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NOTHING IS ALIVE (WE ONLY SAY SO)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2017

Jiri Benovsky
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Abstract

Finding an adequate definition of ‘life’ has proven to be a tricky affair. In this article, I discuss the idea that nothing is really alive: we only say so. I shall argue that ‘being alive’ is not a genuine property of things, and that it only reflects the way we think and talk about things. An eliminativist strategy will then allow us to free ourselves from the burden of having to find a definition of life, and will allow us to focus on the genuinely interesting properties of living (and non-living) entities.

Type
Research Article
Information
Think , Volume 16 , Issue 47 , Autumn 2017 , pp. 115 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2017 

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