Questions tagged [existence]
Ontological and metaphysical questions about the study of existence, being and the structure of reality.
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Does Kant implicitly commit the paralogism of pure reason when saying that to have a representation it is necessary to accompany it with 'I think'?
In Caygill's Kant Dictionary entry of 'I Think' there is this part:
Kant further claims that 'I think' is the necessary vehicle/form/accompaniment of experience: to have a representation it is ...
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According to Aquinas, what is the relationship between the substantial form of a bodily being and its act of existing, ie. its esse?
Consider, for example, an existing bodily being. Because it is bodily, we know that it is composed of prime matter and substantial form. Also, because the bodily being is existing (not just made up in ...
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Understanding 'existence' and 'being' in debates about ordinary objects
Quine has brought forward his definition of existence: 'To be is to be the value of a bound variable.' But has also taught us that the sciences ultimately determine what actually exists contrary to ...
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Do nominalists say that unicorns and married bachelors don't exist in the same way?
I'm a philosophy novice that's trying to wrap my head around nominalism. In my current thinking there is a big difference between two categories of things that don't exist: non-actual concepts and ...
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Is "thoughts exist" a synthetic a priori statement?
I'm working off of Kant's conception of analytic/synthetic and a prior/a posteriori judgements.
The definition of "thoughts" does not subsume their existence. That is, it is logically ...
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Techniques of overcoming ennui (boredom)
Did any philosophers discuss overcoming ennui/boredom?
I read this question and its answer, but I am less interested in a definition of boredom and more interested in direct approaches or theories ...
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Would "piles" of existence-tropes allow for degrees of existence?
The SEP article on tropes discusses this notion of "piles" of tropes. The PI stands for primitivist individuation of tropes, meaning their individuation admits of no informative analysis or ...
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Could deities/multiverses be the empty/trivial solutions to, "How and why does our universe exist in the way it does?"
Note: I am loosely following Nicholas Rescher (Axiogenesis) here, by qualifying "the existence of this world" as "the existence of this specific world," where, "Why is there ...
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If Something Exists Does Everything Exist?
Has anyone argued this? I haven't formulated a coherent argument so I'm just throwing this out there to see if anyone has thought about this already. Intuitively I think it makes sense that everything ...
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Can the "doctrine of degrees of existence" be used to support the well-ordering lemma apart from the axiom of choice?
I was pleasantly surprised to read (in a Wikipedia article) that:
In second order logic, however, the well-ordering theorem is strictly stronger than the axiom of choice: from the well-ordering ...
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Modal logic for absoluteness
Modern modal logic has the modalities of necessity and possibility. However, both of these can be seen as relative to the set of possible worlds and the accessibility relation chosen for the semantics....
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Philosophic current in this excerpt of Ask the dust
I read Ask the dust by John Fante. The following is an excerpt from the book. It is right after Arturo went to Vera Rivken's place and feels guilty for having slept with her.
My question is: what is ...
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What are some differences between Avicenna and Descartes in regards to being unable to doubt one's own existence
Given Descartes' Cogito and Avicenna's Floating Man arguments, what are some differences between them? It appears to me that they are both arriving to the same conclusion but the process by which they ...
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Are there any arguments for why something past-eternal must necessarily be future-eternal as well?
If we assume that something has always existed in the past, what reason is there to assume that it won't perish in the future?
I pondered on it and I wondered whether the following argument works: ...
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Is Kant's postulate of the existence of God a metaethical assumption?
Also, I would like to get some bibliographical reference about Kantian metaethics.
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Is existence restricted by rendering?
Is existence restricted by the rendering of the being?
For example, as I am rendered as a physical being in the form of my body, is the plane of my existence limited to the physical world?
I would ...
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Does string theory raise new philosophical questions about existence of physical objects?
If you look at the configuration space of a robot arm, it is a manifold. Does this manifold exist in the same sense as strings in string theory? Or do the strings in string theory exist in another ...
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Do (any) philosophers worry if there can be a priori truths about a changing world?
Do (any) philosophers question how there can be a priori truths about a changing world -- has anyone worried whether this is possible, or if those different modes, of timeless truth and contingent ...
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Hypothetically observable
Question: When is it appropriate to assign the property "hypothetically observable" to a thing?
The set up is that someone is discussing an object that they claim has some sort of existence. Maybe ...
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The set-or-class of things that don't exist
If it could be determinate, how many things don't exist, i.e. if there could be a set of nonexistent things, would the existence of other things follow "mechanically"?
If it's not ...
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What are some examples of things that are ontologically parasitic
To be ontologically parasitic, a thing must exist only in reference to another thing.
For example, in the excellent video "How Many Holes Does a Human Have?", holes are identified as ontologically ...
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Could something prevent us from ever existing?
There are several ideas regarding the creation of our universe that suggest that our universe emerged from another one (eternal inflation suggesting our universe is the byproduct of an inflationary ...
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Fixed/critical points of a nonexistence quantifier/function
Let j(∃0) = 1, and j(∃1) = 1, for a justification function j on ∃-sentences. So far, 0 is the initial critical point of the composite quantifier-function, and 1 is the initial fixed point.
So let ...
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Does Russell's objection to Meinongianism apply whenever we take the meta-version of an existence-predicate distinction?
The point of departure:
A third problem, one of Russell’s objections to Meinongianism (see [Russell 1905a, 1907]), turns on the fact that existence is, on Meinongianism, a property and hence figures ...
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If existence-tropes would be absurd, does this count against trope theory or the theory of existence-as-a-property?
I advert to the word "trope" as used in philosophy and not as used in narrative analysis (although I can see a reflection of either sense of the word, in the other use). The argument goes:
...
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Is there a philosophical concept that describes the notion that all permutations of human experience must exist simultaneously?
It's the idea that, basically, if we each have our own paths to walk, so to speak, and if they are all unique to each individual person, then that must mean every possible permutation of a "life&...
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Does Kant's scheme for the analytic/synthetic distinction have room for a (degenerate?) further distinction, for "hyperanalytical" knowledge?
Kant can be easily misread (or: I myself easily misread him, for a long time) as claiming that no "existence claims" are analytically knowable. Technically, though, his system has it that (...
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Is Husserl's transcendental ego God?
We will eventually come up against something that cannot be varied
without destroying that object as an instance of its kind. The
implicit claim here is that if it is inconceivable that an object of
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Are idealists committed to claiming that every idea contains its inversion?
Are idealists - does anyone claim - about some domain - committed to believing that every idea contains its inversion?
So that, e.g. when an effect depends on its cause, the cause also depends on its ...
user57343
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On the purpose of human existence and unequal ability to understand complex things
I'm one of those people who think that the most important concern for us is to precisely understand the purpose of human existence ... I'm really surprised that our governments around the earth, even ...
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Is it possible philosophically that the entire cosmic void with one or more universe/s inside it will stop exist eternally?
As a conscious agent who suddenly appeared in this cosmic void as a child to my parents and got a consistent memory since about the age of 3;
With time I have learned of the question "why is there ...
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How would Leibniz respond to this objection to his argument for God's existence?
Leibniz argues for the existence of a necessary being using the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR).
Any contingent fact about the world must have an explanation. (Principle of sufficient reason)
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Do things exist just because they exist OR they are given that existence?
We know that some phenomena do not exist, like Greek gods, but some exist, like an apple on a desk. I doubt anyone could have proposed an answer to it, but I wonder if there is something which lets ...
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Is existence distinguishability/variation?
Here is my reasoning to the conclusion of "existence is distinguishability/variation":
Assume objects A and B.
Question 1: How are they different from each other?
Answer 1: They are ...
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Is there a difference between 'exists' and 'theoretically possible'?
For the purpose of this questions let's assume that the physics of our universe can be fully described by a complete non-contradictory theory (i.e. that theory of everything exists). Then our universe ...
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Self contradictory things that can't really exist: can they be fully conceived of?
It seems like we can conceive of self contradictory things that can exist. e.g. the proposition expressed by "this sentence is false" is self contradictory but I don't seem to have any trouble ...
user38026
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What does it mean to exist and not exist? Is it possible to be both and/or neither?
Is it possible for something to exist and at the same time not exist?
Also, is it possible for something to neither exist and not exist?
Or am I simply asking the same question, but wording it ...
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The timeline of everything
My friend (catholic) and I (atheist) were taking about religion. We bare both scientists and therefore wanted to look at it scientifically.
After discussing, We have stopped at the question about ...
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Simultaneity of Astronauts
Let us image a spacecraft in fast orbit. Since it took off its clock has lost several minutes relative to Earth time. From the ground we can speak to the astronauts, although there is 1 second radio ...
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What are the different forms of "why?" and why are they different?
It is so often asked: "Why?" But what does it mean? What do we expect from this question? A "because"? If the question is answered it seems to give people a kind of relief.
Why do ...
user53288
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From what did we instantiated the concept of "Nothingness"
So as i understand according to Aristotle's theory of abstraction every abstract concept (i.e universal) is instantiated (or abstracted) from it particulars in the outside world if that so how can we ...
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What should a person do?
Edit 1: As pointed out in the comments, the question implies the existence of a purpose and agency so I would like to re-phrase the question to match what I'm after:
What should a person do? (What is ...
