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Where do we come from? Are we merely a cluster of elementary particles in a gigantic world receptacle? And what does it all mean?
In this highly original new book, the philosopher Markus Gabriel challenges our notion of what exists and what it means to exist. He questions the idea that there is a world that encompasses everything like a container life, the universe, and everything else. This all-inclusive being does not exist and cannot exist. For the world itself is not found in the world. And even when we think about the world, the world about which we think is obviously not identical with the world in which we think. For, as we are thinking about the world, this is only a very small event in the world. Besides this, there are still innumerable other objects and events: rain showers, toothaches and the World Cup. Drawing on the recent history of philosophy, Gabriel asserts that the world cannot exist at all, because it is not found in the world. Yet with the exception of the world, everything else exists; even unicorns on the far side of the moon wearing police uniforms.
Revelling in witty thought experiments, word play, and the courage of provocation, Markus Gabriel demonstrates the necessity of a questioning mind and the role that humour can play in coming to terms with the abyss of human existence.
List of contents
Thinking Philosophy Anew 1
Appearance and Being 2
New Realism 5
The Plurality of Worlds 8
Less than Nothing 11
I What is this Actually: the World? 16 You and the Universe 21
Materialism 28
"The World is Everything that is the Case" 32
Constructivism 38
Philosophers and Physicists 44
II What is Existence? 50 The Super-Object 53
Monism, Dualism, Pluralism 56
Absolute and Relative Differences 61
Fields of Sense 65
III Why the World Does Not Exist 73 The Super-Thought 78
Nihilism and Non-Existence 81
The External and the Internal World 91
IV The Worldview of Natural Science 99 Naturalism 106
Monism 111
The Book of the World 115
Subjective Truths 126
Holzwege 131
Science and Art 137
V The Meaning of Religion 146 Fetishism 154
The Infinite 162
Religion and the Search for Meaning 168
The Function of God 178
VI The Meaning of Art 184 Ambivalences 186
On Sense and Reference 190
The Demon of Analogy 194
Reflexivity 197
Diversity 204
VII Closing Credits: Television 209 A Show about Nothing 212
The Senses . . . 215
. . . and the Meaning of Life 220
Notes 222
Glossary 231
Index of Names 237
About the author
Markus Gabriel was born in 1980 and studied in Heidelberg, Lisbon and New York. Since 2009 he has held the chair for Epistemology at the University of Bonn and with that is Germany¿s youngest philosophy professor. He is also the director of the International Center for Philosophy in Bonn.
Summary
This new book of popular philosophy is a major bestseller in Germany, where it sold over 40,000 copies in the first few weeks after publication Gabriel argues that the world does not exist because what is, in fact, includes not simply so-called facts, but also views of those facts, dreams, projects, works of art and perspectives.
