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Single Idea 19470

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

Full Idea

Thoughts are neither things in the external world nor ideas. A third realm must be recognised. Anything in this realm has it in common with ideas that it cannot be perceived by the senses, and does not need an owner to belong with his consciousness.

Gist of Idea

Thoughts in the 'third realm' cannot be sensed, and do not need an owner to exist

Source

Gottlob Frege (The Thought: a Logical Enquiry [1918], p.337(69))

Book Ref

Frege,Gottlob: 'The Frege Reader', ed/tr. Beaney,Michael [Blackwell 1997], p.337


A Reaction

This important idea is the creed for modern platonists. We don't have to accept Forms, or any particular content, but there is a mode of existence which is distinct from both mental and physical, and is the residence of 'abstracta'. I deny it!


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

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