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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]
| 15063 | Some sentences depend for their truth on worldly circumstances, and others do not [Fine,K] |
| 15065 | What it is is fixed prior to existence or the object's worldly features [Fine,K] |
| 15064 | Proper necessary truths hold whatever the circumstances; transcendent truths regardless of circumstances [Fine,K] |
| 15067 | A-theorists tend to reject the tensed/tenseless distinction [Fine,K] |
| 15066 | B-theorists say tensed sentences have an unfilled argument-place for a time [Fine,K] |
| 15069 | Possible worlds may be more limited, to how things might actually turn out [Fine,K] |
| 15068 | The actual world is a totality of facts, so we also think of possible worlds as totalities [Fine,K] |
| 15070 | It is the nature of Socrates to be a man, so necessarily he is a man [Fine,K] |
| 15071 | Tensed and tenseless sentences state two sorts of fact, which belong to two different 'realms' of reality [Fine,K] |
| 15073 | Self-identity should have two components, its existence, and its neutral identity with itself [Fine,K] |
| 15074 | We would understand identity between objects, even if their existence was impossible [Fine,K] |
| 15072 | Bottom level facts are subject to time and world, middle to world but not time, and top to neither [Fine,K] |
| 15076 | Essential features of an object have no relation to how things actually are [Fine,K] |
| 15075 | Modal features are not part of entities, because they are accounted for by the entity [Fine,K] |
| 15078 | There are levels of existence, as well as reality; objects exist at the lowest level in which they can function [Fine,K] |
| 15077 | It is said that in the A-theory, all existents and objects must be tensed, as well as the sentences [Fine,K] |