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Single Idea 12620
[filed under theme 7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 2. Types of Existence
]
Full Idea
People say 'exist' is ambiguous, because of the difference between 'chairs exist' and 'numbers exist'. A reply goes: the difference between the existence of chairs and the existence of numbers is strikingly like the difference between chairs and numbers.
Gist of Idea
If 'exist' is ambiguous in 'chairs and numbers exist', that mirrors the difference between chairs and numbers
Source
Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.3)
Book Ref
Fodor,Jerry A.: 'Concepts: where cognitive science went wrong' [OUP 1998], p.54
A Reaction
To say 'numbers are objects which exist' is, to me, either a funny use of 'exist' or a funny use of 'object'. I think I will now vote for the latter. Just as 'real number' was a funny use of 'number', but we seem to have got used to it.
The
18 ideas
with the same theme
[whether there is more than one type of existence]:
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13221
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Existence is either potential or actual
[Aristotle]
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568
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Some things exist as substances, others as properties of substances
[Aristotle]
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16588
|
I prefer a lack of form to mean non-existence, than to think of some quasi-existence
[Augustine]
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16664
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Everything that exists is either a substance or an accident
[Albert of Saxony]
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17174
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Outside the mind, there are just things and their properties
[Spinoza]
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17176
|
The more reality a thing has, the more attributes it has
[Spinoza]
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21291
|
There is no medium state between existence and non-existence
[Hume]
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4168
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Matter and intellect are inseparable correlatives which only exist relatively, and for each other
[Schopenhauer]
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19470
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Thoughts in the 'third realm' cannot be sensed, and do not need an owner to exist
[Frege]
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10241
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For Quine, there is only one way to exist
[Quine, by Shapiro]
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15535
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We can't accept a use of 'existence' that says only some of the things there are actually exist
[Lewis]
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10470
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There are only two kinds: sets, and possibilia (actual and possible particulars)
[Lewis, by Oliver]
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15520
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Existence doesn't come in degrees; once asserted, it can't then be qualified
[Lewis]
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15789
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Lewis's distinction of 'existing' from 'being actual' is Meinong's between 'existing' and 'subsisting'
[Lycan on Lewis]
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12620
|
If 'exist' is ambiguous in 'chairs and numbers exist', that mirrors the difference between chairs and numbers
[Fodor]
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13884
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The idea that 'exist' has multiple senses is not coherent
[Wright,C]
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15078
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There are levels of existence, as well as reality; objects exist at the lowest level in which they can function
[Fine,K]
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18769
|
Do mathematicians use 'existence' differently when they say some entity exists?
[Anderson,CA]
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