"Real", "existent" and "is" are metaphysically undefined. — Michael Ossipoff
So to 'exist' is to be 'this as distinct from that', to have an identity. — Wayfarer
So to exist is to be substantial. Yet to be substantial is to be individuated. — apokrisis
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
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
they don't have identity? — Πετροκότσυφας
What evidence can you provide that all animals, apart from humans, simply react to stimuli? — Πετροκότσυφας
General observation of animal behavior. — Wayfarer
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
I would suggest that there is no serious philosophy that has ever not taken seriously the distinction between these terms — StreetlightX
Animals responses are typically limited to a very specific behavioural repertoire. Humans are meaning-seeking, technology-creating, language-using beings. — Wayfarer
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
I am interested in references to philosophers that distinguish what is real from what exists. — Wayfarer
I am interested in references to philosophers that distinguish what is real from what exists. — Wayfarer
I would only be slightly callous... — StreetlightX
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
What makes you think the terms have any essential univocal meanings? — Janus
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
you care to throw in to push your agenda. — Pseudonym
In fact not that much is written on this distinction in current philosophy. — 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.'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
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
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.'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
OK, a possible ontological statement, but it seems to go in a personal direction from there:The 'be' of 'be-ing' is of a completely different nature to the existence of objects. This is the distinction basic to ontology.
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.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.
Why is that stance 'confused'?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.
.Real", "existent" and "is" are metaphysically undefined.
.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.
.'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.
.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.
.(And prime numbers, in particular, are not composed of parts.)
.The meaning of 'Being' is another matter again. Note that in ordinary speech the term 'Being' usually denotes 'human being', and for good reason.
.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.
.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.)
.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.
.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'.
.But Being is prior to the Cosmos, 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.
.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.
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
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
That's quite a claim.
Well, maybe it results from the "Publish or Perish" imperative. — Michael Ossipoff
'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 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
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
You really ought to read Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics. — StreetlightX
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
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
Why is that stance 'confused'? — noAxioms
I suggest that you consider "substance" in Aristotle's usage as that which substantiates. — Metaphysician Undercover
Surely you don’t mean that the other animals aren’t beings too. — Michael Ossipoff
These are examples, not a definition. — Thorongil
The characters in a novel stand apart from one another, so under your definition they exist. — Janus
God, if he is real, has being — Janus
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