Category: Existence
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Is God a being among beings or Being Itself? An Exchange with Dale Tuggy
Top o' the Stack. One morning, just as Old Sol was peeping his ancient head over the magnificent and mysterious Superstition range, I embarked on a drive down old Arizona 79, past Florence, to a hash house near Oracle Junction where I had the pleasure of another nice long three and one half hour caffeine-fueled…
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Sorry Gottlob, Sorry Bertrand
Attributes are at the things to which they are attributed. Existence, then, is in a broad sense an attribute of existing items despite adding nothing to the quiddity of the thing to which it is attributed apart from its capacity to have a quiddity.
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Once More on Whether Existence Could be a Property
This just over the transom from Samuli Isotalo: I recently started reading your book A Paradigm Theory of Existence and the following kind of argument against the view that existence is a first-level property came to my mind. Probably you and many others have considered something like this, but I send it anyway. …
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What are Modes of Being?
The following has been languishing in my unpublished archives since December 2009. Time to clean it up and send it out. If it triggers a bit of hard thinking in a few receptive heads, and therewith, the momentary bliss of the sublunary bios theoretikos, then it has done its job. Don't comment unless you understand…
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What Exists Exists
A miserable tautology?
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Plato, Power, and Existence
The return of the Eleatic Stranger. Substack latest. Theme music: Barbara Lewis, Hello Stranger EmmyLou Harris, Hello Stranger
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The Latest from Peter van Inwagen
This just over the transom: Dear Sir, Recently I have been looking for some work by Peter van Inwagen and found his recent book Being A Study in Ontology. I believe the subject could be very interesting to you, because, as far as I know, you have written several times on his ontological views (even if there…
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Peter Geach on the Real Distinction I
Oceans of ink have been spilled over the centuries on the celebrated distinctio realis between essence (essentia) and existence (esse). You have no idea how much ink, and vitriol too, has flooded the scholastic backwaters and sometimes spilled over into mainstream precincts. Anyway, the distinction has long fascinated me and I hold to some version of it. I will first…
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Existence Exists: Analytic or Synthetic?
Recently over the transom: I am A. Kashfi, Professor of philosophy from Tehran University, Iran. I am currently engaged in studying your esteemed book A PARADIGM THEORY OF EXISTENCE. In this book, you argue that “existence exists”. Regarding this proposition, a question has arisen for me. I would be grateful to have your response. Is…
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Can a Necessary Being Depend for its Existence on a Necessary Being?
Brian Bosse raised this question over the phone the other day. This re-post from February 2010 answers it. ………………………….. According to the Athanasian Creed, the Persons of the Trinity, though each of them uncreated and eternal and necessary, are related as follows. The Father is unbegotten. The Son is begotten by the Father, but not made…
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Notes on Avicenna: Essence, Existence, and Creation
Time was when the Islamic world could boast world-class philosophers. The Persian Ibn Sina (980-1037 anno domini) was one of them. He is known in the West as Avicenna. Translated into Latin, his works had a major influence on the philosophy of the 12th and 13th centuries and beyond. De Ente et Essentia of Thomas…
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Some Questions about Existence, Part I
Pat F. inquires: Your theory is that existence is the unity of a thing’s constituents. What I wasn’t entirely clear on is just what those constituents are. In one section of your book, you argue for the real distinction between essence and existence, which gave me the impression that existence was a constituent (rather than,…
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Philosophically Salient Senses of ‘See’
This entry is relevant to my ongoing discussion with Dr. Buckner. It is plain that 'sees' has many senses in English. Of these many senses, some are philosophically salient. Of the philosophical salient senses, two are paramount. Call the one 'existence-entailing.' (EE) Call the other 'existence-neutral.' (EN) On the one, 'sees' is a so-called verb…
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Existence, Time, Property-Possession, and the Dead
Here are four propositions that are individually plausible but collectively inconsistent. 1) For any x, temporal or atemporal, if x has a property, then x exists. 2) For any temporal x, if x exists, then x exists at present. 3) Frege, a temporal item, does not exist at present. 4) Frege has properties at present.…
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Memory and Existence: An Aporetic Tetrad
Try this foursome on for size: 1) Memory is a source of knowledge. 2) Whatever is known, exists. 3) Memory includes memory of wholly past individuals and events. 4) Whatever exists, is temporally present. The limbs of the tetrad are collectively inconsistent: they cannot all be true. To appreciate the logical inconsistency, note that 'exists'…