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Single Idea 15078

[filed under theme 7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 2. Types of Existence ]

Full Idea

Just as we recognise different levels of reality, so we should recognise different levels of existence. Each object will exist at the lowest level at which it can enjoy its characteristic form of life.

Gist of Idea

There are levels of existence, as well as reality; objects exist at the lowest level in which they can function

Source

Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 10)

Book Ref

Fine,Kit: 'Modality and Tense' [OUP 2005], p.354

A Reaction

I'm struggling with this claim, despite my sympathy for much of Fine's picture. I'm not sure that the so-called 'levels' of reality have different degrees of reality.

Related Ideas

Idea 15072 Bottom level facts are subject to time and world, middle to world but not time, and top to neither [Fine,K]

Idea 7003 There are levels of organisation, complexity, description and explanation, but not of reality [Heil]

The 18 ideas with the same theme [whether there is more than one type of existence]:

13221 Existence is either potential or actual [Aristotle]
568 Some things exist as substances, others as properties of substances [Aristotle]
16588 I prefer a lack of form to mean non-existence, than to think of some quasi-existence [Augustine]
16664 Everything that exists is either a substance or an accident [Albert of Saxony]
17174 Outside the mind, there are just things and their properties [Spinoza]
17176 The more reality a thing has, the more attributes it has [Spinoza]
21291 There is no medium state between existence and non-existence [Hume]
4168 Matter and intellect are inseparable correlatives which only exist relatively, and for each other [Schopenhauer]
19470 Thoughts in the 'third realm' cannot be sensed, and do not need an owner to exist [Frege]
10241 For Quine, there is only one way to exist [Quine, by Shapiro]
15535 We can't accept a use of 'existence' that says only some of the things there are actually exist [Lewis]
10470 There are only two kinds: sets, and possibilia (actual and possible particulars) [Lewis, by Oliver]
15520 Existence doesn't come in degrees; once asserted, it can't then be qualified [Lewis]
15789 Lewis's distinction of 'existing' from 'being actual' is Meinong's between 'existing' and 'subsisting' [Lycan on Lewis]
12620 If 'exist' is ambiguous in 'chairs and numbers exist', that mirrors the difference between chairs and numbers [Fodor]
13884 The idea that 'exist' has multiple senses is not coherent [Wright,C]
15078 There are levels of existence, as well as reality; objects exist at the lowest level in which they can function [Fine,K]
18769 Do mathematicians use 'existence' differently when they say some entity exists? [Anderson,CA]