The Fear of Nothingness

What is it about?

This essay examines the logic of the Presocratic thinkers Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes in order to highlight the basic assumption shared by these early Western philosophers: nothing comes from nothing. With these first philosophers, the beginning of the universe was explained not by reference to something coming from nothing, but by all things coming from some pre-existent substance: one ‘thing’ that underlies and supports all other things that we can see, taste, touch, and feel. The world they described was thus not underpinned by a void of nothingness, but sat stable and secure upon an eternal, substantial foundation. This established a precedent for Western philosophy thereafter.

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Photo by Simon Hurry on Unsplash

Photo by Simon Hurry on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The assumptions established by Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes influenced later Western philosophers whose concerns concentrated on establishing fixed and substantial foundations for reality while also repudiating systems of thought emphasizing the primacy of nothingness. Such systems came to be criticized as ‘nihilistic’; a moniker intended to highlight the negativity and meaninglessness of nothingness. This negative view of nothingness may help to account for why it is that the number zero was initially discovered in the East but rejected in the West.

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