Perspective

Jim Holt, the author of Why Does the World Exist, is a philosopher and journalist. His aim in the book is to introduce the reader into the various ways (a number of contemporary) intellectuals address the question of why there is something rather than nothing. So his perspective is, in the first instance, as a philosopher prepared to introduce a highly abstruse subject matter to a wider audience than the question usually receives.

Holt's perspective has two distinguishing characteristics, which we can understand in terms of the sorts of answers he rejects and whether he is the sort of writer after answers in the first place. With respect to the first matter, Holt takes a number of positions. Contrary to Adolf Grunbaum, Holt believes that the question of why there is something rather than nothing makes sense. Further, contrary to a number of thinkers, he believes in the...