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7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / i. Deflating being

[denial that much of interest can be said about being]

8 ideas
Frege's logic showed that there is no concept of being [Frege, by Scruton]
     Full Idea: Frege's quantificational logic vindicates Kant's insight that existence is not a predicate and leads to fallacies when treated as one; and we might also say, despite Hegel, that there is no concept of being.
     From: report of Gottlob Frege (works [1890]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.17
     A reaction: I notice that Colin McGinn has questioned the value of quantificational logic. It is difficult to assert that 'there is no concept of x', if several people have written large books about it.
The word 'being' is very tempting, but in fact means nothing at all [Cioran]
     Full Idea: Whether it is spoken by a grocer or a philosopher, the word 'being', apparently so rich, so tempting, so charged with significance, in fact means nothing at all; incredible that a man in his right mind can use it on any occasion whatever.
     From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 12)
     A reaction: I entirely agree. It resembles the redundancy view of 'true' (with which I do not agree).
Is being just referent of the verb 'to be'? [Marcus (Barcan)]
     Full Idea: Being itself has been viewed as referent of the verb 'to be'.
     From: Ruth Barcan Marcus (Nominalism and Substitutional Quantifiers [1978], p.162)
Before Being there is politics [Deleuze]
     Full Idea: Before Being there is politics.
     From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I)
     A reaction: [He says he is quoting Felix Guattari] I can only think that this is a very Marxist view - that politics permeates and dictates everything. This seems to tell me that I am forever controlled by something so deep and vast that I can never understand it.
Ontology does not tell what there is; it is just a strange adventure [Deleuze, by May]
     Full Idea: In Deleuze's hands ontology is not a matter of telling us what there is, but of taking us on strange adventures.
     From: report of Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 3.03
     A reaction: Presumably you only indulge in the strange adventure because you have no idea how to specify what there is. This sounds like the essence of post-modernism, in which life is just a game.
Being is a problem to be engaged, not solved, and needs a new mode of thinking [Deleuze, by May]
     Full Idea: In Deleuze, Being is not a puzzle to be solved but a problem to be engaged. It is to be engaged by a thought that moves as comfortably among problems as it does among solutions, as fluidly among differences as it does among identities.
     From: report of Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 4.01
     A reaction: This sounds like what I've always known as 'negative capability' (thanks to Keats). Is philosophy just a hobby, like playing darts? It seems that the aim of the process is 'liberation', about which I would like to know more.
The modern view of Being comes when we reject numbers as merely successions of One [Badiou]
     Full Idea: The saturation and collapse of the Euclidean idea of the being of number as One's procession signs the entry of the thought of Being into modern times.
     From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 11)
     A reaction: That is, by allowing that not all numbers are built of units, numbers expand widely enough to embrace everything we think of as Being. The landmark event is the acceptance of the infinite as a number.
The primitive name of Being is the empty set; in a sense, only the empty set 'is' [Badiou]
     Full Idea: In Set Theory, the primitive name of Being is the void, the empty set. The whole hierarchy takes root in it. In a certain sense, it alone 'is'.
     From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 6)
     A reaction: This is the key to Badiou's view that ontology is mathematics. David Lewis pursued interesting enquiries in this area.