Word of being in philosophy

The question of being (Greek, τό ὄν, the present participle of the verb ειναι, «to be»; Latin, esse; German, Sein; French, être), in philosophy, has been a central topic of metaphysics; the study of «being» is called ontology.^[1]

Philosophers often suppose a certain sense of being as primary, and from it derive other senses of being as secondary. So, even if they use the same word «is,» the meaning of being is different, depending upon what it is that «is»: sensible material beings, values and norms, principles, mathematical objects, quality, time, space, God, etc. For Plato the primary kind of being is the immutable world of ideas, while for Aristotle it is the mutable world of substances. In another context, however, Aristotle put one immutable substance, God, as the principle of all being, and Thomas Aquinas, too, conceived God as the primary being, from which all other beings in the world receive their existence. Materialists conceive material or a sensible entity as the primary model of being, while idealists regard thought or spirit as primary. Most philosophers, including Aristotle, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, were aware of these diverse senses of being.

Inquiries into being often contrast it with its reciprocal concept, and the meaning of being varies accordingly. Paired sets include: being and becoming, being and non-being, being and appearance or phenomena, being and existence, being and essence, being and beings, being and thought, and being and ought.

How to approach the question of being is determined by the style of thought, philosophical approach, or methodology. For example, the phenomenological approaches of Husserl and Heidegger locate the question of being on the horizon of human consciousness and existence. Eastern philosophies emphasize the role of «non-being» for our understanding of being.

Many philosophical and religious traditions seem to agree that elucidating the nature of being discloses a fundamental distinction between an essential world and a resultant world of phenomena. They also seem to agree that each of the two worlds has diversity within itself with some kind of purposiveness. Yet they give different answers to the question of which of the two worlds is more real.

A History of the Notion of Being in the West

The pre-Socratic question of being

The pre-Socratic Greeks had a more direct, non-conceptual, and non-objectifying approach to the question of «being,» as compared with the rather indirect approach of Plato and Aristotle that attempted to conceptualize and objectify «being» through instantiated forms or formed matter.

For the pre-Socratics, the most important question to be answered was: What is the world made of? In answering this question, they were immediately convinced that all things in the world are identical in nature with one another. Hence, they successively attempted to reduce the world in general to water (Thales), then to air (Anaximenes), then to fire (Heraclitus), until Parmenides finally said that the whole world is made of «being» (to on, the present participle of the verb einai, «to be.») Parmenides’ answer was more persuasive because while it was not at once evident that water, air, and fire are completely identical, it was undeniable that they all have in common the property of being, because they all are. Being, then, was considered to be the fundamental and ultimate element of all that is.

What, then, is «being»? It turned out to be a difficult question to answer indeed. The question of what water, air, or fire is, looked much easier because the definition of any of these was quite self-evident. So, Parmenides did not discuss what being is, but instead highlighted the fact of being as the truth and characterized being as one, all-inclusive, whole, unborn, timeless, immobile, immutable, permanent, and imperishable. His dictum: That which is, is, while that which is not, i.e., «non-being» (to me on), is not: «The one way, assuming that being is and that it is impossible for it not to be, is the trustworthy path, for truth attends it. The other, that not-being is and that it necessarily is, I call a wholly incredible course, since thou canst not recognise not-being (for this is impossible), nor couldst thou speak of it.»^[2] Thus, any individual things that look mutable and perishable in the world are our illusory perceptions, and they do not belong to the realm of being.

Usually contrasted with Parmenides’ notion of being as the ultimate principle that is immutable and eternal, is Heraclitus’ understanding of fire as the ultimate element of reality, according to which the whole of reality is mutable and transitory like fire. For Heraclitus, everything is in flux and becoming, and immutability or stability is illusory. Perhaps the only sense in which he was able to talk about true being was this unchanging principle of transitory passage and its cyclicality.

Plato and Aristotle

Plato differentiated between the immutable world of ideas or forms and the transitory world, saying that the former is an eternal, incorporeal realm of ideas and values that are true beings, while the latter is a less real, ephemeral, «shadowy» world of material things that are far from true beings and subject to change and decay. This way, Plato struck a compromise between Parmenides’ notion of being and Heraclitus’ theory of becoming, although for Plato the world of ideas is more important than the transitory world. Both are linked through the participation of the latter in the former, and the latter’s degree of reality is determined by how much material things partake and manifest ideas which are true reality. The latter world, while being thus differentiated from the former, is also differentiated from the realm of non-being that is unformed matter; it constitutes an intermediate stage of becoming between being and non-being. Plato treated all this in his Phaedo, Republic, and Statesman.

For Aristotle, the science of «being qua being» (on hēi on) was what he called «first philosophy,» as is discussed in his Metaphysics.^[3] but his understanding of being was quite different from Plato’s. For Aristotle, only individual things, called substances, are fully beings, while other things such as quantity, quality, relation, place, and time, called categories, have a derivative kind of being, dependent on individual substances. Thus, all senses of being are derived from a single central notion, the notion of «substance» (ousia, the feminine genetive of to on, which in turn is the present participle of the verb einai, «to be»). According to him, however, whereas each individual substance is a mutable thing composite of two correlative principles: form and matter, or, in more general terms, actuality and potentiality, there is one immutable substance, God, who is pure form devoid of matter. God as the highest genus of substance is therefore the principle of all being and dealt with also in first philosophy.

Medieval philosophers

Medieval philosophy basically followed the Aristotelian understanding of the various senses of being in reality, although the Latin equivalent to the Greek to on is ens («being»), the present participle of sum («I am»). Esse («to be») is the present infinitive. Another related term is essentia («essence»), an abstract form of the present participle of esse, referring to what a substance (substantia) is in itself.

One new development in Medieval philosophy was the distinctive notion of existentia («existence,» from the verb exsistere, which means to «to exist,» «to appear,» or «to emerge»). Greek ontology apparently did not have it, since its primary focus was the matter of predication based on copula sentences of the form «X is Y.» The best Aristotle came up with based on the primarily predicative verb einai was the distinction between hoti esti («that it is») and ti esti («what it is»), which could mean «existence» and «essence,» respectively. Medieval philosophy, however, developed the notion of existence distinctively under the influence of Islamic philosophy, which distinguished existence (wujud) from essence (mahiat) in light of a biblical metaphysics of creation within Islam which differentiated the contingent existence of the created world from the necessary status of God. Thomas Aquinas adopted this, maintaining that the essence and existence of each and every contingent, finite creature are distinct, while essence and existence are identical within God, who is therefore preeminent over the world. Thus, even when rejecting Anselm’s ontological proof for God’s existence that had argued that to know what God is (his essence) is to know that God exists (his existence), Aquinas did not reject the identification of God’s essence and God’s existence.

Interestingly, according to Aquinas, because of his preeminent status over the world, God is now «the first being» (primum ens), and each and every individual creature is a «participated being» (ens per participationem) which derives its being from God as the first being.^[4] Thus, although God and creatures are not totally similar, they are at least proportionately similar, i.e., analogical in their relationship through the «analogy of being» (analogia entis). Duns Scotus, however, denied this, suggesting the univocity of being, although he still recognized that God as ens a se («being from itself») and creatures as entia ab alio («beings derived from another») are two different aspects of being.

Modern philosophers

Empiricists and materialists in modern philosophy such as Thomas Hobbes took a sensible material thing as the model of being and identified sensibility or physicality as the primary sense of being. This perspective of being has been dominant throughout modern times.

At the same time, there were also rationalists and idealists who did not agree with empiricists and materialists. Baruch Spinoza, a rationalist with his pantheistic recognition of only one «substance» (God or Nature, Deus sive Natura), regarded this «substance» (substantia) as the primary sense of being and referred to «mode» (modus) as the derivative sense of being, ontologically and conceptually derivative from the former. For substance is «that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself,» while mode is «the modifications of substance, or that which exists in, and conceived through, something other than itself.»^[5] Thus, substance and mode are two main senses of being, although Spinoza suggested that being itself has, in the strict sense, no proper definition.

For absolute idealist Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, «being» coincides with «thought,» because the subject matter of philosophy is the life of the Absolute Spirit, self-thinking Thought, as manifested panentheistically in the universe. The Absolute Spirit manifests itself in the universe by going out of itself and returning to itself. This life of the Absolute Spirit has three main phases: itself, nature, and the human spirit; and they are dealt with by logic, the philosophy of nature, and the philosophy of spirit, respectively. Thus, logic deals with how the Absolute Spirit conceives of itself before the creation of the universe. Logic begins with «being» (Sein), which is the most immediate and indeterminate concept the Absolute Spirit can formulate about itself. But, being is so completely indeterminate that it passes over into «non-being» or «nothing» (Nichts), its negation, which is also completely indeterminate. Non-being also easily moves back to being. So, a third category, «becoming» (Werden), is posited, which is the synthesis, at a higher level, of being as thesis and non-being as antithesis. While being and non-being are wholly indeterminate abstractions, becoming is «the first concrete thought,»^[6] thus being able to become «determinate being» (Dasein), which is a definite being. Although notions such as being «in itself» (an sich), being «for itself» (für sich), and being «in and for itself» (an und für sich) are also developed from determinate being, the original dialectic of being, non-being, and becoming is the starting point of the whole dialectic life of the Absolute Spirit that involves all other senses of being through the triads of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis at various phases and sub-phases.

Husserl and Heidegger

In the late nineteenth century, Edmund Husserl recognized that various kinds of being such as normative beings, values, space, time, mathematical objects, logical objects, historical object, and others do exist in different senses. Husserl gained this insight probably from his teacher Franz Brentano who had elaborated it in his On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle. Husserl, thus, developed phenomenology as a philosophical methodology which can describe multiple senses of being as the world of the «transcendental ego» or «pure consciousness.» For example, in describing in which sense «time» exists, Husserl inquired into how time presents itself to us and developed a phenomenology of time.^[7] Similarly, for all kinds of objects, Husserl inquired into how each of them presents its sense of being to human subjects. Although Husserl did not finish this project, he at least laid the foundation of its philosophical methodology.

Martin Heidegger, a student of Husserl, took the question of being (ontology) as the primary subject of philosophy. Heidegger complained that the question of being has failed to be answered in the long philosophical tradition in the West because since Plato and Aristotle the notion of being has always been conceptualized and objectified through instantiated forms or formed matter. He, however, appreciated pre-Socratics’ approach to the direct disclosure (aletheia in Greek) of being, and suggested that for this kind of direct disclosure of «being» (Sein), the human being should be thrown to the phenomenal world of «beings» (Seiendes) as Dasein (literally «being-there»). By being confronted with «non-being» (Nichts) there, the human being experiences dread about death (the negation of being) and grasps the meaning of being in beings. His methodology of inquiring into the meaning of being is called hermeneutic phenomenology, resulting from a combination of phenomenology and hermeneutics. In his inquiry into the meaning of being, Heidegger explicated the roles of death and conscience, teleological interdependence of being, and other unique elements. For Heidegger, the word «existence» (Existenz) is simply synonymous with Dasein: «The ‘essence’ of Dasein lies in its existence.»^[8]

Existentialists such as Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Jaspers, Jean-Paul Sartre inquired into unique modes of being of human beings, and explored complex elements involved in human existence, which includes freedom, authenticity/inauthenticity, anxiety, commitment, death, good and evil, faith, fate, and others. For existentialists, the meaning of being is intertwined with axiological and aesthetic elements.

The Notion of Being in Non-Western Traditions

The Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew equivalent to the English word «to be» is hayah. But, it is hardly used as predicative or as existential. For the predicative purpose, the so-called noun clause is used without copula most likely; and for the existential purpose, the particle yēš («there is»), which is no longer a verb, is used most likely. Therefore, in most cases the verb hayah means «to come to be» or «to come to pass.» This does not mean that this verb is equivalent to the English verb «to become.» So, for example, «the earth was waste» (Genesis 1:2), where hayahis, the past tense of hayah, is used, actually does not mean to equate «the earth» and «waste,» but to show that «the earth came to be waste,» if not that «the earth became waste.» It is interesting to observe that the Hebrew verb hayah shows an act more dynamic than the English verb «to be.»

Eastern philosophies

Eastern philosophies, while having the notion of «being» like Western thought does, have tended to recognize the notion of «non-being» more than Western thought does. Hinduism distinguishes between being (sat) and non-being (asat), equating the former with the enduring reality of Brahman, the supreme cosmic power, and the latter with the illusory unreality of the manifested universe. Hinduism, however, has another, diametrically opposed use of these terms especially in its mysticism, where non-being (asat) means that boundless and eternal metaphysical expanse of void even beyond Brahman and the universe because of which even being (sat) itself is and endures.

Buddhism accepts the Buddha’s teaching that everything in the world is marked by three main characteristics: 1) «impermanence» (anitya in Sanskrit; anicca in Pali), which not only means that everything will eventually cease to exist, but also that everything is in flux; 2) «unsatisfactoriness» (duhkha in Sanskrit; dukkha in Pali), which means that nothing in the world can bring lasting satisfaction; and 3) «non-self» (anatman in Sanskrit; anatta in Pali), which rejects the Hindu notion of «self» (atman). Mahayana Buddhism extends the third characteristic of «non-self» from sentient beings to all kinds of objects in the world. The three characteristics as a whole, therefore, mean that nothing in the world possesses permanent, essential identity, and also that all things, in that regard, are dependent on each other (pratityasamutpada in Sanskrit, meaning «dependent origination»). For Mahayana Buddhism, this means a virtual rejection of the metaphysical notion of being itself or «own-being» (svabhava in Sanskrit). A doctrine of «emptiness» (sunyata from the Sanskrit adjective sunya, meaning «empty»), therefore, has been developed to show this insight into reality, so we may be led to a realm of wisdom and inner peace where we acquire the Buddha-nature (Buddha-dhatu in Sanskrit).

According to Taoism, Tao («Way») is the primordial state of oneness which unites various things in the world that emerge from it. Lao Tzu often referred to the pair of «being» (yu) and «non-being» (wu), saying that both are contained within Tao. Neo-Daoist Wang Bi of the third century C.E., however, identified Tao with non-being and believed it to be the background of the world of being.

Multiple Senses of Being in a Paired Set of Concepts

As has been noticed above, being can often be paired with another concept and the sense of being differs according to what it is paired with. The pairs listed below are some of those often discussed in the history of philosophy. These pairs, however, often overlap and they are not mutually exclusive.

Being and becoming

Being, when it is contrasted with becoming, means immutability, permanence, or constant. Parmenides considered being to be the first principle of reality, believing that only being is, and that non-being is not. Also, everything is one, and the one is being, which is continuous, all-inclusive, and eternal. For him, becoming is illusory and impossible. By contrast, Heraclitus regarded becoming as the first principle, maintaining that everything is in a state of flux. Plato is considered to have reconciled between being and becoming by integrating the immutable world of ideas and the transitory world of material things through the notion of participation.

Being and non-being

Being means immutable, actual existence, while non-being refers to non-existence, according to Parmenides. However, the contrast between being and non-being has been interpreted in various ways. For Plato, being refers to the immutable world of ideas (forms), while non-being is unformed matter; and these two are united to constitute the transient world of becoming. Hinduism often equates being with the enduring reality of Brahman, and non-being with the illusory unreality of the manifested universe. Mahayana Buddhism denies being in favor of non-being for our enlightenment. For Hegel, being and non-being are two opposing, completely indeterminate logical (and also ontological) categories, which however are integrated into a third category of becoming at a higher and determinate level. For Heidegger, being and non-being are no longer indeterminate categories, and non-being is instrumental for our grasp of the meaning of being.

Being and phenomena

Being, when it is contrasted with phenomena, means true reality in contrast to mere appearances or what appears to sense perception. Plato inquired into the true reality of being in contrast to what appears to our five senses. For Plato, the true reality of being has permanent, immutable ideas, which intellect alone can grasp. Things are beautiful, for example, by virtue of the idea of beauty which is true reality. What appears to our five senses is a less real, ephemeral appearance.

Being and existence

Main article: Being and Existence

Being and existence are related and somewhat overlapping with respect to their meanings. Being means being in general, covering all senses of being, while existence usually represents only one sense of being, which means the actual being of the world of phenomena. In the Middle Ages, under the influence of Islamic philosophy that recognized the contingency of the created world as compared with God the creator, Scholastic philosophy used the Latin word «existere» («to exist» or «to appear») as distinct from «esse» («to be»), and from «essentia» («essence»), an abstract form of the present participle of «esse.» Hence the distinction of existence from being, and also from essence.

Being (existence) and essence

Being, when it is contrasted with essence, means actual existence, which is one sense of being. Actual existence means that a being exists, while its essence means that which makes what it is. Medieval theologians such as Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas argued that God is a unique being whose essence is its existence, while essence and existence are separable for all beings other than God. The biblical concept of God as «I am who I am» expresses the identity of essence and existence in God.

Being and beings

Being, when it is contrasted with beings, means existence in the sense of event or fact of to-be. Being means the fact of existence itself, while beings mean particular entities that exist. Heidegger, for example, stressed this distinction between being (Sein) and beings (Seiendes) in order to highlight the concept of being or to-be as a dynamic activity. In a different context, Medieval theologians distinguished between God as «being from itself» (ens a se) and particular creatures as «beings derived from another» (entia ab alio).

Being and thought

Being, when it is contrasted with thought, means the objective reality that is outside of the cognitive subject. Thought refers to ideas in the mind; and being refers to spatio-temporal, extra-mental existence. This contrast was used by modern philosophers who had an epistemological concern. The contrast of being and thought appeared within the question of how ideas or thoughts in the mind can be a real representation of the objective reality which exists outside of the mind. For idealists such as Hegel, thought and being are the same.

Is (being) and ought

Being or «is,» when it is contrasted with «ought,» means factuality in contrast to normativeness. Immanuel Kant, for example, distinguished prescriptive statements in morality, which use «ought» or «should» (sollen), in contrast to natural, descriptive statements which describe what things factually «are» (sein).

It is clear that the multiple sense of being has been almost universally recognized both in East and West perhaps with the exception of actualism in analytic philosophy. The distinction between an essential type of world and a phenomenal world is the most basic distinction, and a deity or ultimate being usually belongs to the former. The question of which of the two worlds is more real than the other is answered differently by different philosophical and religious schools, and even when the answer is that the phenomenal world is more real, the real status of a deity or ultimate being is far from questioned (as in Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas). The essential type of world is further subdivided into a variety of entities such as Plato’s ideas and Aristotle’s categories. The phenomenal world is also subdivided into various beings ranging from spiritual entities like angels through humans to non-rational beings such as nonhuman animals, plants, and minerals.

There are at least two issues that attract our attention here. First, what sense can we make out of the basic distinction between an essential world and a phenomenal world? Second, what does the existence of various beings in the phenomenal world mean? The first issue seems to show that the world of phenomena is, after all, a manifestation, appearance, expression, unconcealment, creation, or emanation of the essential world that includes a deity or ultimate being. The second issue on various beings in the phenomenal world has often been treated in terms of what is called the «great chain of being» with God as its top,^[9] and especially in the West it has usually been taken to mean that a world full of all possible beings is aesthetically more perfect than otherwise, and that God made such a world to show his perfection. Hence, while the first issue shows the act or movement of manifestation, the second one seems to show purposiveness in that act or movement. Pope John Paul II’s call for a renewed «philosophy of being» based on both faith and reason in his 1998 Encyclical Letter, Fides et Ratio, if from a Catholic perspective, is perhaps a reminder of these points among others.^[10]

See also

• Being and existence
• Cogito ergo sum
• Meaning of life
• Metaphysics
• Ontology
• Indian philosophy
• Chinese philosophy

Notes

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Retrieved August 26, 2019.
• Aristotle. Metaphysics. Translated by W. D. Ross. Retrieved August 26, 2019.
• Brentano, Franz Clemens. On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle. Translated by Rolf George. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. ISBN 0520023463
• Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Hegel’s Logic: Being Part One of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences. Translated by William Wallace. Oxford University Press, 1975. ISBN 0198245122
• Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper & Row, 1962. ISBN 0060638508
• Husserl, Edmund. The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964. ISBN 0253200970
• Lovejoy, Arthur O. The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea. Harvard University Press, 1976. ISBN 0674361539
• Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. New York: Philosophical Library, 1956.
• Spinoza, Baruch. Ethics. Translated by R.H.M. Elwes. Retrieved August 26, 2019.

External links

All links retrieved January 17, 2022.

• «The Vocabulary of Ontology: Being,» Ontology. A Resource Guide for Philosophers.
• «The Concept of Existence: History and Definitions by Leading Philosophers,» Ontology. A Resource Guide for Philosophers.
• «Existence,» Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

General Philosophy Sources

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Paideia Project Online
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Project Gutenberg

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At the beginning of “Being in Time” there’s a front piece, that’s a quote from Plato, from the Sophists, and the stranger, the Xenos is speaking, and he says: “You’ve long been aware of what you mean when you say “being”, but those of us, who thought we knew what it meant, are now perplexed”. In many ways this inaugurates the question of the meaning of being for Heidegger. As we know being has been understood as traditionally sensible and intelligible, real and ideal in many different ways: as essence or definition, substratum, etc.

In Aristotle though being comes to have a particular way of being understood, and it’s traditionally understood as substance. Of course, this also has a number of different meanings. It can be interpreted in different ways. Brentano, for example, has four different understandings of Aristotelian substance: accidental, true, potential and actual or the categories. In all of these being is still understood as substance. The argument, however, is that when it comes to what being itself means, the argument is that being is not for Aristotle to be understood as a genius, being is universal, because everything is – I, you, everything in the world is. Yet being is not to be understood as a genius, and Aristotle has a particular argument for this. Namely, that if being was a genius, then it couldn’t be predicated of its proper diferencia. Why? Because you would then need yet another genius that would encompass both the genius and the differentia. Being for Aristotle is a universal for all beings, but not a generic universal.

So, what is it? Aristotle calls it an arche, an original universal. It’s this definition, this understanding of being that in many ways is the guiding understanding of being from the Greeks to modern philosophy. Many people today in fact still follow this understanding of being.

This history shifts in Kant. When cod comes along in modern philosophy and argues that Aristotle was right – being as a universal, but being is not a real predicate. So, being then is not substance, it’s not the essence. What is it? For Kant it’s not a real predicate, its existence. That’s what being means for Kant. The question then becomes: “Okay, if being is for Aristotle not a genius, but essence or a substance, and for Kant not a predicate, but existence, what is the being of these beings?” This is where Heidegger comes in.

Heidegger argues: “ Yes, Aristotle and Kant are right: being is not a being”. What is it? It’s a universal. Yes, they’re right. What kind of universal? It’s neither essence, nor existence – it’s the universal. Das Transzendenz schlechthin. It’s the transcendental, if you wish. Not as the scholastic’s argued, but the universal transcendence.

What is then the reason why this has never been seen before (as far as I’m concerned)? It’s because the history of philosophy translated Aristotle’s original understanding of being, which he called ousia as “substance”. So we remained in the history of philosophy wedded or loyal to this translation of ousia and couldn’t see that this was actually a mistranslation. The translation should have been “presence”. This is Heidegger’s contribution to the history of being, because he understands that being is presence.

For example, he quotes Goethe: “Over the mountains everything is peaceful – In Gipfel alles ist ruhe”. Everything is peaceful in the mountains s means that peace is in the mountains, peace reigns, peace prevails in the mountains, peace is present in the mountains. That’s what we mean by being.

In other words in the entire history of philosophy for Heidegger being is that which is and also now that which is not. Because being, if it’s understood has presence, can also be understood as absence. And this is the second contribution of Heidegger to the history of philosophy of being. Being is not just present or presence, but also absence or absent. So, being absent is a way of being, not merely a privation. This necessitates a destruction or deconstruction, or destructuring of the history of philosophy for Heidegger. Because it is the understanding of being as presence that has dominated the history of philosophy and stopped philosophy from thinking being also as absent, as absence.

For Heidegger being is not just presence as it was in Aristotle, but presence and absence. Heidegger’s example: if I say of my friend: “He is not here. I miss him very much”. What I mean is that he is not present, but he is absent and yet he is also somehow present, namely present as absent. In this way Heidegger wants to insist that being is determined as presence and absence. So the universality of being that Aristotle originally uncovered is presence and absence in these two ways of being. Tertium non datur or “there is no third”. But what does Aristotle say?

Aristotle says being and unity imply one another. Why? Because being is implied in beings, not only in unity, but in beings: you and I, everything that is. Being is an implication, being means then precisely neither being just present or absent. An example from Heidegger: a hint. When I give a hint about something, it is to be a hint, it must remain a hint. If I explain, if I explicate the meaning of the hint, of what is hinted, it’s no longer a hint. The issue is to remain with the hint as hinting.

Same with implication. If I’m implying something, I’m precisely not bringing what is implied to presence, although nor am I leaving it simply in absence. Implications are then like hints. This means that in the history of philosophy, like Poe’s “Purloined Letter”, the meaning of being as implication has been staring us in the face. It’s been in full view, even though we never saw it. Being means implying, and that is suspending the understanding of being as presence in absence. Thus, being is not implied, because it’s a universal. Being as a universal because it’s implied. This opens up for us now an entirely new area of ontological research, namely, the investigation or the study of being co-implication.

1.

Philosophy Topic No.17
Philosophy of Being.
• Categories of being in philosophy.
• Notion of being. Types of being.
• Being as a human being. Phenomenon of non-being.
Being is a philosophic category that fixes the existence and interrelation of the
objects and phenomena. The very first definitions emerged in the Ancient
Greece in the course of setting up of the boundaries of the philosophic
knowledge.
Etymologically it has the reference with the verb “to be” and “exist”.
It means that everything in this world has the status of being. Talking of being
we should not confine ourselves to the fact of being of some loose objects. We
should look into the conditions that do facilitate the existence of the objects of
the surrounding world. Not a single thing stays in this world forever as it gets
to the point of non-being.
Teaching on Being – Ontology is a very significant branch of the
Philosophic Knowledge.

2.

Being is the initial notion related to the starting point of any contemplation on
a human and his world. It gets to the point of being concrete and universal
exclusively through the interactions with such philosophic categories like
matter, consciousness, motion, space, time, system, determinism.
Analyzing this category we come across the two kinds: material on the one
hand and spiritual on the other.
The main forms of Being:
Being of the Objects and Processes. It has two forms.
Materialistic. It provides for the perception of the objective reality the existence
of which is absolutely independent.
Idealistic. Being of the secondary nature, civilization. It has two fold
characters. On the one hand they are made of the body of the nature with
consciousness and soul on the other.

3.

2. Being of a Human.
The interaction of the material and spiritual being gives way to a
subject or a human – a creature with the material base(body) and the
human consciousness capable of the active attitude to life with the idea to
meet the various demands. In other words two kinds of being are fused in
one Human being.
3. Being of Spiritual, Ideal.
Individual, spiritual consciousness of an individual. The structure of
unconsciousness: reflexes, unconscious, intuition.
Spiritual that exists objectively – in other words that has been materialized
in culture.
Social Being.
Being of a human
Being of a human in the society.

4.

The physical, natural world does exist absolutely independent of the
consciousness of the people. The psychic world – the world of the human
consciousness exists as something subjective being dependent on the will and
intentions of the groups of people and individuals. So, the human being is
bound up to be integrity of the objective and subjective. The being of things
created by people is diverse in its uniqueness thanks to such an intermediary
as consciousness. The spiritual world of a human is two fold as subjective and
objective.
There are also different levels of being = being as the potential and being as
the reality. Possibility is not non-being, it has the status of existence, being.
Possibility is the potential being. Reality is the actual being.
Materialism accepts the natural being as the main form of being and
all the rest as derivatives.
The subjective idealism considers the subjective being as the main
form of being. The Objective idealism sees the objective spirit as the source
of being.

5.

Categories of the forms of being.
Single (individual), general and particular.
As of the emergence of the consciousness a human got to the point
self identification he got the capacity of tracing some individual objects with
some specific properties of the objects around his self. Viewing the specific
he moves towards the generalization in the generic sense and figures out the
class of the homogeneous objects. Individuality is the form and way of being.
Watching the individual objects he realizes the ties and possible relations of
the objects. It means that the general is the regulation of the existence of the
individual as the format and room of the individual ones. This generalization
comes through the individual. The existence of the general is due to the
individual ones.

6.

Phenomenon and Essence.
The variety of the individual objects around us is perceived as some
outside reflexes that attract our senses. At the same time these phenomena
keep some steady inner elements that make up the stability of the existing
objects. We call them essence.
We can trace the different approaches and treatment of the interrelation of
phenomenon and essence. Plato thought that the essence is quite immaterial,
everlasting and ideal. Kant saw the obvious difference of the phenomenon and
essence. The phenomenon is the “thing-for-us”, but the inner “nomen” not
achievable for cognition. Hegel has worked out the dialectical link as every
phenomenon has got its essence and the essence is reflected in the
phenomenon.
Contemporary existentialists think that the essence is something to be seen
exclusively under the boundary situation.

7.

Quality and Quantity.
Quality is the combination of the properties of this or that
object. Talking of the quality we mean the particular properties of the
object when it gets in touch with some other objects. In other words it is
the criteria of certainty and the reflection of some definite state. The
other part of this equation is the quantity (extent, weight (gravity),
density). The study of the equation on the quantities caused the
emergence of mathematics. The change of the quantity to a certain
extent does not have the impact on the quality.
Measure and Leap
There is a strict regulation of conformity of the quality to
the respective quantity. This is what we call – measure. The
transition from one quality to the other one is due to the change of the
quantity. It refers to the substance, information or energy. It is universal
and achieved thanks to the Leap.
.

8.

Motion.
Any transition is done through the motion with the relevant format
of space and time. So, motion is the form of existence of the being. There is
no life without motion and never was.
Motion is the source of any change, interaction and
interrelation.
F.Engeles worked out and noted five forms of motion:
Mechanical, physical, chemical, biological and social.
Space and Time.
Space is the location of things or objects while time is the sequence of
events. These two categories are objective and real. It means they do exist
irrespective of the human’s consciousness. Space has three dimensions –
upwards, backwards, sideways. Time has one dimension – from the past to
the future through the present.

9.

Motion and Development.
Talking of the development in the philosophic sense
we the regular outcoming from the inner contraries
irreversible and directed changes.
Any object is developed under the resolution of the
inner contraries. The influence coming in from the outside
can either expedite or slow down the process, but it is not
decisive. Any development is related to motion, but it is not
necessarily that any motion is the development.

Key Terms in Ontology: Being

The concept of being in Western philosophy before Heidegger

The concept of being according to Heidegger

The history of the verb «Be» in Ancient Greek

The meaning of «είναι» AND «τὸ ὄν» in Ancient Greek

From Greek to Latin: Seneca’s Epistle 58

Related pages

Lecture
12

PHILOSOPHICAL
THEORY OF BEING.

1. The
   conception of the world and being in philosophy. Forms of being.

2. The
   general concept of Matter. Modern science of the unity and
   structuredness of matter.

3. Attributes
   of Matter: Motion, Space and Time.

4. Social
   space and social time as the forms of man’s being in culture.

The most
important problem for science, philosophy and religion was always to
realize the world, its essence and development. The harshest
discussions on that point took place in the history, as people always
strove for understanding the mystery of their origin and existence.

So the
concept of “the world” embraces the whole infinite and
unreduntant reality (both known and still unknown) in all variety of
things, noumens, systems and processes in their connections and
relations. Or in the other words “the world” is the integral
unity of all existing reality.

Ancient
Greek treated the world as cosmos, meaning “beauty”, “order”,
“universe”. Heraclitus (VI–V centuries BC) wrote: “This
cosmos the same for all, was created neither by gods nor by people,
but it ever was, still continues to be and will remain for ever a
living fire that originates worlds”.

Cosmos was
characterized by its systematic structure and regularity. Alongside
with these properties there are plenty chaotic and contingent
processes in cosmos. These opposites form the integral unity where
they constantly penetrate into each other stimulating the development
of Cosmos.

The concept
of the Universe is very close to the concept of Cosmos, but it
embraces the totality of really existing things. This concept is
referred mostly to the extra-Earthly world while our native Earthly
world is regarded as a part of that infinite Universe.

In science
the Universe is called Meta Galaxy, it consists of a great number of
Galaxies. Meta Galaxy didn’t ever exist. It was formed 10-20
milliard years ago as a result of so-called cosmic explosion.

Treating
this problem on the base of science and philosophy we accept that the
concept of the “whole world” is much broader then Meta Galaxy, as
we never can know everything about the world. It is infinite,
eternal, different in its quality and changeable. Other worlds are
possible to exist, they may have quite different properties, forms
and appearances including such tremendous and fantastic one as the
formation of our Galaxy.

Our
systematic integral knowledge of the Universe, of the processes that
take place in accordance with definite regularity describe the
scientific picture of the world which is not a sum of different
knowledge but the integral gnociological model of understanding the
world at the base of the scientific knowledge achieved by the
definite time.

There were
different models of the picture of the world in the history of
Mankind, that is of geocentricism (after Aristotle and Ptolemy),
heliocentricism (after Copernicus), mechanicism (after Galileo and
Newton), modern –materialistic and dialectical- based on Einstein’s
and Darwin’s theories, genetics anthropology, biophysics,
biochemistry and so on. The contemporary picture of the world
inevitably includes knowledge of man and his place in the world.

In general
in the integral picture of the world scientific knowledge is combined
with philosophical one and the methodology of abstract theoretical
reasoning is worked out. Worldview aspects are also included, not
only man’s cognition of the world but also his relation to the
world are exposed.

The
category of “the world” is a worldview one which is connected
with practical separation of man from nature. His vital activity and
life got more and more dependent on the collective efforts of the
given community aimed at satisfying human individual and collective
needs. It was the process of formation of the definite unity of
individuals not only within the community but also the unity of man
and nature which was involved into the sphere of his practical
activity. That was the prime content and essence of the category of
“the world”- meaning community. The development of the category
of “the world” is inseparably linked with the development of man
himself. The world is the unity of natural and social reality
conditioned and determined by man’s practical activity. It embraces
not only natural, material bases of reality but first of all the
peculiarities of human practical active relation to himself and to
the conditions of his existence.

This
category is a peculiar one in philosophy as it regards reality not
taken separately as it is but in its relationship to man and his
existence. So that “the world” represents first of all the human
world as a real process of man’s living being, as pure human
reality. To understand the relationship of man and the world it is
necessary to pay attention to historical world with a plenty of
social relations which determine the character of man’s relation to
the natural world.

The
universal links in the world are reflected in the category of being.

In
the broadest sense, being is all-embracing reality, the most general
concept of existence, of that which is general. Being is all that
exists: material things, processes, properties, connections and
relations. Even the fruits of the most unbridled fantasy, the
fairy-tales and the myths, even a sick man’s ravings, exist as
realities. It follows that being covers both the material and the
spiritual. It is in fact, something really existing.

There
are different forms of being. Among them we can note as following:

1. being of
   things, processes, states of nature (including “the second
   nature”);

2. man’s
   being in the world of things;

3. social
   being (individual and society being);

4. ideal or
   spiritual being.

To begin
with we shall regard the concept of outer world being. Here we can
speak of the primary nature and the “second nature”. The primary
nature is objective that is it exists independently of man and his
spirit, which appeared later then nature. Nature is also the sphere
of man’s life and his activity, which would be impossible without
it. All things of the “second nature” are dependent on nature,
they are created on its base and they are included into the concept
of outer world.

The “second
nature” is made by people, as a result of their knowledge and
practical activity, it is directed to satisfaction of man’s needs.
The “second nature” is a peculiar type of reality which includes
both sides — natural and social, historical, that is civilized being.
The primary nature and the “second nature” are inseparable they
add each other and represent the integral world of man.

Another
type of being is man’s being in the world. Actually it is unique.
Man, being a part of nature, is bodily similar to other natural
things. Man is mortal, he is subordinated to the natural laws. But at
the same time man is simultaneously a leaving being who is involved
in the evolutionary process of nature, he is the result of
anthroposociogenesis.

Philosophy
is constantly searching for the integral unity of man’s body and
spirit. Man represents himself by both primary nature and the “second
nature”. His emotions, thoughts are an inseparable part of his
life. To compare with animals man is a practically acting, social
being, who makes things to satisfy his needs. People communicate by
using language. Their soul and spirit are formed just at the base of
communication and practical activity.

The
peculiarity of human being is characterized by the unit of three
dimensions of being. Each man is a sensible and reasonable being
(body); he is an individual being of Homo Sapiens Species, the result
of biological evolution; he is a social-historical being having his
personality. All this determines the specific character of Human
being, his objectivity. Every individual represents himself as a
reality, existing together with his consciousness. People do not
simply exist in the world. They a great deal influence both the world
and themselves, they philosophize on the problem of being, worry for
its future, for their own role in the system of being, they try to be
worth of it.

The last
but not the least form of being is spiritual being. Spiritual
represents all forms of consciousness including knowledge, norms and
principles of communication and behavior (law, moral, artistic
activity etc).

Philosophy
is interested in the way of existence of consciousness, its
development. The problem of self-consciousness is also very important
as it inseparably linked with human Ego.

Being of
individual both conscious, unconscious and subconscious is, though
relatively independent, included into the process of evolution of
being as a whole. Internal and external spiritual being merging they
can penetrate and transform into each other and they can produce
objective spiritual. There are such materialized forms of spiritual,
born in human culture, and then belonging to extra individualized
forms of being. It was language in particular.

The
objectified spiritual being is able to be served, perfected and mixed
in social space and historical time. The loci of objectified
spiritual — is the spiritual sphere of society’s life, its
spiritual culture.

Whatever
forms of being we might consider, they all of them have matter as
their deep-lying foundation or substance. Spiritual reality, too
exist in unity with matter and is defined in the term of it. Matter
and Spirit are the most general categories of philosophy.

Matter is a
basic philosophical concept;
its interpretation determines the approach
to practically all the other philosophical problems. Etymologically,
the term goes back to Latin “material”
meaning
«substance”.
This «substantial»
meaning of the term survived until the 20th century; then
a revolution took place in physics which signified the crisis of the
one-sided interpretation of matter based on obligatory sense
perception,
which was the essence of the concept of metaphysical materialism.

The
unity and diversity of all the forms of manifestation of matter can
only be understood on a historical approach, through generali­zation
of the experiences of scientific and philosophical knowledge. We
have already pointed out that the first stage in the realization of
the
materiality of the world was spontaneous materialism. The start­ing
point of the formation of the concept of matter was the transi­tion
from the qualitative diversity of existing things to the concept of
primary
matter—the single
basis of the world embracing all this qualitative
diversity. Further
movement of thought inevitably led to the unifica­tion
of all the first principles of being, ultimately resulting in the
idea
of the world’s atomic structure, of which the underlying basis was
the particles, or atoms, inaccessible to the senses.

But
atoms were also interpreted as substance, as the smallest «building
bricks» out of which all that is, is built, the qualitative
diversity
of this building material depending on the various types of
interaction
among them. This marked the birth of the discrete pic­ture of the
world.
Relying on the idea of atomism, Newton
introduced the concept of mass in physics and formulated the
law of universal gravitation and the principal laws of motion.
Atomistic
views underlie the molecular-kinetic theory of heat, and in
chemistry
they played a role in the discovery of the law of conser­vation
of matter; Mendeleev’s periodic system of the elements was also
created on the basis of atomism.

Newton’s
mechanics, which afforded an explanation of most phe­nomena
and events in the world on the basis of interaction among atoms,
asserted the mechanistic-atomistic picture of the world and served
as a model of scientific precision for other sciences. Matter in
the form of atoms and motion in vacuum were the two main prin­ciples
of Newtonian mechanics. The mechanistic-materialist prin­ciple
seemed to be able to explain the essence of all the phenomena
occurring in the world, the finest psychical facts included, and
the­oretical
physics, which studied the fundamental properties of atoms, looked
like it might complete its search any time now, assuming a fully
finished form.

However,
along with the triumph of atomism, a crisis was grad­ually
coming to a head connected above all with the discovery of new
facts which could no longer be adequately explained in terms of the
atomic structure of matter; besides, the atom itself proved to be a
far from simple and not at all the smallest particle of matter. The
electron was discovered, as well as radioactive decay and
transmutability
of atoms. The atom, which was previously seen as «faceless»
and
structureless, proved to possess an extremely complex inner structure
consisting of a nucleus and electrons revolving round it. Still
more critically dangerous to mechanistic materialism were the new
views in the theory of interactions, where the heretofore un­known
interactions within atoms and nuclei had been discovered. This
crisis was connected with the introduction into physics (by Michael
Faraday and James Maxwell) of the new basic concept of field,
which
described a state of matter fundamentally different from substance.

The
field became a really disturbing factor only when it was
con­clusively proved that it was not just an attribute of an
object but an independent physical reality capable of existing and
spreading in space regardless of the material object the field thus
became, along with substance, a new and particular form of matter of
which conti­nuity rather than discreteness was the main trait.

Newton’s
classical mechanics stated that such fundamental properties of matter
as mass and volume are ab­solutely immutable, basic, and not
conditioned by anything. Since mass was regarded as the measure of
the quantity of mat­ter, the discovery of mass inconstancy, its
variability depending on the changes in the field and in body
velocity, was interpreted in the sense that matter had disappeared
and materialism collapsed. The radioactive decay of atoms was
interpreted in the same sense. It was perceived as transformation of
matter into energy, as disappearance — of matter.

Some
physicists (as e.g. Ernst Mach) tended to think that these constructs
were no more than the fruit of pure thought: matter evaporated in the
haze of mathematical constructs, and the constructs themselves turned
out to be self-suffi­cient essences; the whole reality was thus
reduced to abstract ideal structures. Public opinion turned to
idealism, for materialism was traditionally linked with
mechanistically substantial notion of mat­ter. This situation
urgently required some resolution.

Objectively,
the whole ensemble of new discoveries was dialecti­cal
in character. To
overcome the crisis in physics, theoretical thought had to take a
more flexible approach to facts, in particular to the connection
between matter, motion, space and time.

The
category of matter had to be freed from the allegedly inalienable
links with the concept of substance, and then given a definition that
would reflect its really universal content.

The
path towards a dialectical definition of the concept of matter as the
single substance of the world does not lie through listing its
properties but, as Lenin showed, continuing the materialist tradition
of the French philosophers of the 18th century, in particular
Holbach, through correlating it with consciousness: «Matter is a
philos­ophical category denoting the objective reality which is
given to man by his sensations, and which is copied, photographed and
reflected by our sensations, while existing independently of them.»
Although Lenin relied on the entire materialist tradition, he
introduced a fun­damentally new element in the interpretation of
the essence of mat­ter, stressing that the sole property of
matter with whose recognition dialectical materialism was bound up
was the property of being an objective reality, of existing outside
the mind.

The
antithesis of matter and mind has absolute sig­nificance only
within the bounds of a very limited field — in this case
exclusively within the bounds of the fundamental epistemological
problem of what is to be regarded as primary and what as second­ary.
Beyond these bounds the relative character of this antithesis is
indubitable.

Thus
the concept of matter as objective reality is identical with that of
the single substance with all its properties, laws of structure and
functioning, movement and development.

Lenin’s
definition of matter is therefore directed both against objective
idealism (which
posits the spirit as the substance of being) and against subjective
idealism (which
assumes that all objects are mere complexes of our sensations).

Two
basic philosophical positions- materialism and idealism — can be
tentatively identified in the treatment of the issue of the unity of
the world. On one of these approaches, the universal unity of all
world phenomena is believed to lie in their materiality (the line of
Democritus), and on the other, in the common ideal basis of the world
(the line of Plato). Both of these positions are monistic,
for
the basis of the world is seen in one substance only. The former
position is called materialist monism (with dialectical monism as its
highest stage of development), the latter, idealist monism. Apart
from these two varieties of monism, there also exist dualism
and
pluralism,
i.e.
recognition of several equal first principles of the world
irreducible to one another (embo­died, e.g., in the ancient
conception of the four first elements — water, earth, air and
fire).

Modem
science on the material unity and diversity of the world. The
dialectical-materialist conception of the material unity of the
world, and of the inexhaustibility of the structure and properties of
matter, was confirmed by the achievements of 20th-century science, of
physics in the first place. The antithesis between continuity and
discreteness, which caused such a stir among the physicists early in
this century, was dialectically expressed in quantum mechanics with
its discovery of such a property of matter as its corpuscular and at
the same time wave structure. This synthetic property is found, e.g.,
in photons, or particles of light; their corpuscular-wave nature was
established owing to the discoveries of Einstein, Bohr and
Schrodinger. The dialectical method of thought in physics manifested
itself strikingly in the fundamental principle of complementarity,
accord­ing to which neither a corpuscular nor wave-theory
description of the material properties of the microcosm taken
separately can pro­vide an exhaustive understanding of the facts
known to science, and only their dialectical combination can ensure
the adequacy of scien­tific propositions. Underlying the formal
antithesis the scientists saw a reflection of essential properties of
the single material substance which was not, however, exhausted even
by these corpuscular-wave notions. Substance is the same in all its
formally antithetic proper­ties: that is now an indubitable fact
confirmed both theoretically and experimentally.

Now,
what is the picture of the world and of its inner unity from the
standpoint of present-day science?

On
the one hand, matter has a «granular», discontinuous
struc­ture: consider the elementary particles, atoms, molecules,
stars and their systems, galaxies, etc. On the other hand, matter is
marked by continuity, found in various kinds of fields —
gravitational, electro­magnetic, nuclear, etc. Substances and
fields are the two principal forms of the existence of matter known
to science. A substance is defined as something that has mechanical
mass (rest mass). We can speak here of hierarchically arranged
structures, as it were, from the atom to celestial bodies of any
conceivable size. The atoms them­selves have a complex structure:
they consist of elementary par­ticles, the protons and neutrons
that form the nucleus, and of elec­trons revolving round the
nucleus at fantastic speeds. At present, science already knows a
great many other elementary particles-mesons, hyperons, neutrinos,
etc. They exist both as parts of atoms and in the free plasma state,
as e.g. in the residual cosmic radiations reaching us from the
universe’s past. Science has also discovered antiparticles — the
antipositron and others, having the opposite sign of the electric
charge. Elementary particles, just as photons, have corpuscular-wave
properties: they are both discrete and continuous (being particles
and waves simultaneously), and they have both mass and a definite
electric charge.

In
the form of various substances, matter exists in diverse states. The
most widespread state of matter in the universe is plasma, which
consists of electrically charged particles, electrons and ions that
have not yet formed atomic and molecular bonds. The stars, the
nebulae, interstellar gas are all plasma. The solid, liquid and
gaseous states of matter are extremely rare in the part of the
universe known to science.

The
«continuous» forms of matter include fields, i.e. matter
with­out rest mass. Fields connect the particles of matter,
enabling them to interact and therefore to exist. Without
gravitational fields noth­ing would bind atoms within molecules,
electrons and nuclei within atoms, stars within galaxies, and
substance itself in stars. In general, all bodies would have ceased
to exist.

But
the boundary between substance and field must not be re­garded as
absolute in the sense that only the same unchangeable fields and the
same constant and immutable particles of substance exist in the
world. This conception would lead to dualism. The deep unity of all
matter in the universe means that the concepts of sub­stance and
field are relative with respect to each other, Their rela­tivity
is not only a dialectical imperative that follows from the prin­ciple
of substantial unity of the world: it is also an experimentally
verified and scientifically demonstrable fact. Science has
established that the boundaries between field and substance are
relatively con­stant only in the macroscopic world accessible to
sense perception. In the realm of microphenomena, these boundaries
are obliterated, as it were, so that substance and field become
mutually convertible. Thus mesons are particles of substance and at
the same time quanta of a definite field.

All
the contradictions in the views of the structure of matter aris­ing
in science are the result of the relativity of our knowledge about
objective reality. Scientific thought keeps completing and then
drawing all over again the picture of the world which appears to us
as an infinite variety of the forms of being of matter and the
proper­ties, connections and laws prevailing in it and resting on
the solid foundation of the substantial unity of the world. Science
moves from one level of the perception of the unity of the world
through the study of the diversity to a new level of understanding
its unity.

The
principle of conservation of matter. One
of the attributes of matter is the fact that it cannot be either
created or destroyed; this is displayed in a set of
natural-scientific laws of conservation of mat­ter in all its
mutations.

The
principle of conservation of matter, just as that of the ma­terial
unity of the world, entails, when logically unfolded, two other,
fundamental principles of dialectics —universal connection and
development.

The
principle of the uncreatability and indestructibility of matter is of
great worldview and methodological significance.

The
concept of motion. The unity of matter and motion. Every­thing
in the world is in continual motion, changing its form, being
transformed, and wavering between being and nonbeing of all
indi­vidual existences. Since motion is an essential
attribute of matter, it
is, like matter, uncreatable and indestructible, absolute,
unavoidable, and universal. Matter and motion are of the same
essence.

Motion
is the mode of existence of matter: to
be means to be in motion.

Motion
is not a pure continuum but the unity of continuum and discreteness,
of change and stability, of disturbance and rest. In the endless flux
of ceaseless motion there are always moments of discrete stability,
manifested above all in the conservation of the inner nature of each
given motion in the form of equilibrium of phenomena and their
relatively stable form, i.e. relative rest.

Absolute
rest is impossible, for to attain absolute rest would mean to cease
to exist. Rest is always relative in character: bodies can only be at
rest in relation to some reference system tentatively accepted as
motionless. A body’s motion, Einstein said, is always understood as
its position in relation to another body. Thus the rela­tionship
between continuity and discreteness is handled in philos­ophy in
terms of the dialectics of motion and rest.

The
concepts of space and time. All
motion assumes a change, in­terpreted in one way or another, of
position in space, carried out in time, also interpreted in one way
or another. Despite their apparent obviousness, the concepts of space
and time belong among the most complex characteristics of matter. The
most general conception of space and time rests on our im­mediate
empirical experiences. The concept of space emerges both out of the
characteristics of a separate body, which always has a cer­tain
extension, and out of the different spatial positions of a great

many
coexisting objects. Space
is
now defined as a
form of the exist­ence of matter characterized by such properties
as extension, structuredness, coexistence, and interaction. The
concept of time also emerges both out of the comparison of different
states of one and the same object which inevitably changes its
properties because of the duration of its existence, and from
observation of different ob­jects succeeding one another in the
same place. Time
is
also a
form of the existence of matter; it is characterized by such
properties of alter­ation and development of systems as duration
and sequential replace­ment of one state by another. The
concepts of time and space are correlative: the concept of space
reflects the coordination of differ­ent objects located outside
one another at one and the same mo­ment of time, while the
concept of time reflects the coordination of objects replacing one
another at one and the same place in space.

What
was the essence of the controversy about these concepts?

Putting
aside the various interpretations of space and time throughout
mankind’s cultural evolution and concentrating on the history of
natural science only, we can single out the two opposite conceptions
—the substantial one and the relative one. According to the former
of these conceptions, which formed in the framework of Newton’s
classical mechanics, absolute space and time exist inde­pendently
of matter, and material events and processes proper take place in
these absolutes. Absolute space and time are pure exten­sion and
pure duration in which material objects are placed; they are
immutable and constant. All bodies can be removed from space, and
still space will remain, and it will preserve its properties. The
same applies to time: it flows identically throughout the universe,
and this flow does not depend on anything; time is a continuous world
stream, a constant cosmic scale for the measurement of all concrete
movements.

The
second conception, which arose within the framework of the
dialectical tradition, was clearly formulated in dialectical
material­ism and later finally borne out by Einstein’s theory of
relativity (hence the name of the conception) and by the entire
subsequent course of the development of science. The philosophical
meaning of the relative approach is in the conception of space and
time, as forms of the existence of matter rather than as special
entities sep­arate from matter. It follows from this conception
that space and time are, first, objective attributes of matter and,
second, universal in this their capacity. Along with the general
properties of space and time, each of these categories has
qualitatively specific proper­ties. The specific properties of
space are tridimensionality, symmetry and asymmetry, forms and sizes,
location, distances between bodies distribution of substance and
field. The properties of time are unidimensionality, asymmetry,
irreversibility, i.e. constant orien­tation from the past into
the future, the rhythm of processes, and the velocity of change of
states.

The
philosophical approach to space and time demands that they be
considered in unity with motion and matter.

Einstein’s
theory of relativity confirms the dialectical-materialist principle
of the unity of space and time with matter in motion. The unity of
space, time and motion of matter could be ex­pressed in these
terms: studying matter in various forms of its mani­festation, we
inevitably study thereby space and time in their organic connection
with motion; and vice versa, studying the spatio-temporal

parameters,
we inevitably study thereby matter in motion.

Space
and time are conditioned by matter as form is conditioned by its
content, therefore each level of the motion of matter has its own
spatio-temporal structure. Living structures also have specific
features of space and time: their ge­ometry grows complex, and
the rhythms of time change, too.

The
time of historical events also has its own structure, for the
subjects of these events master time and space by organizing these
events and by experien­cing them.

There
is also psychological time, asso­ciated with its subjective
experiencing. Thus tense expectation leng­thens time, while
experiencing pleasure or joy tends to shorten or condense it: time
shrinks, as it were.

Thus
the relativity of space and time, their connection with the
qualitative material content of the structure on which they
essen­tially depend, has now stepped across the boundaries of
theoretical physics and is used practically in all areas of human
knowledge.

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