blog.kennypearce.net

Introducing The Puzzle of Existence

I am currently in the process of putting together a review of The Puzzle of Existence: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?, edited by Tyron Goldschmidt, for Faith and Philosophy. For edited volumes like this, reviews never allow enough space for substantive discussion every contribution, which is prima facie unfortunate. (I say prima facie because if the reviews were that long, I, at least, would probably read a lot fewer of them.) In light of this situation, I have resolved, before writing my review, to write blog posts with critical comments on each of the chapters.

This post is mostly just to announce my intention, but let me add a few remarks about the book and its introduction. First: it's expensive. The list price is $125, and even Amazon is selling it for $105.65. I have taught this topic before and am likely (I hope) to do so again, but unless and until that price comes down (perhaps via the introduction of a paperback edition), I can't see assigning this book to undergraduates. (I have already read the first two chapters, in addition to the introduction, and I do not think the level of difficulty is prohibitive; it's just the price that's the problem!)

The first section of Goldschmidt's introduction provides a basic account of the philophical concepts used to disambiguate the question ('why is there something rather than nothing?') and formulate possible answers. These include the abstract/concrete contrast, the necessary/contingent contrast, and the notion of a possible world. The discussion is brief enough (less than 3 pages) that professional philosophers will not get impatient, but provides enough information, in a clear enough fashion, for those unfamiliar with these topics to get started. The rest of the introduction is devoted to a taxonomy of the possible interpretations of the question followed by an account of possible responses to the question on its various philosophically interesting interpretations. Along the way, Goldschmidt does what introductions do and makes some mention of the aims of each of the contributions to the volume.

As the introduction makes clear, the contributors disagree as much on the legitimacy and interpretation of the question as on the answers (if any) they favor. It appears that most of the contributors will be interested in the question of why there have ever been any beings which are concrete and/or contingent. The dominant responses to this question have been two: either the contingent concrete beings were created by a necessarily existent God, or the question has no answer. Among those who say the question has no answer, there are those who say that the question is somehow illegitimate or ill-formed, and there are those who say that not every well-formed question has an answer. (I suppose there is no reason why someone shouldn't say both.) To Goldschmidt's credit, he promises that the volume will canvas several other, less traditional responses as well as these. Stay tuned for upcoming posts to see how these go.

(Cross-posted at The Prosblogion.)