There has been much ado about nothingness amongst philosophers and mystics alike. Heidegger and Carnap famously argued fiercely about whether the ‘nothing nothings’ or whether this is meaningless, illogical, hogwash. Carnap though, in his later work, moved towards Heidegger’s perspective, and placed ‘the nothing’ beyond the clutches of logic. The ground of Being may well be a contradiction, argues Graham Priest.

In Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre tells us a story.¹ He has arranged to meet Pierre in a bar at 16.00. Pierre is always punctual. Jean-Paul arrives late. He enters the bar; Pierre is not there. At once Jean-Paul experiences his absence. He does not have to reason: ‘The things in the bar are: a table, a chair, Simone... Pierre is not a table; Pierre is not a chair; Pierre in not Simone;... Ergo Pierre is not in the bar.’ The absence of Pierre is immediate. He has a direct phenomenological awareness of an absence.

Or again: I visited my old family home immediately after the death of my mother. The place was exactly the same as it always was. But now there was nobody there. She was absent; and her absence was palpable.