Metaphysics: The Nature of Being

 

All that is possess being and all that possess being is. Outside of being there is nothing, for that which lacks being is non-being, which is nothing at all. Being cannot be and not be at the same time in the same respect since this would entail existence and non-existence simultaneously. Such a supposition reduces to an infinitude of simultaneous affirmation and denial of existence, an absurdity. We encapsulate this truth by the principle of noncontradiction: something cannot be and not be in the same respect and time under pain of incoherence. Therefore, being is the most fundamental aspect of existence, transcending all categories, since being is common to all that is. Further, nothing can be added to or subtracted from being since what is added can only be that which is, which just is being, and what is subtracted from can only be that which is not, which is nonbeing.

From the material to the immaterial all possess being. Concrete objects of everyday experience - plants, animals, humans – possess being insofar as they exist as independent substances. Cognitive objects – images conjured by animals and humans, abstractions contemplated by humans -  exist as dependent activity of creatures’ minds. All reality is being, and by knowing being we begin to know reality.

To know what is, then, is to know truth, since truth just is what is - what is real - and what is not has no being, and therefore lacks truth and is not real. Truth, then, is intimately associated with being and falsity with nonbeing. “The sky is purple” is false insofar as such a claim attributes specific being to some thing that in fact lacks that specific being. A drawing of a closed, three-sided polygon claimed to be a triangle is true in insofar as such a drawing conforms to the truth of what a triangle is. Therefore, to the extent we know being, we also know truth.

Next in the series: Being as Act and Potency