Being

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search
For other uses, see Being (disambiguation).

hideThis article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues
on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)

This article possibly contains original research. (September 2016)

This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on
Wikipedia. (September 2016)

Part of a series on

Philosophy

 Plato
 Descartes
 Nietzsche
 Scotus
 Confucius
 Averroes

Philosophers
 Aestheticians
 Epistemologists
 Ethicists
 Logicians
 Metaphysicians
 Social and political philosophers

Traditions
 African
  Analytic
 Aristotelian
 Buddhist
 Chinese
 Christian
 Continental
 Existentialism
 Hindu
 Jain
 Jewish
 Pragmatism
 Eastern
 Islamic
 Platonic
 Western

Periods
 Ancient
 Medieval
 Modern
 Contemporary

Literature
 Aesthetics
 Epistemology
 Ethics
 Logic
 Metaphysics
 Political philosophy

Branches
 Aesthetics
 Epistemology
 Ethics
 Legal philosophy
 Logic
 Metaphysics
 Political philosophy
  Social philosophy

Lists
 Index
 Outline
 Years
 Problems
 Publications
 Theories
 Glossary
 Philosophers

Miscellaneous
 Philosopher
 Philomath
 Philalethes
 Women in philosophy

Philosophy portal

 v
 t
 e

In philosophy, being means the existence of a thing. Anything that exists has being. Ontology is the
branch of philosophy that studies being. Being is a concept
encompassing objective and subjective features of reality and existence[1]. Anything that partakes in
being is also called a "being", though often this usage is limited to entities that have subjectivity (as
in the expression "human being"). The notion of "being" has, inevitably, been elusive and
controversial in the history of philosophy, beginning in Western philosophy with attempts among
the pre-Socratics to deploy it intelligibly. The first effort to recognize and define the concept came
from Parmenides, who famously said of it that "what is-is". Common words such as "is", "are", and
"am" refer directly or indirectly to being.