On Why the World Does Not Exist

“To understand why the World does not exist, we must first figure out what it means for something to exist. Something exists only if it is found in the World, but we cannot find the World itself in the World. At least, I have never seen, felt, or tasted it.”

German philosopher Markus Gabriel, born in 1980, guides us to rethink philosophically as he answers the question "Why does the World not exist?". In doing so, he uses a provocative, witty, and understandable language, even promising his readers from the very beginning: "You will not encounter philosophical word-monsters in this book." Therefore, he offers his readers a simple path through the labyrinth of deep philosophical questions: Where do we come from? What are we in? And what does it all mean?

“If we want to learn what all this means, we must first forget everything we thought we knew and start over,” says Gabriel, maintaining his good intentions from beginning to end: “The meaning of life is in meaning itself; it is our confrontation with the infinite meaning we are fortunate enough to share. It is understandable that we are not always happy. The existence of unhappiness and unnecessary suffering is equally real; it should serve as an occasion to rethink what it means to be human and to ethically improve ourselves.”