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Single Idea 4475

[filed under theme 7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 1. Nature of Existence ]

Full Idea

We do not make the least addition to a thing when we declare the thing 'is'. Otherwise it would not be exactly the same thing that exists, but something more than we had thought in the concept, so we could not say the exact object of my concept exists.

Gist of Idea

Saying a thing 'is' adds nothing to it - otherwise if my concept exists, it isn't the same as my concept

Source

Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B628/A600)

Book Ref

Kant,Immanuel: 'Critique of Pure Reason', ed/tr. Guyer,P /Wood,A W [CUO 1998], p.567

A Reaction

This still strikes me as a wonderful objection to the ontological argument for God. It raises the question of what 'is' does mean. Is it a 'quantifier'? What is the ontological status of a quantifier?

Related Idea

Idea 5612 You add nothing to the concept of God or coins if you say they exist [Kant]

The 21 ideas with the same theme [what it means for things to exist]:

14874 Anaximander saw the contradiction in the world - that its own qualities destroy it [Anaximander, by Nietzsche]
481 Nothing is created or destroyed; there is only mixing and separation [Anaxagoras]
14028 Nothing comes to be from what doesn't exist [Epicurus]
14029 If disappearing things went to nothingness, nothing could return, and it would all be gone by now [Epicurus]
23634 Accepting the existence of anything presupposes the notion of existence [Reid]
4475 Saying a thing 'is' adds nothing to it - otherwise if my concept exists, it isn't the same as my concept [Kant]
11008 Existence is not a first-order property, but the instantiation of a property [Frege, by Read]
8643 Affirmation of existence is just denial of zero [Frege]
14463 Existence can only be asserted of something described, not of something named [Russell]
13133 The world is facts, not things. Facts determine the world, and the world divides into facts [Wittgenstein]
16434 Some say what exists must do so, and nothing else could possible exist [Stalnaker]
16439 A nominalist view says existence is having spatio-temporal location [Stalnaker]
15532 'Allists' embrace the existence of all controversial entities; 'noneists' reject all but the obvious ones [Lewis]
6070 Existence is a primary quality, non-existence a secondary quality [McGinn]
12214 'Exists' is a predicate, not a quantifier; 'electrons exist' is like 'electrons spin' [Fine,K]
10279 Can we discover whether a deck is fifty-two cards, or a person is time-slices or molecules? [Shapiro]
8321 All possible worlds contain abstracta (e.g. numbers), which means they contain concrete objects [Lowe]
9427 For Humeans the world is a world primarily of events [Mumford]
19659 The absolute is the impossibility of there being a necessary existent [Meillassoux]
18740 If 'exist' doesn't express a property, we can hardly ask for its essence [Horsten/Pettigrew]
19034 The world is either a whole made of its parts, or a container which contains its parts [Vetter]