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Forum for Philosophy

October 8th, 2013

The Nature of Existence

0 comments | 4 shares

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Forum for Philosophy

October 8th, 2013

The Nature of Existence

0 comments | 4 shares

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Tim Crane

 


Listen to the recording here


 

‘The nature of existence’ is a phrase that will mean different things to different people. To some it will bring to mind the question of the nature of our own existence. This lecture is not about that important question, but about another one: the nature of existence as such. What is it for anything at all to exist? Tim Crane addresses this question by contrasting existence with non-existence, and contrasting the kinds of properties existing and non-existing things have. He rejects the claim, deriving from Descartes and Malebranche, that nothingness can have no properties, and instead he argues that non-existing things can only have properties of one distinctive kind. This marks a difference with existing things, and tells us something about the nature of existence.

 

Speaker
Tim Crane
Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy, University of Cambridge

Chair
Danielle Sands
Visiting Lecturer, Department of English, Queen Mary University of London and Forum for European Philosophy Fellow

 

Recored on 8 October 2013 at the LSE

 

 

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Forum for Philosophy

Science, politics, and culture from a philosophical point of view

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