Topics Philosophy

Question My question arose from responses to questions 40 and 2062 on this site. In question 40 it was asked why something exists, rather than nothing. In question 2062 it was asked whether there are any questions which can not be philosophized about. My question is: why is the question "why is there something rather than nothing" considered a false philosophical question? Is it somehow even less answerable than all the other philosophical questions? And why does this seem to disqualify the question as being a "good" philosophical question. Thanks for the opportunity to ask this (and for your time).

Accepted:
April 2, 2008

Comments

Showing that something is a pseudo-question -- what you've called a false philosophical question can be hard. Not always; "What's the difference between a duck?" is not a real question, though where I grew up, there was an answer to it ("One leg is both the same.") When the question is "Why is there something rather than nothing?" we're pretty clearly in territory where people will differ over the propriety of the question.

First, let's get a rough and ready grip on the notion of a pseudo-question. One pretty good way to think about it is that if nothing could possibly count as a correct answer to a "question," then it's not a real question, superficial grammatical form notwithstanding. "What's the difference between a duck?" pretty clearly fits this description, as does, for example, "What's the distance in meters between purple and despair?" But what of "Why is there something rather than nothing?" This, I'd suggest, is not so clear a case.

Suppose we could somehow show that certain things exist necessarily -- couldn't fail to exist. Then we'd either have or be on the road to a good answer to the question of why there's something rather than nothing. Some philosophers reject the very idea that anything could exist necessarily. But others disagree. The very claim that nothing could exist necessarily is a philosophical claim that it would take work to establish. (What about sets? What about numbers? What about other sorts of abstract objects? Or, to go in a different direction, what about God? There's a long tradition of interesting philosophical debate about all thse cases.) So there's no quick and easy way to show that we're dealing with a pseudo-question.

The same is still true if we narrow our focus to the question of why there are any contingent things like atoms, electromagnetic fields, tables, chairs and gold lamé pants. Some philosophers argue that nothing could possibly count as explaining why there are any such things at all. Others offer ingenious arguments meant to provide an answer. Various versions of the Principle of Sufficient Reason are meant to address the question of why contingent things exist, and some of these versions don't even rest on theological premises.

Needless to say, people disagree about how good the arguments are here. All I'd suggest is that there's no quick way out. If "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is not a genuine philosophical question, it will take some philosophical work to make the case.