Questions tagged [existence]
Ontological and metaphysical questions about the study of existence, being and the structure of reality.
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Is the universe 'necessarily' contingent?
My question arises from a debate I had seen between Mohammed Hijabi and Alex O'Connell (the debate) where it seems like Hijabi was admitting to the fact that all contingent things must come from and ...
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Chicken or Egg. Does anything begin Or is the idea of start/first origin. A misunderstanding of language
The existence of beginning. Origin/start/begin. All require something before. Are all just arbitrary measurements of traits we find of interest. Mapping how they change over time? The global Idea of ...
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How do you prove at least two things exist? [closed]
I want to prove ∃!x[x∈U] is false, where ∀x[x∈U]. I can do so if I can prove, formally, at least two things exist. Consider it possible that U is a name of a non-existent set. Thus, you cannot ...
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Can, "Intuitions without concepts are blind," be explained in terms of sentences featuring indexicals?
I.e., imagine an assertion like, "This is that." Taken per se, it is like "thoughts without content [that] are empty," but taken de re, is it blind? If I point at some "this&...
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Are "finding the pain of existence unbearable" and "deciding that life is not worth living" the same?
I have tried to present my views regarding these two seemingly related phenomena.
(a) Thinking that Life is not worth living
When one "thinks" that life is not worth living, that is a ...
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What is the difference in concrete things between being and existing, or is there none?
I am supposing that being and existence must correspond to principles in concrete things, else the notions of being and existence are false precisely because they are attributed to things. So what ...
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Do meanings of statements exist?
It was suggested to me in another thread that materialism is self defeating. But when I looked at the reason for that statement I found confusion in the argument.
(4) MATERIALISM
[Definition] The ...
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What is the meaning of existence? [closed]
What is the meaning of the word 'exist'?
Its etymology reveals it's derived from two Latin words:
ex = from + ist = is
Thus, its inventor intended it to mean from is.
What did the inventor of the ...
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Aquinas on the relation between essence, being, and existence
In Summa Contra Gentiles 2.9.4, Aquinas writes
Just as active power is something acting, so is its essence something
being [Sicut potentia activa est aliquid agens, ita essentia eius est aliquid ens]....
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Did Descartes declare the "Non Cogito" first, prior to "cogito ergo sum"
I took A-Level Philosophy, during which we studied Descartes "Meditations" at length.
I remember our teacher explaining that, whilst "Cogito ergo sum" was the famous phrasing, ...
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What are some logically equivalent formulations of “uniqueness”?
A monoid is a mathematical structure with an associative law of composition and an identity element. It can be proven that if an element of a monoid has an inverse, then the inverse is unique:
Assume ...
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Hugh MacColl and Meinong's position on existence
After researching the Russell and MacColl debate, at first I didn't know about MacColl, but I became very interested in him, so I continued to research him and eventually found out more about theory ...
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Does all the existence have a will to remain existing? [closed]
First of all: i am a layman.
Body/bodies: Material Being/Has mass and volume
And what i mean by the title: Everything that exists (that is composed by any chemical element) has the will/determination ...
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How many things is a blob? [closed]
Imagine you have two types of play-do. You mix them up till you can't tell the difference between them but you have a machine that can split them up. How many types of play-do do you have in your hand?...
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Does the statement "only matter exists" denote a false proposition or a true proposition? [closed]
The proposition denoted by the English statement "only matter exists" has a truth value that's constant in time. I want to know if it's true.
To answer the question, you need to know the ...
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