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102 LOOK
metaphysical nihilism can be produced that does not depend upon a controversial or
ambiguous notion of a “world.” Moreover, the fundamental question of metaphysics derives
much of its force from the historically and culturally contingent thought that “God could have
chosen not to create anything” – a thought that should hardly move a steely-eyed atheist. The
fundamental question of metaphysics also implicitly appeals to the thesis that conceivability
entails possibility – for while I can (perhaps) think of a world prior to creation or not having
any “stuff” in it, this thought differs from a proof of its metaphysical possibility. Finally, the
fundamental question also derives force from the completely unanalyzed claim that “nothing
is simpler and easier than something.” There is, then, a presumption towards nothingness
that underlies the fundamental question of metaphysics that I reject.
It seems rather that the burden of proof should really be upon those who advocate
metaphysical nihilism to show that it is possible that nothing exist. To the credit of advocates
of the Subtraction Argument, they have tried to provide such an argument. But, as I hope to
have shown, this attempt is a failure, and to date I have been unconvinced of any attempt to
prove the possibility of nothingness. Indeed, the contrary view, that there must be something,
should become the default position, a position I should like to call “metaphysical aliquidism”
– the view that there must be something. There are two versions of metaphysical aliquidism.
The first might be seen as a kind of monism; its thesis is simply that there is a necessarily
existing concrete object – the world. Such a view is attributable, of course, to Spinoza, Russell
and, more recently, Jonathan Schaffer (e.g. in Schaffer (2009; 2010)). The second version can
be expressed thus: for any world, necessarily, there is a concrete object in it. This view is
advocated by Lewis – though one need not be a modal realist to endorse it. Either version of
aliquidism, I believe, is more in line with our intuitions of ontological dependence. And if we
accept metaphysical aliquidism, the fundamental question of metaphysics ought no longer to
be a question for us. 9
Brandon C. Look
University of Kentucky
look@uky.edu
References
Aristotle. 1984: The Complete Works of Aristotle. J. Barnes (ed.). 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Armstrong, D. M. 1989: A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
— 2004. Truth and Truthmakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Baldwin, T. 1996: ‘There Might Be Nothing’, Analysis 56, 231–38.
Cameron, R. 2006: ‘Much Ado About Nothing: A Study of Metaphysical Nihilism’, Erkenntnis
64, 193–222.
Correia, F. 2008: ‘Ontological Dependence’, Philosophy Compass 3, 1013–1032.
Descartes, R. 1985: The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and
D. Murdoch (eds.). 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Descartes, R. 1996: Oeuvres de Descartes. C. Adam and P. Tannery (eds.). 11 vols. Paris: J.
Vrin.
Fine, K. 2010: ‘Some Puzzles of Ground’, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 51, 97–118.
9
My thanks to the audience at the GAP8 conference for helpful questions and suggestions.