So to 'exist' is to be 'this as distinct from that', to have an identity. — Wayfarer

Yep. So to exist is to be substantial. Yet to be substantial is to be individuated. And so the question become how does individuation come to be. And then what would its "other" - the unindividuated - look like.

This leads you from an ontology of things to a metaphysics of processes. Being is a state of individuation which has a reason to persist.

The question is then whether this reason for individuation to persist is immanent or transcendent. Does it emerge as the limit of a process, or is it in some sense imposed from outside?

Mathematical form comes into view as the answer that seems to serve both camps there. :)

In my mind, at least -- not to contradict you, but simply to lay out how I think of these terms now -- I think of the terms in a kind of hierarchy where the first I mention is more "primary" to the last: being, existence, reality. But I know that I think of being in other terms than you do since I do not unite my thoughts on being with ourselves as humans. And maybe it is just a way of using words, too -- we may use different words for the same things. I tend to think of the way humans experience the world in terms of reality. Existence includes all logical propositions and propositions of mere reason. Being is the sort of term which underlies everything because everything, all named things whatsoever, "participate" in being. It's the sort of term which all names are a part of, and since it is so close to us (in that manner), it is hard to distinguish.

So to exist is to be substantial. Yet to be substantial is to be individuated. — apokrisis

I'm rather ambivalent (or maybe just confused) about the philosophical notion of substantia. As I've noted previously, the philosophical meaning of 'substance' is nothing like the everyday meaning - substantia is 'that in which attributes inhere'. So substance is what a being truly is, what 'stands under' the changing appearances; that of which the attributes are accidents.

But recall that the Latin 'substantia' was used to translate the Greek 'ousia', which is nearer in meaning to 'being' than to what we think of as 'substance'. So I think that a 'substance' in the sense intended by metaphysics (as 'ouisia') cannot be something that objectively exists. I mean, you will never find evidence of it by assaying a particular object, as it were. I think it's meaningful within the Aristotelean domain of discourse, but I do wonder whether its something that is real. (Buddhists certainly don't agree with the 'substance/accident' distinction. I keep meaning to enroll in an Oxford University external course with almost the same title as the thread but the next one isn't till September :-( )

The question is then whether this reason for individuation to persist is immanent or transcendent. Does it emerge as the limit of a process, or is it in some sense imposed from outside? — apokrisis

Well I couldn't begin to guess, although one phrase that often comes back to me was from my lectures in Vedanta - a Hindu aphorism that was frequently mentioned that through the process of cosmic evolution, 'what is latent becomes patent'. Likewise, Vivekananda (also a Vedantin) used to talk of 'involution', whereby the final form of a thing is implicit in the germinal form, as an oak is present in, or 'involved in' an acorn. So the universe has 'involved' into that which is now 'evolving', and evolution itself is a form of the universe becoming self-aware. But I expect that the way I'm thinking about the issue is rather different to your own.

I think of the terms in a kind of hierarchy where the first I mention is more "primary" to the last: being, existence, reality. — Moliere

The traditional hierarchy I dimly recall is the 'causal-formal-phenomenal'. The 'causal realm' is the domain of the 'one'; the formal domain is the 'domain of law and number'; the phenomenal realm is the domain of existents. I think that modern naturalism tends towards the view that only the phenomenal domain is real, whereas in the traditional metaphysics, its reality is derivative.

they don't have identity? — Πετροκότσυφας

Well, they are defined entirely by their value. 7=VII=Seven - all of which are different expressions denoting exactly the same value.

What evidence can you provide that all animals, apart from humans, simply react to stimuli? — Πετροκότσυφας

General observation of animal behavior.

General observation of animal behavior. — Wayfarer

Which observations in particular?

To be honest I was with you up until here

However what has become very confused in current culture, is that the mind, which in some sense must precede science, is now believed to be a mere consequence or output of fundamentally physical processes - even though what is ‘fundamentally physical’ is still such an open question. — Wayfarer

Why must you spoil what was otherwise an elegant description of how you feel with the arrogant assumption that everyone who doesn't agree with you is "confused"?

If I say the earth is round and you think it isn't, you are confused, because the earth is objectively demonstrably round.

If I say that conscious awareness is a property of neural activity and you think it isn't, I am not "confused" I have a different but equally defensible belief about the world.

Leaving aside your usual idiosyncratic and totally non-standard understanding of 'Being' as exclusively pertaining to the 'human' or to 'knowledge' or whatever anthropormorphic reading you and only you like to use, I would suggest that there is no serious philosophy that has ever not taken seriously the distinction between these terms. It is commonly acknowledged, for instance, there there might be a being of fiction no less than a being of the social or the material, and that for the most part questions of being are relatively unrealted to questions of existence.

To the degree that there is confusion around these terms, its generally down to both a lack of farmiliarity, and the fact that language is what we make of it, at the end of the day. Your motivation and agenda, as always, is theistic, but its useful to be irreverent to language every now and then as well.

The reason animal behaviour can generally be described in terms of stimulus and response, is because animal behaviour is generaly circumscribed by behavioural stimuli in a way that human beings are not. Animals responses are typically limited to a very specific behavioural repertoire. Humans are meaning-seeking, technology-creating, language-using beings.

Materialism is confused, because logic, math and so on, without which there would be no science, are based on the relationship of ideas, and ideas are not physical. Of course nowadays it is assumed that ideas are ‘what the brain does’, and that the brain is a material substance, but I don’t accept that.

I would suggest that there is no serious philosophy that has ever not taken seriously the distinction between these terms — StreetlightX

I am interested in references to philosophers that distinguish what is real from what exists. I haven’t been able to find that many. Pierce does talk about it a little. My belief is that in current philosophical discourse, the two categories are generally regarded as synonymous.

Animals responses are typically limited to a very specific behavioural repertoire. Humans are meaning-seeking, technology-creating, language-using beings. — Wayfarer

You've just redescribed your position. I asked what observations have lead you to this conclusion.

Materialism is confused, because logic, math and so on, without which there would be no science, are based on the relationship of ideas, and ideas are not physical. Of course nowadays it is assumed that ideas are ‘what the brain does’, and that the brain is a material substance, but I don’t accept that. — Wayfarer

But you didn't say Materialism was confused, you said that those people who think conciousnes/the mind is a property of matter were confused. The existence of mathematics and logic (if they exist at all) simply mean that not all of existence is material. They don't then automatically mean that whichever other parts of existence you care to decide are also immaterial are proven to be so.

I am interested in references to philosophers that distinguish what is real from what exists. — Wayfarer

Both terms have their own ranges of meaning in various contexts in English and more or less exact equivalents in other languages. Those ranges of meaning both within English and across different languages overlap in some places and not in others. What makes you think the terms have any essential univocal meanings?

I am interested in references to philosophers that distinguish what is real from what exists. — Wayfarer

I would only be slightly callous if I said literally every philosopher from Heidegger onward (or at least, every philosopher familiar with, and conversant in, the Heideggerian philosophy), would make use of, or at least engage with, any such distinction. In fact even before him Husserl famously made all sorts of distinctions between the real, the irreal, and the unreal, all to be put to use to their own specific technical uses. Again, these distinctions are not categorical, and there's no reason they should be, unless motivated by a specific philosophical problematic.

I would only be slightly callous... — StreetlightX

Don’t worry, I have callouses. Husserl, I like, I frequently refer to his critique of natualism. Heidegger, not so much, although I’ve been reading a bit more on him. But you’re just offering generalities. In fact not that much is written on this distinction in current philosophy.

But you didn't say Materialism was confused, you said that those people who think conciousnes/the mind is a property of matter were confused. — Pseudonym

I said ‘what has become very confused in current culture’. I didn’t single anyone out. Have a read of The Core of Mind and Cosmos if you haven’t encountered it before, it expands on the idea.

What makes you think the terms have any essential univocal meanings? — Janus

What interests me is whether there are different modes or levels of reality - whether some things are more or less real than others. And I think this is a way of exploring it.

I said ‘what has become very confused in current culture’. I didn’t single anyone out. Have a read of The Core of Mind and Cosmos if you haven’t encountered it before, it expands on the idea. — Wayfarer

Yes but it's not "confusion" it's disagreement, logical, sane disagreement. Nagel takes exactly the same line as you seem to be doing - "Since then the book has attracted a good deal of critical attention, which is not surprising given the entrenchment of the world view that it attacks"

I would forward the possibility that it's received a good deal of critical attention because there's a lot in it worthy of criticism.

Nagel fails to make a single argument in the whole piece. All he does is presume various, highly contended issues to be self-evidently true just because they seem so to him, and then build an entire castle in the air on the back of those weak presumptions.

As I said about your opening piece, this is all genuinely interesting as an insight into the way others see the world, but it doesn't show anyone else to be wrong, confused or any other negative term you care to throw in to push your agenda.

Well, thank for the feedback, and also the compliment. So, I could re-phrase it as follows:

'However what has become very contentious, in current culture, is the view that that the mind, which in some sense must precede science, is believed to be a mere consequence or output of fundamentally physical processes - even though what is ‘fundamentally physical’ is still such an open question.'

As regards Nagel - of course he received scorching criticism for challenging the consensus view, the popular orthodoxy of 'neo-Darwinian materialism'. As one (friendly) reviewer said, imagine if your local pastor started quoting Nietzsche; the congregation would wonder what had gotten into him. That is pretty well how the academic world reacted.

you care to throw in to push your agenda. — Pseudonym

I prefer to characterise it as 'advocating a philosophical attitude'.

In fact not that much is written on this distinction in current philosophy. — Wayfarer

But distinctions only matter to the degree that something is at stake in them: that they constitute a difference that makes a difference. Your particular favoured distinction is one with theological import: but absent that context, it is not clear that it has any significance whatsoever. But of course, everywhere you might care to look, distinctions of the kind are made: ontic and ontological (Heidegger), virtual, actual, possible (Bergson, Deleuze), real, symbolic, imaginary (Lacanian psychoanalysis), ens reale, ens rationis, esse objectivum (Deely, Bains), formal, numerical, real distinctions (Descartes, Alliez), and so on and so on. Each responds to a particular problem, aims to clarify and help think through a certain issue.

Your particular issue is how much you can desubstantialize and delegitimate this world in favour of the neverneverland of ideality and divinity, which is fine if you're into that kind of thing, but not everyone is. That said, I find the being/existence distinction useful to the extent that we can talk about the being of all sorts of things that don't exist just fine. Existence is a largely trivial affair anyway, which is something that Quine quite nicely pointed out all those years ago.

You really ought to read Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics. If you can put aside your weird nouopormorphic take on Being, you might find much to agree with: "For the Greeks “Being” says constancy in a twofold sense: (1) standing-in-itself as arising and standing forth (phusis); (2) but, as such, “constantly,” that is, enduringly, abiding (ousia). Not-to-be accordingly means to step out of such constancy that has stood-forth in itself: existasthai—“existence,” “to exist” means, for the Greeks, precisely not-to-be. The thoughtlessness and vapidity with which one uses the words “existence” and “to exist” as designations for Being offer fresh evidence of our alienation from Being and from an originally powerful and definite interpretation of it." (Introduction, p. 70).

'However what has become very contentious, in current culture, is the view that that the mind, which in some sense must precede science, is believed to be a mere consequence or output of fundamentally physical processes - even though what is ‘fundamentally physical’ is still such an open question.'

As regards Nagel - of course he received scorching criticism for challenging the consensus view, — Wayfarer

Based on @Michael's poll here, only 35% of respondents at this forum were non-skeptical realists, and only 30% were physicalists, so I think Nagel is barking up the wrong tree if he thinks those are consensus positions.

I think there is much more richness and diversity in modern thinking about Life, the Universe and Everything than Nagel is prepared to admit.

E&OE - the percentages may change with new votes since I posted this.

This is probably the better survey to use. 81.6% non-skeptical realists and 56.5% physicalists. Ours is a small (and probably unrepresentative) sample.

It's interesting you mention this. It's something that I've noticed here two. There's only two real consensus issues among philosophers according to the Phil Papers survey, David Chalmers even highlighted them in his lecture about the results.

One is non-skeptical Realism 81.6%, the other is Atheism 72.8%.

Ive not analysed this statistically, but I'd say more than half of the metaphysical discussions on this site end up either about Realism (in some sense), or Theism. The only two topics about which academic philosophy feel there is less than average to discuss.

But recall that the Latin 'substantia' was used to translate the Greek 'ousia', which is nearer in meaning to 'being' than to what we think of as 'substance'. So I think that a 'substance' in the sense intended by metaphysics (as 'ouisia') cannot be something that objectively exists. I mean, you will never find evidence of it by assaying a particular object, as it were. I think it's meaningful within the Aristotelean domain of discourse, but I do wonder whether its something that is real. (Buddhists certainly don't agree with the 'substance/accident' distinction. I keep meaning to enroll in an Oxford University external course with almost the same title as the thread but the next one isn't till September :-( ) — Wayfarer

I suggest that you consider "substance" in Aristotle's usage as that which substantiates. He introduces it in his logic, to ground logic in the individual, the particular, so that the particular individual objects, which he calls "primary substance" are what give substance to logic. This is like empirical evidence. Empirical evidence is what substantiates a theory.

So in his Physics, substance is expressed as matter. Existing forms are described by logical expressions, propositions and such. But forms which are continually changing, and the forms are substantiated, grounded, by material existence, matter providing the potential for change. You can see this principle at play even in modern quantum physics, in wave-particle duality. The wave-function is the formula, the form, which must be substantiated by the empirical observation of the photoelectric effect, in material existence, the particle.

In Aristotle's biology, substance is given to form. The soul, being a principle of actuality, a form, is seen as prior to, and a necessary condition for the material existence a the living body.

So in his Metaphysics, he looks to substantiate (ground) the existence of matter itself. He sees a need to substantiate material existence with forms, claiming that a material thing can only exists as what it is, and nothing else. So the actuality, that a thing is what it is, its form, is necessarily prior to its potential to be something else. He has already described a "secondary substance" in his logic which is formal, and his biology also describes a formal substance. This is the principle which Neo-Platonists adopt, claiming that Forms are prior to material existence.

So of all the terms you've introduced, "substance" is the most comprehensive because it allows for a clear distinction between the two different ways of using it, with "primary" and "secondary" substance. None of the other terms provide such a system for distinguishing these two fundamentally different usages, and they tend to mix up these categories in ambiguity.

Have not yet read all the replies to this, but the definition and examples of 'exist' don't seem to match, and I think need to be clarified.

'Exist' is derived as follows: 'ex-' to be apart, apart from, outside (as in external, exile), and '-ist', to stand or to be. So to 'exist' is to be 'this as distinct from that', to have an identity. In my heuristic, the 'domain of existents' is basically the realm of phenomena. 'What exists' are all the billions of compound objects that are composed of parts and have a beginning and end in time. Also, ‘existence’ refers to the human life considered longitudinally through time, 'our life', and the phenomena that we encounter within that context. — Wayfarer

The definition would seem to include numbers: they have identity, being distinct from each other. The example seems to include only temporal objects, of which the definition makes no mention. I think the definition needs rework since you seem to group numbers as real, but not existent.
And wouldn't it be noumena, not phenomena? Do stars on the far side of the galaxy not exist because we can't experience them? That would be an idealistic notion that doesn't seem represented in the definition.
My own investigation keeps pushing me more to idealism when pressed about the nature of an existent thing-in-itself, as opposed to the identity that I give it as a phenomenon. So I'm actually quite open to the example as phenomena, and not as a noumena.

Your example would accept the existence of the universe only if time is put outside the universe, since only then can the universe be a temporal object with a time before which it was not in existence.


Real: I'm fine with your 'real' definition. My own view is that given that the universe is the manifestation of what are 'real' laws, the universe is real. That's just me though. Your definitions of 'exist' and 'real' both seem to lack an ontological statement, with which I can again relate. You seem possibly to reserve that distinction for 'being':

The 'be' of 'be-ing' is of a completely different nature to the existence of objects. This is the distinction basic to ontology.

OK, a possible ontological statement, but it seems to go in a personal direction from there:

But Being is prior to knowing, in the sense that if we were not beings, the cosmos would be nothing to us, we would simply react to stimuli, as animals do.

So we're different than animals, despite the lack of evidence for this? I don't find it offensive to include my species among them. Anyway, it seems to have stopped being an ontological statement, and again been reduced to a relation: Things exist only as phenomena a specific 'being', and are real only as understood by said special 'being'. I'm probably making a strawman of this, but that's how it came across to me.

Our grasp of rational principles, logic, and scientific and natural laws mediates our knowledge of the Cosmos, that comprise the basis of ‘scientia’. However what has become very confused in current culture, is that the mind, which in some sense must precede science, is now believed to be a mere consequence or output of fundamentally physical processes - even though what is ‘fundamentally physical’ is still such an open question.

Why is that stance 'confused'?

Anyway, my primary point was about the 'exists' definition seemingly not matching the examples following it.

Without a clearly defined, concrete ontology, words such as exist, being, and real, just float around without any grounding. One must have a very well defined image of life, matter, and perception before one can present concepts such as these. These concepts emerge out of the ontology and not slapped upon some blank wall hoping that some ontology will emerge.

Where is the he ontology of life, matter, and perception? If there was one that was agreed upon then the words become incidental. In my ontology, all of this becomes a matter of perception of memory by the mind.

I’d said:
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Real", "existent" and "is" are metaphysically undefined.

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You replied:
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Distinguishing 'reality', 'being', and 'existence' is practically impossible in the current English philosophical lexicon, because they are usually considered synonyms. But there are fundamental differences between these words.

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That’s part of the problem, but even when they’re distinguished from eachother, it can sometimes still be problematic they mean metaphysically.
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'Exist' is derived as follows: 'ex-' to be apart, apart from, outside (as in external, exile), and '-ist', to stand or to be. So to 'exist' is to be 'this as distinct from that', to have an identity. In my heuristic, the 'domain of existents' is basically the realm of phenomena. 'What exists' are all the billions of compound objects that are composed of parts and have a beginning and end in time. Also, existence refers to the living of life considered longitudinally through time, 'our life', and all of the forms of phenomena that exist within that frame.

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That’s what I’ve read too. I often say that “exist” is about elements of metaphysics. But you’re saying, maybe with good justification, that the meaning of “exist” is meaning is more limited, and doesn’t include timeless abstract if-then facts. That’s fair and reasonable. So not all elements of metaphysics “exist”.
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That’s fine with me, because I’ve never said that the timeless abstract if-then facts, or complex systems of inter-referring timeless abstract if-then facts, that I refer to “exist”. …even if there’s no reason to believe that your experience is other than such a system.
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What is 'real' is another matter. I understand this to denote real numbers, logical, scientific and natural laws and principles, and so on. So in this heuristic, numbers are real, because they're the same for anyone who can count, but they're not existent, because they don't come into and go out of existence.

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Yes, it makes sense to not call those things “existent”.
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I just use “Reality” or “All of Reality” to mean “All”, in its broadest sense. I don’t think anyone can establish or demonstrate that that isn’t more than those discussable and describable metaphysical things that you listed. I don’t think all of Reality is subject to demonstration, argument, description or discussion. I don’t think it would even make sense to speak of a demonstration otherwise.
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I don’t think it’s necessary to argue which metaphysical things are “real”, and which aren’t, in some metaphysical sense for comparing metaphysical things, whatever comparison that would be, whatever that would mean. It seems like an arbitrary label and an unnecessary, unmeaningful distinction.
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But I’d say that, among the timeless abstract objects, there’s something special about timeless abstract facts, such as timeless abstract if-then facts, because, whether or not someone wants to call them “real”, they have positive truth-value, and, real or not, in an inter-referring system of them, they have relation to eachother. …relation that couldn’t care less if they’re designated “real”.
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Possibility-stories and possibility-worlds must be self-consistent, because they consist of abstract facts, and there’s no such thing as mutually-inconsistent facts.
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…an inconsistent story would be an impossibility-story, and an inconsistent world would be an impossibility-world.
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(And prime numbers, in particular, are not composed of parts.)

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Prime numbers other than 1 can be said to be composed of parts, because they can be gotten by adding smaller numbers. In fact, isn’t addition closer than multiplication to what we usually mean by combining parts?
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The meaning of 'Being' is another matter again. Note that in ordinary speech the term 'Being' usually denotes 'human being', and for good reason.

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Surely you don’t mean that the other animals aren’t beings too.
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This is because in a Being, the domain of existents and the domain of reals is synthesised into the 'meaning-world' in which we live.

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Come again?
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At first it seemed that you meant, by “a being”, a conscious, experiencing entity such as a human or other animals.
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But, below, you’re referring to an attribute or basis of such beings.
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But another crucial point about being is that being is never an object of consciousness, because we're never apart from or outside of it. Being is 'that which knows', never 'the object of knowledge' (a fundamental insight of non-dualism. But this is why it can be said that we 'forget what being is' even though it's always 'nearer' than anything else.)

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That doesn’t sound inconsistent with my definition of Consciousness as the property of being a purposefully-responsive device.
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…except that it seems to make or posit something confusing, complicated or difficult to explain—and not necessary for an explanation or description of us.
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Of course the property of being a purposefully-responsive device is something that all of us animals have in common, and so it’s sometimes argued that we’re all the same at center. Sure, that can be said, but it doesn’t mean that we’re all the same, just because we have that in common. We could be called different kinds of the same thing, but that doesn’t make all of us the same.
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During life, we’re each obviously a separate different individual. At the end of lives, during shutdown, we’re increasingly similar, as sleep deepens, and there’s no longer such a thing as individuality, or (eventually) even an awareness that there ever was or could be such a thing as individuality, identity, worldly life, time or events.
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Of course arguably, and I don’t deny it, this temporary (over one or many finite temporary lives) existence as an individual being doesn’t match the significance, at the end-of-lives, of the eventual and timeless absence of identity, in the final deep sleep.
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So it could be said that, eventually and timelessly, where it counts the most, we aren’t individuals with identity.
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And so I’ve argued that, though we’ve been in life for so long that it’s what we’re used to, that final and timeless part of our lives, at the end-of-lives, is the more usual and normal state, because timeless beats temporary; and final rest beats intermediate striving.
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One definition of “natural” is “usual and normal”, and so I suggest that the timeless rest at the end of lives is our natural state.
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But don’t be too sure that it will be at the end of this life. Probably not, in my opinion.
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Anyway, at the end-of-lives we approach the Nothing that’s the quiescent background behind the timeless abstract if-thens that constitute our experience-stories. That Nothing is arguably what’s most natural and fundamental.
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The 'be' of 'be-ing' is a completely different matter to the nature of the existence of objects. This is the distinction basic to ontology.

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Yes, although, for each of us, we and our surroundings are the two halves of the complementary pair that is our life-experience possibility-story--In that story we’re what’s essential, central and primary. It’s from our point of view, and obviously that makes us special. …as the experiencer in whose point-of-view the story is.
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The possibility-world in which we live is just the setting for our experience, which is primary.
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That’s why I say that you and your predispositions, making you the protagonist of a life-experience possibility-story, are the reason why you’re in a life. Briefly, you’re in a life, a particular one, because of who you are.
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Sometimes it’s tempting to say, “I didn’t ask to be born!”, but I don’t think that holds up under examination. Our own role in why we were born is something to own-up to.
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But why in a societal-world like this one? Probably explainable if we were sufficiently awful in the previous life (though I say that previous lives are indeterminate, not just unknowable).
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Typically, in our extroverted and objectively-oriented culture, we accept that what is real is what is 'out there'; as Sagan said, that 'cosmos is all there is'.

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Sure, Science-Worship.
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But Being is prior to the Cosmos, in the sense that if we were not beings, the cosmos would be nothing to us

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There’s no such thing as “if we were not beings”, because then there wouldn’t be any “We”.
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, we would simply react to stimuli, as animals do.

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1. We’re animals.
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2. All animals, including us, react to stimuli--as purposefully-responsive devices.
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3. But I don’t deny that human-ness has a special unique potential.
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It is our insight into principles, laws, logic, and so on, that enables the grasp of the 'logos' of things. Although now this has become very confused, because so-called 'empiricism' doesn't understand these distinctions.

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Yes.
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Michael Ossipoff

If I say that conscious awareness is a property of neural activity and you think it isn't, I am not "confused" I have a different but equally defensible belief about the world. — Pseudonym

Of course, in the physical story, all animals, including humans, are physical. The self-consistent-ness of your life-experience possibility-story requires a physical origin and body for humans.

But where you're confused is if you think that the physical world is metaphysically fundamental and primary.

(...but I don't claim that you're alone in that position)

This notion that all metaphysical positions are "equally defensible" beliefs just isn't correct. Materialism isn't defensible.

Michael Ossipoff

Right, so the 75% of philosophers who accept scientific Realism are not just mistaken, they're actually writing jibberish because such a view is not even defensible? That's quite a claim.

Right, so the 75% of philosophers who accept scientific Realism are not just mistaken, they're actually writing jibberish because such a view is not even defensible? — Pseudonym

Yes.

What, jibberish from professional academic philosophers? The emperor is unclothed?

Well, maybe it results from the "Publish or Perish" imperative.

That's quite a claim.

Sure.

I'm always willing to support my claims. I've been supporting that one in various posts. i'll do so again here in this thread, as one of my next postings.

Michael Ossipoff

Well, maybe it results from the "Publish or Perish" imperative. — Michael Ossipoff

That's pretty much it. There is lots of economic incentive for academia to publish what is acceptable. It's actually pretty easy to accomplish as opposed to furthering knowledge with original insights. One only needs to learn how to footnote some acceptable academic and one is home free. Academia pretty much defines itself by footnotes. It is what is stressed most in all courses.

Being is a part of reality which has specific properties, like intelligence. Reality is what we experience. Existence is affirmative which shows that reality is objectively there or not, an illusion.

What is 'real' is another matter. I understand this to denote real numbers, logical, scientific and natural laws and principles, and so on. — Wayfarer

These are examples, not a definition.

'Exist' is derived as follows: 'ex-' to be apart, apart from, outside (as in external, exile), and '-ist', to stand or to be. — Wayfarer

'What exists' are all the billions of compound objects that are composed of parts and have a beginning and end in time. — Wayfarer

The characters in a novel stand apart from one another, so under your definition they exist. Same goes for numbers. So, we can say that anything that stands out, that is distinct for us, exists. Obviously there may be different categories of existence; things exists in different ways and contexts. On the other hand, you could define what it means to be existent more narrowly in reference only to those entities which can be apprehended by the senses.

The meaning of 'Being' is another matter again. Note that in ordinary speech the term 'Being' usually denotes 'human being' - and this is for good reason. — Wayfarer

I don't think this is right. 'Being' is most commonly used to denote living, self-regulating or organic entities, and not exclusively human beings. It is sometimes used in an even wider context. It is not incoherent to speak of the being of a rock, for example.The very term 'human being' where 'being' is qualified by 'human' shows that we are restricting the normal use of the term in this particular usage.

I also think your category of what is to be termed 'real' is artificially narrow, and certainly does not reflect common usage.

I can appreciate the value of attempting to achieve an account of these terms, an acount which is as clear, comprehensive, coherent and systematic as possible. Is that what you are trying to do?

As a tentative starting point, which could be further refined:

'Existence' refers to anything that is distinct: fundamental particles exist, numbers exist, emotions exist, the economy exists, fictional characters exist, God exists, and so on. In other words everything you can name exists. Anything we can name must be distinct insofar as we can name it; however there are obviously degrees of distinctness, which means that things can have a more or less distinct existence.

'Being' refers to real, as opposed to imaginary, entities. So, fictional characters have no being. God, if he is real, has being and if he is imaginary does not have being. Also those things which are the mere qualities or relations of things do not have being. So, for example, emotions, considered as generalities, have no being, and nor do numbers or the economy. In general, maybe it could be said that what is conceptual is that which has no being and what is actual is that which has being.

Specific thoughts and emotions have being, insofar as we are affected by them. So, maybe we could say that being is actuality; it is what really acts on us and affects us. For example, the economy does not affect us; it is the actual exigencies of labour, money and goods that affects us; but the thought of the economy can affect us; make us more or less confident and consequently more or less motivated to earn, save or spend money, and so on.

'Real' refers to those things which are not imaginary. So, there can be real numbers and imaginary numbers, real love and imaginary love, real causes and imaginary causes, and so on.

This is only a start, it can be refined and may even need correcting. I will be well pleased to see refinements and corrections, because that is how we learn.

It is commonly acknowledged, for instance, there there might be a being of fiction no less than a being of the social or the material, and that for the most part questions of being are relatively unrealted to questions of existence. — StreetlightX

So are possible beings then beings that exist? Or simply beings that could exist?

Does the possible itself exist? And is it real if it doesn't? In what sense does the possible have being?

And does the impossible exist if it is the concrete limit to what could in fact exist? Do the limits on existence count as part of existence?

I think it is obvious that all these are questions that relate to "existence" as an ontological qualifier. It is not wrong to want to systematise our use of these terms in a way that can make our ontological commitments clear.

You really ought to read Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics. — StreetlightX

I will. That passage you quoted certainly resonates. I have read bits and pieces of Heidegger, but I've been put off by his political affiliations, and also the reputed difficulty of understanding Being and Time. But I will make the effort with that book.

Based on Michael's poll here, only 35% of respondents at this forum were non-skeptical realists, and only 30% were physicalists, so I think Nagel is barking up the wrong tree if he thinks those are consensus positions. — andrewk

But I don’t think this Forum is representative. I think it is widely assumed that the de facto philosophy of secular culture is some form of materialism or at least scientific naturalism functioning as normative view. One of the reactions to Nagel's book was by Jerry Coyne, who said 'The view that all sciences are in principle reducible to the laws of physics must be true unless you’re religious”. That was certainly the view of most of Nagel's critics.

The definition would seem to include numbers: they have identity, being distinct from each other. The example seems to include only temporal objects, of which the definition makes no mention. I think the definition needs rework since you seem to group numbers as real, but not existent.

And wouldn't it be noumena, not phenomena? Do stars on the far side of the galaxy not exist because we can't experience them? That would be an idealistic notion that doesn't seem represented in the definition. — noAxioms

Well, as I said previously, numbers are in some sense only identity. It's not that they have an identity - '7' can't be anything other than '7'. And '7' says all there is to know about it - you can carve the symbol in stone, draw it, or represent it in binary code, but at the end of all that, 7=7. So perhaps what I meant by 'having an identity' is 'being an individual existent'. But I admit, it's blurry.

As regards the existence of unperceived things - I don't think that transcendental idealism says that the phenomenal existence of individual things is causally dependent on them being perceived. It's a more subtle point than that; something like: whatever we understand 'existence' to mean, there is a foundational aspect of that which is provided by the mind. So if we imagine the non-existence of non-perceived stars, you're actually contemplating them not existing - you're trying to imagine them not being there. But that still takes place within the horizon of the imagination and perception. It's their 'imagined non-existence' that you're considering when doing that.

'Noumenal' really means something like 'an ideal object' - something like a geometric or arithmetical truth which the mind knows by becoming united with, in a way that it cannot for knowledge of objects, which is mediated by the senses. (The Wiki article on Noumenon is quite informative.)

Why is that stance 'confused'? — noAxioms

I already got taken to task on that, and re-wrote the paragraph further down. I will take it up elsewhere as I actually believe it to be true, but it's a separate argument.

I suggest that you consider "substance" in Aristotle's usage as that which substantiates. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is a good way of putting it. I will take that on board.

Surely you don’t mean that the other animals aren’t beings too. — Michael Ossipoff

Animals are ‘beings’ or ‘sentient beings’. Humans are rational sentient beings. Accordingly, humans are distinguished by their ability to understand abstract truths, to use language and imagination, and to understand different levels of reality; we have estimated the size and age of the Universe, for example. Animals can't do anything like that. (I'm rather disappointed by the way in which humans are assumed to be merely or simply animals in current culture - not that this disparages animals, but it does disparage humans.)

These are examples, not a definition. — Thorongil

As I said my approach is heuristic, not systematic. I'm trying to sketch out some of the ways in which the terms have different dimensions of meaning.

The characters in a novel stand apart from one another, so under your definition they exist. — Janus

Well, I did mention in the OP that I wasn't considering imaginative characters, but sure - Hamlet is real, in that we all know what the term means - but did Hamlet exist? Well, no, he exists as a dramatic character. The entire world of fiction and drama is inhabited by such characters (as Popper recognised in his 'Three Worlds' model.)

As regards whether things exist 'in different ways' - this is just the point at issue. You see, I think that the current consensus is that things either exist, or they don't and that the term is univocal - which is the very reason why 'what exists' and 'what is real' are commonly thought to be identical.

So in common discourse, the number 7 exists, as does the Moon. The square root of 2 doesn't exist, neither do unicorns. But I'm trying to develop the argument that numbers (etc) are real in a different sense or mode to the phenomenal - real but not existent. The domain of natural numbers is real - but where does it exist? Only 'in the mind'? You see, I think there's something the matter with that - we're trying to locate the idea spatially, asking 'where it is', but the manner in which number is real, is in some sense prior to space and time itself.

For a non-rational animal, numbers and rational inference are simply not discernable. Whereas the human intelligence automatically incorporates numerical and rational and linguistic elements and understands the world through them. I don't think that is sufficiently acknowledged in a lot of current philosophy, as it assumes that what is real is 'out there', that it must 'objectively exist'. But a large part of what we know is 'out there' is grounded in those very linguistic and arithmetical abilities which are inherent in the mind itself.

I think it is assumed that such things as number (etc) are the product of the evolved intelligence. So in this scenario, maths is a convenient and powerful mental technique that produces results, but it doesn't correspond to anything real, as the idea of there being any kind of innate rational order in the Universe is well and truly out of fashion, to the point of being politically incorrect. I mean, about the only current philosophers who take it seriously are the neo-Thomists.

God, if he is real, has being — Janus

I think that's technically incorrect - whether you believe in God or not. In the classical theistic tradition, God doesn't 'have' being, but is Being. Individuals are only real because they're instantiations of being - their being is bestowed by, or borrowed from, the sole source of being.

Anyway, my point about 'being' - humans are called 'beings' for a reason. And that reason is that what I think humans ultimately are, is the Universe understanding itself. We nowadays have the conceit that humans are simply a blip in the immense cosmos - what was Hawkings' charming phrase, 'chemical scum'? - which from the viewpoint of understanding 'deep time' and 'deep space' might be true. But who knows 'deep time' and 'deep space'? What supplies the perspective within which all of those measures are taken? When Neils Bohr said 'a physicist is only an atom's way of looking at itself' he wasn't entirely joking.