more from this thinker     |     more from this text


Single Idea 458

[filed under theme 7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 5. Reason for Existence ]

Full Idea

From what in no wise exists, it is impossible for anything to come into being; for Being to perish completely is incapable of fulfilment and unthinkable.

Gist of Idea

Nothing could come out of nothing, and existence could never completely cease

Source

Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B012), quoted by Anon (Lyc) - On Melissus 975b1-4

Book Ref

'Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers', ed/tr. Freeman,Kathleen [Harvard 1957], p.52


The 18 ideas with the same theme [why do things (or anything at all) exist?]:

Nothing could come out of nothing, and existence could never completely cease [Empedocles]
Maybe necessity and non-necessity are the first principles of ontology [Aristotle]
There must always be a reason or cause why some triangle does or does not exist [Spinoza]
Possibles demand existence, so as many of them as possible must actually exist [Leibniz]
God's sufficient reason for choosing reality is in the fitness or perfection of possibilities [Leibniz]
First: there must be reasons; Second: why anything at all?; Third: why this? [Leibniz]
Leibniz first asked 'why is there something rather than nothing?' [Leibniz, by Jacquette]
There must be a straining towards existence in the essence of all possible things [Leibniz]
Because something does exist, there must be a drive in possible things towards existence [Leibniz]
I do not believe in the existence of anything, if I see no reason to believe it [Berkeley]
Hegel gives an ontological proof of the existence of everything [Hegel, by Scruton]
I assume existence, rather than reasoning towards it [Kierkegaard]
Being is maximal consistency [Jacquette]
Existence is completeness and consistency [Jacquette]
It is necessarily contingent that there is one thing rather than another - so something must exist [Meillassoux]
Either p is true or not-p is true, so something is true, so something exists [Liggins]
Current physics says matter and antimatter should have reduced to light at the big bang [New Sci.]
CP violation shows a decay imbalance in matter and antimatter, leading to matter's dominance [New Sci.]