I don't know, but it is one of the things that brought me to the Philosophy Forum. For some reason, I noticed that the lawful manner in which things exist, is something separate from the multitude of existing things. Then it occurred to me, that this is something very much like Pythagorism.

I think Aristotle made a mistake with his notion of 'substance'. What you are saying about something either existing, or not existing, is quite true of any thing. A thing either exists, or it doesn't. But the nature of relationships between things is a different matter again. You can say a relationship exists, but really 'the relationship' is not an existing thing. It is not so much a thing, as the way in which things are related to each other. The way in which they are related has to do with ratio, and hence 'rationality'. This is what the Pythagorean insight was all about. It wasn't to do with 'stuff' or 'substance' or 'things', but the way in which everything was related through patterns and ratios.

Now this is another way of looking at the relationship between 'reality and appearance'. Of course, to the untutored eye, we see a vast array of things. But Pythagoras saw a vast set of numerical relations, which he called Kosmos. When seen this way, a lot of the mystification of metaphysics is due to the fact that Aristotle reified these relationships into the idea of 'substance'. I don't think either Pythagoras or Plato would have agreed with the idea of substance.

Kennethamy,

But has not the assumption that the 'beautiful' was something unitary a great cause of confusion among early philosophers? How can we be sure that a term like 'existence' is not another word in which philosophers find themselves in a muddle?

See my thread: "on the beautiful and meaningless" (I think that is its title)

But you said 'chairs exist and unicorns do not' means something. But I cannot see how it means anything other than a tautology. If I say 'Socratussels do not exist' you would probably agree with me, even without the help of a dictionary. If I say 'Socratussels do exist' you might look at me funny, possible check that encyclopedia or whatnot, and be positively certain that I was a loony.

I only brought up this example (the Socratussel) to show that the characteristics of the supposed variable (a unicorn or Socratussel) are irrelevant to decoding the truth or falsity in the statement.

The interplay of empiricism, of checking the dictionary or whatnot, while arguably fruitful in the case of the unicorn is unnecessary in the case of the Socratussel. It seems that these propositions are not experiential but mathematical. Calling them tautological or contradictory requires no expertise in the field of anthropology.

I don't know that the meaning of "beautiful" is not unitary, but supposing it is not, that doesn't mean that the the meaning of existence is not unitary, does it. That an error was make in one case (it it was) does not mean that it was made in the other case. Each case has to be taken separately.

It certainly is not a tautology that chairs exist, but unicorns do not. If it were a tautology then its negation would be a contradiction, but its negation is not a contradiction. Both chairs and unicorn might exist. They don't.

Kennethamy,

But has not the assumption that the 'beautiful' was something unitary a great cause of confusion among early philosophers? How can we be sure that a term like 'existence' is not another word in which philosophers find themselves in a muddle?

See my thread: "on the beautiful and meaningless" (I think that is its title)

But you said 'chairs exist and unicorns do not' means something. But I cannot see how it means anything other than a tautology. If I say 'Socratussels do not exist' you would probably agree with me, even without the help of a dictionary. If I say 'Socratussels do exist' you might look at me funny, possible check that encyclopedia or whatnot, and be positively certain that I was a loony.

I only brought up this example (the Socratussel) to show that the characteristics of the supposed variable (a unicorn or Socratussel) are irrelevant to decoding the truth or falsity in the statement.

The interplay of empiricism, of checking the dictionary or whatnot, while arguably fruitful in the case of the unicorn is unnecessary in the case of the Socratussel. It seems that these propositions are not experiential but mathematical. Calling them tautological or contradictory requires no expertise in the field of anthropology.

But has not the assumption that the 'beautiful' was something unitary a great cause of confusion among early philosophers?

How do you exist? Let me count the ways. (Apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning).

Many posters tell us that this or that exists in a different way from something else. Thoughts exists in a different way from material objects; unicorns exist in a different way from horses, and so on. Sometimes they explain this by using the locution, "exist as". For example, they say that unicorns "exist as" ideas, or "exist as" concepts. The question about this particular locution is whether it means anything more that that, for instance, that the concept or the idea of the unicorn exists (but that unicorns do not exist)? In other words, "X exists as a Y" just means that the Y of X exists.

The question I want to ask is whether it makes sense to talk of "ways of existing", and, if it does, what does it mean to talk that way. What I think is that there is only one way to exist, namely, to exist, so that it makes no sense to talk of different ways of existing. I also think that when someone says that this or that exists in this or that way, what he is really saying is that this or that does not exist, but maybe that something else does exist, usually the idea, or the concept, of this or that. It is a way of saying both that something does not exist, but that it does exist (but in a funny way). Which is, nonsense.

the only thing that has true existence to it , is an object that has a three dimensional existence to it

One "way" that unicorns "exist" is as ideas. They can also "exist" as images in paintings. (My daughter used to have a whole slew of them.)

These are many different ways of "existing," including: sensations, feelings, illusions, mirages, hallucinations, dreams, sculptures, fictional characters, poetical allusions, mathematical equations, physical models, and even propositions (e.g., "Unicorns exist").

"Let me count the ways . . ." indeed!

:flowers:

Unicorn [SIC] cannot exist as paintings.

I said "as images in paintings"! The painting could be about more than unicorns.

:flowers:

OK I think I have worked out a meaningful distinction between ways of existing.

First, I will suggest that 'ways of existing' and 'ways of being' are synonymous for the purposes of this discussion. Each of the four following groups are layers in a hierarchy, that is, the higher level includes all the attributes of the lower one, but has additional attributes the lower does not have.

1. Matter is passive and does not change except as a result of impact or chemical reaction.
   
2. Vegetables or plants are passive, but they grow, heal and breed.
   
3. Animals (insects, amoeba, mammals, etc) grow, heal, breed, and are capable of action.
   
4. Humans grow, heal, breed, act, are capable of abstract reasoning and are capable of self-analysis.
   

Conversely, no animal is capable of abstract reasoning; no plant is capable of independent action; no matter is capable of growth and reproduction.

So in each of these types of beings, attributes of existence become manifest which are previously undisclosed. Material objects don't display any of the unique characteristics of human beings, including ability to breed, grow, learn, act, think, and so on. So the type of existence or type of being which they exemplify is completely different to that of a human being. A thing is not the same as a being. Surely this is a fundamental distinction.

On a related note, many people seem to believe that animals and humans are mechanical devices or that nature is mechanistic. However machines and organisms are fundamentally different. Machines do not grow, heal, or reproduce. They are not agents. This too seems a fundamental distinction to me.

But why are these different ways of existing rather than different kinds of things all of which exist in the same way?

Because the nature of human existence and the nature of the existence of material objects are clearly distinguishable as classes. The former 'type of being' has self-awareness, rationality, is an agent. The latter has none of these things which, again, is why a being is different to a thing.

Every particular thing, concept, number, and so on, is distinguishable from every other thing. The fact that they are all distinguishable is not philosophically significant, is it? What is significant is the different ways in which things can exist, and what that discloses about the 'nature of being'. It seems to me a completely monochromatic analysis, to say that something either exists, or it does not exist. There are so many shades of meaning in the verb 'to be' that to say it has a kind of binary, yes/no seems to have very little value in the context of philosophy. In fact you could argue that just as possession is 9/10ths of the law, 'the nature of being' is 9/10s of philosophy.

Looking back on this thread, though, this has already been discussed and the reply already given that 'a thing either exists or it doesn't'. I don't think this is strictly true, because the existence of anything is not absolute. Any object you care to indicate, is reducible to some aggregate of components, and then particles, and ultimately to energy (so we are told). A table exists in a conventional sense, but it is not really a table, any more than it is really a collection of 5 pieces of material conjoined in a specific way. It exists in a common-sense way, it is not simply an illusion but its existence is not absolute.

So far as I am concerned, there is a real distinction between the modes of existence of objects, plants, animals and humans, (to mention only a few classes) and simply to dismiss these differences does not constitute an argument, as far as I can see.

What is the point of this argument, anyway? From the viewpoint of the perennial philosophy, which is the school that interests me, insofar as we conceive of ourselves as, and exist as, material beings, we misconstrue the nature of our existence and mistake ourselves for something we are not.

OK I think I have worked out a meaningful distinction between ways of existing.

First, I will suggest that 'ways of existing' and 'ways of being' are synonymous for the purposes of this discussion. Each of the four following groups are layers in a hierarchy, that is, the higher level includes all the attributes of the lower one, but has additional attributes the lower does not have.

1. Matter is passive and does not change except as a result of impact or chemical reaction.
   
2. Vegetables or plants are passive, but they grow, heal and breed.
   
3. Animals (insects, amoeba, mammals, etc) grow, heal, breed, and are capable of action.
   
4. Humans grow, heal, breed, act, are capable of abstract reasoning and are capable of self-analysis.
   

Conversely, no animal is capable of abstract reasoning; no plant is capable of independent action; no matter is capable of growth and reproduction.

So in each of these types of beings, attributes of existence become manifest which are previously undisclosed. Material objects don't display any of the unique characteristics of human beings, including ability to breed, grow, learn, act, think, and so on. So the type of existence or type of being which they exemplify is completely different to that of a human being. A thing is not the same as a being. Surely this is a fundamental distinction.

On a related note, many people seem to believe that animals and humans are mechanical devices or that nature is mechanistic. However machines and organisms are fundamentally different. Machines do not grow, heal, or reproduce. They are not agents. This too seems a fundamental distinction to me.

What about light and other forms of radiant energy?

What about volcanos and sliding tectonic plates?

What about them?

What about tree roots that cause breaks in sidewalks?

What about monkeys who use rocks to open coconuts?

What is the difference between beings, objects and things?

Are thoughts beings? objects? things?

And, what about questions?

I believe that there is a type of logic called dialetheism, which asserts that there are true contradictions. I have not studied it yet. However I think there is a sense in which things both do and do not exist. But I don't want to argue that case because I need to do more study.

I do feel confident however that starting with the distinction between various types of being from material up to human, there is no reason to think that the heirarchy stops at that point. After all, every civilization apart from modern secular culture recognizes transcendent or non-material realities of various types. Modern secular culture has a religious commitment to naturalism, which rules that out. Hence the flatland of secularism and the view that things either exist or they don't. But don't take it personally, I am not arguing with you, I am arguing with modernity itself.