The book is due back at the library today, and good riddance. A few parting shots to put this turkey to bed. The book is a mishmash of bad philosophy, badly written, and popularization of contemporary cosmology. I cannot comment on the accuracy of the popularization, but the philosophy is indeed bad and demonstrates why we need philosophy: to debunk bad philosophy, especially the scientistic nonsense our culture is now awash in. I am tempted once more to quote some Kraussian passages and pick them apart. But besides being a waste of time, that would be the literary equivalent of beating up a cripple or rolling a drunk.<\/span><\/p>\n In my post of 29 April<\/a> I put my finger on the central problem with the book: the 'bait and switch.' Krauss baits us with the old Leibniz question, 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' (See On the Ultimate Origin of Things<\/em>, 1697.) Having piqued our interest, he switches to a different question, actually to several different questions, one of which is: "Why is there \u2018stuff\u2019, instead of empty space?" (Click on above link for reference.) Apparently our man forgot that empty space is not nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n Bait and switch.<\/em> I recall an old Tareyton cigarette commercial from the '60s: I'd rather fight than switch.<\/a> Apparently Krauss would rather switch than fight an intellectually honest fight.<\/span><\/p>\n Here<\/a> are links to my more substantial, but no less polemical, Krauss posts.<\/span><\/p>\n Ed Feser picks up on the 'bait and switch' theme in his cleverly titled First Things<\/em> review, Not Understanding Nothing.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The book is due back at the library today, and good riddance. A few parting shots to put this turkey to bed. The book is a mishmash of bad philosophy, badly written, and popularization of contemporary cosmology. I cannot comment on the accuracy of the popularization, but the philosophy is indeed bad and demonstrates why we … Continue reading “Farewell to Krauss, A Universe From Nothing<\/i>“<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142,218,219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-existence","category-nothingness","category-scientism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}