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7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence

[what is the hallmark for deciding what exists?]

33 ideas
To be is to have a capacity, to act on other things, or to receive actions [Plato]
Everything exists which anyone perceives [Metrodorus of Chios]
Whatever participates in substance exists [Zeno of Citium, by Stobaeus]
Chrysippus says action is the criterion for existence, which must be physical [Chrysippus, by Tieleman]
Are things distinct if they are both separate, or if only one of them can be separate? [Duns Scotus, by Pasnau]
Existences can only be known by experience [Locke]
What is not active is nothing [Leibniz]
I know that nothing inconsistent can exist [Berkeley]
Frege mistakenly takes existence to be a property of concepts, instead of being about things [Frege, by Yablo]
Frege takes the existence of horses to be part of their concept [Frege, by Sommers]
The criterion of existence is the possibility of action [Santayana]
What exists has causal relations, but non-existent things may also have them [Russell]
To be is to have causal powers [Alexander,S]
Ontology is possible only as phenomenology [Heidegger]
All we have of general existence is what existential quantifiers express [Quine]
Quine rests existence on bound variables, because he thinks singular terms can be analysed away [Quine, by Hale]
Absolute ontological questions are meaningless, because the answers are circular definitions [Quine]
It is of the essence of being to appear [Badiou]
What exists can't depend on our conceptual scheme, and using all conceptual schemes is too liberal [Sider on Wiggins]
Existence can't be analysed as instantiating a property, as instantiation requires existence [McGinn]
We can't analyse the sentence 'something exists' in terms of instantiated properties [McGinn]
Real objects are those which figure in the facts that constitute reality [Fine,K]
Being real and being fundamental are separate; Thales's water might be real and divisible [Fine,K]
Perhaps possession of causal power is the hallmark of existence (and a reason to deny the void) [Lowe]
The 'epistemic fallacy' is inferring what does exist from what can be known to exist [Psillos]
That all existents have causal powers is unknowable; the claim is simply an epistemic one [Azzouni]
If all existents are causally active, that excludes abstracta and causally isolated objects [Bird]
Maybe it only exists if it is a truthmaker (rather than the value of a variable)? [MacBride]
We must give up the modern criterion of existence, which is a correlation between thought and being [Meillassoux]
Only admit into ontology what is explanatory and predictive [Ladyman/Ross]
To be is to be a real pattern [Ladyman/Ross]
Existence might require playing a role in explanation, or in a causal story, or being composed in some way [Thomasson]
Existence and nonexistence are characteristics of the world, not of objects [Engelbretsen]