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- Title
The Fear of Nothingness.
- Authors
Marmysz, John
- Abstract
The Western fear of nothingness can be traced back to Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, three ancient Presocratic thinkers who comprised the first school of Western philosophy: the Milesian School. Despite the varied and ephemeral nature of the world's appearances, the Milesian School suggested that there remains something stable, permanent, and dependable beneath it all. Whether it be Thales' claim that 'all is water,' Anaximander's claim that the universe arises from apeiron, or Anaximenes' claim that 'all is air,' the strategy pursued by these ancient Greek thinkers served to offer comfortable assurance that our cosmos has a steady and knowable foundation. The universe ultimately rests on one 'thing' rather than on nothing at all. In setting this precedent, the Milesian School influenced later Western philosophers whose concerns concentrated on establishing fixed and substantial foundations for the world while also repudiating systems of thought emphasizing the primacy of nothingness. Such systems came to be criticized as 'nihilistic'; a moniker intended to highlight the negativity and meaninglessness of nothingness. This chapter examines the logic of the Milesian thinkers in order to highlight the basic assumption shared by these first philosophers: nothing comes from nothing. This negative view of nothingness may help to account for why it is that the number zero was initially discovered in the East but rejected in the West.
- Subjects
NOTHING (Philosophy); PRE-Socratic philosophers; NEGATIVITY (Philosophy); MEANINGLESSNESS (Philosophy); ANAXIMENES, of Miletus, fl. ca. 545 B.C.
- Publication
Value Inquiry Book Series, 2023, Vol 395, p559
- ISSN
0929-8436
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1163/9789004691568_032