Absolute nothing

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Absolute nothingness or absolute nothingness ( nihil simpliciter ) is a modal term of the metaphysics and creation theology of Johannes Duns Scotus (1266-1308), which refers to the nonexistent that could not even possibly exist, not even as just being-in-the-spirit. Duns Scotus describes so-called incompossibilia , fictional objects (figmente), whose essential form would be a combination of incompatible components that cannot even be thought of as an object and therefore cannot be caused, as “absolutely void” .

Absolute nothing, simplicity and possibility

Incompossibilia are therefore not only impossible in relation to other things (to certain circumstances, to existing objects or to the will of God), but according to their own essential form , which is why Duns Scotus speaks of a formal impossibility (i.e. an impossibility of the form) and of a " nihil simpliciter ”, that is, a not- simply (instead of nothing-relative-to-other). Their being-in-itself , their real-being as well as their possible-being and consequently their contradiction-free thinkability are therefore excluded.

In contrast, z. For example, in God's creation as creatio ex nihilo the nothing from which God creates all that is, can be understood as (only) relative nothing; the possibility of being can and must be ascribed to him; God, as it were, ponders the objects that can be created in his spirit and creates them out of absolute freedom, i. H. without absolute or relative necessity. Only God has absolute necessity; conversely, there is by no means an inherent one which is inherently impossible in terms of form; rather, Duns Scotus explains the utterly null and void through the incomposibility of several components per se of a (fictional) essence.

Duns Scotus suggests (in contrast to Aristotle , Thomas Aquinas and many others) a general use of the term 'being' ( ens ), which can be used in one and the same sense ( univok ) for both finite objects and e.g. B. can be predicated of the divine. In this general usage, everything to which an entity ( quidditas ) belongs is considered to be 'being' - whether an object also actually exists is irrelevant for this usage of 'being'. The scope of the, beings' therefore includes both what in reality exists and what might exist can ( possibilia ). A being or a thing is so anything that is not Nothing , be it even in reality or only in spirit. Conversely, this distinction corresponds to that of relative and absolute nothing.

reception

Presumably since Scotism and then also in German school philosophy (for example with Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten , Christian Wolff ), a distinction was also made between a nihil privativum (non-existent, but the existence of which is possible) and a nihil negativum , which can not possibly exist. Modern discussions about the compossibility of terms and substances, as they are continued in particular by Leibniz , are in the tradition of these Scottish terminological distinctions and their applications.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Duns Scotus: Ordinatio II d. 1 q. 2: "nihil simpliciter, id est nullo modo ens, nec simpliciter, nec secundum quid" and n. 81–84 in total; see. on this Stanislav Sousedík: The dispute about the true meaning of the Scottish Possibile theory . In: Ludger Honnefelder, Rega Wood, Mechthild Dreyer (eds.): John Duns Scotus. Metaphysics and Ethics . Brill, Leiden 1996, pp. 191-204, here 199.
  2. ↑ See e.g. B. Duns Scotus: Ordinatio I d. 43 q. unica n.16 = Opera Omnia v. 6, Rome 1963, p. 359: "'impossibile simpliciter' includit incompossibilia, quae ex rationibus suis formalibus sunt incompossibilia, et ab eo sunt principiative incompossibilia, a quo principiative habent suas rationes formales [...]"; Ordinatio I d. 36 n. 60-61; Quodlibet q. 3 n.2.
  3. ↑ See Ludger Honnefelder: Scientia transcendens: The formal determination of being and reality in the metaphysics of the Middle Ages and the modern age , Meiner, Hamburg 1990, 55: “The absolutely nothing ( simpliciter nihil ) always contains several contents, so that it is not nothing of itself, but because of the contents that are contained in its fictitiously conceived unity and which as such conflict with each other and thus contradict any reality of this fictitious unity. "
  4. ↑ See also: Ludger Honnefelder Possibilien / I. Mittelalter , in: Joachim Ritter und Karlfried founder (ed.): Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Volume 7, 1126–1135, here 1131 with the note that the possibilitas ad esse der “ Compossibilitas of formal contents” follows and the “simply possible” also refers to the “ solidity (ratitudo) that formally comes from the recognized content and does not allow it to conflict with being. In advance of its being caused, this ens ratum has no realness in the broad sense, but it is, as it were, nothing in a different way than the absolute nothingness of something that, due to the contradictory nature of its contents, is not only not caused, but cannot even be caused. ”Ludger Honnefelder : Scientia transcendens: The formal determination of being and reality in the metaphysics of the Middle Ages and modern times , Meiner, Hamburg 1990, 55 et passim; Allan B. Wolter: The transcendentals and their function in the metaphysics of Duns Scotus. The Catholic University of America Press, Washington, DC 1946, p. 150 f.
  5. ↑ Cf. for example Theo Kobusch : Sein und Sprach , Brill, Leiden 1984, 434.
  6. ↑ See for example Fabrizio Mondadori: Leibniz on Compossibility: Some Scholastic Sources , in: Russell L. Friedman, Lauge Olaf Nielsen (eds.): The Medieval Heritage in Early Modern Metaphysics and Modal Theory, 1400–1700 , Kluwer, Dordrecht 2003, 309–338, here especially 330.