Clearly, of things that exist, a whole raft of them exist as ideas. I think material existence still stands, notwithstanding Berkeley, of which we discovered that while he could deny material - and what that means is another topic - he affirmed reality and the reality of things like stones. And it seems there are two to be added that don't fit in these: force, and process. — tim wood

I wasn't questioning it along Berkleyian lines. I was saying it no longer means anything. It is a placeholder term for real. Or verified. It sounds like it is describing a certain substance type, but it isn't. It just means it exists.

The list, then, of classes of things that exist (as how they exist):
1) material things,
2) ideas/mental constructs,
3) forces,
4) processes. — tim wood

Materialists consider forces real and material. As they do processes. And most would consider ideas merely a facet of certain kinds of (conscious) matter. Something like length or vibration. Not a new substance. Obviously you disagree, but you need to show how they are wrong because scientific materialism has swallowed everything. Even though it no longer means anything.

The truth of the matter is that the quality of encounterability is a quality of the object in question, not some individual or specific class of individuals that may or may not either encounter or be able to encounter the object. — tim wood

Despite your assertion ("the truth of the matter is..."), that's not true at all. "Encounter" necessarily implies something encountered and something doing the encountering. It's a two part experience, a "meeting". So "encounterability" (my spell check thinks that's a nonsense word), depends as much on the capacities of the thing encountering as it depends on the thing being encountered. Consider for example, the term "edible".

This isn't about existence for, rather it's about criteria for existence qua. — tim wood

I agree with this point, but that's exactly why "encounterability" will not suffice. It implies the necessity of assuming something which will act as the encounterer. Therefore "existence" will be defined in relation to that encounterer, "existence for" the encounterer. Why must "existence" be a relative term? You are insisting that in order to "exist", the existent must exist relative to something else, the thing which could encounter it.

Here's a suggestion for you categorization schema, absolute existents, and relative existents. The former are not related to encounters, the latter are.

I mean, you can't really miss existents, and there's not much of a complement to contrast with. — jorndoe

Yes you can miss existents, and that's the point of one of my objections. Fundamental particles are supposed to be existents, and I don't encounter them ever. There may also be all sorts of other existents which human beings haven't encountered, and may not even be encounterable to us. It is a mistake to define "existents", as things which are evident to me, or even to us.

"Exist" is fairly basic, and categorizing different sorts of "existents" seems more fruitful, like tim wood has been doing. — jorndoe

The process tim wood and the others are engaged in is absolutely fruitless, for the very reason that they express no idea of what it means to exist, and so have no principles for categorization. For example, they assume that a "force" exists. But "force" just represents a system we use to quantify an interaction between existent things.

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Well done. A tip of the pointy hat.

I wonder how it all relates to Kant. What about such categories as time and space, the very principles of individuation? — petrichor

Almost everything humans talk about now can relate to what Kant has already said. Except of course, those particular things he and no one else at the time knew were even possible. Not so much space travel, for instance, but how to do space travel without killing the travelers.

Now I never knew the guy, but I’m willing to bet he would have looked at you funny for thinking space and time are categories. The very principles of empirical individuation, sure, but categories? Yeah, no.......

Minor point, and takes very little away from the well done.

existence is primordial. — tim wood

Primordial meaning fundamental......agreed.

If some things exist necessarily - if there are such things - then they have always existed and certainly did not spring fully-formed from the brow of logic/reason. — tim wood

If some things exist necessarily, they do not so spring, agreed, but it does not follow that they always existed. To say they always existed mandates the timeframe of permanence, which cannot be given from existence alone. A thing that exists necessarily may exist only temporarily.
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And it may well be that the ability of language and thought to apprehend existence is, on the one hand, constrained, yet on the other hand, the constraint irrelevant. — tim wood

The whole paragraph is very good, but this is the key. Whether we talk about an object that does exist, or merely think an object that might exist, “existence” the primordial conception, must already abide, otherwise “to exist” has no meaning, so our apprehension of it is not really necessary. Still, it doesn’t have to be inapprenhensible; we could just let it stand as a condition, in accordance with the way we think of anything at all.

Good post.

I think in mathematics, an "object" may be infinite.

I'm not sure if that quality can apply to existing things, for infinite object would have no beginning or end and would take up the entirety of space and time.

Almost everything humans talk about now can relate to what Kant has already said. — Mww

Do you mean this in the same way that everything humans talk about now can relate to what Hegel, Nietzsche, Plato and Descartes said, that current knowledge sits on the foundation of previous thought? Or are you claiming that philosophy hasn't progressed much beyond Kant?

Mostly the first, in varying degrees. Progress, doncha know.

As far as I’m concerned, to wit: mere opinion, Kant was the paradigm shifter in epistemological philosophy, of which there has been no other since. But then, I’m not as acquainted with the moderns as I am with the Enlightenment, so......

Nevertheless, it’s pretty obvious what anybody said within this paradigm either supported or rejected Kant, until 20th Century theoretical physics cast a new light on the meaning of knowledge itself, re: Einstein on the con*, Schrödinger on the sorta-pro**, Gödel on the super-pro***.

*Einsteins, 1921 “Geometry and Experience”;
**Schrodinger, 1944, “What Is Life”
***Gödel, 1961, “The modern development of the foundations of mathematics in the light of philosophy”

I read the figures in physics that you mention as residing within a philosophical space somewhere between Kant and Hegel. Nome have ventured into phenomenological philosophical territory as of yet(which I view as being as revolutionary in its own way as Kant was).
In this sense, enactivist psychology, having begun to assimilate ideas from Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, is anticipating where physics will go next.

Interesting. Thanks for the context.

Yes you can miss existents, and that's the point of one of my objections. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course you will miss some, most actually, but not all.
You can't miss examples thereof.

Fundamental particles are supposed to be existents, and I don't encounter them ever. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, that's moving into exactly what various things are, not merely that they are.
Different inquiries. Merely "exist" is the latter.

There may also be all sorts of other existents which human beings haven't encountered, and may not even be encounterable to us. It is a mistake to define "existents", as things which are evident to me, or even to us. — Metaphysician Undercover

Right, we don't just define the term "exist" by other terms (indefinite regress / circularity).
Whatever exists altogether has no complement anyway.

So, how's this for a provisional description then? Existence has no complement, and whatever exists is part thereof.

I actually came across Husserl’s name when reading textbooks on cognitive neuroscience - Varela’s ideas to be spceific.

I do agree that there was a paradigm shift for some created by not just Husserl - I’d argue that Nietzsche was an extremely fertile ground from which many ‘opposing’ philosophical and political views use as a prop.

That said Kant’s contribution was, and still is, monumental. I’d also say that many modern physicists are pretty much taken up the baton of ‘philosophy’ and doing more for philosophical ‘progress’ in many ways that many ‘philosophers’ are. I’m still astounded by how everyone harps on about Einstein as the last genius without bothering to mention the powerhouse that was/is Feynman.

As far as I know everyone learns about Einstein at an early age but unless you actually venture specifically into physics you don’t hear about Feyman - very sad :(

"Encounterability" is a noun. — tim wood

If "encounterability" is a noun, then it is used to refer to a thing, or class of things. So how do you propose to use this word such that it describes what all existent things have in common, existence?

The fundamental criterion for the existence of things, is the possibility of its negation. — Mww

Agreed.

If its negation is impossible, it must exist, ... — Mww

Yes abstractions; not states of affairs.

if its negation is possible, its existence is not given, ... — Mww

... then it is contingent, that is, it can always change (even if it hasn't yet). 'Necessary - impossible to negate - facts' are subsistent constructs like round squares, fish riding unicycles, ... paradoxical figures in Escher's gallery & inconsistent objects in Meinong's Jungle because facts are causally relational, thereby change with respect to other facts changing - in flux - anywhere anywhen, and so they're 'necessarily non-necessary'. Unless there aren't any changeable, or contingent, facts at all; but that is not the case. What's impossible is a fact - node of causal relations - which is 'impossible to negate', or change; factual existence presupposes contingency - possibility of negation - insofar as facts are - at least one fact is - causally relational, unlike abstract subsistents which are not causally relational. I can easily list necessary abstractions (e.g. numbers, equations, classes / categories) but not a single 'necessary fact' - not even Witty's "world is the totality of facts" because it's an abstraction, not a fact, like "set of all sets".

Your thoughts?

What can this world-beyond-all-carving be if not a kind of internal suspicion within our systematic carving-up of the world? — Eee

Good point!

The map is not the territory could be interpreted to mean only that we expect our map to change. Our map appears on itself as a changeable entity? And the world-beyond-the-map is the world-to-come is our map's knowledge of its own fragility? — Eee

Yes, what you bring to mind here for me is that we, at the level of our human apprehension of things at least, are stuck with a map. We'll never know the territory directly. Our map can change to a degree, and it will. But it can never be altogether dissolved while leaving us intact. Its fragility is ours. But ultimately, what is is what is being humanity, and in its simple being-in-itself, it is beyond maps. And that level of things is unavoidably present even for us, insofar as we are inseparable from reality. While we stand here looking at our map, with its boundaries and labels, the situation of there being people looking at maps itself is the territory! But how to look at that without mobilizing a map of it?

I suppose that at the level of being, we are always directly in contact with, or rather are, the territory, while at the level of cognizing, we are always looking at a map. This could be tied to Zen meditation, where the injunction often amounts to something like, "Just be!" The comedy here is that you can't not do that! So it is silly to command it! But it seems to try to bring attention to the territory. Stop thinking! Things seen through the mind are at a remove and are representations. But to see the immediate situation of there being a mind making its representations is another matter! Watching through the mind and watching the mind are different! But one must be careful not to watch the mind through the mind!

Perhaps the way to avoid that is to just be! This seems to amount to sort of stepping back, returning to yourself, as if we are normally pressing out of ourselves and out of the world in order to turn around and look at ourselves, in which case, we encounter a surface through a membrane and are unable to directly touch what is being regarded. But if we only relax back into ourselves, we find the world in-itself. We never lost it! Internally, in our being, the territory is always already present. Externally, in our grasping, we lose it.

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Your thoughts? — 180 Proof

First: That was hard to read.
Second: Cool. Somebody asked for my thoughts.
Finally......pretty good.

To respond:
.......All facts are contingent on the condition of the knowledge that generates them.
.......I would ask how “states of affairs” are not themselves abstractions, thus equally subject to necessary existence because their negation is impossible.

All in all.....a worth exercise.

Our map can change to a degree, and it will. But it can never be altogether dissolved while leaving us intact. — petrichor

Yes, because this 'us' is itself just a token on the map. 'Language speaks man.' Or the subject is a function of language. But what is language? It's a thing that's never done naming itself. What I mean by language is beyond the individual in the simple sense that we are here together part of its talking about itself. The same system of symbols has a distributed life in millions of brains. The fact that you said 'leaving us intact' is important here.

I am not looking for what existence is. I am satisfied that is a different question from what exists, and what exists seems to be a criteriological question. — tim wood

But how can you expect to answer "what exists?" if you do not know what it means to exist? Knowing what it means to exist gives you the criteria required to accurately answer the question of does this or does this not exist.

Encounterability, then, is a criterion of existence. — tim wood

"A criterion" doesn't give you the necessary conditions to make the affirmation. Being cold is "a criterion" of snow, but it doesn't mean that if it's cold, it's snow. Therefore there is no reason to believe that if it's encounterable it has existence, even if encounterability is a criterion of existence.

Furthermore, as I explained, it is quite possible that there are existing things which are unencounterable to us, as human beings. Therefore encounterability is unacceptable even as a simple criterion of existence. Perhaps the encounterable are one type of existent.

Is your objection that no reasonable discussion about existents can happen without first figuring out what existence is? Do you ever buy tomatoes? — tim wood

Yes that's exactly my point, no reasonable discussion about existents qua existents can happen without defining what "existent" is. There's no point to defining, or categorizing subgroups of existents without first defining the principal category, because without such a definition, the things you'll be putting into the subgroups might not even belong in the principal group to begin with.

Say you bought some beefsteaks and some romas. How would you know that what you bought are tomatoes if you don't even know what a tomato is? Likewise, how would you know that the thing you encountered was an existent if you do not even know what an existent is?

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But I do! — tim wood

It's one thing to assert "I know..", but I'm asking how do you know that. That's the point. if you are creating subclasses of existents, and placing things into these categories, and you do not know what an existent is, then how do you know whether or not your proposed subclasses even contain existents?

You want to answer "how" with 'I know these things are existents because I've encountered them', but I've already explained why "encounterability" is insufficient.

Do you not think about what you write? Being cold is an encounterable. You encounter it, and you feel, think, maybe say, "That's cold." Being cold in itself means nothing more than that. Are you going to argue that because something has some characteristic it must be (or alternatively, cannot be) some particular thing? — tim wood

Correct, that's exactly why "encounterability" is insufficient.

By doing it. What, exactly, is your problem? — tim wood

My problem? I'm waiting for you to do what you claim. I've already explained why I believe encounterability is insufficient. Now I'm waiting for you to attempt to demonstrate that it is sufficient.

And please identify something that exists that is not in some way encounterable. — tim wood

I don't think I need to come up with these things to show the fault in your principle, I just need to demonstrate the possibility of these things. As I've explained, non-existent things are encountered through hallucinations and such. And, it is highly probable, due to the deficiencies and physical limitations of the human being, that there are existents which are not encounterable.

How will you demonstrate that all existents are encounterable, and all encounterable things are existents?

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I say it's cold because it's cold, and thereby aver that cold exists. — tim wood

Uh huh, tell me another. A big, bright and bold, vicious circle justifies nothing.

Did you read the OP? Do you remember the category of ideas/mental constructs? A hallucination exists as an idea/mental construct, subspecies hallucination. You appear to be confused about all this. — tim wood

That's one of the things I'm objecting to. By common usage of the word "exists", things created by the imagination, including ideas and mental constructs, do not exist. We say that they do not exist, because we cannot give them a spatial location. That's why I suggested location as a condition of "existence". The things within an imaginary scene, are clearly encountered, but they do not exist, and we do not call them existents.

Yes I am confused by all this. Your use of "exist" in a way which is inconsistent with common usage has left me confused. I do not know your intentions and can only assume that, as in other cases like this which I have encountered, your goal is to deceive by equivocation. Your misguided direction has left me incapable of following where you intend to be going with this unsupported principle. I see no reason for you to place non-existent things, such as things encountered in the imagination, into the category of "existents", and this move confuses me.

This is your problem, not mine. — tim wood

Not really. It would be my problem if I were to follow your misguided direction. But I choose not to follow you down this confusion filled pathway, so it remains your problem not mine.

If you wish to talk about unencounterable existents, go ahead, but I have to wonder just how you're going to go about that. — tim wood

I've been talking about unencounterable existents for quite a few posts. Now I've succeeded in getting you to talk about them as well. What's the problem? I've explained that all I have to do is demonstrate that such a thing is logically possible and it makes sense to talk about them. What doesn't make sense is to exclude this possibility as "impossible" just because it is, by definition, beyond your capacity to encounter it.

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1) If something necessarily exists, it exists necessarily, yes? — tim wood

Yes.
——————-

If yes, than non-contingently, yes again? — tim wood

Yes again. Necessity always makes contingency logically impossible.
——————-

Then how can it ever not be? — tim wood

It can’t. That’s the same as saying how can it not ever be. That’s not the same as how can it always not be. Technically, “ever” is not a proper classification of time for particulars, of which there are only three: a singular instance of time, a succession of times or a permanence in all time. The first is all that is absolutely required of any necessary existence. No time, of course, is incomprehensible.
——————-

If its negation is impossible." Is this propositional negation? Or is it an existential impossibility to be? — tim wood

I’m going with both. It is obviously a logical truism, and because of that, if the existence of a thing is necessary, say, because it is logically a cause of something else, but it it is thought to not exist anyway, or its existence is denied by some other means, a categorical error is committed, insofar as a logical truism is falsified, which is a self-contradiction.
——————

I cannot think of anything that necessarily exists — tim wood

There is one and only one: the thinking subject. If there isn’t one, none of this could be happening, but it is, so.........