:''Disambiguation: For spiritual or religious ''beingness'', see
Ego (spirituality).''
In
ontology, the study of 'being', being is anything that can be said to ''be'', either
transcendentally or
immanently.
The nature of being varies by philosophy, giving different interpretations in the frameworks of
Aristotle,
materialism,
idealism,
existentialism,
Islam, and
Marxism.
Being in continental philosophy and existentialism
Some philosophers deny that the concept of "being" has any meaning at all, since we only define an object's existence by its relation to other objects, and actions it undertakes. The term "I am" has no meaning by itself; it must have an action or relation appended to it. This in turn has led to the thought that "being" and
nothingness are closely related, developed in
existential philosophy.
Existentialist philosophers such as
Sartre, as well as
continental philosophers such as
Hegel and
Heidegger have also written extensively on the concept of being. Hegel distinguishes between the being of objects (
being in itself) and the being of people (''
Geist)''. Hegel, however, did not think there was much hope for delineating a "meaning" of being, because being stripped of all predicates is simply nothing.
Heidegger, in his quest to re-pose the original pre-Socratic questions of Being (of why is there something rather than nothing), wondered at how to meaningfully ask the question of the meaning of being, since it is both the greatest, as it includes everything that is, and the least, since no particular thing can be said of it. He distinguishes between different modes of beings: a privative mode is
present-at-hand, whereas beings in a fuller sense are described as
ready-to-hand. The one who asks the question of Being is described as Da-sein ("there/here-being") or '
being-in-the-world.' Sartre, popularly understood as misreading Heidegger (an understanding supported by Heidegger's essay "Letter on Humanism" which responds to Sartre's famous address, "Existentialism is a Humanism"), employs modes of being in an attempt to ground his concept of freedom ontologically by distinguishing between being-in-itself and being-for-itself.
Being in Islamic philosophy
The nature of "being" has also been debated and explored in
Islamic philosophy, notably by
Ibn Sina,
Suhrawardi, and
Mulla Sadra.
[1]
Quotes
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere ''being''. - Carl Jung
See also
★
Infosphere
★
Category of being
★
Cogito ergo sum
★
Creature
★
Entity
★
Existence
★
Existentialism
★
Object (philosophy)
★
Ontology
★
Substance theory
★
Supreme being
★ Hegel,
Phenomenology of Spirit
★ Heidegger,
Being and Time
★ Sartre,
Essays in Existentialism and
Being and Nothingness
★
Pranopasana
External links
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Being in philosophy and linguistics
References
1. Iranian Personalities