The Mystery of Existence: Why Is There Anything At All?

The Mystery of Existence asks the haunting question: Why does anything exist? Anything of any kind, anywhere. The first edited volume to cover an extremely wide variety of solutions to what must be the ultimate mystery, it features dozens of luminaries. They range from Plato and Aristotle to Aquinas and Leibniz, and then to modern thinkers. These include physicists Stephen Hawking and Steven Weinberg, philosophers Robert Nozick and Derek Parfit, philosophers of religion Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne, and the Dalai Lama. Some answers are philosophical, some are theological or religious, and yet others come from physics and cosmology—fields in which debate on the deep origin of all reality continues to rage. Whether you believe the universe began with a quantum–fluctuation big bang or in the creative consciousness of a divine designer, here is a feast for the mind. With enlightening introductions to each section, and offering a wealth of suggestions for further reading, The Mystery of Existence provides general readers, students, and researchers with a readily accessible map of the many diverse paths humans have followed when confronted by the most baffling of all enigmas – Why is there something rather than nothing?

About the Editors                                                                                                       vi Acknowledgments                                                                                                      vii   1    General Introduction  (pages 1–12)                                                                       2    Some Quotations                                                                           Leibniz, Kant (page 13);   Schopenhauer, William James, George Santayana, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, J.J.C.Smart (14);   John A. Wheeler, Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg (15)   3    Possible Responses to “Why Anything?”                                    Nicholas Rescher  (pages 16–17)   4    First Solution:  A Blank is Absurd Editorial Introduction (pages 18–24);  F.H. Bradley, Henri Bergson (24);  Bede Rundle (25–26);  David Lewis (26–30);  Peter Unger (30–38);  Steven Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow (39–40)   5    Second Solution:  No Explanation Needed Editorial Introduction (pages 41–46);   Epicurus (46–47);  Hume (47–49); Fred Hoyle (49–50);  W.B.Bonnor (51–52);  Bertrand Russell and F.C.Copleston (53–56);  Adolf Grünbaum (56–70)   6    Third Solution:  Chance Editorial Introduction (pages 71–77);  Alan Guth (77–82);  Stephen Hawking (82–90); Alex Vilenkin (90–98);  Martin Rees (98);  Peter van Inwagen (98–100)   7    Fourth Solution:  Value / Perfection as Ultimate Editorial Introduction (pages 101–109);  Plato (109–110);  Aristotle (110–111); Plotinus (111–112);  Aquinas (112–113);  Anselm (113–114);  Descartes (114–115);  Alvin Plantinga (115–118);  Spinoza (118–119);  Leibniz (119–122);  Hegel (122–123);  A.C.Ewing (123–124);  Keith Ward (125);  John Polkinghorne (125–126);  John Leslie (126–141)   8    Fifth Solution: Mind / Consciousness as Ultimate Editorial Introduction (pages 142–147);  Richard Swinburne (147–153);  Timothy O’Connor (153–155);  William Lane Craig (155–159);  Sayyed Hossein Nasr (159–160);  Tenzin Gyatso, Dalai Lama XIV (160–161);  Andrei Linde (161–163);  Paul Davies (163–170)   9    Fine–Tuning and Multiple Universes Editorial Introduction (pages 171–178);  John Polkinghorne (178–189); Leonard Susskind (189–192);  Steven Weinberg (192–194);  Max Tegmark (194–206);  Robin Collins (207–210)                                                                                                                10   The Problem Seems Genuine Editorial Introduction (pages 211–219);  Derek Parfit (220–237);  Robert Nozick (238–246); Robert Lawrence Kuhn (246–278);  Michael Heller (278–284);  Nicholas Rescher (284–288)   Bibliography and Further Reading                                                                             289 Index of Names                                                                                                       310 Index of Concepts                                                                                                    313

John Leslie is University Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Guelph, Canada, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Well–known in the philosophy of cosmology and religion, he has held visiting professorships at institutions including the Australian National University (Research Department of Philosophy) and the University of Liège (Institute of Astrophysics). He is the author of numerous publications including Value and Existence (Blackwell, 1979), Universes (Routledge, 1989), The End of the World: the Science and Ethics of Human Extinction (Routledge, 1996), Infinite Minds (Oxford University Press, 2001), and Immortality Defended (Blackwell, 2007). Robert Lawrence Kuhn is a public intellectual and the creator and host of Closer To Truth , the long–running PBS / public television series on science and philosophy. With a doctorate in brain research (UCLA), he is the author or editor of more than 30 books, including Closer To Truth: Challenging Current Belief and Closer To Truth: Science, Meaning and the Future . A recognized expert on Chinese politics and economics, he is the author of The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin (Crown, 2005), China’s best–selling book of 2005, and How China’s Leaders Think (Wiley, 2011). He is a frequent commentator on the BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, China Central Television (CCTV), and Euronews.

“In this deep and thoughtful book, philosopher John Leslie and public sage Robert Lawrence Kuhn organize, integrate, and reassess past and current ideas about this most compelling of metaphysical questions.”  ( M etapsychology , 13 August 2013) “And now John Leslie and Robert Lawrence Kuhn have published The Mystery of Existence: Why Is There Anything At All ? , a very useful anthology of classic and contemporary readings.”  ( First Things , 24 July 2013) “Read the book by all means.  It′s well written.  Inevitably.  After all its contributors number the greatest brains known to man.  But I think it has been misnamed.  The Mystery of Existence .  (There really isn′t anything to concern us.) .”  ( New Nurturing Potential , 1 July 2013) “I certainly recommend it, but it is not the sort of book you would buy to read in the train.”  ( Magonia Blog , 6 June 2013) "Their book, which I would recommend highly to students, researchers or indeed anyone with a curiosity about or stimulated by these deepest of questions, offers an abundance of suggestions for further reading and research on this inexhaustible topic."  ( Mysterious Planet , 1 June 2013)