Why Something

Why is there something rather than nothing? What is Hegel’s reply to this question? First, consider Immanuel Kant’s view on something.

The most abstract concept … is the concept of something, for that which is different from it is nothing, and it thus has nothing in common with something (Kant 1992, 593/95).

For Kant, something is the most primitive category—alongside nothing. But for Hegel, by contrast, something is quite a developed concept and consequently much less abstract than nothing. In fact, for Hegel, something cannot be rightly opposed to nothing since the former constitutes a self-referring determinate being whereas the latter is simply just itself. Indeed, another misalignment is that nothing is utterly indeterminate and is so unstable it immediately vanishes whereas something is qualified determinate being that sustains itself internally. Following Hegel’s logic, therefore, Kant’s intuition—a quite widespread intuition—does not hold since the two categories in question should never be compared in that manner.

With the common notion disentangled, it becomes clearer why for Hegel there must be something rather than mere nothing. Taking nothing on its own terms—without referring to something—it vanishes into being and jump-starts the development of becoming, and further on existence and quality, which finally prove to be something. In short, there is something rather than nothing because nothing proves to be something.

This is a fine example of presuppositionless thinking. The question has a false start since it takes it for granted that something exists (is already determinate) and freezes in place the idea of nothing. To remedy this, one simply needs inquire into the nature of each category independently in order to grasp that nothing and something are not opposites and do not form a good comparison. Loosely speaking, opposite correlate of nothing is being and of something it is the other. The more accurate speculative questions are, then, why is there not just nothing—or why can nothing not merely be—and why is there not just something, why must there also be an other? The answer, taking up Hegel’s approach, is within the categories themselves.

Bibliography

Authors
Filip Niklas (2025)