It’s not the end of the world: when a subtraction argument for metaphysical nihilism fails

摘要

Metaphysical nihilism is the thesis that there could have been no concretenobjects. Thomas Baldwin (1996) offers an argument for metaphysicalnnihilism. The premisses of the argument purport to provide a procedure ofn1 I gave an early version of this note as part of my contribution to an ‘Author meets critics’nsession of the Society for Realist and Anti-realist discussion, held at the Central Division ofnthe American Philosophical Association, in Chicago, February, 2010. Thanks to the otherncritic, Claire Horisk, to the organizer, Henry Jackman, to the members of the audiencenwho participated in the most fruitful discussion, and, of course, to Michael Lynch himself.nI especially thank Michael for extended discussion and correspondence on this and other,nrelated matters. I appreciate the collegiality.nAnalysis Vol 71 | Number 1 | January 2011 | pp. 44–53 doi:10.1093/analys/anq111nu0002 The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust.nAll rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.comn44 | aviv hoffmannnDownloaded from analysis.oxfordjournals.org at Institute of Scientific &Technical Info of China on July 17, 2011nsubtraction that can be iterated until we reach a world where no concretenobjects exist. Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (1997) finds fault with Baldwin’snargument, modifies it, and claims to have proved metaphysical nihilism. Mynprimary aim is to show that Rodriguez-Pereyra’s alleged proof rests on a falsenassumption. The assumption is that, necessarily, if there are no concrete*nobjects (in the sense Rodriguez-Pereyra defines), then there are no concretenobjects.1 My secondary aim, with which I begin, is to formulate and thennstrengthen a succinct version of the subtraction argument.