Rando Question : Existence

[GuyOnTilt]

In my spare time for the past week, I've been contemplating the idea of existence, specifically trying to come up with a reasonably accurate definition of existence. Of course various philosophies will have differing opinions of what exists and what does not exist, but what are they/we supposing this word is or defining it as exactly? Guidelines or necessary properties would suffice I suppose.

GoT

[craig r]

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In my spare time for the past week, I've been contemplating the idea of existence, specifically trying to come up with a reasonably accurate definition of existence. Of course various philosophies will have differing opinions of what exists and what does not exist, but what are they/we supposing this word is or defining it as exactly?

GoT

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There is a pretty big book by Heidegger called Being and Time that tries to define existence.

craig

[Georgia Avenue]

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In my spare time for the past week, I've been contemplating the idea of existence, specifically trying to come up with a reasonably accurate definition of existence. Of course various philosophies will have differing opinions of what exists and what does not exist, but what are they/we supposing this word is or defining it as exactly?

GoT

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There is a pretty big body of work by a man called Plato that tries to define existence.

craig

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Also.

My preference is Parmenides (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/parmenides.html)

[craig r]

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In my spare time for the past week, I've been contemplating the idea of existence, specifically trying to come up with a reasonably accurate definition of existence. Of course various philosophies will have differing opinions of what exists and what does not exist, but what are they/we supposing this word is or defining it as exactly?

GoT

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There is a pretty big body of work by a man called Plato that tries to define existence.

craig

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Also.

My preference is Parmenides (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/parmenides.html)

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You are right about Plato. Not necessarily because he was "correct", but to understand Heidegger, I am pretty sure you have to understand Plato. But, it is like that with most philosophy. Like the "cool kids" who read Nietzsche. There is no way to understand it without knowing all the philosophers before him. And even then, it is hard as hell, because he had such knowledge of literature as well.

craig

p.s. Off Topic-- One person told me that I shouldn't read Heidegger because he was a Nazi and never apologized for taking Husserl's position. And that I am being a "bad jew" by reading it. I wish I could remember the technical name of this type of fallacy.

[craig r]

One other off topic thing, since we are discussing philosophy outside of religion or ethics. What was the technical term Kant used for ideas or concepts that humans could not fully grasp? I think it was discussed in Critique of Pure Reason, but not certain.

craig

[thatpfunk]

kant, how i despise thee...

[craig r]

Yeah, but he is pretty important.

craig

[thatpfunk]

and that is why my hate runs deeper, every day /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[fnord_too]

I think this dwindles to definitions. For instance, if you say something exists if it impacts the physical world, do pure ideas exist? (Math, for instance, is a pure idea that is often used to model or explain the physical.) Do ideas only exist if they are codified? Thought? These sorts of excursions usually deteriorate into semantics pretty quickly, which is not necessarily bad, but gets old pretty quickly and offers declining intellectual rewards IMO. (That is, the exact question matters less than the exercize, but you get less and less from each subsequent exercize.)

[Georgia Avenue]

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One other off topic thing, since we are discussing philosophy outside of religion or ethics. What was the technical term Kant used for ideas or concepts that humans could not fully grasp? I think it was discussed in Critique of Pure Reason, but not certain.

craig

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Are you talking about transcendental objects? Its been many years since I hit the Kantwagon, but that sounds like an answer. I looked it up in the googlibrary (http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/ksp1/KSPglos.html)
just to be sure. I loved CPR, I should probably read it again...

Also :

In response to this person:

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One person told me that I shouldn't read Heidegger because he was a Nazi and never apologized for taking Husserl's position. And that I am being a "bad jew" by reading it. I wish I could remember the technical name of this type of fallacy.

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I think the type of fallacy you're looking for is "total bulls**t." Heidegger's philosophy has nothing to do with his naive political wackness and even if it did, you still obviously need to understand him. Not that I have ever been able to figure out a word that he's saying, but...hey, at least I gave it a shot! I hope you told the guy to bugger off.

[Scotch78]

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I've been contemplating the idea of existence

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Good luck.

Scott

[PLOlover]

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In my spare time for the past week, I've been contemplating the idea of existence, specifically trying to come up with a reasonably accurate definition of existence.

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I gamble therefore I am. Case closed.

From this we can deduce, Life is a gamble ...

I'll let others elaborate further.