Quote:
Originally Posted by UbuntuniX  Can there be absence without existence?
For example:
There is no war. There was no war. There never will be war.
Is there peace? Yes, there is absence of war, but without war, there could be no peace.
There is no war. There is no peace. So, are we left in a void, with no knowledge, existence, or conception of what will never be?
Philosophy! |
It's a good question! I've wondered the same thing.
I like Bentrand Russel's approach to language: With a statement like 'there is peace', it really describes a *three* place relation between an observer, a language, and some state affairs in the world. One looks at a situation, and selects a particular word that fits.... it's the observer that makes the judgment.
It might be impossible that the jugdment could be made, or that the word itself could even be defined, without some positive and negative examples from which to base our judgments.
Although, if there was always peace for millions of years, and then war, we could look back at history and make the judgement that there was peace during this time. Otherwise, we would be confined to the stranger view that peace didn't really exist during this time, even though the state of affairs met the definition in all regards.
So IMO, peace can exist without war ever existing, but understanding or using a word like 'peace' would be difficult without a variety of experiences.