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Full Idea
Metaphysics has two main areas of concern: one is with the nature of things, with what they are; and the other is with the existence of things, with whether they are.
Gist of Idea
Metaphysics deals with the existence of things and with the nature of things
Source
Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], I)
Book Ref
-: 'Aristotelian Society' [], p.269
A Reaction
This paper is part of a movement which has shifted metaphysics to a third target - how things relate to one another. The possibility that this third aim should be the main one seems quite plausible to me.
Related Idea
Idea 14255 We understand things through their dependency relations [Fine,K]
| 14250 | Metaphysics deals with the existence of things and with the nature of things [Fine,K] |
| 14253 | An object's 'being' isn't existence; there's more to an object than existence, and its nature doesn't include existence [Fine,K] |
| 14251 | A natural modal account of dependence says x depends on y if y must exist when x does [Fine,K] |
| 14252 | We should understand identity in terms of the propositions it renders true [Fine,K] |
| 14256 | How do we distinguish basic from derived esssences? [Fine,K] |
| 14257 | An object depends on another if the second cannot be eliminated from the first's definition [Fine,K] |
| 14255 | We understand things through their dependency relations [Fine,K] |
| 14254 | Dependency is the real counterpart of one term defining another [Fine,K] |
| 14259 | Maybe two objects might require simultaneous real definitions, as with two simultaneous terms [Fine,K] |
| 14261 | There is 'weak' dependence in one definition, and 'strong' dependence in all the definitions [Fine,K] |
| 14258 | Maybe some things have essential relationships as well as essential properties [Fine,K] |
| 14260 | An object only essentially has a property if that property follows from every definition of the object [Fine,K] |