The Puzzle of Existence: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?Tyron Goldschmidt This groundbreaking volume investigates the most fundamental question of all: Why is there something rather than nothing? The question is explored from diverse and radical perspectives: religious, naturalistic, platonistic and skeptical. Does science answer the question? Or does theology? Does everything need an explanation? Or can there be brute, inexplicable facts? Could there have been nothing whatsoever? Or is there any being that could not have failed to exist? Is the question meaningful after all? The volume advances cutting-edge debates in metaphysics, philosophy of cosmology and philosophy of religion, and will intrigue and challenge readers interested in any of these subjects. |
Contents
Understanding the Question | 1 |
2 Could There Be a Complete Explanation of Everything? | 22 |
3 Ultimate Naturalistic Causal Explanations | 46 |
4 Reasoning Without the Principle of Sufficient Reason | 64 |
5 The Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Grand Inexplicable | 80 |
6 Contingency Dependence and the Ontology of the Many | 95 |
7 Conceiving Absolute Greatness | 110 |
8 A Proof of Gods Reality | 128 |
11 Metaphysical Nihilism Revisited | 182 |
Compared and Defended | 197 |
13 The Probabilistic Explanation of Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing | 215 |
14 Are Some Things Naturally Necessary? | 235 |
15 Questioning the Question | 252 |
16 Ontological Pluralism the Gradation of Being and the Question Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? | 272 |
Contributors | 287 |
| 291 | |
9 Methodological Separatism Modal Pluralism and Metaphysical Nihilism | 144 |
10 Contingency | 167 |
Other editions - View all
The Puzzle of Existence: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Tyron Goldschmidt Limited preview - 2014 |
The Puzzle of Existence: Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Tyron Goldschmidt No preview available - 2013 |
The Puzzle of Existence: Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Tyron Goldschmidt No preview available - 2014 |
Common terms and phrases
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