Why the World Does Not Exist

In 2013 Markus Gabriel, a young philosophy professor at the University of Bonn, wrote a book with the provocative title: Warum es die Welt nicht gibt (Why the World does not exist).

On June 23, 2011, Gabriel had lunch with his Italian colleague Maurizio Ferraris in Naples. When they had finished their ristretti, they had also finished or instead founded a new approach to philosophy. This so-called New Realism is an advancement of both metaphysics and constructivism. Somewhat simplified, Gabriel states: Whereas metaphysics claims that the World is different from how it appears to us, constructivism claims that we construct things in recognizing them. New Realism, however, claims that when we realize something by seeing, hearing, or sensing, there is really something.

Gabriel's reasoning starts with a standard definition of the World: The World is the totality of things and facts. Things have specific properties, but facts consist of concepts, and concepts are never fully settled. Gabriel then introduces Sinnfelder (fields of context) and formulates the first law of New Realism:

Existence is the recognition in an area of context (FOC).

According to Martin Heidegger, the World is - in Gabriel's language - the field of the context of all FOCs in which all other FOCs appear.

©Ullstein Verlag

We now assume for a moment that the World appears in a field of context S1 being one of many other FOCs S2, S3, etc. If the World is the FOC in which all other FOCs appear, then any other FOCs appear in S1 as subfields, for in S1, the World appears, and in the World, everything appears. This situation Gabriel illustrates in a few sketches: The World does not appear in the World or, for short: The World does not exist.

Another argument goes like this: A thing cannot exist isolated; it has to appear in a field of context. This field of context can only exist if it appears in another FOC, and again in another one. When we continue the argumentation, we shall never reach the last field of context, i.e., the World where everything appears. Ergo: The World does not exist.

We always look at things, i.e., items, notions, and concepts, under certain aspects, and place them into specific fields of context. A table can be regarded in the FOC of physics as an ordered ensemble of elementary particles. That is different from the FOC of furniture where a table could be placed, and that again is different from the community FOC, i.e., a table is a place where people eat, drink, and communicate. 

Gabriel continues: Some things are connected, but not all things are connected, again an argument that The World does not exist. Here shall I stop. For further explanations of New Realism, you must read Gabriel's book.

For Hamlet, To be or not to be, that is the question, but it was Heidegger who asked the question of all questions: Was ist Sein? (What is this: To Be?). Young Markus Gabriel asks offhand: Was soll das Ganze alles? (What is the purpose of all this?)

Whereas constructivist epistemology and metaphysics look for authenticity beyond the fields of context - we may know, or miss - Gabriel claims that there is nothing behind that settles things. Since an overall structure does not exist, we are not determined by it. That means that we are alone, but as free autonomous human beings, we have the privilege of infinite possibilities for exploring.

Comforting, isn't it? Watch Markus Gabriel on YouTube.

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