Something from Nothing?

I recently gave a presentation at the 2nd Pan-American Symposium on the History of Logic, held at UCLA June 20-23, 2023, which was dedicated to the theme of "Existence and Nonexistence." Kudos to the organizers, Milo Crimi, Graziana Ciola, and Calvin Normore, who went out of their way to include contributions exploring the theme of existence and nonexistence in a variety of philosophical traditions.

My own contribution, titled "Can Something Come from Nothing? Existence and Nonexistence in Ancient and Medieval Daoism," explored discourse in the Daoist tradition on whether existent things somehow emerge from nonexistence, leading up to what I see as Guo Xiang's decisive argument that attempts to ground existence in nonexistence effectively amount to a category mistake. As I explain in the linked essay, Guo's stance reflects a new, more sophisticated conception of causality than that employed by many of his predecessors.

The essay can be downloaded here:

"Can Something Come from Nothing? Existence and Nonexistence in Ancient and Medieval Daoism"