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7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 1. Nature of Existence

[what it means for things to exist]

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