Freddy Purcell covers an exciting and mind-boggling metaphysics talk on Nothingness.
Some time ago we heard from Suki Finn of Royal Holloway, London, on nothing (a topic with good pun mileage). Suki works on a surprising combination of applied metaphysics and feminist/queer theory, but it was the former interest that we heard about as she is preparing to write for a special issue on Wittgenstein and Heidegger.
The talk started strong with the question of what it means to talk about nothing. Here, Suki introduced the difference between no-thing and Nothing, capitalised in the way philosophers like to show that something is big and exciting. The former concept, no-thing, represents an absence of presence, making it impossible to talk about, as there is no object to direct our attention towards. The latter concept, Nothing, is on the other hand, the presence of absence, which Suki argued can be sensibly discussed.
Unsurprisingly, this makes Nothing a strange entity that requires some explanation to understand. This is a difficult task, however, for as Heidegger pointed out, in attempting to attend to nothingness, we make it into something and arrive at a contradiction before we’re able to do anything with the concept at all. Nothing is therefore ostensibly beyond language as in trying to describe it, we make it into a thing it is not (something). The mind-boggling contradictions run even deeper though as we cannot even say that Nothing is ineffable because then we are saying about it, which again makes it something that it is not. Suki therefore suggests that in dealing with Nothingness, philosophers must either accept these contradictions, or try to dissolve its ineffability (eff it, in Suki’s words). It is the second path that Suki opted to go down.
The first suggestion on how to do this utilised a Tarskian idea of metalanguage. Here, Suki argued that there is a first-order object level where we usually speak about stuff but suggested that Everything and Nothing can only be things on a second-order meta level to avoid objectifying them and running into the contradictions surrounding ineffability. Suki therefore used the metalanguage of set theory to explain these concepts, where Everything is not a thing itself, but the set of all things, and Nothing is conversely not a thing itself, but an empty set. Through set theory, we can therefore speak about Nothing without turning it into a thing that it is not (something).
Suki’s second suggestion used a similar methodology in a different direction, starting instead by arguing that Everything is the set of all things. Nothing is then the opposite of Everything, and is again, an empty set. This approach therefore conceptualises Nothing as the negation of Everything, again avoiding the contradictions of ineffability as Everything is what is described, rather than Nothing itself. This utilisation of set theory, however, contrasts with previous approaches to conceptualise Nothing.
Priest and Moss (2022) suggest a mereological approach, conceiving of Nothing as the fusion of no things and Everything as the fusion of all things. This proposal is almost identical for Suki’s, except for the added component of something which unifies all these objects that Priest and Moss call a gluon. They suggest that this abstract force is necessary as a disjointed metaphysical reality is an unattractive theory. Suki argued convincingly however, that gluons are an unnecessary extra commitment that makes this conception less attractive. I found Suki’s idea appealing and simpler to understand, so was fully convinced. That was until question time.
I wish I could explain the content of question time, but I got lost as soon as set theory came up. I can instead, describe a scene of gladiatorial intellectual combat between Suki and Tyler Brunet. In the fray I believe Tyler scored some hits by suggesting that Suki was using set theory incorrectly, but I could not tell you what those blows looked like or how damaging they were. Just rest assured that it was very entertaining, even if the main conclusion I drew was that I was completely out of my depth. Looking around the room, I at least had a few other puzzled faces to keep me company.
My confusion did not however detract from what was a very entertaining and insightful talk, so thank you Suki!