Nothing

With nothing a universal abstract concept is referred to in everyday language, which has different meaning aspects. However, it can be argued whether this bundling of aspects has a common linguistic source, or whether it is part is homonyms, which could be attributed to faulty handling of the rules of surface grammar. Various aspects are:

  • The negative particle " not " is used for linguistic negation of statements or set of elements.
  • The indefinite pronoun " nothing " means " not any (some) ", not a thing, not a thing, not the least.
  • The noun phrase " the nothing " refers to the opposite of being, the negation and absence of being, non-being, an absolute emptiness or general vagueness.
  • In formal logic occurs "nothing" exclusively in the form of so-called negated existential quantifier () on. This takes account of the fact that "nothing" as opposed to " nothingness " is not a proper name or nominator. Thus, for example, " Nothing exists " ( i.e., "It is not the case that something exists ") and " The Nothing exists " no means synonymous.
  • The noun "nothing" can also be referred to: Something absent whose presence was expected ( nihil privativum )
  • Something without individuality, vanity, not tangible
  • Something that is missing but the actual content, the inner being and life, the mere " appearance"
  • Also, can thus be labeled as unworthy, insignificant, inane and void a person or thing.

The common uses of the substantive is that a provision (for example, the value ) is irrelevant small or is zero, or thing whose existence or presence was expected, turns out to be fictitious or absent.

History of Philosophy

The various aspects of meaning of nothingness were not always clearly distinguished in philosophy. Therefore, the question whether it is possible to think "nothing" or not - and if so, how - has been investigated in the history of philosophy in very different ways. Dealing with this issue can be done in various philosophical disciplines; "Nothing " can be treated as a subject of metaphysics and ontology (eg in Plato, in commemoration of the creatio ex nihilo or in Hegel's metaphysics of the Absolute ) are described, "nothing" can but philosophically as an existential experience (eg. of Martin Heidegger and Jean -Paul Sartre ), or the traces of "nothing" can be analyzed as the philosophy of language and logical phenomena such as negation or falsity. Occasionally, this nothingness is itself negated, so the impossibility of nothingness in Nature is a principle of natural philosophy of Aristotle ( horror vacui ).

Vorsokratik

The question of nowhere employs Western philosophy since its very first pre-Socratic beginning. The Greek philosopher Parmenides of Elea deals with the subject in the only surviving fragment of him, his didactic poem On the Nature:

" Well, then, do I want to announce ( but you take my word for ears), which avenues of research alone are conceivable: one way that ( the being ) and that it is impossible can not be, that is the way of conviction ( because he follows the truth ), but the other, that it is not and that it was necessary not to be, this path is (so I announce to you ) completely unfathomable. For that which is not you can not see (it is impracticable ) nor pronounce. "

From these lines, the plot statement can be inferred, not to deal with the non-being and to have all the attention instead only get the being. Indeed, it is impossible to talk about that which is not, because at the same moment as one says of this something that presupposes its existence again. In addition, being and thinking are equivalent: About the Nothing you can not think therefore. In this way, a definition of the task of science: rewarding research can have everything on the subject, not only nothingness. The saying of Parmenides of Elea is considered the first formulation of abstract metaphysical reflection in the ancient Greece and Plato's dialogue the Sophist serves as a starting point.

Plato

Plato puts into perspective the position of Parmenides from absolute nothingness. In the dialogue the Sophist he determined nothingness as nonexistent and this finally in a longer chain of reasoning as diversity. This five highest categories / ideas are developed, which are irreducible and where some have any other ideas. Through participation in these five ideas everything else is only what it is, without being identical with the five ideas. The five ideas are being, rest and movement, identity and difference. Each of these ideas is identical with itself, and partakes of the other ideas. Due to the difference of the possibility of non-being is presented. The idea of peace is identical with itself, but different from the other four ideas. She has, for example, share the idea of being, but it is not the idea of ​​being. The idea of ​​diversity thus opens up the possibility of non-being.

Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

In the early Christian philosophy, the problem arises in the discussion of divine creation: it may, after Augustin only ex nihilo, be done from scratch, because anything else would be no creation, but simply a conversion. Tertullian differentiates two ways of speaking and corrected Augustin: this my creation actually a nihilo, ' nothing here ', without their own cause. Ex nihilo, however, meant to take the nothing as a substance; this results according to Tertullian to Gnosis. Nicholas of Cusa mean by nothing the alteritas, the ' otherness ' that has ever applied specifically to a possible being.

Nihil privativum

In the early modern period, a distinction different aspects of the nothing. The term of the nihil privativum nothingness is defined as about a specific absence of something or a defect. This is a logical opposition that assigns the negated a lower ontological status: darkness is merely the absence of light, evil is only the absence of good, and so on. This originates from the Platonism idea also plays a role in the theodicy.

Rationalism: principle of sufficient reason

In rationalism both Leibniz and Wolff are already formulated by Cicero principle " have Nothing happens without a reason (from the Latin nihil sine causa fit, De divinatione 2.61 ) is determined as a significant metaphysical principle in the principle of sufficient reason. When Leibniz says: " [ ... ] nothing happens without there being a cause [ cause ] or at least a decisive reason [ raison determinant ], ie something that can be used to a priori justification for why something exists rather than not exist, and why something just as though in a different way exists. The logical meaning in relation to the concept of nothingness Wolff discussed as follows: " Where anything is available, from which one can understand why it is, has a sufficient reason ( § 29). Derowegen where none exists, there is nothing from which one can understand why something is, namely, why it really can be, and so it must arise out of nothing. What can arise out of nothing, therefore, not required to have a sufficient reason, why it is as it must in itself be possible and have a cause that can bring it to reality when we speak of things that are not necessary. As it is now impossible that something out of nothing can be, we must also all that is, have its sufficient reason why it is. "

Kant

In the Transcendental Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason Immanuel Kant added at the end of the Annex, add a little reflection on the contrast between possibility and impossibility in relation to the categories. Each class of categories is also in its negation. After that is "nothing" to distinguish as

" " One sees that the thought-object ( n.1 ) of the absurdity (n4) 'll distinguished by the fact that that can not be numbered among the possibilities, because it is merely fiction ( although not contradictory ), this but the possibility is opposite by the term even yourself picking. However, both are empty concepts. In contrast, the nihil privativum ( n.2 ) and ens imaginarium are ( n.3 ) empty data into concepts. If the light has not been given to the senses, so you can also no darkness, and was perceived as not being extended, imagine a room. The negation of both, as the mere form of intuition are, without a real, not objects. " "

Hegel

Nothingness is the antonym to Being for Hegel. He begins his Science of Logic with the three provisions "being", "Nothing ", "becoming". Being " pure being " should be understood as indeterminate immediate. Since pure being is to be indefinite, it can have no quality, no any sort of inner complexity that it can no relations to other things or thoughts exist. The immediacy of pure being stressed again that pure being is not subject to external conditions, has no cause, but simply it himself. The idea of pure being thus proves to be completely empty and that which is thought in this empty thoughts, is actually nothing. The provisions of pure Being and pure Nothing from turn out to be the same, and also the idea of ​​the pure Nothing is with the idea of pure being identical.

"This is pure Being now pure abstraction, so that the absolute negatives, which, likewise taken immediately, this is nothing."

Core idea of this quote are:

  • Pure being is for Hegel " pure abstraction ".
  • From this position he takes, that being the " absolute negative" is.
  • Is that being the absolute negatives, so it's nothing.

Trendelenburg and Dilthey

Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg denied in direct opposition to Hegel, that in pure thought a bridge between being and nothing could be made ​​of becoming. This is fundamental to Hegel's dialectic relationship Trendelenburg saw a hidden recourse to intuition, Hegel negated or ignored. " Pure being, equal to itself is quiet; nothingness - the self- same thing - is rest. From the unity of two dormant ideas How comes out the moving Become? Nowhere is in the preliminary stages represented the movement, without which the Will was just a being. Since both the pure being and non-being is expressed, it can logically the next task of thinking, if the unit is to be both set, only the be to find a dormant association. But if the thought of that unit generates an Other, it carries obviously the Other added and pushes the movement under tacitly, to bring Being and non-being in the flow of becoming. [ ... ] From the being, a granted abstraction, and nothingness, a likewise granted abstraction can not suddenly arise becoming, this concrete, life and death dominant, intuition. " Trendelenburg's student Wilhelm Dilthey presented in the same manner with respect to Hegel's system critical states: " But any metaphysics of this kind is addressed from the outset by an internal contradiction in its basis. The addition Lying about our experience can not even made ​​plausible by analogy, let alone be proved if the average of the reasoning and evidence, the logical connection, the ontological validity and extent is taken. "

Heidegger versus Carnap

According to Martin Heidegger's lecture What is Metaphysics? include the "nothing " and "being" together. They are not the same, but they condition and belong together. Only through the "nothing " revealed "being" as a " strangeness " or as the "other ". Clearly noticeable is this " nothing" in the "mood" of fear, not the fear of something specific, but in the deep, hidden in us "fear " or "because ". Not quite vague, but also can not be grasped in words, just the fear of "nothing." In such a fear everything is equally valid, and indeed equally indifferent. Whether table or chair, death or life, it has no relevance. A strange calm pervades one, almost like in a mood of boredom, which is the most noticeable being the next, and yet not quite. This small, we felt difference between the two moods, again not be grasped in words, but as something "Missing " palpable, is the "nothing ".

In a prominent example, Rudolf Carnap accused as a representative of logical empiricism ( Vienna Circle ) and the mean analytical philosophy of existentialism of Martin Heidegger, he would use the term " Nothingness " erroneously as if he were standing for a specific entity. Rudolf Carnap blamed this point in Heidegger in his essay " Overcoming Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language". The assumption that the term " Nothingness " have a content based, According to Carnap on a confusion of logical and grammatical structure of words and sentences. The analytic philosophy of language attempts to show that "nothing" just as " Not something " can be understood and needs, so that no such conversion is possible. Your analysis must therefore be understood primarily as a critique of metaphysics.

According to Carnap, all rates are based on the void on a linguistic confusion. Although the formation of the noun is " nothingness " syntactically correct; Sentences that include the expression, but fall into the category of meaningless phrases, as they have no empirical content and can be verified impossible. Although the verificationism is considered failed project, Carnap's analysis of nothing (which was originally directed primarily against Heidegger's Being and Time ) is however become in analytic philosophy to consensus.

Heidegger rejected these attacks themselves back: In his view, it was dogmatic, allowing logic and analysis of language as the only philosophical methods. Therefore His existentialism in 1927 sought to relativize the role of logic and language within the entire human existence. In his lecture What is Metaphysics? Heidegger held before the logical empiricism that the modern sciences were based on logical principles, without to address the void. The logical empiricism have to limit themselves as " philosophy of science " therefore to a limited area of ​​knowledge of being, which is a methodical exploration of the world (science) accessible. Heidegger admits that science nothingness only as a negation of being, as a deficiency can imagine and need, but this would not be the phenomenological character of nothingness justice than nothing.

Richard Hönigswald also responded to the use of the term by Heidegger with a polemical critique: " Incomparable as it is, after all, breeds the" nothing " comforting fear spreading by, that is the obvious and just about surprising term" destroyed ". " It is therefore more original than the non and the negation. " - However, such insights beyond, as can be seen on closer inspection, any concerns. They are equally beyond its conditions and skills. For concerns increasingly important issues; how far now "nothing" descend to questions in the eerie depths of at all, can not in principle account for. "

Sartre: "Nothing " as freedom

Jean -Paul Sartre appointed unto men in his work Being and Nothing but the form of being, nothingness brings into reality and thereby on everything else ( unconscious ) is different being. From the awareness that man has the possibility of non-being, it forwards the ability of the " negation " from. This is meant the ability to distance themselves from certain future and past images. With this capability, the negation of man has the freedom to design in the future and to break away from the past. This freedom becomes even more so because the man can also negate the shape of one's presence ( " I am what I will be " ) is "dependent" and therefore not of this or " set " is. Nothingness is Sartre after the freedom that is given to man and which can not be rejected.

Sartre points out in his book Being and Nothingness also that nothingness is actually not to be detected by concepts of being. The transcendent notion of nothingness can only be approximate, according to Sartre clarified due to the nonexistence of any content, for example, in the boundary between one moment and the next. We tried to imagine a limit here, we are not in a position and that is where we would find the "nothing ".

Bloch: philosophy of not-yet - being

A differentiated philosophy of nothingness is also found in Ernst Bloch. Under the category of the not-yet - being Bloch summarizes the various forms of human experience of the defect as an expression of a fundamental nullity of a present in which, however, trends are created on a possible, full being.

Derrida: "Nothing " as the silence

In his critique of Foucault's interpretation of descartschen " Cogito " Jacques Derrida developed ( Cogito and the History of Madness. In: The Writing and Difference ) a determination of "nothing." "Nothing " is the insane indeterminacy beyond the freed from their " cogito experience," which is as solid base certainty about our own existence, but not via the same addition. Due to the nature of "nothing " can not be spoken about it, since the language is an expression of reason, which "nothing " is facing and it keeps at bay. "Nothing," thus reveals itself only in silence.

Buddhism

The Buddhist concept of Shunyata (Sanskrit, Japanese空, kū ) is void or emptiness. Equating Shunyata ( Mahayana ) and nothing ( nihilism ) is usually avoided. The Japanese philosopher Nishitani is an exception: Through precise knowledge of Western and Eastern philosophy succeed in a parallel representation of Nihil and Shunyata in existentialist language. In the translation of books that describe the exercises in Zen Buddhism, is also spoken so far from nothing. Ideally this is the practice of a non-existent attachment. The term Nirvana frequently used was equated by a mistranslation with nothing, but means something like ' Gone '.

See also: Mu (philosophy), the absolute nothingness of the Kyoto School

Natural sciences

While in the time of Otto von Guericke and his experiment with the Magdeburg hemispheres many already was the absence of air than nothing, no one today would the vacuum - consider as nothing - in the sense of matter-free space. Even if it were possible to create a wholly-owned vacuum in which neither matter loose waves or interactive fields vorkämen, this room would still not free from events or matter, as a permanent form particles and antiparticles and annihilate immediately. This technique, known as vacuum fluctuation phenomenon was confirmed experimentally by the resulting Casimir effect in 1958.

Since the 20th century, the term Nothing more to the human mind not accessible to the absence of any being, that is understood by space and time. Today's so-called standard model of cosmology sets the origin of space and time in the Big Bang. However, their postulated in the framework of general relativity properties lose in the temporal approximation to the Big Bang, on the threshold of Planck time, their validity. The concept of nothingness in the sense of " before the Big Bang " is not used for these reasons of today's science, but considered to be physically meaningless. Astronomers and physicists speak in connection with the big bang of a singularity.

Mathematics and computer science

  • The zero is brought as a number with nothing connected. But negative numbers can be used as an expression of a defect.
  • In group theory, the zero is the neutral element of the additive group ( addition operator ). Generalizing this means that the neutral element of a group causes no change in the operation.
  • The empty set contains no elements. In John von Neumann quantitative theoretical model the natural numbers from the empty set and a simple quantity formation rule can be constructed.
  • In the context of databases is called the value of a cell that contains no characters, the zero value (often displayed as "NULL", from English ). The zero value corresponds to nothing in the sense of " no information " and not the numerical value 0 ( = zero or null German ).
  • In various programming value of zero is also ( partly NULL or NIL written ) used to express that a pointer variable (still ) points to no object.
  • The Ternary logic of data manipulation languages ​​knows except the terms TRUE and FALSE nor UNKNOWN for not determined.
  • Non-numeric data need as a spacer spaces, also known as SPACE or BLANK called. In order to distinguish them from other invisible characters, word processing programs offer the option to characterize space by a point.
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