Something from Nothing

Abstract

It strikes many as obvious that negative facts—such as that Justin Trudeau is not a woman—are not fundamental: negative facts must ultimately be explained in terms of positive facts (for instance, that Justin Trudeau is a man). Amijee focuses on a particular class of negative facts: contingent negative existentials (such as that there are no 10ft tall humans). If contingent negative existentials are not fundamental, then they must be explained. But the intuition that contingent negative existentials are explained is in tension with the widely held view that any universal generalization can be explained by its instances together with a totality fact. This is because a totality fact is itself a negative existential, and equivalent to a universal generalization. If the explanation for any contingent negative existential must appeal to another contingent negative existential, then not all contingent negative existentials can be non-fundamental.