Being

Being (ancient Greek εἶναι eĩnai, Latin esse - both infinitives), Dasein, Gegebensein denotes the basic concept of philosophy and metaphysics. The verb sein, to which Sein forms the substantivized infinitive, cannot be unambiguously defined and requires an underlying concept of being. In the tradition there are two fundamentally different approaches:

1. The univocal (unequivocal) understanding of being: Being is the characteristic that is still common to all being after deduction of the respective individual characteristics (entity).
2. The analogous understanding of being: being is that which belongs to "everything", the counter concept to being is nothingness, since nothing can stand outside of being.

In contrast, the concept of being (ancient Greek τὸ ὄν to ón, Middle Latin ens - participle) describes individual objects or facts. Being can also denote the totality of what exists, i.e. "the whole world", as long as this can be determined spatially and temporally. Being, on the other hand, is the unchanging, timeless, comprehensive essence (Greek ousia, Latin essentia) of both individual objects and the world as a whole.

The terms "being" and "being" are in a relationship of tension, since every being has a being in some way. Being is transient in becoming and has become possible. The investigation of the essence of everything that exists is the main subject of ontology. Another subject is the demarcation of being from non-being. Thus, every form of realism emphasizes that what is sensually given is being, whereas what is merely thought is rather non-being. Being presupposes an existing world of objects, properties or relations. In contrast to this, the various forms of idealism see what actually exists in the inner world of what is imagined purely in thought, while precisely the reality of an outer world is denied and considered to be mere appearance.

The concept of being has the widest possible range of meaning (extension) of all, because it can refer to everything that is conceivable. Everything that is conceivable means everything that is not "not is". The theorem of the excluded third applies to being and nothing. Only through the concept of being does the notion of negation and difference become possible. Difference is the transition from being to being. Being and being stand in a dialectical relation to each other. From being (thesis) and nothing (antithesis), the being (synthesis) results through the distinguishability. The difference between being and existence consists in the fact that by existence one means a being in reality with a local and temporal determination. On the other hand, one can also ascribe properties to such objects without proven existence: Atlantis is a perished world empire.

The concept of being is discussed in general metaphysics. It asks about the most general categories of being and is therefore also called fundamental philosophy. Insofar as it examines being as being, one speaks of ontology (theory of being).

The concept of being

A first approach to the topic is the linguistic use of the expression sein. In colloquial German and in Indo-European languages in general, "sein" is used grammatically as a linguistic link, as a copula, to connect subject and predicate in sentences or in statements of logic. Whether this grammatical function as a mere copula corresponds to a semantic meaninglessness of the word "being" has been controversially discussed at least since Aristotle.

Thereby, according to an observation of Aristotle, which even today many philosophers consider to be true, different meanings of the word "is" occur depending on the constellation of statements. "But since being, expressed par excellence, is used in multiple meanings." (Aristotle)

One can schematically distinguish the different meanings of the word "is" in German as follows.

1. Existence. Example: Socrates is.
2. Relation
1. Identity
1. mathematical equality. Example: Two times two is four.
2. Labeling. Example: Aristotle is the teacher of Alexander.
3. Definition. Example: Ontology is the study of being.
2. Predication of properties. Example: Socrates is mortal.
3. Classification. Example: An elephant is a mammal.

The use of "is" to denote existence can refer to the existence of objects, but also of facts (it is the case that ...). The other uses of "is", i.e. identity, predication or classification, denote relations or properties, each implicitly assuming the existence of the subject (so-called existential presupposition).

Categorical determination of being

A first systematic analysis of being is the writing Categories by Aristotle. In this writing, he examined basic propositions about being. He compiled a list of ten concepts that are completely independent of each other and, in his view, no longer traceable to other concepts.

The list of categories contains two classes of concepts, namely the substance and the remaining nine categories, the accidentals. The substance is that which underlies being (hypokeimenon). The substance is in each case the subject of a statement (predication). Accidences, on the other hand, do not exist independently, but only in a substance. They can only be stated in connection with a substance.

In a further step Aristotle distinguished first substances (prote ousia) from second substances (deutera ousia). The first substance cannot be predicated of another underlying. It is individual and one in number, that is, indivisible. The second substances are the species and genera which are predicated of the first substances. Socrates is said to be a man and a living being. The second substances are not accidentals, because they always belong to the first substance. They describe the essence of the first substance. Accidentals, on the other hand, always refer to a particular state of a substance.