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The Fundamental Question of Metaphysics and
the Question of Fundamentality in Metaphysics
Brandon C. Look
Why is there something rather than nothing? This question is often considered the
fundamental question of metaphysics. This paper will concern a related question, one that is
arguably even more fundamental: Is nothingness possible? For it is only if nothingness is
possible that the fundamental question of metaphysics really develops any force. There are
two ways to justify the possibility of nothingness. One can hold that “nothing is simpler and
easier than something” – that nothingness is, as it were, the default state of the universe that
only an act of creation can overcome. Or one can argue, as Thomas Baldwin and others have
done, that it is possible to “subtract” concrete objects from worlds until one has arrived at a
world without concrete objects – an “empty world.” It will be argued in this paper that the
premises of the Subtraction Argument rest on tendentious and question-begging
assumptions about ontological dependence and the grounding relation. In other words,
questions of fundamentality in metaphysics reveal the fundamental question of metaphysics
to be ill-formed and arguments purporting to show the possibility of nothingness invalid.
Against the view of metaphysical nihilism, this paper argues for metaphysical aliquidism –
the view that there must be something.
1. Introduction
Why is there something rather than nothing? This question, Leibniz tells us in the Principles
of Nature and Grace, is the very first question that we ought to ask ourselves: “Assuming this
principle [the Principle of Sufficient Reason], the first question we have the right to ask will
be, why is there something rather than nothing?” 1 Indeed, Heidegger has called it “the
fundamental question of metaphysics [die Grundfrage der Metaphysik]”; he writes, “Die dem
Range nach erste, weil weiteste, tiefste und ursprünglichste Frage [ist]: »Warum ist
überhaupt Seiendes und nicht vielmehr Nichts?«” (1983, 3). Wittgenstein, too, seems to be
moved to awe: “Nicht wie die Welt ist, ist das Mystische, sondern dass sie ist” (1922, 186;
Tractatus 6.44). As fundamental as this question may be, it is not the question to be
addressed in this paper – at least not directly. Rather, this paper will concern a related
question, one that is arguably even more fundamental: Is the fundamental question of
metaphysics a well-formed and meaningful question? One might think, for example, that it is
a kind of complex question. The famous example, of course, is “Have you stopped beating
your wife?” Or, one might just recognize that Why?-questions are often problematic. The
fundamental question of metaphysics assumes that nothingness is possible, but is it? That is,
is nothingness possible? Or, given that there is obviously something, might there be (or might
there have been) nothing? For it is only if nothingness is possible that the fundamental
question really develops any force.
1
“Ce principe posé, la premiere question qu’on a droit de faire, sera, Pourquoy il y a plustôt quelque
chose que rien?” (Leibniz 1965, hereafter ‘G’, VI 602)