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being

 
Dictionary: be·ing   ('ĭng) pronunciation
n.
  1. The state or quality of having existence. See synonyms at existence.
    1. Something, such as an object, an idea, or a symbol, that exists, is thought to exist, or is represented as existing.
    2. The totality of all things that exist.
    1. A person: "The artist after all is a solitary being" (Virginia Woolf).
    2. All the qualities constituting one that exists; the essence.
    3. One's basic or essential nature; personality.
conj. Chiefly Southern U.S., Upper Southern U.S., & New England

Because; since. Often used with as or that.


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Thesaurus: being
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noun

  1. The fact or state of existing or of being actual: actuality, entity, existence, reality. See be, real/imaginary.
  2. The condition of being in full force or operation: actualization, effect, materialization, realization. See be.
  3. One that exists independently: entity, existence, existent, individual, object, something, thing. See be, thing.
  4. A member of the human race: body, creature, homo, human, human being, individual, life, man, mortal, party, person, personage, soul. See beings.
  5. A basic trait or set of traits that define and establish the character of something: essence, essentiality, nature, quintessence, substance, texture. See surface/depth.

Antonyms: being
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n

Definition: animate object
Antonyms: abstract, inanimate

n

Definition: existence
Antonyms: deadness

n

Definition: nature
Antonyms: nonexistence, nothingness, nullity


Everything real and nothing unreal belongs to the domain of Being. But there is little useful that can be said about everything that is real, especially from within the philosopher's study, so it is not apparent that there can be such a subject as Being by itself. Nevertheless the concept has a central place in philosophy from Parmenides to Heidegger. The central question of ‘why is there something and not nothing?’ prompts logical reflection on what it is for a universal to have an instance, and a long history of attempts to explain contingent existence by reference to a necessary ground. In the tradition since Plato this ground becomes a selfsufficient, perfect, unchanging, and eternal something, identified with the Good or God, but whose relation with the everyday world remains obscure (see ontological argument, cosmological argument, principle of plenitude). Modern logic gives little comfort to these speculations, and prompts suspicion that the question of why there is something and not nothing is either ill-formed or profitless, since any intelligible answer will merely invite the same question. A central mistake in the area is to treat Being as a noun that identifies a particularly deep subject-matter. This is parallel to treating Nothing as a name of a particular thing, perhaps an object of dread or fear. The modern logical treatment of these notions by means of quantifiers and variables provides a defence against this error and others. The less abstract part of the study of being concerns the kinds of things whose existence we have to acknowledge: abstract entities, possibilities, numbers, and so on, and disputes over their reality form the subject of ontology.

Word Tutor: being
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pronunciation

IN BRIEF: n. - A living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independently; The state or fact of existing.

pronunciation Being ignorant is not so much a shame as being unwilling to learn. — Benjamin Franklin

Wikipedia: Being
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Being (ger. sein, fr. être, sp. ser, lat. esse, greek to einai) is the object of study of metaphysics, and more specifically ontology. In its most indeterminate sense, being could be understood as anything that can be said to be, which is opposed to nonexistence. For example one could ask: “why is there something instead of nothing?” (Leibniz, Heidegger, Wittgenstein). Where “something” implies being. For a metaphysician the main problem is not the scientific question of how the universe works, but why the universe (or anything such as a rock) is.

To say what being is, or is not, it has been much disputed in the history of philosophy. French Academy member Étienne Gilson wrote once that if a notion had to be universally recognized as the first of all principles of philosophy that would be being. Nevertheless such agreement does not exist and some philosophers consider the notion of being as worthless. Even those philosophers who accept the notion as first principle, do not agree in its sense. Hence, the philosophies of Parmenides, Leucippus, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Plotinus, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, Heidegger, and Sartre understand the notion of being differently.

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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]

Quotations

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

Under the heading ‘Individuality in Thought and Desire’, Karl Marx, (German Ideology 1845), says:

"It depends not on consciousness, but on being; not on thought, but on life; it depends on the individual's empirical development and manifestation of life, which in turn depends on the conditions existing in the world."

See also

References

External links


Translations: Being
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Dansk (Danish)
n. - eksistens, tilværelse

idioms:

  • well being    vel tilpas

Nederlands (Dutch)
wezen, bestaan, als

Français (French)
n. - être, essence, être suprême, existence, (Littérat) l'Être (et le néant)

idioms:

  • well being    bien-être

Deutsch (German)
n. - Wesen, Existenz

idioms:

  • well being    ein hinlängliches Auskommen haben

Ελληνική (Greek)
prep. - όντας
n. - ύπαρξη, (το) είναι, ζωή, υπόσταση, ον, πλάσμα

idioms:

  • well being    ευεξία, ευημερία

Italiano (Italian)
come, in quanto, essere, creatura, esistenza, essenza

Português (Portuguese)
n. - pessoa (f), ser vivo (m), existência (f)

idioms:

  • for the time being    no momento
  • human being    ser (m) humano
  • well being    bem-estar (m)

Русский (Russian)
существо, бытие

idioms:

  • for the time being    пока что
  • human being    человек
  • well being    благосостояние

Español (Spanish)
n. - como, en calidad de, ser viviente, criatura, existencia, vida, esencia

idioms:

  • well being    saludable

Svenska (Swedish)
prep. - som
n. - tillvaro, existens, liv, väsen, varelse, människa

中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
存在, 生命, 生存, 生物

idioms:

  • well being    健康, 幸福

中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 存在, 生命, 生存, 生物

idioms:

  • well being    健康, 幸福

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 존재, 생존, 본질

idioms:

  • well being    복지, 행복, 번영

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 生き物, 人間, 存在, 生存, 実在, 本質
adj. - 存在している
v. - …なので, …であること
v.aux. - …されるので, …されること

idioms:

  • all things being equal    全ての条件が同じなら
  • without anyone's being the wiser    相変わらず分からずに

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(حرف عطف) لأن (الاسم) كائن, مخلوق‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮ישות, קיום, יצור אנוש‬


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