Excerpts from
F. V. Konstantinov, ed., Philosophical Encyclopedia, Moscow: Soviet
Encyclopedia Publishers, 1963, vol. 4, pp. 78-9
Nothingness: Absence,
non-existence of concrete being or absence of being in general—a category used
in a series of idealistic systems of ontology.
In materialist philosophy, “nothingness” does not represent a philosophical
category, since materialism proceeds from the indestructible material world,
but nothingness is pure non-being and impossible abstract emptiness. In the history
of idealistic philosophy since the ancients, one can trace two basic approaches
to nothingness. In the systems of one group (Plato and Neoplatonism,
Christian pantheistic mystics, Hegel,
and others), nothingness is ranked as a key category of ontology (like God,
being, the absolute, etc.), and the principle “Ex nihilo nihil fit” (from
nothing, nothing arises) is repudiated as incompatible with the presence of
positive conceptual content in the category of nothingness. The second approach
to the problem asserts the origin of nothingness from formal negation, i.e.,
nothingness is only a formal logical nominalistic concept, fully removed from
the role of the problem of nothingness in ontology.
Both
these concepts of nothingness took shape in ancient philosophy, where the
Eleatics represented the nominalistic position (“… being is, but non-being is
not”—Parmenides, On Nature), but
Plato was opposed to it, (‘It seems that when we say that which is not, we don't say something contrary to that which is, but only something different from
it.” Sophist, 257b). A
significant role in the formation of these positions is played by the presence
of two ways to express negation in the Greek language, OU (formal
affirmation of non-existence, pure not), and ME (non-definiteness, non-regularity with shades of “no longer” or “no more”).
The next stage in the development of the nominalistic interpretation of
nothingness consists of Old Testament philosophy and orthodox Christian dogma
in its non-Platonistic, non-patristic understanding, which was predominant in
medieval philosophy. The
formal-negative character of the orthodox Christian understanding of
nothingness was dissected by Descartes as Nihil
negativum (nothing is negative), as Malebranche did as well. The new aspect
of the conception of nothingness as Nihil
negativum was the objection by Bergson, affirming that the concept of
abstract nonbeing, understood as annihilating everything, is a pseudo-concept,
no more than a word (see Creative
Evolution). But the sharpest negation of the ontological sense of
nothingness is, according to Heidegger, the system of Nietzsche, in which the
conception of nothingness, explained as a conception of being, is completely
empty.
The
opposite approach, where nothingness is ranked as a central category of
ontology, was a property of many systems of Hindu philosophy (Vedanta,
Buddhism) where the category of nothingness was connected in a sense to the
concepts of Nirvana and Maya. In European philosophy, the investigation of the
positive content of the problem of nothingness has been realized historically
in the form of the rather independent working out of the two complementary
aspects of the problem, expressing nothingness in its relation to God (or even
to pure being) and to man…. [Material on medieval Christian views of
nothingness omitted]
Nothingness and Being-Here: In the 20th century, appeals to problematic nothingness are again found in many
philosophical tendencies. Revival of interest in nothingness involves first of
all the “fundamental ontology” of Heidegger,
and the existentialism of Sartre. The
main object of investigation in these systems is found to be nothingness in its
relation to real being—absolute existence, being-here (Dasein).
In
Sartre’s basic conception lies a very broad interpretation of the sphere of
nonbeing, to which he attributes any proposition, attribute, or conception if
it is possible to discover a moment of negation in it. But since Sartre admits
that “in itself nothingness cannot exist” (L’être et le néant, Paris, 1943, p. 58), it turns
out to be necessary for the manifestation of nothingness in the world that some
people be in existence, that there be human consciousness, humanity.
Consciousness (pour-soi, being-for-itself) has to exist essentially differently
from being as such, being-in-itself (en soi). Consciousness has to represent
nothingness by negating itself, to be outside of being, to be independent of
it, free. Sartre even describes freedom as the possibility for someone to
distinguish nothingness, isolating it from the en-soi and freeing it. In the
philosophy of Heidegger, the conception of nothingness is build on an analysis
of temporality or immersion in time, constructing a specific being-here. Being
immersed in time, being-here is engulfed in care, i.e., it directed
toward the future, incessantly projects itself into existence. It is as if it
is constantly about to exist, never, however, attaining genuine existence, and
the its inherent “nothingness of existence” (die Nichtigkeit) is manifest in
that being-here which is semi-existing, semi-nonexisting, which no one is able
to attain completely. In this way existing is in the power of time, even the
abolition (das Nichtende, the content of the sphere of nothingness) of its
freedom. However, this chronological asymmetry does not mean ontological
priority of nothingness over being, but rather leads to the establishment of a
peculiar “dynamic equilibrium” between being-here and nothingness: nothingness
permeates all existing spheres as temporal, actively operates in the world.
“Nothingness and being belong to one another.” (Heidegger, M., Was ist
Metaphysik, Bonn, 1931, p. 24), grasping one another incessantly. This means in particular that nothingness is
the limit of being, its disclosure and systemization: “Only in the clear night
of dread's Nothingness is what-is as such revealed in all its original
overtness: that it "is" and is not Nothingness." (ibid., pp. 18-19). Because of
its dynamism, nothingness annihilates (nichtet) and in this sense it
exists--that is, is connected to being--even if nothingness does not receive
the status of existing, but has its essence in annihilation, is “destructive
activity.” However, not being real,
nothingness is not able even to participate in being as disclosure, as truth,
and therefore “is being only as secret and untrue” (Chiodi, P., L’ultimo
Heidegger, Torino, 1965, p. 82), although “the truth itself is revealed
only thanks to nothingness, as “a limit of being” (W. Richardson, Heidegger:
Through Phenomenology to Thought, The Hague, 1962, p. 202). As the dynamic
limit of being, and also destructive activity, nothingness discloses at the
same time both the basis on which what is more real rests, and the abyss, in
which the latter disappears (a dialectical basis, developed for the first time
by [Meister] Eckhart).
In
Heidegger’s ontology, the problem of nothingness is considered as an
existential problem, i.e., as concerning humanity itself in its
relationship to itself. That ontology consists in an analysis of the
relationship of nothingness to humanity as existential, and in the elucidation
of the result and the meaning of the experience of nothingness. The feeling of
nothingness becomes possible for humanity thanks to border situations (Jasper’s
terminology); among them dread plays the fundamental role, which in its basis
is consciousness of the truly ultimate extreme, that is, the feeling of death.
“Dread reveals nothingness” (Heidegger, M., Was is Metaphysik?, p. 16).
In the feeling of nothingness a person reveals himself as different from all
others, divides himself not only from the world of nature, but even from all
mankind. This is the significant content of nothingness…. [Material on nothingness in protestant theology and
Russian religious philosophy omitted.]
C. Khoruzhii, Moscow
