How do you determine something exists?

I'm no sensible person. As so, how should I take what you are saying?

I'm mostly asking what the process you follow is. However, if you have a proscriptive outline, then by all means feel free to share.

fresco wrote:

Anybody here go around checking on "existence" ?

So what our language (and our cultural use of that language) states exists is what exists? Is this how you determine whether something does or does not exist?

if the properties which something has to have to exist are exemplified, then that thing exists.

kennethamy wrote:

if the properties which something has to have to exist are exemplified, then that thing exists.

The properties of being able to fly and being a horse are exemplified, aren't they?

eliminate space , room

what something exists without space ?

Huxley wrote:

fresco wrote:

Anybody here go around checking on "existence" ?

So what our language (and our cultural use of that language) states exists is what exists? Is this how you determine whether something does or does not exist?

No, but if the properties which something has to have to exist are exemplified, then that thing exists.

So, for example, if something has the properties of being omniscient, omnipotent, all-just, creator of the universe, then God exists. Those properties are exemplified. On the other hand, if nothing exemplifies those properties, then God does not exist.

Thoughts. The number seven.

kennethamy wrote:

Huxley wrote:

fresco wrote:

Anybody here go around checking on "existence" ?

So what our language (and our cultural use of that language) states exists is what exists? Is this how you determine whether something does or does not exist?

No, but if the properties which something has to have to exist are exemplified, then that thing exists.

So, for example, if something has the properties of being omniscient, omnipotent, all-just, creator of the universe, then God exists. Those properties are exemplified. On the other hand, if nothing exemplifies those properties, then God does not exist.

Must anything have a particular set of unique properties? Maybe in the case of natural kinds (although, perhaps cats might have had three legs and been bald, or through some cruel twist of evolution, perhaps they could have had scales and slithered around on the ground), but not in the case of particular people. For example, it seems to me that Saul Kripke could not have been a walnut, being human (or at least humanoid), at least, seems to be an essential property of Kripke, but not much else. He might have studied literature instead of philosophy and never become a philosopher, he may even have died as a child. It seems to me that he might have existed without exemplifying almost all of the properties he currently exemplifies.

Quote:

Thoughts. The number seven.

Are thoughts and numbers 'somethings'?

That is, it seems to me that the only things that exist, in a metaphysical sense, are objects, and thoughts and numbers aren't objects. Clearly, people have thoughts, but when I have a thought, it's not as if there is something that suddenly exists that could be pointed to.

mickalos wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

Huxley wrote:

fresco wrote:

Anybody here go around checking on "existence" ?

So what our language (and our cultural use of that language) states exists is what exists? Is this how you determine whether something does or does not exist?

No, but if the properties which something has to have to exist are exemplified, then that thing exists.

So, for example, if something has the properties of being omniscient, omnipotent, all-just, creator of the universe, then God exists. Those properties are exemplified. On the other hand, if nothing exemplifies those properties, then God does not exist.

Must anything have a particular set of unique properties? Maybe in the case of natural kinds (although, perhaps cats might have had three legs and been bald, or through some cruel twist of evolution, perhaps they could have had scales and slithered around on the ground), but not in the case of particular people. For example, it seems to me that Saul Kripke could not have been a walnut, being human (or at least humanoid), at least, seems to be an essential property of Kripke, but not much else. He might have studied literature instead of philosophy and never become a philosopher, he may even have died as a child. It seems to me that he might have existed without exemplifying almost all of the properties he currently exemplifies.

Quote:

Thoughts. The number seven.

Are thoughts and numbers 'somethings'?

That is, it seems to me that the only things that exist, in a metaphysical sense, are objects, and thoughts and numbers aren't objects. Clearly, people have thoughts, but when I have a thought, it's not as if there is something that suddenly exists that could be pointed to.

Why would you ever suppose that you can point to whatever exists? Electrons and quarks exist. But they cannot be pointed to.

I did not say that everything must have a unique set of properties. That is a metaphysical claim, and I have no idea whether it is true, or even how to determine whether it is true. But it is clear, is it not, that when we ask whether X exists, we are asking whether the properties we normally associate with X are instantiated (exemplified, or, in plain English, whether anything has them). Or, and Quine liked to put it: whether there is anything that "Xes". So, in case you do not know what the properties of a tapir are, you do still know that to ask whether tapirs exist is to ask whether there is anything that "tapirizes".

kennethamy wrote:

mickalos wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

Huxley wrote:

fresco wrote:

Anybody here go around checking on "existence" ?

So what our language (and our cultural use of that language) states exists is what exists? Is this how you determine whether something does or does not exist?

No, but if the properties which something has to have to exist are exemplified, then that thing exists.

So, for example, if something has the properties of being omniscient, omnipotent, all-just, creator of the universe, then God exists. Those properties are exemplified. On the other hand, if nothing exemplifies those properties, then God does not exist.

Must anything have a particular set of unique properties? Maybe in the case of natural kinds (although, perhaps cats might have had three legs and been bald, or through some cruel twist of evolution, perhaps they could have had scales and slithered around on the ground), but not in the case of particular people. For example, it seems to me that Saul Kripke could not have been a walnut, being human (or at least humanoid), at least, seems to be an essential property of Kripke, but not much else. He might have studied literature instead of philosophy and never become a philosopher, he may even have died as a child. It seems to me that he might have existed without exemplifying almost all of the properties he currently exemplifies.

Quote:

Thoughts. The number seven.

Are thoughts and numbers 'somethings'?

That is, it seems to me that the only things that exist, in a metaphysical sense, are objects, and thoughts and numbers aren't objects. Clearly, people have thoughts, but when I have a thought, it's not as if there is something that suddenly exists that could be pointed to.

Why would you ever suppose that you can point to whatever exists? Electrons and quarks exist. But they cannot be pointed to.

Surely pointing at any object, a table, a can of cola, a person, is a matter of pointing at electrons and quarks. That I can't point to a single quark or electron, or a small number of them, or even a large number of them if they are arranged in a certain manner, is an epistemic matter rather than a metaphysical one. It's a matter of not knowing where to point rather than there being nowhere to point to.

I don't think it is intelligible to say something exists unless it exists somewhere (and somewhen); it seems to me to make the purported things that exist utterly mysterious.

Quote:

I did not say that everything must have a unique set of properties. That is a metaphysical claim, and I have no idea whether it is true, or even how to determine whether it is true. But it is clear, is it not, that when we ask whether X exists, we are asking whether the properties we normally associate with X are instantiated (exemplified, or, in plain English, whether anything has them). Or, and Quine liked to put it: whether there is anything that "Xes". So, in case you do not know what the properties of a tapir are, you do still know that to ask whether tapirs exist is to ask whether there is anything that "tapirizes".

My point was that the metaphysical claim is implied by your semantic claim (that when we ask "does X exist?" we really mean "Does there exist an x such that ( blah x & blah x & blah x)?") if we are to retain common sense notions about how bits of language like names work. According to your view, "when we ask whether X exists, we are asking whether the properties we normally associate with X are instantiated". To use a completely unoriginal counterexample, one of the properties we "normally associate" with Godel is that he proved the incompleteness theorems, to be a Quinean Godelizer would be (in part) to be the prover of the incompleteness theorems. Now what if, in actual fact, Godel did not prove the incompleteness theorems, he stole it from a 'mathematical proof collective'? On your view we would seem to be committed to saying that Godel doesn't exist, or even more absurdly, that Godel does exist... as a 'mathematical proof collective'.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that something that exists need not have any properties. Anything that exists must have a set of properties, and moreover, if it is to be individuated from the other things that exist (i.e. if it is to be a thing at all) it must have a unique set of properties. However, I see no reason why something cannot exist while at the same time exemplifying none of the properties people normally associate with it (with my above reservations about natural kinds).

Yes, yes. I have read Kripke, and his outre' cases (which he presents as revelations of his intuition). But those cases are outre', and do not reflect how we ordinarily talk or think. No one who speaks English thinks that when he is asked whether tapirs exist, he is being asked whether anything that "tapirizes" exists. He would ask, first and foremost, "what is a tapir?" which is to ask, what are the properties of tapirs?

As you said, we cannot point at individual electrons, but individual electrons exist. Therefore, what we cannot point to exists.

north wrote:

eliminate space , room

what something exists without space ?

Thoughts. The number seven.

kennethamy wrote:

north wrote:

eliminate space , room

what something exists without space ?

Thoughts. The number seven.

without space , room

YOU don't exist , you or anybody else and nor anything else

north wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

north wrote:

eliminate space , room

what something exists without space ?

Thoughts. The number seven.

without space , room

YOU don't exist , you or anybody else and nor anything else

Quote:

So your argument is that since nothing can exist without space
thoughts don't exist without space, because nothing exists without space. Is that it?

exactly

kennethamy wrote:

north wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

north wrote:

eliminate space , room

what something exists without space ?

Thoughts. The number seven.

without space , room

YOU don't exist , you or anybody else and nor anything else

Quote:

So your argument is that since nothing can exist without space
thoughts don't exist without space, because nothing exists without space. Is that it?

exactly

Right. That argument is circular. One of the premises is identical with the conclusion.

kennethamy

sometimes a circular argument is true nonetheless

again

to determine that something exists , is to do without its existence and understand the consequences

for us , Humans , it is about air and water

north wrote:

kennethamy

sometimes a circular argument is true nonetheless

again

to determine that something exists , is to do without its existence and understand the consequences

for us , Humans , it is about air and water

No. Because no arguments are either true or false. The question about argument is whether of not they prove their conclusions. Now, consider the following argument: 1. The world is round. Therefore, 2. the world is round. Now the conclusion is clearly true. Would you consider that the argument proved the conclusion true. Circular arguments may very well have true conclusions. But so what. That does not mean that the circular argument proved its conclusion true. There is a reason why to say that an argument is circular is a criticism of the argument. It is because a circular argument does not make its conclusion believable.

I have no idea what the rest of your post is all about.