A Short Talk about Being and Nothing

Andrej Ule

doi:10.4312/as.2025.13.2.139-151

Authors

Andrej Ule University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2025.13.2.139-151

Keywords:

being, nothing, thinking and speaking, paradoxes, non-classical logic

Abstract

I wonder how to approach the questions of being and nothing when they are posed to us in all seriousness. In cultural and philosophical history, several conceptions of being and nothing and several ways of solving these questions have appeared. We can find six main ways: the Eleatic (Parmenidean) way of the identity of being and thought, wonder at the fullness of being, which excludes any nothingness, the way through paradoxes, skeptical reticence, recourse to non-classical logics, and the path of spiritual insight into the mysterious interweaving of being and nothing in everything we do, think and speak. Each of them has its advantages and disadvantages. I am trying to show that the last way is the most promising, but only if we overlook how being and nothingness are constantly simultaneously and intertwiningly given to us.

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