The Metaphysics Of Existence And Nonexistence

Nonexistence is ubiquitous, yet mysterious. This volume explores some of the most puzzling questions about non-being and nonexistence, and offers answers from diverse philosophical perspectives. The contributors draw on analytic, continental, Buddhist, and Jewish philosophical traditions, and the topics range from metaphysics to ethics, from philosophy of science to philosophy of language, and beyond.

Are there nonexistent objects? Can we make sense of objects having properties without thinking that there are nonexistent objects? Is existence a predicate? Can we make sense of necessarily existing objects depending on God? Tackling these central questions, Matthew Davidson explores the metaphysics of existence and nonexistence. He presents an extended argument for independence actualism, a previously undefended view that objects can have properties in worlds and at times at which they do not exist. Among other unique points of discussion, Davidson considers the nature of actualism, arguments for and against serious actualism, the semantics of "exists" as a predicate, the merits of different sorts of Meinongian theories, and different views on which God might ground the existence of necessarily existing abstracta. The book offers a Lewisian-style argument for adopting independence actualism in that the view may be used to solve many problems in metaphysics, philosophy of language and philosophy of religion.

Are there nonexistent objects? Can we make sense of objects having properties without thinking that there are nonexistent objects? Is existence a predicate? Can we make sense of necessarily existing objects depending on God? Tackling these central questions, Matthew Davidson explores the metaphysics of existence and nonexistence. He presents an extended argument for independence actualism, a previously undefended view that objects can have properties in worlds and at times at which they do not exist. Among other unique points of discussion, Davidson considers the nature of actualism, arguments for and against serious actualism, the semantics of “exists” as a predicate, the merits of different sorts of Meinongian theories, and different views on which God might ground the existence of necessarily existing abstracta. The book offers a Lewisian-style argument for adopting independence actualism in that the view may be used to solve many problems in metaphysics, philosophy of language and philosophy of religion.

Does the real world, defined as a world of objects that exist independent of human interests, concerns, and cognitive activities, really exist? Jan Westerhoff argues that we have good reason to believe it does not. His discussion considers four main facets of the idea of the real world, ranging from the existence of a separate external and internal world (comprising various mental states congregated around a self), to the existence of an ontological foundation that grounds the existence of all the entities in the world, and the existence of an ultimately true theory that provides a final account of all there is. As Westerhoff discusses the reasons for rejecting the postulation of an external world behind our representations, he asserts that the internal world is not as epistemically transparent as is usually assumed, and that there are good reasons for adopting an anti-foundational account of ontological dependence. Drawing on conclusions from the ancient Indian philosophical system of Madhyamaka Buddhism, Westerhoff defends his stance in a purely Western philosophical framework, and affirms that ontology, and philosophy more generally, need not be conceived as providing an ultimately true theory of the world.

In Eliminativism, Objects, and Persons, Jiri Benovsky defends the view that he doesn't exist. In this book, he also defends the view that this book itself doesn't exist. But this did not prevent him to write the book, and although in Benovsky's view you don't exist either, this does not prevent you to read it. Benovsky defends a brand of non-exceptionalist eliminativism. Some eliminativists, typically focusing on ordinary material objects such as chairs and hammers, make exceptions, for instance for blue whales (that is, living beings) or for persons (that is, conscious organisms). Benovsky takes one by one all types of allegedly existing objects like chairs, whales, and persons and shows that from the metaphysical point of view they are more trouble than they are worth—we are much better off without them. He thus defends an eliminativist view about ordinary objects as well as the 'no-Self' view, where he explores connections between metaphysics, phenomenology, and Buddhist thought. He then also considers the case of aesthetic objects, focusing on musical works and photographs, and shows that the claim of their non-existence solves the many problems that arise when one tries to find an appropriate ontological category for them, and that such an eliminativist view is more natural than what we might have thought. The arguments provided here are always topic-specific: each type of entity is given its own type of treatment, thus proving a varied and solid foundation for a generalized, non-exceptionalist, full-blown eliminativist worldview.

Introduction: omnipresence of information as the incentive for transdisciplinarity / Mark Burgin and Wolfgang Hofkirchner -- Part I. Theory of information -- How to produce a transdisciplinary information concept for a universal theory of information / Søren Brier -- Inaccessible information and mathematical theory of oracles / Mark Burgin -- Emergence of symbolic information by the ritualisation transition / R. Feistel -- The law of "information conversion and intelligence creation" / Yixin Zhong -- Topoi of systems : on the onto-epistemic foundations of matter and information / Rainer E. Zimmermann -- Part II. Philosophy of information -- Transdisciplinarity seen through information, communication, computation, (inter-)action and cognition / Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, Daniel Kade, Markus Wallmyr, Tobias Holstein and Alexander Almér -- A unified science-philosophy of information in the quest for transdisciplinarity / Wu Kun and Joseph E. Brenner -- Natural information and spiritual information as an outcome of the transdisciplinary methodology / Basarab Nicolescu -- A new perspective on the existence and non-existence / Wu Tianqi -- Part III. Applications of information -- Information and the evolution of human communication / Manuel Bohn -- Information processing and Fechner's problem as a choice of arithmetic / Marek Czachor and Centrum Leo Apostel -- A few questions related to information and symmetries in physics / György Darvas -- The "sociotype" approach to social structures and individual communication : an informational exploration of human sociality / R. del Moral, J. Navarro, and P.C. Marijuán -- Information outliers and their detection / A. Duraj and P.S. Szczepaniak -- A physicist's perspective on how one converts observation into information / Robert W. Johnson -- The concept of systemic-resonance bioinformatics. resonances and the quest for transdisciplinarity / Sergey V. Petoukhov and Elena S. Petukhova -- Information society and apartheid in the context of evolutionary economics : perspectives from information theory / Rodrick Wallace and Mindy Thompson Fullilove -- Artificial and natural genetic information processing / Guenther Witzany

In Necessary Existence and the Doctrine of Being in Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing Daniel De Haan examines the primary notions being, thing, one, and necessary and their roles in the central argument of Avicenna’s metaphysical masterpiece.