en
Scientific article
Open access
English

Why a Gunk World is Compatible with Nihilism about Objects

ContributorsLe Bihan, Baptisteorcid
Published inStudia Philosophica Estonica, vol. 6, no. 1, p. 1-14
Publication date2013
Abstract

Ted Sider argues that nihilism about objects is incompatible with the metaphysical possibility of gunk and takes this point to show that nihilism is flawed. I shall describe one kind of nihilism able to answer this objection. I believe that most of the things we usually encounter do not exist. That is, I take talk of macroscopic objects and macroscopic properties to refer to sets of fundamental properties, which are invoked as a matter of linguistic convention. This view is a kind of nihilism: it rules out the existence of objects; that is, from an ontological point of view, there are no objects. But unlike the moderate nihilism of Mark Heller, Peter van Inwagen and Trenton Merricks that claims that most objects do not exist, I endorse a radical nihilism according to which there are no objects in the world, but only properties instantiated in spacetime. As I will show, radical nihilism is perfectly compatible with the metaphysical possibility of gunk. It is also compatible with the epistemic possibility that we actually live in a gunk world. The objection raised by Ted Sider only applies to moderate nihilism that admits some objects in its ontology.

Keywords
  • Ontology
  • Metaphysics
  • Gunk
  • Nihilism
  • Object
  • Spacetime
  • Space
  • Time
Citation (ISO format)
LE BIHAN, Baptiste. Why a Gunk World is Compatible with Nihilism about Objects. In: Studia Philosophica Estonica, 2013, vol. 6, n° 1, p. 1–14. doi: 10.12697/spe.2013.6.1.01
Main files (1)
Article (Published version)
accessLevelPublic
Identifiers
ISSN of the journal2228-110X
604views
138downloads

Technical informations

Creation02/11/2019 9:16:00 AM
First validation02/11/2019 9:16:00 AM
Update time03/15/2023 3:43:49 PM
Status update03/15/2023 3:43:49 PM
Last indexation08/30/2023 7:56:55 PM
All rights reserved by Archive ouverte UNIGE and the University of GenevaunigeBlack