Nothingness is the absence of existence. It is not a thing, but the lack of any thing. Philosophers have asked whether nothingness is a legitimate concept. Parmenides argued that nothing does not exist, because to think of nothing is to think of something. Gorgias argued the opposite: nothing exists, and even if it did, we could not know it, and even if we could know it, we could not communicate it. The paradoxes of nothingness have fascinated philosophers for millennia.

Existentialists gave nothingness a central role. Heidegger argued that anxiety reveals nothingness, the ground of being. Sartre distinguished being-in-itself, which is full and solid, from being-for-itself, which is consciousness and is characterized by nothingness. Consciousness is not a thing; it is a lack, a negation. That lack is what makes freedom possible. We are not determined by what we are, because we can always negate it and become something else. Nothingness is not just a logical puzzle. It is a feature of human existence. We are the beings who can ask why there is something rather than nothing.

Questions about nothingness

• Does nothing exist? Can we meaningfully say that nothing is?
• What is the relation between nothing and being? Is nothing the absence of being, or its ground?
• What does nothingness reveal? Anxiety, freedom, the ground of existence?

Nothingness is not the same as emptiness. Emptiness is a space that could be filled. Nothingness is the absence of any space at all.