's a "something". That is the situation we previously, and incorrectly, thought of as "nothing" is actually an existent entity, or a "something". So, “something" doesn't come out of "nothing". Instead, the situation we used to think of as "nothing" is actually a "something" if we could see through its disguise. A proposed mechanism for how that can be is as follows.
How can "nothing" be a "something"? I think it's first important to try and figure out why any “normal” thing (like a book, or a set) can exist and be a “something”. I propose that a thing exists if it is a grouping. A grouping ties stuff together into a unit whole and, in so doing, defines what is contained within that new unit whole. This grouping together of what is contained within provides a surface, or boundary, that defines what is contained within, that we can see and touch as the surface of the thing and that gives "substance" and existence to the thing as a new unit whole that's a different existent entity than any components contained within considered individually. This surface or boundary doesn't have some magical power to give existence to stuff. But, it is is the visual and physical manifestation of the grouping together of stuff into a new unit whole or existent entity. The grouping idea is not new. Others have used the words “unity” or “one” instead of “grouping”, but the meaning is the same. Aristotle’s forms united matter into things like rocks and trees. Leibniz said “...that what is not truly one being is not truly one being either”, and G. Priest's “...it is clear that being and unity come to the same thing”. What does a grouping into a new unit whole do if not create a unity or a one?
Some examples of groupings are 1.) the grouping together of paper and ink atoms to create a new unit whole called a book that's a different existent entity than the atoms considered individually; 2.) the grouping together of previously unrelated elements to create a set; and 3.) even the mental construct labeled the concept of a car is a grouping together of the concepts tires, chassis, steering wheel, use for transportation, etc. Here, the grouping is better thought of as the top-level label "car" that the mind uses to group subheadings together into one.
Next, when you get rid of all matter, energy, space/volume, time, abstract concepts, laws or constructs of physics/math/logic, possible worlds/possibilities, properties, consciousness, and finally minds, including the mind of the person trying to imagine this supposed lack of all, we think that this is the lack of all existent entities, or "absolute nothing" But, once everything is gone and the mind is gone, this situation, this "absolute nothing", would, by its very nature, define the situation completely. This "nothing" would be it; it would be the all. It would be the entirety, or whole amount, of all that is present. Is there anything else besides that "absolute nothing"? No. It is "nothing", and it is the all. Said another way: Does “nothing" (remember this “nothing” is that when the mind isn’t there either) completely define what’s there? Does “nothing” tell you and define exactly what the situation, or state of affairs, is? I think the answer is clearly yes. With “nothing”, you don’t have to go looking around to make sure you have everything. That “nothing” is everything.
A completely-defined situation/entirety/whole amount/"the all" is a grouping, which means that the situation we previously considered to be "absolute nothing" is itself an existent entity. It's only once all things, including all minds, are gone does “nothing” become "the all" and a new unit whole that we can then, after the fact, see from the outside as a whole unit. One might object and say that being a grouping is a property so how can it be there in "nothing"? The answer is that the property of being a grouping (e.g., the all grouping) only appears after all else, including all properties and the mind of the person trying to imagine this, is gone. In other words, the very lack of all existent entities is itself what allows this new property of being the all grouping to appear.
Some other points are:
1. It's very important to distinguish between the mind's conception of "nothing" and "nothing" itself, in which no minds would be there. These are two different things. Humans are stuck having to define "nothing" in our existent minds (i.e., "somethings"), but "nothing" itself doesn't have this constraint. Whether or not "nothing" itself exists is independent of how we define it or talk about it.
This is also why just talking about "nothing" does not reify it. Our talking about "nothing" has no impact on whether or not "nothing" itself exists.
2. The words "was" (i.e., "was nothing") and "now" (i.e., “now something") in the first paragraph imply a temporal change, but time would not exist until there was "something", so I don't use these words in a time sense. Instead, I suggest that the two different words, “nothing” and “something”, describe the same situation (e.g., "the lack of all"), and that the human mind can view the switching between the two different words, or ways of visualizing "the lack of all", as a temporal change from "was" to "now".
3. While no one can directly visualize "nothing" because the mind is not present in "nothing", what we can do is to try to visualize the entire volume of the universe/reality shrinking down to just the size of our mind's eye and then trying to extrapolate what it would be like if the mind weren't there. That's as far as we can get.
If anyone's interested, more details are at:
philpapers.org/rec/GRAPST-4
sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/
If this shameless plug is not allowed, I’ll be happy to remove it. Thanks!
“Nothing” is neither a noun nor a quantifier; it’s a pronoun. But these philosophers seem to use grammatical terminology in a very different way from linguists. The terms often seem to mean something different from what they mean in linguistics.