Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Through the Looking Glass', 'Possible Worlds' and 'Aristotle and the Metaphysics'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


3 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 2. Types of Existence
Lewis's distinction of 'existing' from 'being actual' is Meinong's between 'existing' and 'subsisting' [Lycan on Lewis]
     Full Idea: I suggest that Lewis's view in fact is just Meinong's view. ...Meinong distinguishes between 'existing' and merely 'subsisting', Lewis between 'being actual' and merely 'existing'.
     From: comment on David Lewis (Possible Worlds [1973]) by William Lycan - The Trouble with Possible Worlds 06
     A reaction: Lewis attempts to make actuality purely 'indexical' in character, like distinguishing the world 'here' from the world 'elsewhere', but Lycan seems right that he is committed to more than that.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / e. Being and nothing
I only wish I had such eyes as to see Nobody! It's as much as I can do to see real people. [Carroll,L]
     Full Idea: "I see nobody on the road," said Alice. - "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked. ..."To be able to see Nobody! ...Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people."
     From: Lewis Carroll (C.Dodgson) (Through the Looking Glass [1886], p.189), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7
     A reaction: [Moore quotes this, inevitably, in a chapter on Hegel] This may be a better candidate for the birth of philosophy of language than Frege's Groundwork.
Maybe 'What is being? is confusing because we can't ask what non-being is like [Politis]
     Full Idea: We may be unfamiliar with the question 'What is being?' because there appear to be no contrastive questions of the form: how do beings differ from things that are not beings?
     From: Vassilis Politis (Aristotle and the Metaphysics [2004], 4.1)
     A reaction: We can, of course, contrast actual beings with possible beings, or imaginary beings, or even logically impossible beings, but in those cases 'being' strikes me as an entirely inappropriate word.