Alethic nihilism as an error theory

Abstract This chapter views nihilism from a fresh perspective, as a contribution to a realism/anti-realism debate. From this perspective, nihilism is best seen as a version of anti-realism, specifically, an error theory (like Field’s position in philosophy of mathematics and Mackie’s position in metaethics). Error theories about other domains have received a number of objections: for example, it has been argued that these are too radical, or that our best explanations of some phenomena entail the existence of the entities in question. The chapter shows how to direct these objections to nihilism, and discusses how the nihilist can best respond. Error theories about other domains share a number of virtues. The chapter shows that nihilism also enjoys these: in particular, it is ontologically economical, and because it says that nothing is true, it avoids the problem of explaining how we know of something that it is true.