Talk:Existence

The first link rule does not work with the existence and reality pages

These pages just create a loop with each other when you follow the first link rule, because the first link on this page is the reality page, and the first link on the reality page is this page.

The first link rule is basically an observation on Wikipedia that if you click the first link of each page, you will eventually reach the philosophy page. It works with almost all pages on Wikipedia. ~2026-39401-00 (talk) 02:56, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Getting to Philosophy: Please do not make edits to articles that are motivated by the concepts on this page. Such edits are purely disruptive and are quickly reverted, as they clearly do not improve the encyclopedia. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:09, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Wikilink to State of affairs (philosophy)

Hello Farkle Griffen and congratulation on getting Cardinality to GA. I have doubts about the wikilink you just added to this article, which seems to imply that existence belongs to a specific category of being: State of affairs (philosophy). Existence is usually treated as what entities belonging to different categories of being have, not as something that belongs itself to one specific category. Another oddity is that states of affairs are typically conceived as complex entities made up of particulars and properties or relations (e.g. see Campbell 2006), meaning that the link characterizes existence as an entity made up of constituents that underlie it. The overview sources on existence that I'm aware of do not support those characterizations, so it may be best to remove the link. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:28, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

Hi Phlsph7. I added the link because I'm not sure the sentence makes sense without it. The usual use of "state" is essentially the same as "property" (e.g. "The water is in a gaseous state" equiv. to "The water has the property of being gaseous"). The next most common is essentially the same as "configuration" (i.e. a state of affairs). The only way I can seem to interpret that sentence without implying that existence is a property of objects, is by assuming it is not directly a definition, but a characterizing feature, saying that existence describes a kind of state of affairs. In the sense that "Socrates existing" certainly seems to describe a kind of state of affairs.

A few notes:

"Existence is usually treated as what entities belonging to different categories of being have"

I'm confused by this. My understanding is that modern treatments of existence almost never treat it as as something entities have, which would imply existence is a first order property. I don't think I understand you here.

"states of affairs are typically conceived as complex entities [...] meaning that the link characterizes existence as an entity made up of constituents that underlie it"

Using states of affairs as a means to characterize existence (as above) does not necessarily imply that existence belongs to the "states of affairs" category of being. But I can see how as phrased it can be misleading.

"The overview sources on existence that I'm aware of do not support those characterizations"

In addition to my statements above, equally, none of the overview sources I've looked through support the definition here, which is supported by dictionaries. The problem here is that dictionaries are limited to one sentence, which makes it hard to interpret. Similarly dictionaries are authoritative in describing how English speakers use a word, but they aren't required to be technically correct, especially on topics as philosophically finicky as existence.

My position is that the definition here needs to change to not imply that existence is a first-order property, but I'm open to what exactly that change is. – Farkle Griffen (talk) 17:46, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

In metaphysics, the word "state" is not generally used as a technical term for "first-order property". Accordingly, our sentence does not proclaim that existence is a first-order property. Instead, it primarily associates existence with being and reality, which is supported by overview sources. The term "state of affairs", by contrast, is a technical term in metaphysics, so one has to be careful about how to use it. If it is important to you that a link to the article State of affairs (philosophy) is included in this article, then we could look through the body of the article to see whether we can come up with an expression where it could be used with less controversy. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:54, 24 September 2026 (UTC)