John Leslie’s Axiarchism
Why is there something rather than nothing? According to John Leslie, because it is better that there be something. Leslie holds that ethical requirements themselves are ‘creatively effective’ and give...
View ArticleHow to Determine Whether there Might Have Been Nothing
Even those of us who think that necessary truths often need (and have) non-trivial explanations generally think that these explanations tend to look different from the explanations of contingent...
View ArticleWhy Do We Ask Why?
Several of the essays in The Puzzle of Existence argue, in one way or another, that no non-trivial answer can be given to those who ask why there is something rather than nothing. This may be because...
View ArticleLowe on Metaphysical Nihilism
Like several other contributions to The Puzzle of Existence, the essay by the late E. J. Lowe is devoted to the question whether there might have been nothing. Lowe calls the view that there might have...
View ArticleRodriguez-Pereyra on Ontological Subtraction
Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra’s contribution to The Puzzle of Existence is the last of a series of contributions on the question whether there might have been nothing. Rodriguez-Pereyra defends a version...
View ArticleKotzen on the Improbability of Nothing
When someone asks ‘why p rather than q?’, it is sometimes a good answer to say, ‘p is far more probable than q.’ When someone asks, ‘why is p more probable than q?’, it is sometimes a good answer to...
View ArticleLange on the Natural Necessity of Something
Marc Lange’s contribution to The Puzzle of Existence, begins with this remark: I read recently about a baby who was trapped during the night of February 26, 2011, in a locked bank vault in Conyers,...
View ArticleMaitzen on the Explanatory Power of Penguins
In his contribution to The Puzzle of Existence, Stephen Maitzen defends the surprising claim that penguins hold the answer to the deep mysteries of the universe. Well, that’s not exactly what he says....
View ArticleMcDaniel’s Ontological Pluralism and the Puzzle of Existence
The very last essay in The Puzzle of Existence is the article by Kris McDaniel which examines the bearing of ontological pluralism on the question, why is there something rather than nothing?...
View ArticleThe Puzzle of Existence: Concluding Thoughts and Table of Posts
I have now completed my series of posts on The Puzzle of Existence. I’ll conclude by saying that I enjoyed most of the essays in this book quite a lot, and found them interesting food for thought....
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