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Single Idea 1633
[filed under theme 7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
]
Full Idea
What makes ontological questions meaningless when taken absolutely is not universality but circularity. A question of the form "What is an F?" can only be answered with "An F is a G", which makes sense relative to the uncritical acceptance of G.
Gist of Idea
Absolute ontological questions are meaningless, because the answers are circular definitions
Source
Willard Quine (Ontological Relativity [1968], p.53)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Ontological Relativity and Other Essays' [Columbia 1969], p.53
A Reaction
This is too precise. No one takes such questions wholly as 'absolutes', but we don't accept G uncritically. We keep going, and the target is not a foundation, but coherence.
The
34 ideas
with the same theme
[what is the hallmark for deciding what exists?]:
7022
|
To be is to have a capacity, to act on other things, or to receive actions
[Plato]
|
527
|
Everything exists which anyone perceives
[Metrodorus of Chios]
|
20860
|
Whatever participates in substance exists
[Zeno of Citium, by Stobaeus]
|
5992
|
Chrysippus says action is the criterion for existence, which must be physical
[Chrysippus, by Tieleman]
|
16660
|
Are things distinct if they are both separate, or if only one of them can be separate?
[Duns Scotus, by Pasnau]
|
12554
|
Existences can only be known by experience
[Locke]
|
19393
|
What is not active is nothing
[Leibniz]
|
3952
|
I know that nothing inconsistent can exist
[Berkeley]
|
18995
|
Frege mistakenly takes existence to be a property of concepts, instead of being about things
[Frege, by Yablo]
|
18899
|
Frege takes the existence of horses to be part of their concept
[Frege, by Sommers]
|
18521
|
The criterion of existence is the possibility of action
[Santayana]
|
14173
|
What exists has causal relations, but non-existent things may also have them
[Russell]
|
3534
|
To be is to have causal powers
[Alexander,S]
|
7680
|
Ontology is possible only as phenomenology
[Heidegger]
|
24189
|
The criterion of the real is contradictions
[Weil]
|
16965
|
All we have of general existence is what existential quantifiers express
[Quine]
|
19277
|
Quine rests existence on bound variables, because he thinks singular terms can be analysed away
[Quine, by Hale]
|
1633
|
Absolute ontological questions are meaningless, because the answers are circular definitions
[Quine]
|
9811
|
It is of the essence of being to appear
[Badiou]
|
14746
|
What exists can't depend on our conceptual scheme, and using all conceptual schemes is too liberal
[Sider on Wiggins]
|
6062
|
Existence can't be analysed as instantiating a property, as instantiation requires existence
[McGinn]
|
6065
|
We can't analyse the sentence 'something exists' in terms of instantiated properties
[McGinn]
|
12216
|
Real objects are those which figure in the facts that constitute reality
[Fine,K]
|
12218
|
Being real and being fundamental are separate; Thales's water might be real and divisible
[Fine,K]
|
8300
|
Perhaps possession of causal power is the hallmark of existence (and a reason to deny the void)
[Lowe]
|
4768
|
The 'epistemic fallacy' is inferring what does exist from what can be known to exist
[Psillos]
|
12447
|
That all existents have causal powers is unknowable; the claim is simply an epistemic one
[Azzouni]
|
9501
|
If all existents are causally active, that excludes abstracta and causally isolated objects
[Bird]
|
18480
|
Maybe it only exists if it is a truthmaker (rather than the value of a variable)?
[MacBride]
|
19654
|
We must give up the modern criterion of existence, which is a correlation between thought and being
[Meillassoux]
|
14942
|
Only admit into ontology what is explanatory and predictive
[Ladyman/Ross]
|
14948
|
To be is to be a real pattern
[Ladyman/Ross]
|
14493
|
Existence might require playing a role in explanation, or in a causal story, or being composed in some way
[Thomasson]
|
18917
|
Existence and nonexistence are characteristics of the world, not of objects
[Engelbretsen]
|