Why the World Does Not Exist

Polity Press 2015 Hb, 239pp, £20.00, ISBN 9780745687568

FORTEAN TIMES BOOKSHOP PRICE £18.00

In dealing with most fortean subjects, we frequently come up with questions like “Do ghosts exist?” or “Does Nessie exist”? But do we really think enough about that word “exist”? What exactly does it mean, or do we mean by it? If it is traced back to its Latin roots, it means “to stand out”. Does that help?

Leaving aside ghosts and Nessie, do unicorns exist? And here I will be precise: I am referring to unicorns wearing police uniforms, on the Moon. Or another question: does the World exist? According to Markus Gabriel, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bonn, the answer is yes to the unicorns, and no to the World – as evidenced by the forthright title to this book.

First we have to establish what is mean by “the World” here – not planet Earth, which evidently exists, but “the World” meaning the sum total of everything. Gabriel’s delightfully paradoxical argument is that everything exists, unicorns and all, but Everything does not exist. To give the argument for this in very simple form: to say something exists means that it is part of the World; the World cannot be part of the World, therefore it cannot exist.

The author intends this book as an introduction to his own school of philosophy, which he calls “New Realism”. In this he makes use of what he calls “fields of sense”. Sitting at my desk, I see a Bohemian perfume bottle; it appears in my field of vision, therefore it appears in a field of sense, therefore it exists. The police unicorns appear in my thinking, which is also a field of sense, therefore they also exist, but in a somewhat different context, where “context” is an important technical consideration. So Nessie exists, but the context is still subject to debate.

I am not a professional philosopher, and I don’t know what holes a professional philosopher would poke in the author’s arguments. Therefore I am reviewing this book as an interested layman, which is exactly the author’s target audience. The book is written as an intelligent layman’s guide to ontology. To take a difficult technical subject and render it in a form that is intelligible, yes, and readable for the non-specialist is a challenge that I am familiar with, and it is a pleasure to see a writer hit the spot so successfully. And all credit to the translator, too. The author is a dab hand at giving everyday examples to make his points clear (he has a fondness for popular culture as well), and he is witty without falling into that trap of faux jokiness that academics sometimes adopt when writing for the layman. He never talks down to the reader. And I have to admire anyone who describes Stephen Hawking in print as “highly overrated as a public intellectual”.

“Ontology” is a wonderful word which you can think of as the study of existing; but it is a great word to drop into any argument. Start a sentence with, “Of course, from an ontological perspective...” and you baffle your opponent, but no one can ever haul you up for misuse of the term. This book will also explain and give you guidance on some other choice terms like “hermeneutical constructivism” without ever being hard to follow.

I do have a few criticisms. It seems to me that there are aspects that could be explored more fully. The author makes a passing dismissive reference to the idea of multiple universes, but I don’t see that these are incompatible with “New Realism” – since any universe appears in the fields of sense of its inhabitants. There are a few passages in the second half of the book that are heavier going than the rest, and the final chapter is too short, where a strong summing-up is needed. I do hate it when only an index nominem is provided. I could also mention that the unicorn on the book’s cover has no police uniform ...

But these are relatively minor points. This is a book that brilliantly demonstrates why philosophy is still relevant. Anyone who thinks that deciding what exists and what doesn’t is something to be left to scientists is in for a surprise. Strongly recommended.