JoLMA The Journal for the Philosophy of Language, Mind and the Arts

Journal | JoLMA
Journal issue | 5 | 2 | 2024
Research Article | Sitting at the Kantian Table of Nothingness

Sitting at the Kantian Table of Nothingness

Abstract

This article appeals to the table of nothingness (Nichts) occurring within Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason [1781; 1787] (1998) to assess three recent accounts of nothingness – (Priest 2014), (Costantini 2020), and (Casati & Fujikawa 2019) - under the light of folk  preconceptions about nothingness. After defining the two strongest preconceptions as the absence of unrestrictedly everything (nihil absolutum) and the idea of nothingness as a self-contradictory item (nihil negativum), I argue that both might be read as two Aristotelian ‘connected homonyms’, rather than conflating them into a single item (as Priest’s and Casati & Fujikawa’s accounts seem to do), or dropping the idea of the nihil absolutum, as Costantini’s account does


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: July 22, 2024 | Accepted: Oct. 17, 2024 | Published Dec. 12, 2024 | Language: en

Keywords negative nothingnessKant’s table of nothingAristotle’s homonymyNothingnessabsolute nothingness


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