Philosophical Terminology Question
How do you personally distinguish these terms:
Reality, Existence, Being, World and Actuality.
Of course the question concerns things like: Is existence actual, or actuality also entail existence? Are things with being also things that don't necessarily exist, etc? Are things with essences necessarily real, or exist? Does the world include the fictional?
Reality, Existence, Being, World and Actuality.
Of course the question concerns things like: Is existence actual, or actuality also entail existence? Are things with being also things that don't necessarily exist, etc? Are things with essences necessarily real, or exist? Does the world include the fictional?
Comments (35)
If you want people to respond, you'll have to give us more than this. Look the terms up in Wikipedia or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Then come back, tell us what you found, and give us something to disagree with.
I'm not asking for disagreement. Though I had a friend recently give me his spin on it:
I was sort of joking about the disagreement, although you'll find that people enjoy disagreements. It can be a pretty competitive environment. It also makes sense to check to see if a subject has been on the forum recently. Topics can be overdone.
So, pick one and say something more about it. There's not much meat on the bones of your definitions. I'll respond, although it's getting late here in the eastern US, so it might not be tonight.
The question I think is fine. It's interesting in the sense of the ambiguity of the terms. So I'm interested in how people dissolve that ambiguity. If nobody posts that fine too - I'm not gonna lose my mind over it.
Reality: whatever "is the case". The actual state of affairs, how things really are independent of our beliefs. That which can kill you if you're not careful. Political.
Existence: what something that exists has that makes it the case that it exists and differentiates it from non-existence.
Being: ???????, basically existence, but not? Existence vs existants, Being vs beings...A mode of presentation of objects by intentional consciousness?
Actuality: that which is the effect of some cause, the manifestation of a possibility in reality. I guess actuality would basically be the same thing as reality, but more so in the sense of that which is the culmination of some process, the final metamorphosis to "perfection". Also whatever is "illuminated", an actor with a name and a lead role surrounded by the forgettable and dispensable supporting cast.
All of these come across as fairly circular. Or co-dependent on something else. Being is what distinguishes that which is from that which isn't. Non-Being is what distinguishes that which is not from that which is.
Of course, there can be overlaps and so on, and it's sometimes very productive to track what differing conceptions of 'Being' or 'Existence' or whathaveyou might be, but alot of the time this also entails tracking how the kind of work they do - the kinds of problems they are formulated in response to - changes along with them.
And I'm not sure, man. Being is generally used pretty vacuously. A rather indeterminate notion that can't be conceptualized. We say Being is, but nothing more about it.
Therefore pragmatism?
I'm not espousing a form of pragmatism, no. I've honestly never been able to make much sense of that. It seems evidently clear that the world around us has being, that being reveals itself to me as being meaningful, it has a particular ordering and form to it. We probably don't impose these forms, or ordering. I start with fairly basic beginnings - that is, if there even are beginnings at all in philosophy that aren't always-already developed.
Trying to be helpful, not condescending. Failed.
You don't have to look at the history of philosophy, just look at 60 percent of the threads on this site. I guess it could be a fruitful discussion if it were done with awareness. Too often it just makes for a muddy pool of misunderstanding, confusion, and scorn.
I don't think so.
What's interesting about your questions about philosophical terminology (at least 'being' predominantly) is that there's no ostensive definition available. It's quite a qualia if you ask me.
Depends what you mean by pluralism of course! Perhaps I can put it this way: different conceptions of 'existence/being/etc' ought to shed light on different aspects of whatever it is that's under investigation. So when Heidegger's conception of Being differs from Aristotle's - to use a completely arbitrary example - it's not that Heidegger would be simply 'improving' on Aristotle's definition, it's that his conception would responding to different concerns and different motivations from Aristotle. He's trying to understand or work through a different set of problems than Aristotle was.
There's a post by Levi Bryant on his Larval Subjects blog that touches on some of this, worth reading in full, but here's a snippet:
"What philosophy interrogates or investigates is not what appears in the frame, but rather the frame which allows something to manifest at all. And in this respect, philosophy will be a battle of the frames, not a battle of truths. The great debates among philosophers are about something that precedes truthful or veridical statements. The great debates of philosophy are questions of how existence should be framed. See the issue is that existence is overwhelming. Frames make a selection from the infinity of existence, and in doing so draw attention to these features of being rather than those features of being. A frame is an imperative that says attend to or notice this type of existence." (in the context of this post, I'd amend the language here so that when Bryant says 'existence', I would replace that word with 'problems' or 'issues').
Differing understandings of being/existence, etc, are meant to do just this: draw attention to different things (even while they share the same 'name').
I'm skeptical because there's always people who just reject being, essences, substances, and fundamentally want to monopolize philosophy within their own system. I'm not one of those people, but certainly what's at stake in any philosophical debate isn't going to be accepting that any system works according to its own intrinsic system, but showing how certain terms are often incoherent. Take for example Schelling and Hegel, or Heidegger and Carnap.
Here's another term that is I believe is related: "Nature"
Is one's nature one's being?
Reality, existence, being, nature and actuality all seem to refer to the same thing - some state of affairs.
I have always thought about "world" referring to the Earth, or a planet, not all of existence. It seems that the term "world" being associated with "reality" or "existence" stems from the time when we used to think that the world Earth was all there was.
To be clear again, what I'm speaking of is multiple ways of talking about multiple things which just so happened to be named 'being'.
Quoting Marty
Not according to it's 'own intrinsic system' no, but according to how well an approach allows us to see things in a new and productive light - what kind of new inferences we can make on it's basis, what new things it tells us about the phenomena it claims to investigate. Deleuze, as usual, gets to the heart of it: "Philosophy does not consist in knowing and is not inspired by truth. Rather, it is categories like Interesting, remarkable, or Important that determine success or failure. ... We will not say of many books of philosophy that they are false, for that is to say nothing, but rather that they lack importance or interest, precisely because they do not create any concept or contribute an image of thought." (Deleuze and Guattari, What Is Philosophy?).
By context.
Sorry, I don't see the difference between what you and I said. Yes, I realize you're invoking conceptual differences for the same word. I know you're not arguing semantics.
Well, see, I'm not sure if that really answers my question? Take for example, how Heidegger and Hegel speak about nothing could be seen as problematic by analytic philosophers? It might have a use-value, or say something interesting, but for a lot of people it ends up being incoherent, and then it to be repudiated for a better system. Not accepted as a system among other systems that all work in their own light.
Well yeah, I'm actually an eliminativist about qualia - at least in most contexts. But I'm not sure its completely vacuous since it generally talks about the subjective sensations - the "what is it like?" This isn't merely about nothing, though it is about no-thing in general.
It's a verbal soup that that can vaguely be equivocated with "truth".
These terms can only be made useful if we give them specific and robust definitions at the outset, or at least provide direction or a scope of inquiry if we're to create useful ones ourselves. When people casually bust out words and phrases like "essence of self" feel [s]free[/s] obligated to stop them and question exactly what they mean.
It takes too much effort to address every meaning that can possibly be interpreted from a string of ambiguous words (especially the various permutations when such terms are packed like sour sardines into a single paragraph). It makes much more sense to have the speaker clarify as best they can exactly what they're referring to (if context doesn't make it clear) when they use such semantically controversial terms.
P.S, in response to the intent of your OP: "actuality" is just a fancy word for "reality", which is the place in which we "exist". I can only explain what existence is by pointing to examples of it: chair; dog; log; you. Existence is a property of some things. It might also help to define (point to) non-existence: flying pigs; extraterrestrial abduction of humans; free energy; corporate benevolence... "Being" and "world" are more vague, so I'll opportunistically define "being" as a thing capable of "perceiving" a "world", where "perception" entails some gleaning of data from things which exist in actuality/reality, and where "world" comprises a series of perception based "understandings" that are ultimately limited by the being's mechanisms of perception. "Understanding" is when the world of a being reflects some aspect of actuality/reality/existence in a useful or demonstrable manner...
P.P.S. I could continue cooking up definitions that sound like arguments indefinitely, and maybe I can even provide to some what seems like clarity, but writing like this glosses over so much so quickly that really nothing of value ends up getting said at all. The hard rewards of such ontological approaches are quite fabled indeed. Long and boring logical and epistemic approaches (such as empiricism) should be exhausted before anything resembling final conclusions be reached concerning the topics you have mentioned. Until I can tell you the exact and best definitions of "true", "nature", and "existence" (let alone dealing with a question mark at the end) we're going to have to settle for boring and lengthily defined specifics when we reference and investigate something with controversial and ambiguous terms.
Wasn't "real" Austin's example of a "trouser word" -- a word whose negative wears the trousers, does the most work, is used more often?
I don't think those sorts of objections are worth much. They arise from a lack of understanding, and a failure to appreciate the conceptual work that those terms do. They speak more to the incomprehension of the objector than what it is they object to, imo.
And honestly, really ambiguous thinkers and text are the ones that survive time and are the most interesting. I'm not one to buy into the idea that things need to be concise, clear, offer particular definitions.
Reality is when your card is rejected for lack of funds. Existence is what said funds lack. Being is all you have money left to do. World is the place this all happens in. And actuality is a guy who calculates risk for the insurance industry. Hope that clears it up.
If we're to get anywhere meaningful in a discussion, we need to understand each other. That means removing ambiguity and being clear about the things we reference.
Some poetry is great because it has all sorts of alternative meanings, but in philosophical writing unless we make distinctions readers might not know what it is we're trying to say. Poetry and much prose doesn't suffer from this endemic need for specificity because most poetry and prose doesn't attempt to formulate strong and robust ideas/arguments.
If I can interpret Aristotle a hundred different ways, how do I know which interpretation is the original and intended meaning? If we just go with whatever our own preconceptions indicate is the intended meaning it might be long before we're talking past each-other about our own personal and ill-defined views. If there is some useful interpretation of Aristotle's ambiguous texts, shouldn't we reformulate and repackage into something clear so we don't all need to figure it out for ourselves from the numerous possible meanings when we read them?
P.S: "Really ambiguous thinkers and texts" don't seem to hold a special place in timelessness. I can surmise that enduring ambiguity might be a useful for keeping a text alive as time passes and societies understanding (of it) changes... The only examples I can actually think of are religious texts such as the books of the bible, but the bible isn't very philosophical at all, and it's ideas are far less than interesting and robust. The evolution of biblical interpretation has been based primarily around emotional mass appeal and the private manipulative interests of various religious leaders throughout the centuries. If you want to create a world of ideological disarray and disagreement and watch as your good ideas are bastardized into one thousand scare-crows and herrings, then ambiguity is the way to go.
Right, but I disagreed. I'm not talking about poetry, necessarily. But I scarcely see why that's removed from philosophy. Why is poetry an exception? Because its just a subjective and aesthetic interpretation of being?
You don't. Since interpretation is ulimately bottomless.
Not to mention, the authors intent doesn't even determine the sole meaning of a text. That's why there's a multiplicity of ways of determining the issue.
Which is probably wrong considering that Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Plato, Aristotle - of which are ambiguous - have survived the longest.
The death of philosophy is when we're in agreement.
We try to remove ambiguity in philosophical writing because otherwise we go around and around, talking about everything, and nothing, until the original issues we meant to actually address are long forgotten.
Ambiguity leads to misinterpretation and equivocation, and life is too short for good philosophers to have their ideas lost in transition...
Quoting Marty
How about meaningful discussions with satisfying conclusions where clarity is a standard and utility is high? I don't care about endless interpretation, I care about useful and relevant ones.
Quoting Marty
Being ubiquitous or often misinterpreted probably indicates some degree of ambiguity, but these thinkers didn't become great because their writing was obscure or rife with double meaning, Generally it's because they were able to clearly communicate complex ideas that actually had merit of their own, which is something you just cannot see through a stubbornly post-modern lens.
Quoting Marty
I don't get it... Is this yet another Nietzsche parody?
If the lofty and braggadocios claims of renaissance and enlightenment thinkers bother you to the point that you nod at the prospect of their passing, it is my regretful pleasure to inform you that Science, son of Philosophy, takes well after them and shall outlive us all...
That just proves to be untrue, since we've had a dozen interpretation of Plato by now. They don't seem to be talking about nothing.
That's just a false-dilemma.
Well, indicating its a misinterpretation indicates that the author's intent is exclusively the one way of reading a text. But its not.
And I didn't say obscurity is good, I said ambiguity is good. I'm not sure if ambiguity is always intentionally placed. Its just that the terminology ends up being ambiguous as a result of history.