Nonbeing as the Absence of Being

Bill Vallicella

About three years ago, my friend Bill Vallicella broached the topic of nonbeing and even used the expression "absence of being," so maybe I owe him a footnote, and perhaps this big quote will suffice:

You may recall Sartre's example of the absence of Pierre in the cafe. That is a determinate absence: the absence of Pierre. But the absence of everything that exists is also determinate. Even the absence or nonbeing of everything that could exist seems to be a determinate or definite nonbeing parasitic upon what is or what could be.

But then we are not succeeding in thinking pure nonbeing.

The Parmenidean conclusion is nigh: absolute nonbeing is utterly unthinkable and (this is a further step) impossible. Being is; Nonbeing is not.

And yet it seems that absolute nonbeing is something 'positive' as contradictory as that sounds just as evil is 'positive' in a way that makes trouble for the view that evil is just *privatio boni.*

Just as we cannot dismiss evil as a mere absence of good, we seem not to be able to dismiss nonbeing as a mere absence of Being.

And so I cannot decisively lay the follow(ing) specter: that of absolute nothingness as a threatening 'power' that cannot be domesticated or shown to be wholly negative by sheer thought.

Enter Heidegger und das Nichts.

Bill, unlike me, capitalizes: "absence of Being." The capital of "B" is correct, I think, for this is not the absence of a particular being like Pierre. This is Being itself!

Bill, however, seems to differ from me in the degree to which he distinguishes nonbeing, or nothingness, from Being. His "nonbeing" would seem to have a wee bit of Being in it. Or maybe even a lot of Being?

I wonder if that is logically possible . . .

Good, Good, Good, Good Translations. . .

"No Matter, Never Mind?"

Is there really very much to say about "Nothingness"?

I'm told that these words of wisdom - "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" - have been mistranslated many times into other languages as: "Blind and Crazy"!

But this may be merely a translator's "Urban Myth"! Or some insight of Borges.

Meanwhile: Is there really very much to say about "Nothingness"?

Nothing to post today . . .

Nothingness
by blankspaceplz
Deviant Art

Well, isn't that something!

Is the world fair,

that we have "nothingness"

but not "somethingness"?

If nothingness

is the absence of all being,

then how can we

even speak

of nothingness?

When

I

nonetimes

re-read

such

musings
as
these,

I

ask

myself:

"Is Nothing Sacred?"

I know nothing of the answer.

Too much of nothing . . .

Professor Leon Horsten

(You were expecting somebody?)

University of Bristol

With a hat-tip to my friend Bill Vallicella, I read Leon Horsten's article on "Angst and the Empty Set: We can experience nothingness, but does it actually exist?" (Nautilus, Issue 16, August 28, 2014), which opens with an experience we've all had and that has long puzzled me:

Suppose you open your handbag one day expecting to find your wallet there, but don't. Do you literally see the absence of your wallet in your handbag? If you do, it means something important: Absences have a positive presence in your perception that you can grasp, independently from all ordinary things.

Think about the experience and the questions it raises, then read the article. Afterwards, check out Dylan's lyrics. And here's the song sung. Eh, you were expecting somebody else?