Being

The question of being (Greek, "eon" or "ousia"; Latin, "esse"; German "Sein"; French, "étre"), in philosophy, has been a central topic of metaphysics; the study of "being" is called ontology.

Although we use the same word "is," the meaning of being is different according to its kind such as: sensible material being; values and norms; principles; mathematical objects; time; space; God, and others. Philosophers often suppose a certain kind of being as primary. Thomas Aquinas, for example, conceived God as the primary being, from which all other beings in the world receive its existence. Materialists, on the contrary, conceive material or a sensible entity as the primary model of being and identify physical sensibility with the primary sense of being. Aristotle, Husserl, and Heidegger, are some philosophers who developed their philosophy with the full awareness that there are diverse senses of being.

Being has been often inquired into in contrast to its reciprocal concept, and the meaning of being differs according to its paired concept, for example, being and becoming, being and appearance or phenomena, being and thought, being or "is" and ought, being and essence, being and beings, and being and existence. How to approach the question of being is determined by the style of thought, philosophical approach, or methodology. Analytic philosophy and phenomenology, two major trends of contemporary philosophy, approach the question of being by applying totally different philosophical methodologies.

Concepts of being in Indian philosophies and Chinese philosophies have ethical, religious elements as well as speculative elements.

A History of the Notion of Being in the West

The pre-Socratic question of being

The pre-Socratic Greeks had a more direct, non-conceptual, and non-objectifying approach to the question of "being," as compared with the approach of Plato and Aristotle, which was rather indirect because it attempted to conceptualize and objectify "being" through instantiated forms or formed matter.

For the pre-Socratics, the most important question to be answered was: What is the world made of? In answering this question, they were immediately convinced that all things in the world are identical in nature with one another. Hence, they successively attempted to reduce the world in general to water (Thales), then to air (Anaximenes), then to fire (Heraclitus), until Parmenides finally said that the whole world is made of "being" (to on, the present participle of the verb einai, "to be.") Parmenides' answer was very persuasive because while it was not at once evident that water, air, and fire are completely identical, it was undeniable that they all have in common the property of being, because they all are. Being, then, was considered to be the fundamental and ultimate element of all that is.

What, then, is being? It turned out to be a difficult question to answer indeed. The question of what water, air, or fire is, looked much easier because the definition of any of these was quite self-evident. So, Parmenides did not discuss what being is, but instead highlighted the fact of being as the truth and characterized being as one, all-inclusive, whole, unborn, timeless, immobile, immutable, permanent, and imperishable. His dictum: That which is, is, while that which is not, i.e., "non-being" (to me on), is not: "The one way, assuming that being is and that it is impossible for it not to be, is the trustworthy path, for truth attends it. The other, that not-being is and that it necessarily is, I call a wholly incredible course, since thou canst not recognise not-being (for this is impossible), nor couldst thou speak of it." Thus, any individual things that look mutable and perishable in the world are our illusory perceptions, and they do not belong to the realm of being.

Usually contrasted with Parmenides' notion of being as the ultimate principle that is immutable and eternal, is Heraclitus' understanding of fire as the ultimate element of reality, according to which the whole of reality is mutable and transitory like fire. For Heraclitus, everything is in flux and becoming, and immutability or stability is illusory. Perhaps the only sense in which he was able to talk about true being was this unchanging principle of transitory passage and its cyclicality.

Plato and Aristotle

Plato differentiated between the immutable world of ideas or forms and the transitory world, saying that the former is an eternal, incorporeal realm of ideas and values that are true beings, while the latter is a less real, ephemeral, "shadowy" world of material things that are far from true beings and subject to change and decay. This way, Plato struck a compromise between Parmenides' notion of being and Heraclitus' theory of becoming, althoug for Plato the world of ideas is more important than the transitory world. Both are linked through the participation of the latter in the former, and the latter's degree of reality is determined by how much material things partake and manifest ideas which are true reality. The latter world, while being thus differentiated from the former, is also differentiated from the realm of non-being; it constitutes an intermediate stage of becoming between being and non-being. Plato treated all this in his Phaedo, Republic, and Statesman.

For Aristotle, the science of "being qua being" was what he called "first philosophy," but his understanding of being was quite different from Plato's. For Aristotle, only individual things, called substances, are fully beings, while other things such as quantity, quality, relation, place, and time, called categories, have a derivative kind of being, dependent on individual substances. Thus, all senses of being are related to a single central notion, the notion of substance (ousia, the masculine and neuter genetive of to on, which in turn is the present participle of the verb "to be," einai). Aristotle was the first philosopher to be fully aware of these various levels of being, as is indicated in his Metaphysics. He also understood each individual substance to be composite of form and matter.

Medieval philosophers

Medieval philosophy basically followed the Aristotelian understanding of the various levels of being in reality, but it differentiated between ens and esse. Ens is a being, something that is, whether it is a substance or any of its accidents. Esse, by contrast, is the act of being, whether substantial or accidental act, which all beings, whether substantial or accidental beings, have in common. Another related term is essentia ("essence"), an abstract form of the present participle of esse, referring to what a substance (not an accident) is in itself.

One new development in Medieval philosophy was the distinctive notion of existentia ("existence," from the verb exsistere, which means to "to exist," "to appear," or "to emerge"). Greek ontology apparently did not have it, since its primary focus was the matter of predication based on copula sentences of the form "X is Y." The best Aristotle came up with based on the primarily predicative verb einai was the distinction between hoti esti ("that it is") and ti esti ("what it is"), which could mean "existence" and "essence," respectively. Medieval philosophy, however, developed the notion of existence distinctively under the influence of Islamic philosophy, which distinguished existence (wujud) from essence (mahiat) in light of a biblical metaphysics of creation within Islam which differentiated the contingent existence of the created world from the necessary status of God. Thomas Aquinas adopted this, maintaining that the essence and existence of each and every contingent, finite creature are distinct, while essence and existence are identical within God, who is therefore preeminent over the world. Thus, even when rejecting Anselm's ontological proof for God's existence that had argued that to know what God is (his essence) is to know that God exists (his existence), Aquinas did not reject the identification of God's essence and God's existence.

Interestingly, because of his preeminent status over the world, God is now "the first being," according to Aquinas, and each and every individual creature is "a participated being" which derives its being from God as the first being.

Modern philosophers

Modern philosophers, especially empiricists and materialists, took a sensible material thing as the model of being and identified sensibility or physicality as the primary sense of being. This perspective of being has been dominant throughout modern times.

At the same time, there were also rationalists and idealists who understood the diverse sense of being differently. According to Baruch Spinoza, although being has, in the strict sense, no proper definitionin, there are at least two different levels of being: "substance" (substantia) and "mode" (modus), with the latter being ontologically and conceptually derivative from the former. For while substance is "that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself," mode refers to "the modifications of substance, or that which exists in, and conceived through, something other than itself." Spinoza as a pantheist decided that there is only one substance (God or nature), which has many modes. While this only substance is infinite, its modes are finite.

Absolute idealist Hegel

Husserl and Heidegger

In late nineteenth century, Edmund Husserl challenged this presupposition of modern philosophy. Husserl recognized that various kinds of being such as normative beings, values, space, time, mathematical objects, logical objects, historical object, and other do exist but in different senses. Husserl gained this insight probably from his teacher Franz Brentano who elaborated it in his On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle. Husserl, thus, developed phenomenology as a philosophical methodology which can describe multiple senses of being. For example, in describing in which sense "time" exists, Husserl inquired into how time presents itself to us and developed a phenomenology of time. Similarly, for all kinds of objects, Husserl inquired into how each kind of being presents its sense of being to human subjects. Although Husserl did not finish this project, he at least laid the foundation of its philosophical methodology.

Heidegger, a student of Husserl, is the philosopher who took the question of being (ontology) as the primary subject of philosophy in the twentieth century. Heidegger combined phenomenology and hermeneutics to develop hermeneutic phenomenology, and used it as his methodology to inquire into the question of being. Because the meaning of the existence or being is the primary concern for human beings, Heidegger attempted to articulate the structure of how a human being understands or interprets his or her existence. In his inquiry to the meaning of being, Heidegger explicated the roles of death and conscience, teleological interdependence of being, and other unique elements which constitute human understanding of being.

Existentialists such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Karl Jaspers, Sartre inquired into unique modes of being of human beings, and explored complex elements involved in human existence, which includes freedom, authenticity - inauthenticity, anxiety, commitment, death, good and evil, faith, fate, and others. For existentialists, the meaning of being is intertwined with axiological and aesthetic elements.

The Notion of Being in Non-Western Traditions

Indian and Chinese philosophies

Philosophical traditions in Asia tend to pursue areas that blur the distinction between being and non-being. For example, Buddhist ontology holds the interdependency of being as one of the fundamental principles of being. It also extends the concept of interdependency to time so that the past, present, and the future are all interdependent of each other; in addition, the Buddhist concept of being encompasses ethical, religious, and practical elements. The world is viewed in every aspect as a mutually interdependent whole.

Similarly in Hinduism, Brahman, the cosmic spirit or absolute cosmic reality, is identified with one's own consciousness. Hinduism blurs the distinction between cosmic being and the self and pursues the continuity between the cosmos and the self. Indian philosophers have developed a variety of speculative thoughts on being and a rich philosophical vocabulary to address the topic of being.

Multiple senses of being in a paired set of concepts

Being is often paired with another concept and the sense of being differs according to what it is paired with. The pairs listed below are some of those often discussed in the history of philosophy. These pairs, however, often overlap and they are not mutually exclusive.

Being and becoming

Being, when it is contrasted with becoming, means immutability, permanence, or constant. For example, Plato found the primary sense of being in this sense. He asserted that the Ideas are "real" existence and material beings are ephemeral "shadows" of these Ideas for the reason that Ideas are immutable, permanent existence whereas material beings can decay and change. Aristotle's concept of "substance" ("ousia") is also another example.

Some philosophers, on the contrary, found the primary sense of being in change and process. Heraclitus, for example, held this view and symbolized being as "fire." The existence of fire lies in its dynamic process of emission of energy. Likewise, for Heraclitus, being primarily means becoming, change, and dynamic process. Thomas Aquinas also applied this dynamic concept of being to God's existence. Aquinas tried to present God's activity by this active concept of being.

Being and phenomena

Being, when it is contrasted with phenomena, means true reality in contrast to mere appearances or what appears to sense perception. Plato, for example, inquired into the true reality of being in contrast to what appears to our five senses. For Plato, the true reality of being are permanent, immutable Ideas, which intellect alone can grasp. Thing are beautiful, for example, by virtue of the Idea of beauty which is the true reality. What appears to our five senses is a less real, ephemeral appearance.

Being and thought

Being, when it is contrasted with thought, means the objective reality that is outside of the cognitive subject. Thought refers to ideas in the mind and being to spatio-temporal, extra-mental existence. This contrast was used by modern philosophers who had an epistemological concern. The contrast of being and thought appeared within the question of how ideas or thoughts in the mind can be a real representation of the objective reality which exists outside of the mind.

Is (being) and ought

Being or "is," when it is contrasted with ought, means factuality in contrast to normativeness. Kant, for example, distinguished prescriptive statements in morality, which use "ought" or "should," in contrast to natural, descriptive statements which describes what they factually "are."

Being and essence

Being, when it is contrasted with essence, means actual existence. Essence of a being is what it is and whether it in fact exists or not is a separate question. Anselm, for example, argued that God is a unique being whose essence is its existence while essence (what it is) and existence are separable for all beings other than God. He developed "ontological proof of the existence of God" based upon this identity of being and essence in God. Biblical concept of God as "I am who I am" expresses this identity.

Being and beings

Being, when it is contrasted with beings, means existence in the sense of event or fact of to-be. Beings mean particular entities that exist, but being means the fact of existence itself. Martin Heidegger, for example, stressed upon this distinction in order to highlight the concept of being or to-be as a dynamic activity.

Diversity of the sense of being

There are diverse senses of being according to its kind. Material beings exist in the space-time world and they exist in the sense of physical reality which is detectable by physical senses or physical instruments. Ideas and values such as love, justice, good, and God do not exist in the same sense as physically sensible material things do. In which sense do each kind of being exist is, thus, subject to philosophical discussion. Some philosophers recognized the multiplicity of sense of being and developed their thoughts.

Interdependency of being

Aristotle viewed the world as a teleologically organized organic whole, where all beings are mutually connected by multiple purposes. Medieval scholastics viewed this interconnectedness within a creationist perspective. Leibniz viewed this interconnectedness within the idea of "pre-established harmony," and Heidegger conceptualized the interconnected mode of human existence as "being-in-the-world" and explicated teleological interconnectedness of beings.

Beings can exist in the web of interconnected relations to other beings. The relationship between God and human beings, those among human beings, those between human beings and material things, and those among material things are not the same. Martin Buber, for example, conceptually distinguished God-man relationship as "I-thou" relationship from relationships among material things in the world.

Embodiment of truth

Being has an intricate relationship with truth. In religious traditions, truth is often understood as being inseparable to being. For example, Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (john 14:6) in Bible. Here, truth is understood not as some kind of property or object one can possess or lose, but as being itself. So, Jesus did not say "I have the truth" but said "I am the truth."

The concept of the embodiment of truth is found in other religious traditions as well. Avatamsaka Sutra in Buddhism, for examples, describes the world as the manifestation of truth. In Confucianism and Daoism, perfect individual is also understood as the one who embodied truth.

See also

• Being and existence
• Cogito ergo sum
• Meaning of life
• Metaphysics
• Ontology
• Indian philosophy
• Chinese philosophy

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Aristotle. The Metaphysics, translated by Hugh Lawson-Tancred. London; New York: Penguin Books, 1998. ISBN 0140446192
• Brentano, Franz Clemens, and Rolf George. On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. ISBN 0520023463
• Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time, trans. Linda Russell. Oxford University Press, 1985. (in English)
• Husserl, Edmund. The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964. ISBN 0253200970
• Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness; An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. New York: Philosophical Library, 1956.

External links

All links retrieved November 12, 2007.

• Existence on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Existence. Definitions from leading philosophers
• A documentary project about the meaning of life.

General Philosophy Sources

• Philosophy Sources on Internet EpistemeLinks
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Guide to Philosophy on the Internet
• Paideia Project Online
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Project Gutenberg

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