Metaphysics and Mystery

Metaphysics and Mystery: The Why Question East and West is a critical analysis comparison and evaluation of philosophical answers Western and Asian to the question Why is there something rather than nothing? The question first posed by the seventeenth-century philosopher Leibniz was reintroduced in the twentieth century by Heidegger. Volume 1 begins with an introduction that lays out the issues raised by the why question. It then analyzes contemporary Western philosophers who provide either cosmological-metaphysical or existential-ontological answers to the question. It also considers transitional answers that bridge the two. Volume 2 examines Asian philosophers classical and contemporary who though rejecting the assumptions behind the question put forward nondualist answers that have a direct bearing on it. It concludes with an argument for a revised understanding of the why question that draws on the strengths and weaknesses of these Western and Asian philosophies and explores implications for ethics and religious thought.