The Meaning of Life, Spring 2026

This is the course blog for Phil 3375, The Meaning of Life, at Southern Methodist University. Contact: jkazez@smu.edu

Monday, March 2, 2026

Why is there something rather than nothing?

 AGENDA

  1. Next time: no RR, but please listen to Cottingham podcast (just 10 minutes) or read transcript
  2. Friday and Monday: reading Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Confession (trans. Carson) -- there are copies at bookstore
  3. Today: meaning of life questions
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Our questions in modules 5, 6, 7: mainly meaning IN life

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The most ultimate of the "meaning of life" questions: 

Why is there something 
rather than nothing?

Jim Holt, Why Does the World Exist?

The history of thought about this question

  1. Question is especially urgent if you think "once there was nothing, and then there was something."
  2. But ancient myths portray creation as chaos --> order. (p. 5) 
  3. Genesis doesn't portray God as creating the world out of nothing, but "out of a chaos of earth and water 'without form and void' -- tohu bohu, in the original Hebrew." (p. 5)
  4. Ancient Greek philosophy (Plato, Aristotle) assumes world is eternal. (p. 5)
  5. Middle ages: Maimonides and Aquinas, "God created world out of nothing." (p. 5)
  6. God explains the universe existing, but why is there God rather than nothing?
  7. 18th century: Leibniz, Principle of Sufficient Reason. Everything except God is contingent--needs to be explained. God is necessary, so self-explaining.
  8. 18th century responses to Leibniz: Hume and Kant say no to "necessary beings." They don't pursue the question why there is something rather than nothing.
  9. After Hume and Kant philosophers shy away from the question.
  10. 19th century: Schopenhauer says people who try to answer are "fools" and "vain boasters." (p. 6)
  11. Schelling: world arose out of nothingness by an "incomprehensible leap." (p. 6)
  12. Hegel's obscure answer dismissed by Kierkegaard.
  13. 20th century: Bergson says nothingness is impossible, so the question is a pseudoquestion. (p. 6)
  14. Heidegger: thinks the question is very deep and important, but has no answer. (p. 6)
  15. Wittgenstein: the question is deep, but ultimately senseless.
  16. Ayer: the question is meaningless, like asking "where do all things come from?" (Or "What color is the number 4?")
  17. Logical positivism (Ayer): all truths are either logical truths or empirical truths. Any answer to "why is there something rather than nothing" would be neither. So can't be true.
  18. Russell: "I should say that the universe is just there, and that is all." (p. 7)
  19. Science: Copernicus, Galileo, Newton believed the universe has always existed. (p. 7)
  20. Einstein, Lemaitre: the Big Bang, the universe has a beginning. Now the question is "harder to dodge." Why does there suddenly start to be something! (p. 8)
  21. Nozick explores in his book Philosophical Explanations, says any answer is bound to be strange. (p. 9)
  22. Three camps:
    • optimists (has to be an answer, we'll eventually find it)
    • pessimists (might be an answer but we can't find it)
    • rejectionists (it's a bad question)
  23. Emotions toward the world as a whole.
    • some frown on it--e.g. Schopenhauer; Sartre, Nausea
    • some smile on existence as a whole -- Haydn, The Creation 
  24. Possible view: there is something rather than nothing due to blind chance, because every possibility has an equal chance of being true.
  25. Possible view: reality is causa sui (the cause of itself) -- Spinoza's view.

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Question arises on all four of these pictures of reality

top left: Genesis         
top right: creation "ex nihilo"
bottom left:  world is eternal       
bottom right: Big Bang


Holt's TED talk -- a mix of philosophy, science, religion, and comedy


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Holt's arguments in the last 7 minutes

Argument that we don't need an answer to WITSRTN




  1. The possible worlds range from nothing to the multiverse.
  2. Some of these worlds are special: the most empty, the most full, the most elegant, the most ethical.
  3. We'd have to explain why there is our world, rather than other worlds, ONLY if our world were special.*
  4. But our world is not special. THEREFORE,
  5. We don't need to say why there is our world rather than other worlds, such as the nothing world.
* Argument for this: If someone wears a suit to class it makes sense to ask "why are you wearing a suit, rather than ordinary clothes?"  But if they're wearing grey, you wouldn't ask "why are you wearing grey rather than blue?"

Several reasons why it shouldn't be distressing that it's improbable and unexplainable that this particular world exists
  1. Same is true of your individual existence and that's not distressing.
  2. Some of the other special worlds would be worse.