Aristotle, Aquinas, Heidegger, and many others use the term to mean anything that is, i.e., anything that can be said to be. Nobody has to follow them in this usage, of course, but Wayfarer actually attempts to correct people who use the word in this traditional way, by saying that, actually, only sentient individuals are beings. — Jamal

Yes indeed. In this thread I believe Wayfarer is saying that Jung’s use of being is more in line with sentience, but I still don’t see how. In that case Jung would be arguing that consciousness is a precondition of sentience — a rather odd thing to say.

All things that are, conceptually speaking, are be-ings just as long as they continue to be. — Janus

Yes.

I suppose I've derailed the thread. We'll see what Mikie does about it :razz: — Jamal

I can’t do shit — yet. But I’m working on a mutiny.

traditionally in philosophy, anything that can be said to be is a being.
— Jamal

That is one I will need a citation for. — Wayfarer

This is comical.

Do you really doubt this claim? Are you implying that Aristotle wouldn’t say that a rock is a being?

Rocks are beings. Are rocks sentient beings, like human beings? No.

Flowers are beings. Bach’s fugues are beings. Numbers are beings. Parachutes are beings.

At least according to what I — and traditional ontology — mean. You seem to understand this. But if you do, then what’s the problem here?

The title is from Jung’s The Undiscovered Self, p. 48. — Mikie

Do you have the quote? I pulled up page 48 in my copy, but strangely it wasn't there. :chin:

Yeah, it’s from my book. But I’m not at home right now. I can get you the print edition and whatnot.

No worries, was being a bit cheeky but also serious; I can of course dig around myself, and better yet get context. don't sweat it.

It is an axiom of materialism that
[ ... ] — Wayfarer

:roll:

'Materiality' corresponds to embodied change and 'immateriality' (e.g. idealism) to disembodied change. Yes, the latter doesn't make sense and the former seems (too) reductive / mechanical. Nonetheless, insofar as there are 'subjectivities', at minimum they are material persons – embodied self-referential phenomenal systems – and not ghosts, Wayfarer. Speculations, or paradigms, which include ghosts (i.e. disembodied "minds") are more conceptually incoherent and inexplicable than – no matter how incomplete (e.g. eliminative) – those which do not. Nothing you have written here (or elsewhere) – not ad infinitum appeals to authority citations – persuasively challenges my preceding statement. A non-fallacious counterpoint in your own words, sir, would be a refreshing, and no doubt edifying, welcomed change in your m.o. :clap:

Surrounding page 48 for me is Chapter III: The Position of the West on the Question of Religion.

On searching I found that most sources equate the meaning of 'being' with 'existence'. To be is to exist. So, whatever the historical common or philosophical usages might have been (and we are only talking about English usage here really, since translations from other languages are never precise), the logic of the synonymy between 'existence' and 'being' means that we can legitimately use the term 'a being' to refer to any existent. — Janus

If you look at just about any dictionary, one of the definitions of "being" will be "a living thing." My point is not that @Wayfarer is right in this instance, only that his use of the word "being" is not unreasonable.

I can’t do shit — yet. But I’m working on a mutiny. — Mikie

You started this thing. All of this is your fault.

I can of course dig around myself — Noble Dust

This is one of the reasons I like Kindle so much. Yes, yes, I know. You like the sensual feel of turning the pages of a real book.

By dig around I just meant search for his quote from nearby in the text.

But yes, I did that physically, sensually, and I loved the experience, but I found nothing. But I trust I missed it.

Rocks are beings. — Mikie

So how does this stack up against Jung’s idea that the thread is opened with? Doesn’t this imply that Jung is saying that consciousness is a precondition for the existence of rocks? Is that what you think he means?

Rocks are beings. Are rocks sentient beings, like human beings? No.

Flowers are beings. Bach’s fugues are beings. Numbers are beings. Parachutes are beings.

At least according to what I — and traditional ontology — mean. You seem to understand this. But if you do, then what’s the problem here? — Mikie

If I’m following right, basically that it devalues sentience, which is kind of ironic because Buddhists are intent on extinguishing sentience.

But yes, I did that physically, sensually, and I loved the experience, but I found nothing. But I trust I missed it. — Noble Dust

I was just teasing you for your endearing technophobia.

Do you have the quote? — Noble Dust

The passage from which the thread title is extracted, is as follows:

Without consciousness there would, practically speaking, be no world, for the world exists as such only in so far as it is consciously reflected and consciously expressed by a psyche. Consciousness is a precondition of being. — Carl Jung

Straw poll: who else participating in this thread accepts that rocks are beings?

(It seems we might be being infiltrated by panpsychists ;-) )

which is kind of ironic because Buddhists are intent on extinguishing sentience. — praxis

You should tell that to all those Buddhist activists who go around liberating caged animals.

Straw poll: who else participating in this thread accepts that rocks are beings? — Wayfarer

I vote "question is unclear".

You should tell that to all those Buddhist activists who go around liberating caged animals. — Wayfarer

Liberating caged beings in order to eliminate their suffering is not the same as extinguishing sentience altogether which would be the ultimate elimination of suffering. But then you would have to find a way of extinguishing sentience which didn't involve any suffering I guess. :chin:

If you look at just about any dictionary, one of the definitions of "being" will be "a living thing." My point is not that Wayfarer is right in this instance, only that his use of the word "being" is not unreasonable. — T Clark

I agree that it is not unreasonable to use the word that way, but he could just add the word sentient and achieve exactly the same effect for his argument without drawing all the criticism for denying that any other usage is allowable.

Only because it’s been muddied.

Straw poll: who else participating in this thread accepts that rocks are beings? — Wayfarer

I do, but coming from a panpsychist that doesn't help does it?

But even if rocks weren't conscious (which they most definitely are) I'd still say they are beings, sorry. But I know what you mean, 'being' often is used they way you use it. In philosophy I'd say 'things that exist = beings.'

This is an exceptionally arrogant statement, but is it really that hard a question?

Consciousness is a precondition for the conceptualisation of being. IE, consciousness is prior to being in the order of knowing.

Being is a precondition of consciousness in the order of events. There needs to be something at all before any being can be considered conscious. IE, being is prior to consciousness in the order of events. Or, if you will, being itself.

, being is prior to consciousness in the order of events. Or, if you will, being itself. — fdrake

Is there being before becoming? Is there identity before difference?

Is there being before becoming? Is there identity before difference? — Joshs

Is there egg before chicken?

Is there egg before chicken? — fdrake

Yes, according to Deleuze.

The world is an egg, but the egg itself is a theatre: a
staged theatre in which the roles dominate the actors, the spaces dominate the roles and the Ideas dominate the spaces.

Yes, according to Deleuze.

The world is an egg, but the egg itself is a theatre: a
staged theatre in which the roles dominate the actors, the spaces dominate the roles and the Ideas dominate the spaces. — Joshs

That doesn't mention chickens. Consider:

"The world is an egg, but the egg itself is a theatre: a
staged theatre in which the chickens dominate the actors, the spaces dominate the chickens and the Ideas dominate the spaces."

Yes, according to Deleuze. — Joshs

And Hegel.

"The world is an egg, but the egg itself is a theatre: a staged theatre in which the chickens dominate the actors, the spaces dominate the chickens and the Ideas dominate the spaces — bert1

Sounds a like a scene in Pink Flamingos

Something about this post feels a little insane, but I've started so I'll finish...

traditionally in philosophy, anything that can be said to be is a being — Jamal

That is one I will need a citation for. — Wayfarer

τὰ ὄντα (ta onta) is what appears in ancient Greek philosophy. It's the plural form of the participle of the verb to be and it means things that are, or, to say exactly the same in a different way, beings.

In English versions of Aristotle it has been translated in different ways, often avoiding beings and opting instead for things that are. The Loeb Classical Library notes that it avoids "beings" while at the same time acknowledging that it is a standard translation, that it has the same sense.

The plural neuter form of the participle, ta onta, occurs frequently to indicate things, things that are, beings (but we have tended to avoid the translation 'beings') — Early Greek Philosophy, Volume I: Introductory and Reference Materials

I don't know the reason for the general avoidance of "beings" in translations of Aristotle, but it could be the prevalence of the more modern use, which restricts it to sentient things (subjects of experience if you prefer). This is reasonable in a translation that aims to avoid confusing non-specialists, but it doesn't invalidate the use of "beings" generally in philosophy (to mean "things that are"). At least, it hasn't stopped scholars from continuing to use it.

The main point is that τὰ ὄντα can interchangeably be translated as "things that are" or "beings". In philosophy they usually mean the same.

Aristotle deals with τὰ ὄντα in his Categories and Metaphysics. In those works, τὰ ὄντα is plainly not restricted to sentient individuals or subjects of experience (it can't be, because of what it means).

But to avoid translation issues I won't quote Aristotle directly. Following are quotations from a fairly small and random sample of articles in the search results for the term "beings" on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, showing that it's commonly used in philosophy to mean τὰ ὄντα or "things that are" or "things that can be said to be", especially when the subject under discussion is traditional metaphysics. Many of the quotations are from scholars of ancient and medieval philosophy.

The Categories begins with a strikingly general and exhaustive account of the things there are (ta onta)—beings. According to this account, beings can be divided into ten distinct categories. (Although Aristotle never says so, it is tempting to suppose that these categories are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive of the things there are.) They include substance, quality, quantity, and relation, among others. Of these categories of beings, it is the first, substance (ousia), to which Aristotle gives a privileged position. — SEP: Aristotle's Metaphysics

The correlatives form, therefore, a complex structure that is reproduced throughout the ladder and in each one of the beings, from God to a stone, to ontologically explain the continuity among all beings. In each one of them, the chain of the whole of creation is reproduced. — SEP: Ramon Llull

Aristotle announces that there is nonetheless a science of being qua being (Met. iv 4), first philosophy, which takes as its subject matter beings insofar as they are beings and thus considers all and only those features pertaining to beings as such—to beings, that is, not insofar as they are mathematical or physical or human beings, but insofar as they are beings, full stop. — SEP: Aristotle

On Heidegger's interpretation (see Sheehan 1975), Aristotle holds that since every meaningful appearance of beings involves an event in which a human being takes a being as—as, say, a ship in which one can sail or as a god that one should respect—what unites all the different modes of Being is that they realize some form of presence (present-ness) to human beings.

[...]

The foregoing considerations bring an important question to the fore: what, according to Heidegger, is so special about human beings as such? Here there are broadly speaking two routes that one might take through the text of Being and Time. The first unfolds as follows. If we look around at beings in general—from particles to planets, ants to apes—it is human beings alone who are able to encounter the question of what it means to be.

[...]

Moreover, if science may sometimes operate with a sense of awe and wonder in the face of beings, it may point the way beyond the technological clearing, an effect that, as we shall see later, Heidegger thinks is achieved principally by some great art.

By revealing beings as no more than the measurable and the manipulable, technology ultimately reduces beings to not-beings. — SEP: Martin Heidegger

Aristotle’s study does not concern some recondite subject matter known as ‘being qua being’. Rather it is a study of being, or better, of beings—of things that can be said to be—that studies them in a particular way: as beings, in so far as they are beings.

Of course, first philosophy is not the only field of inquiry to study beings. Natural science and mathematics also study beings, but in different ways, under different aspects. The natural scientist studies them as things that are subject to the laws of nature, as things that move and undergo change. That is, the natural scientist studies things qua movable (i.e., in so far as they are subject to change). The mathematician studies things qua countable and measurable. The metaphysician, on the other hand, studies them in a more general and abstract way—qua beings. So first philosophy studies the causes and principles of beings qua beings. — SEP: Aristotle’s Metaphysics

It is not easy to think about God’s relationship to the created world, because without such a world there can be neither space nor time. Not space, because space is nothing more than the existence of bodies, where bodies are beings that possess parts outside of parts, and so constitute the three-dimensional extension that we think of as space. — SEP: Thomas Aquinas

Similarly, according to Aristotle, things in the world are not beings because they stand under some genus, being, but rather because they all stand in a relation to the primary being, which in the Categories he says is substance. This explains in part why he says in the Metaphysics that in order to study being one must study substance. — SEP: Aristotle’s Categories

Recall that for Wolff a being in the most general sense is any possible thing. [...]

Wolff explains:

"A being is called composed which is made up of many parts distinct from each other. The parts of which a composite being is composed constitute a composite through the link which makes the many parts taken together a unit of a definite kind."

In one respect, simple beings and composite beings are not simply two different species of beings. It is not the case, for example, that within the realm of all possible things simple beings exist separate from, and in addition to, composite beings. — SEP: Christian Wolff

Heidegger sees modern technology as the fulfillment of Western metaphysics, which he characterizes as the metaphysics of presence. From the time of the earliest philosophers, but definitively with Plato, says Heidegger, Western thought has conceived of being as the presence of beings, which in the modern world has come to mean the availability of beings for use. In fact, as he writes in Being and Time, the presence of beings tends to disappear into the transparency of their usefulness as things ready-to-hand. — SEP: Postmodernism

Forms are marked as auto kath auto beings, beings that are what they are in virtue of themselves. — SEP: Plato’s Middle Period Metaphysics and Epistemology

There are pages and pages of this, but I have other sources aside from the SEP if you need them.

I enjoyed this disproportionate response.