Nothing, Everything, Something!

Abstract

At one extreme, we find everything; at the other-nothing. The large territory in between is a prerogative of the remainder, conveniently labeled under the generic heading of 'something'. To be sure, from a logical viewpoint 'something' may be said to encompass 'everything' as a special case (though not 'nothing', which is strictly out). But even so, the friend of something is typically happy to stop halfway. Ask a question, they will generally go for a moderate answer. Draw a map, they will generally focus on the details in the middle. The polar extremes-they think-are too far-fetched to be taken seriously.Because of this, the friend of something tends to enjoy all the comfort that a central seat can provide. Yet this comfort comes with a heavy burden. It's not enough to say something; you have to draw a line. It's not enough to dismiss the extremes; you have to say exactly where in the middle you are going to settle. And that is far from easy. Think of the sort of questions that have been driving so many a debate in contemporary philosophy. Under what conditions do certain facts depend on others? Under what conditions are we responsible for our deeds? Under what conditions does a plurality of things compose a whole? Under what conditions is it permissible to limit individual freedom? When it comes to questions such as these, and many others indeed, universalist and nihilist answers may be extreme, but they are clear enough: under every condition whatsoever, or else under no condition at all. Aliquidist answers, by contrast, are always caught between the Scylla of vagueness and indeterminacy and the Charybdis of ungroundedness and arbitrariness, if not parochialism, and steering a proper middle coursespecifying and justifying the relevant conditions-demands exceptional navigating powers.I myself have generally been favoring extreme answers precisely for this reason. Here I am not going not elaborate, though. On the contrary, I want to report a conversation I heard recently that made me think perhaps there is a sense in which aliquidism is superior to its extreme alternatives. I am not sure it would be enough to rescue its friends from the treacherous waters that surround them. Given the context, however, it seems appropriate to share it. I have transcribed it in full, adding just a few personal comments in the form of endnotes to clarify my own understanding of the basic terms. A trialogue Nothing. Happy to see you, dear friends. You know what? I pondered the matter for a long time and I think I have finally cleared my mind. The nihilists are right. Nothing exists! 1 Something. I knew one day you'd say that. But allow me to point out that you just contradicted yourself. And the very fact that you contradicted yourself proves my point: something exists! But only something, of course, not everything. Everything. And so you've just contradicted yourself, too. Come on, where have you two been all these years? 2 Just as you cannot say that nothing exists, which is indeed self-defeating, you cannot say that something d...