So, how can using the same word for both 'subjects' and 'non-subjects' be 'consistent with a fundamental difference'. If it's the same word, and refers to both classes, then how can it convey 'a fundamental difference'? Or did you mean to write, 'is consistent with there being no fundamental difference between...' — Wayfarer

No I did write it as I meant to.

Maybe this sums it up: It's consistent with a fundamental difference, but it does not convey any such difference. It's neutral. It is also consistent with there being no fundamental difference.

Does that make sense?

So, what do you think is the philosophical signficance of the fact that 'man alone' is capable of 'encountering the question of being', and that no other beings are able to do that. Do you think this is a significant distinction? — Wayfarer

Absolutely!

Note that Heidegger singles out 'human beings', because they alone are able to encounter the question of 'what it means to be'. No other beings - particles and planets, ants and apes - are able to do this. To all intents, that is the same distinction I was seeking to make. — Wayfarer

Yes, that was precisely my point. I thought I'd made that clear. To use "beings" to refer to anything which can be said to be, whether animate or not, is consistent with a fundamental difference between human beings and other beings, or between subjects of experience and things that are not subjects of experience.

I explicitly chose that quote for exactly the reason you've pointed out. It supports my central point.

I'm left quite baffled by this discussion. I'm pretty sure even the occasional modern use of 'being' as 'living entity/person' is derived post hoc from the adjunct of 'being' to 'human being', by contraction to just 'human' or just 'being'. — Isaac

Yes, that was my conjecture too. I'm also guessing it's been strengthened by popular culture, e.g., "the being from another world." I also noticed, while doing my SEP trawl, that many of the articles on Eastern philosophy use it like this.

I could probably do a long list of philosophical citations where "a being" means a person. I guess it comes down to context. — frank

Yes, there are many of those too. When the context is Western metaphysics, the use I've been arguing for seems to be the main one, and it's the minimal, most neutral sense, in line with the grammatical basics: a being is what can be said to be.

Or divine being. — frank

Yep, good point.

I don't know of any cases where "a being" isn't a person. — frank

See my quotations from the SEP. It's the philosophical standard.*

In philosophy there are human beings, divine beings, non-living beings, inanimate beings, possible beings, and so on. You agreed with me on this a page or two ago.

*EDIT: I mean it's the philosophical standard to use it to refer to things that are, whether they are persons or not

All I’ve said all along is that in common speech, beings are differentiated from things. But then I’ve used that to argue for there being a real distinction which is what seemed to trigger the whole debate. The meta-question, if you like, is what is the source of that controversy. Why does it matter that beings are or are not different from things? — Wayfarer

I just want to note, in case there is any doubt about it, that this has nothing to do with why I have been telling you that "beings" in philosophy refers to whatever can be said to be; it is not why @Baden, @Mikie and others have told you the same; and it is not why philosophers use it like that. The term is neutral on the difference between subjects of experience and (other) things, and is most often associated with some kind of assertion of difference. For example, Aristotle distinguishes between rational and non-rational beings, and between living and non-living beings.

Or take part of that quotation about Heidegger:

If we look around at beings in general—from particles to planets, ants to apes—it is human beings alone who are able to encounter the question of what it means to be.

(I bolded that part because you missed it last time around)

Here you can see that the philosophical use of "beings"—the one that I've demonstrated is conventional—is consistent with an assertion of a fundamental ontological difference.

The reason is that saying of individuals/particulars/things that they are is not saying much at all.* It's a starting point. It is precisely because "beings" does not say anything about the properties of or differences between the individuals referred to that it is used.

"Beings" is how philosophers refer to those individuals (I want to use "things" here but I fear you would get the wrong idea) that can be said to be, including those which are animate and inanimate. The only other way of doing this very useful thing is to say "things that are," which has the same meaning; or many philosophers would bring in existence these days, because they have collapsed the difference—if you want to avoid that issue you'll avoid "existents" or "entities".

* Of course, from another angle, when enquiring into the meaning of being, it's saying a lot, and precisely what it's saying is the issue

Even in philosophy "a being" usually refers to a person of some kind — frank

No, that’s not true, unless you mean “a human being.”

language being use — Wayfarer

Except, apparently, when the use is by authors on the SEP or on that Wikipedia page that @Baden cited (and later quoted). Could there perhaps be two uses, one in philosophy and one in popular culture and everyday life?

None of them directly refer to inanimate things as beings — Wayfarer

That is patently untrue. I suggest you read them again. Those that don't name inanimate beings explicitly--and there are two or three which do--directly entail that meaning.

You won't find anything in there to support the contention of rocks being conscious. — Wayfarer

This demonstrates that you are still misunderstanding my point, quite radically. I don't know why you think I was trying to show that rocks are conscious, or that I was trying to show that philosophers thought so. Or is that not what you are saying?

I refuse to admit to an error that I haven't made — Wayfarer

I have led the horse to water--you're the horse in this metaphor--in a golden carriage furnished with soft bedding and silks, carried on the backs of my loyal servants, to a crystal-clear pond of the sweetest purest water in the land, and still you do not drink!

Well, it's been fun trying.

Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree on that, but it's been good discussion. — Wayfarer

I've enjoyed it too, but your position simply can't be maintained. You asked for citations and I provided them. Are you saying that the quotations do not show that it's normal, standard, conventional, and traditional that "beings" in philosophy are whatever can be said to be?

Or are you saying that the authors of the quoted articles are misusing the term? Or are you instead saying that those quotations are a misrepresentative selection?

These are all relevant citations, but I'm afraid that they don't prove the contention that no distinction is made in philosophy between 'beings' and 'things'. — Wayfarer

I agree. I have not been arguing for that position. I have been demonstrating that "beings" is commonly used in philosophy to mean that which can be said to be, or that which is, therefore that you are not justified in saying that beings, to be beings, must be subjects of experience.

Probably for the reasons that I have given. — Wayfarer

Yes, in the very same sentence I said it was probably because your favoured sense of "beings" is now widespread.

Note the distinction here between 'things' subject to the laws of nature and 'beings' in a more general sense. What has been translated as 'substantia' in Latin, and thence 'substance' in English, was 'ouisia' in Aristotle. So the metaphysican studies 'the being' of things, how they 'come to be'. (This is the substance of The Greek Verb to Be and the Meaning of Being by Kahn, although he mainly concentrates on Aristotle's predecessors.) — Wayfarer

Agreed. I don't see how that affects my point though.

This is generally considered archaic in modern philosophy. According to materialism only the bottom rung is considered real, with everything else derived from it by some unexplained power. My general view is that the whole notion the vertical dimension of Being was abandoned in the advent of modernity, which is why the distinctions of different levels of being, and the distinction between things and beings, is no longer intelligible. — Wayfarer

I see where you're coming from, but my point still stands (and stands well-supported now I think).

Something about this post feels a little insane, but I've started so I'll finish...

traditionally in philosophy, anything that can be said to be is a being — Jamal

That is one I will need a citation for. — Wayfarer

τὰ ὄντα (ta onta) is what appears in ancient Greek philosophy. It's the plural form of the participle of the verb to be and it means things that are, or, to say exactly the same in a different way, beings.

In English versions of Aristotle it has been translated in different ways, often avoiding beings and opting instead for things that are. The Loeb Classical Library notes that it avoids "beings" while at the same time acknowledging that it is a standard translation, that it has the same sense.

The plural neuter form of the participle, ta onta, occurs frequently to indicate things, things that are, beings (but we have tended to avoid the translation 'beings') — Early Greek Philosophy, Volume I: Introductory and Reference Materials

I don't know the reason for the general avoidance of "beings" in translations of Aristotle, but it could be the prevalence of the more modern use, which restricts it to sentient things (subjects of experience if you prefer). This is reasonable in a translation that aims to avoid confusing non-specialists, but it doesn't invalidate the use of "beings" generally in philosophy (to mean "things that are"). At least, it hasn't stopped scholars from continuing to use it.

The main point is that τὰ ὄντα can interchangeably be translated as "things that are" or "beings". In philosophy they usually mean the same.

Aristotle deals with τὰ ὄντα in his Categories and Metaphysics. In those works, τὰ ὄντα is plainly not restricted to sentient individuals or subjects of experience (it can't be, because of what it means).

But to avoid translation issues I won't quote Aristotle directly. Following are quotations from a fairly small and random sample of articles in the search results for the term "beings" on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, showing that it's commonly used in philosophy to mean τὰ ὄντα or "things that are" or "things that can be said to be", especially when the subject under discussion is traditional metaphysics. Many of the quotations are from scholars of ancient and medieval philosophy.

The Categories begins with a strikingly general and exhaustive account of the things there are (ta onta)—beings. According to this account, beings can be divided into ten distinct categories. (Although Aristotle never says so, it is tempting to suppose that these categories are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive of the things there are.) They include substance, quality, quantity, and relation, among others. Of these categories of beings, it is the first, substance (ousia), to which Aristotle gives a privileged position. — SEP: Aristotle's Metaphysics

The correlatives form, therefore, a complex structure that is reproduced throughout the ladder and in each one of the beings, from God to a stone, to ontologically explain the continuity among all beings. In each one of them, the chain of the whole of creation is reproduced. — SEP: Ramon Llull

Aristotle announces that there is nonetheless a science of being qua being (Met. iv 4), first philosophy, which takes as its subject matter beings insofar as they are beings and thus considers all and only those features pertaining to beings as such—to beings, that is, not insofar as they are mathematical or physical or human beings, but insofar as they are beings, full stop. — SEP: Aristotle

On Heidegger's interpretation (see Sheehan 1975), Aristotle holds that since every meaningful appearance of beings involves an event in which a human being takes a being as—as, say, a ship in which one can sail or as a god that one should respect—what unites all the different modes of Being is that they realize some form of presence (present-ness) to human beings.

[...]

The foregoing considerations bring an important question to the fore: what, according to Heidegger, is so special about human beings as such? Here there are broadly speaking two routes that one might take through the text of Being and Time. The first unfolds as follows. If we look around at beings in general—from particles to planets, ants to apes—it is human beings alone who are able to encounter the question of what it means to be.

[...]

Moreover, if science may sometimes operate with a sense of awe and wonder in the face of beings, it may point the way beyond the technological clearing, an effect that, as we shall see later, Heidegger thinks is achieved principally by some great art.

By revealing beings as no more than the measurable and the manipulable, technology ultimately reduces beings to not-beings. — SEP: Martin Heidegger

Aristotle’s study does not concern some recondite subject matter known as ‘being qua being’. Rather it is a study of being, or better, of beings—of things that can be said to be—that studies them in a particular way: as beings, in so far as they are beings.

Of course, first philosophy is not the only field of inquiry to study beings. Natural science and mathematics also study beings, but in different ways, under different aspects. The natural scientist studies them as things that are subject to the laws of nature, as things that move and undergo change. That is, the natural scientist studies things qua movable (i.e., in so far as they are subject to change). The mathematician studies things qua countable and measurable. The metaphysician, on the other hand, studies them in a more general and abstract way—qua beings. So first philosophy studies the causes and principles of beings qua beings. — SEP: Aristotle’s Metaphysics

It is not easy to think about God’s relationship to the created world, because without such a world there can be neither space nor time. Not space, because space is nothing more than the existence of bodies, where bodies are beings that possess parts outside of parts, and so constitute the three-dimensional extension that we think of as space. — SEP: Thomas Aquinas

Similarly, according to Aristotle, things in the world are not beings because they stand under some genus, being, but rather because they all stand in a relation to the primary being, which in the Categories he says is substance. This explains in part why he says in the Metaphysics that in order to study being one must study substance. — SEP: Aristotle’s Categories

Recall that for Wolff a being in the most general sense is any possible thing. [...]

Wolff explains:

"A being is called composed which is made up of many parts distinct from each other. The parts of which a composite being is composed constitute a composite through the link which makes the many parts taken together a unit of a definite kind."

In one respect, simple beings and composite beings are not simply two different species of beings. It is not the case, for example, that within the realm of all possible things simple beings exist separate from, and in addition to, composite beings. — SEP: Christian Wolff

Heidegger sees modern technology as the fulfillment of Western metaphysics, which he characterizes as the metaphysics of presence. From the time of the earliest philosophers, but definitively with Plato, says Heidegger, Western thought has conceived of being as the presence of beings, which in the modern world has come to mean the availability of beings for use. In fact, as he writes in Being and Time, the presence of beings tends to disappear into the transparency of their usefulness as things ready-to-hand. — SEP: Postmodernism

Forms are marked as auto kath auto beings, beings that are what they are in virtue of themselves. — SEP: Plato’s Middle Period Metaphysics and Epistemology

There are pages and pages of this, but I have other sources aside from the SEP if you need them.

Straw poll: who else participating in this thread accepts that rocks are beings? — Wayfarer

I vote "question is unclear".

transcendental idealism and not empirical realism better describes Kant. — Hanover

Your summary of Kant is fine, but here you miss the fact that transcendental idealism and empirical realism are complementary. Kant says it explicitly: he's arguing for both, because they go together. And on the other side, he's against transcendental realism and empirical idealism. This is the structure of his system.

That is one I will need a citation for. — Wayfarer

Still on mobile so it's a hassle.

But I do rather resent being asked for citations. You've been given this information numerous times, often by very knowledgeable people. Is it fair to reject it until they can prove it with quotations? Don't you want to go and check by yourself? I'm not mistaken here, just go and look.

But sure, I might be able to get some stuff together tomorrow.

Not using the built-in search unfortunately.

But there is a way. The Google crawler likes TPF and has indexed most of our content. So you can search Google like this:


Just put that in the Google search box.

EDIT: I just made a correction because I originally got it wrong. It should be site:, not in:

They are different words, obviously. But in common usage the basic concepts to be and to exist seem to be more or less synonymous. 'To exist' does seem to carry the implicit notion of standing out, whereas "to be", perhaps not so much, but this has nothing to do with being, or existing as, a conscious entity, being or existent — Janus

There's a difference in pre-modern philosophy, which is what @Wayfarer is getting at. Something like... existence partakes of being, the latter being more fundamental. I only mentioned it because Wayfarer keeps bringing it up.

I will henceforth agree that anything that exists can be called an existent or an existing thing and that of anything that exists can be said to be. I'll add that as a caveat in all such discussions. Would that help? — Wayfarer

Only if you take the next step, the one that follows: accept that traditionally in philosophy, anything that can be said to be is a being.

Okay let me try to work out what you're thinking...

Physicalists and such people reduce the difference between sentient individuals (e.g., humans) and non-sentient individuals (e.g., trees) to a difference in degree, rejecting the idea that they are different in kind. In parallel with this, being has been rejected in favour of existence. Therefore to use "beings", which commonly these days refers to subjects of experience rather than inanimate things, to refer to the latter, is to support the physicalist reduction of the difference between subjects and objects.

This seems to me a simple misunderstanding. To say that inanimate things are beings is not in fact to say anything at all about subjectivity, when the word is being used in the traditional philosophical sense.

That is only what I tried to argue in the first place! — Wayfarer

Well no, what I have been responding to is your claim that beings are subjects of experience, that things which are not subjects of experience are not beings. The difference between being and existence is an independent issue.

I don't think I've done that, anywhere — Wayfarer

I don't recall telling anyone that they're wrong — Wayfarer

I think you've done it many times. Are you going to force me to go and look? You have said to people, for example, that inanimate things are not beings, in conversations about metaphysics, where "beings" standardly refers to anything which can be said to be.

What I said was that 'beings are subjects of experience'. That, of course, is not the only meaning of 'being' or 'to be', which is not and has never been at issue. You and I and the cat on the mat and the tree and the rock are all existents - we all exist. But the cat and you and I are also subjects of experience, and it's a difference that makes a difference. — Wayfarer

Sure, but that's not the issue here.

The starting point of this whole debate was years ago, when I opined that the noun 'ontology' ought not to be understood simply as 'the classification of what exists'. That, I said, was properly the domain of the natural sciences, whereas ontology was originally conceived strictly as 'the meaning of "being"', while noting in passing that a source I had found (no longer extant) said that the etymology of the term 'ontology' was derived from the first-person participle of the verb 'to be' - which is 'I am'. I took that to mean that it refers to an exploration of the meaning of being, in terms different to those accepted by the natural sciences, which naturally pursues science along objective criteria. This is what provoked an (one could only say) hysterical denunciation from a former member here. I was then sent the Charles Kahn article The Greek Verb To Be and the Problem of Being, which, as I already showed, clearly demonstrates that 'ontology' as classically understood embraced a wider range of meanings than the modern notion of 'to exist'. And the fact that this is no longer understood by analytical philosophers is no credit to them, simply a reflection of the zeitgeist. — Wayfarer

I've already agreed that being and existence are different concepts. Again, that doesn't support your attempt to restrict the use of "beings". And I'm aware that ontology is about being rather than existence. Can you explain why you think this is relevant? A being to Aristotle is whatever can be said to be. What is your reason for telling him he is wrong? (As you have told people here many times)

I've tried to explain that our differing uses of the word are independent of metaphysical views.

In the end, I and even the vitriolic ex-member you mentioned—who you'll admit was very well-read—are giving you information. It feels weird to have to argue for it and to be asked to prove it.

WAYFARER: I'm going to the capital of Canada next week!
JAMAL: Cool! Ottawa is nice this time of year
WAYFARER: No, I'm going to Toronto
JAMAL: But the capital of Canada is Ottawa
WAYFARER: Citations please!

What I'm not certain about is how Jung fits into all of this. He was included in the OP. — T Clark

That's a fair point. I confess I'm not interested in the OP and that I'm carrying on a conversation I've been having with @Wayfarer for many years. I suppose I've derailed the thread. We'll see what @Mikie does about it :razz:

When I said you were being aggressive, I didn't mean you were being impolite. I tend to be pretty aggressive sometimes. I'm just not used to seeing that from you. You're supposed to be nicer than I am. — T Clark

How little you know, TC. I took a break from robust philosophical debate for five or six years, and now I'm back.

Honestly though, I don't see where I've been aggressive. Muscular, perhaps.

To repeat my point for anyone interested: a being in pre- and non-analytic philosophy is anything that is—anything that can be said to be. — Jamal

Incidentally, the reason I said "pre- and non-analytic" is that in analytic philosophy, being has pretty much been replaced by existence. What is important about this for my purpose here is nothing to do with the fact that the difference between being and existence has been denied, but simply that most analytic philosophers don't talk about being or beings any more, and if they do use the term "beings" they're probably just as likely to use it in the popular modern sense as the traditional sense.

I love it when I reply to myself.

:up:

To repeat my point for anyone interested: a being in pre- and non-analytic philosophy is anything that is—anything that can be said to be.

This is not an attack on any worldview or ontological claim; it is information.

I don't understand why you've being so aggressive — T Clark

I forgot to respond to this. I don't think I've been aggressive. If you look at all my posts here you'll see I've been polite. I have argued forcefully, that's all. If I'm wrong about that please let me know; I don't want to come across as aggressive.

The definition of "being" that Wayfarer is using can be perfectly reasonable in both everyday and philosophical discussions, depending on context. — T Clark

Yes, I agree.

The problem is that his use is often not in fact reasonable in context. I've demonstrated this in my posts. You might be interested in reading them.

Aristotle, Aquinas, Heidegger, and many others use the term to mean anything that is, i.e., anything that can be said to be. Nobody has to follow them in this usage, of course, but @Wayfarer actually attempts to correct people who use the word in this traditional way, by saying that, actually, only sentient individuals are beings.

Can you see the problem? Can you see that if you say to Aristotle "hey, actually only sentient individuals are beings", you're not making a philosophical point, but just refusing to use Aristotle's terminology and expressing your refusal in a misleadingly substantive statement?

I can say that rocks are beings and also say they're conscious — Jamal

I was showing that when philosophers say that everything that can be said to be is a being (which should be obvious), they are not advancing a metaphysical view. They can equally say that rocks and other non-human beings are conscious as say that all beings are material or whatever. It's neutral.

I don't understand your point.

I say that beings are subjects of experience, which is a simple fact — Wayfarer

Looks like I failed again.

You're using the word in the common modern way in conversations about metaphysics, where others are using it in the traditional philosophical sense. This causes confusion. You are not entitled to say to people in a philosophical conversation that, hey, by the way, trees are not beings because they are not subjects of experience.

Imagine joining a zoology forum and saying, "in my opinion, the word 'primate' refers only to apes."

Maybe an even better analogy would be to say, "in my opinion, the word 'animal' refers only to mammals."

The verb 'to be' has many other meanings, including 'whatever exists'. That is the sense in which Mikie and Jamal believe it should be used — Wayfarer

Use it how you like, but make it clear if you're not using it in the way it's used in traditional metaphysics.

I can't think of another way to put it. Appeals to the obvious or to authority are no good in philosophy, but I'm not making any philosophical point or promoting an ontological view; I'm just talking about what a word means in the philosophical literature.

anything that exists can be said to be — Wayfarer

So anything that exists is (also) a being.

But you said that only conscious individuals can be said to be, i.e., to be beings. That's what I'm criticizing, not the difference between being and existence.

In other words, Kahn is not supporting you on the specific issue of the use of "being".

I agree with you on that, and I agree with Kahn. There certainly are differences in philosophy between being and existence, although I think they've been collapsed in most modern philosophy.

That's why I avoided anything to do with existence in my analysis above.

But you can go against modern philosophy on this and yet use "being" to refer to anything. It still means anything which can be said to be.

Well it does seem like you're associating what I've said on the use of "being" with secular materialism, physicalism, etc, the kind of views that are prevalent here. But it's really not a related issue. I can say that rocks are beings and also say they're conscious, or I could say that while rocks, pangolins and humans are beings, only humans are animated by a soul, or that humans are nothing but material just like the other beings, and so on.

How to understand the being of beings is maybe a different matter again.

Even the chatbots get it. — Wayfarer

As I say, that’s because it’s the everyday, likely modern, usage. In philosophy, anything which can be said to be is a being.

There’s this from Britannica:

For Aristotle, “being” is whatever is anything whatever. Whenever Aristotle explains the meaning of being, he does so by explaining the sense of the Greek verb to be. Being contains whatever items can be the subjects of true propositions containing the word is, whether or not the is is followed by a predicate. Thus, both Socrates is and Socrates is wise say something about being. Every being in any category other than substance is a property or a modification of substance. For this reason, Aristotle says that the study of substance is the way to understand the nature of being. The books of the Metaphysics in which he undertakes this investigation, VII through IX, are among the most difficult of his writings.

Not easy at the moment because I’m on mobile, but I’ll try later. Heidegger, Aristotle, and the scholastics spring to mind.

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I’ll just pick out this at the moment:

I don't think you would refer to trees, mountains or rivers as beings, would you? — Wayfarer

That’s the point: yes, I would, and that’s how it’s always been used in philosophy. It doesn’t commit one to materialism.