GLI B5526 -

Institution:

The New School

Subject:

Description:

On Nothing Fall 2008. Anthony Gottlieb This course examines the ideas of nothingness, vacuum, and void, and their significance in Western thought. In philosophy, we start with the paradoxical and intriguing pre-Socratic Parmenides, who argued that one cannot "think of what is not," and Plato's responses to him. We look at throle of nothingness in the systems of various modern philosophers, including Bergson, Heidegger, and Sartre, and at the debate among contemporary analytical philosophers on the question of whether a "null universe" evenmakes sense. We also consider a question first raised by Leibniz: Why is there something rather than nothing This question has been discussed by some of the liveliest recent philosophers, including Robert Nozick and Derek Parfit. We look at their treatments of it and at theological and scientific answers to it. In the history of science, we examine medieval and early-modern debates about the possibility of a vacuum, and what today's cosmologists say about the concept of a vacuum in quantum mechanics. Lastly we look at existentialist angst about the void, starting with the oldest text-the Epic of Gilgamesh-and proceeding to Pascal, nihilism in19th-century literature and 20th-century existentialism.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.newschool.edu

Phone Number:

(212) 229-5600

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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