II.

The Problem of Nothingness

Philosophy 157
G. J. Mattey
2002

Dualism
Since ancient philosophy, a distinction has
been made between appearance and reality
Phenomenology overcomes this dualism by
considering the phenomenon as the thing
itself
But there remains a dualism of what is
present (finite) and its possibilities (infinite)
What is the being of the phenomenon?

The Being of the Phenomenon

Things reveal themselves in the
phenomenon
The being of the phenomenon is the
condition under which it is revealed
So the being of the phenomenon is not
revealed in the phenomenon
Our knowledge of this being surpasses our
knowledge of the phenomenon

Being-in-Itself
The being of the phenomenon is being-initself (le tre-en-sois)
It is not created, for then it would have to be
for another (God), nor does it create
It simply is what it is
It is opaque, solid

Being-for-Itself
The being of the consciousness which is
directed at being-in-itself is being-for-itself
(le tre-pour-sois)
It is not simply what is, but (in a way), it is
what is not
Being-for-itself nihilates being,
introducing a negativity not found in beingin-itself

Consciousness
Consciousness is directed at the phenomenon
This consciousness is pre-reflective (or non-thetic)
Example: I may count without reflecting on what I am
doing, but when asked, I say (reflectively) that I am
counting
But there still must be a consciousness of the activity
of counting, which organizes it
This self-consciousness is non-positional, and it is
not really distinct from the consciousness aimed at the
phenomenon

Transcendent Being
Since consciousness is directed at the
phenomenon, it transcends itself
So consciousness must be supported by a
transcendent being, a being which is not
consciousness itself
This is the ontological proof
Husserl erred by making the noema unreal,
dependent entirely on perception

Analysis and Synthesis

Descartes analyzed the world separate things,
body and mind, and tried to unite them in a
synthesis
Husserl did the same with noesis and noema
But a concrete unity cannot be achieved in this
way
Heidegger begins with a concrete object, beingin-the-world
What is the meaning of being-in-the-world?

Questioning Being
The answer is to be found by investigating human
conduct
Many patterns of conduct will be examined
The leading pattern is that of questioning
We question being with the expectation of an
answer from it (e.g., in scientific experiments)
Questioning takes place within the context of
being-in-the-world

Negative Answers
We question being by asking it yes or no? (as in
scientific experiments, or in a search for conduct
revealing being-in-the-world)
These express opposing possibilities
Non-being is thus a transcendent fact
It cannot be explained by appeal to subjectivity: a
fiction implies a negative reply
There are three negativities in questioning: not
knowing the answer in advance, the possibility of
non-being, and limitation, which allows truth

Negation and Judgment

Negation is typically explained in terms of a
judgment of the type X is not
Then being can be left as fully positive, and
negation is confined to judging or perhaps a
separate, insubstantial, existence
Does negation depend on judgment, or does
judgment depend on negation?

Non-Being and Expectation

Non-being appears only in the context of what we expect: I
am short of money
It must first be posited as something possible
But this does not make negation subjective
Negation is not tied to judgment, because our expectations
are directed at things
We comprehend non-being prior to judgment
Destruction depends on our apprehending a being as
destructible, a limiting which is a nihilation
This also appears when we narrow our focus, excluding other
beings

An Example
I have an appointment with Pierre at the
caf but am late
I find that he is not there, based on an
intuition of his absence
This must be understood as involving nonbeing, not just negative judgment

Absence
Being fills the room, but it recedes and becomes a
background
Pierre, in the foreground, is constantly slipping
away
Pierres absence haunts this caf and is the
condition of its self-nihilating organization as
ground
But the absence of Wellington is just a judgment

Negation as Original
Judgment cannot account for the refusal of
existence that is negation
Negation tears us free of being; it is an original
event, a discovery
This discovery (Pierres absence) is the basis of
our judgments
Nothingness haunts being, within and without us
Where does nothingness come from?

Being and Non-Being

It is tempting to regard being and non-being
as complementary components of the real,
like light and darkness
They would then be abstractions which
would have to be united synthetically
Hegel treated them this way
Pure being and pure nothing are both empty,
completely general, abstractions

Being and Essence

For Hegel, essence is the foundation of being
Essence is said to be the concrete, of which being
is an abstraction
But being is the condition of all structures, and
hence of all essences
Moreover, if being is completely abstract, it bears
no trace of essence
The implicit conclusion is that being signifies
existence, rather than essence

Being is Prior to Non-Being

Non-being is the contradiction of being
Logically, non-being is subsequent to being, as its
denial, which involves an irreducible mental act
But denying being is only denying that being is
this or that, not that it is
Negation can not touch the nucleus of the being
of Being, which is absolute plenitude and entire
positivity

Can Something Come from

Nothing?
Temporally, being is prior to nothing
Nothing is always a denial of something,
and so is the denial of being as a whole
If we tried to think of nothing before being,
we would therefore fail: it would be totally
indeterminate
The same holds if being were to disappear
Nothingness has only a borrowed existence

Heideggers Conception of
Nothingness
Being and nothing are in tension with each
other, producing the real
Being is not treated as a universal
The correlate of being, nothing, is not in the
province of the understanding
Human attitudes, especially Angst, make
possible an encounter with nothingness

Transcendence of Being
In Angst, beings as a whole slip away
This allows us to understand them as
beings, and not nothing
By holding out into the nothing, Dasein
transcends being
Human reality emerges from non-being
The world is suspended in nothingness

Criticisms of Heidegger
Heidegger is correct that human reality emerges
from non-being
But how does emergence from non-being account
for nihilating refusal?
Not through transcendence: non-being is required
for transcendence, a negating activity
Nothingness relative to the world as a whole does
not properly explain concrete negations

Concrete Negations
Simple, radical negations deny any being (x does not
exist, etc.)
They might be explained as contributing a piece of a
universal nothingness
But some beings contain non-being (e.g., distance)
There is emptiness separating points A and B
Negation cements the unity of the two in one Gestalt
(figure)
Universal nothingness does not explain absence,
change, otherness, repulsion, regret: ngatits

The Origin of Nothingness

Nothingness must inhabit the heart of being like a
worm to account for ngatits
But it cannot be produced by being, which a full
positivity
Nor can it be produced by itself by nihilation,
because it is not
So there has to be a being which brings nothing to
being
The nothingness which it brings must be its own

The Nihilating Being

For a questioning being, there is always the
possibility of a yes or a no answer
This possibility requires dissociation from the
causality of being
Questioning requires independence from the causal
order
This is a nihilation of himself, in order to make a
space for what causally cannot be
Man is such a being who causes nothingness to arise
in being

Explaining Ngatits
All transcendent realities are so only in
relation to human reality
They originate from a human act,
expectation, or project
They are at the basis of Heideggerian
instrumentalities
What is the being of man, such that
nothingness comes to being through him?

Freedom
Man cannot annihilate being, but only
modify his relation to being
In so doing, man can put himself out of
reach of the being
It cannot act on him, for he has retired
beyond a nothingness
The Stoics and Descartes called this
freedom

Existence and Essence

With non-human beings, essence precedes
existence
Human freedom precedes essence
Freedom and human reality are inseparable
Humans can detach themselves from reality
(Descartes, Husserl, Heidegger)
They can secrete nothingness to create a
distance even from their past

Consciousness of Freedom
We are conscious of freedom in anguish
Freedom is in question for itself in anguish
Kierkegaard understood that anguish is
directed at ones self
Sartre: throwing myself over the cliff
Heidegger understood that anguish is
apprehension of nothingness
The two views can be combined

Anguish in the Face of the Future

I can overcome fear by substituting my own
possibilities for those that might cause harm
But I recognize that my possibilities are not
determined: I might cause the harm myself
I am conscious of being my own future
The self I am depends on the self I am not yet
Anguish can be quelled by indecision, which calls
for decision (I pull myself back from the brink)

Anguish in the Face of the Past

A gambler has resolved to stop gambling,
but is pulled toward it at the gambling table
He realizes the inefficacy of his resolution
Determinism is ruptured by nothingness
The resolution must be freely re-made
The gambler is in the grips of anguish,
because he at once is and is not the
resolution that he made in the past

Motives
There is a gap between motives and action
This gap is a nothing
The ineffectiveness of motives makes freedom
possible, not vice-versa
We cannot describe the nothing (it is not), but it is
made-to-be by the human being relating to himself
Motives are only appearances for consciousness,
which posits them

Immanence and Transcendence

The nothing which is a condition for human
freedom is transcendence in immanence
It is immanent in the sense of being
subjective, apprehended as mine
It is transcendence in the sense that points
beyond the present situation, to a self that
does not exist now but exists in the past or
the future

Anguish and Essence

There is no me which takes on different
states of consciousness
The essence of man is determined by his
history: all that human reality apprehends
in itself as having been
Nothingness separates us from our essence
Anguish reveals this separation

The Exigencies of Action

If anxiousness manifests freedom, and freedom is
the permanents structure of human reality, why is it
exceptional?
The possibility of interrupting my actions is cut off
by the exigencies of carrying them through
Non-reflective actions tend to crystallize into a
transcendent, relatively independent form
This is overcome only when we recognize that the
permanent possibility of not carrying them through
is what makes them possible

Values

Values are demands on our behavior

The being of value is based on its exigency
Freedom makes value exist as value
Nothing justifies the adoption of values
This creates anguish
Also creating anguish is that every
disclosure of values puts them in question

Everyday Morality
Everyday morality precludes ethical anguish
The world presses itself on me immediately, and
my freedom is secondary
Bourgeois respectability does not come from
contemplation of values, but is a given pattern of
behavior
Values are sown on my path as thousands of little
real demands, like the signs which order us to
keep off the grass

Myself as Project
Values are an amalgamation of the small things I do
and must do in acting
Concrete objects and activities act as guard rails
against anguish
When these come into question, the project that
constitutes my being is put into doubt
The consciousness of my freedom nihilates the
guard rails
There are then no longer any justifications or excuses
for what I am

Summary
Anguish then is the reflective apprehension
of freedom by itself. . . . It appears at the
moment that I disengage myself from the
world where I had been engaged . . . . In
anguish I apprehend myself at once as
totally free and as not being able to derive
the meaning of the world except as coming
from myself. (Essays in Existentialism,
136-7)

Flight
The standard reaction to anguish is to flee it
We flee anguish by taking refuge in psychological
determinism
This determinism is the basis of all excuses
It tries to fill in the nothingness between past,
present and future
This is done by giving actions a kind of inertia
In flight, I treat myself as a being-in-itself

Consciousness of Freedom
We intuit our freedom, and our flight from it is
reflective
So flight does not undermine the evidence of
freedom
Even scientific determinism is only given as an
explanatory hypothesis, while acknowledging an
immediate consciousness of freedom
So we can try to overcome anguish by judging this
consciousness to be an illusion

Distraction
We cannot overcome anguish by a judgment
We attempt this through distraction
We judge the possibility which is the
completion of my project as a thing
All other possibilities are treated as
merely conceivable, belonging to someone
else, and so they are not of interest to me

The Flight to Essence

Flight may be directed toward the past
My essence is what I have been, and in flight I can
identify it with what I am
But I deny that my essence is itself determined,
implying my action as a circle implies its properties
So I say an act is free just in case it reflects my
essenceI am like a little Godbut an other
Bergson disguises our anguish this way: the act flows
from me like children from a father

The Futility of Flight

In order to hide anguish, we must already be
acquainted with the fact that we have it
Anguish, the intentional aim of anguish, the flight
from anguish are all given in one consciousness
So fleeing anguish is only a mode of being
conscious of it
Thus anguish, properly speaking, can be neither
hidden nor avoided

Bad Faith
To flee anguish, we must be anguish
In flight, anguish is nihilated
I decenter myself by being and not being
anguish
The nihilation nihilates itself
This attitude is bad faith
In covering up nothingness, bad faith
presupposes the nothingness it suppresses

Ekstases
Ekstasis is from the Greek, meaning
standing out from
Consciousness is thrown into being-in-itself
Consciousness is thrown into non-being
To question being is not to be being-in-itself
Non-being is the condition of transcendence
So the problem of nothingness must be
confronted

Fundamental Nothingness
We began with apprehension of the
ngatits
These are explained by the nihilating
activity of consciousness
This in turn is explained by the nothingness
of consciousness
What must consciousness be to allow this?

Bad Faith and Consciousness

The key to understanding the nothingness of
consciousness is bad faith
Bad faith is a being-in-order-not-to-be
It is instantaneous, unlike the
transcendences of past and future
How can we understand the nothingness of
consciousness through bad faith?