BEING

The notion of being can be traced at least as far back as the sixth century BC and an obscure, rhapsodic poem by the pre-Socratic thinker Parmenides (one of the Eleatics). For Parmenides, being denotes, first, all that which is actively engaged in existing, all that is ‘be-ing’, in the same sense that all those who are alive are to be included amongst the ‘living’. In this sense, being means whatever exists, the totality of entities. Second, being is also that condition in virtue of which anything that exists does so at all. In this sense, the verb ‘to be’ is that which endows any proposition with its truthvalue, e.g. ‘George W. Bush is president’, ‘All Cretans are liars’. In turn, Parmenides holds that being is a unity; for him being has always been and always will be: it is the eternal and unchanging condition of existence. As this abiding condition, being cannot be said to be derived from anything other than itself, and certainly could not have sprung from its opposite, non-being or nothingness. If one takes this position one is a monist: reality is ultimately regarded as a single, unified and eternally stable principle. This view was to have a profound influence upon Plato (c. 428-c. 348 BC) and his Theory of Forms. Platonic metaphysics draws the distinction between appearance and reality. This distinction asserts there to be a fundamental difference between the experiential realm of the senses and the realm of the intellect or spirit. Reality, Plato argues in the Republic, is coterminous with the latter. The real world is not the world that is felt, seen and heard, but the world of thought. The Theory of Forms argues that all particulars have a general feature in common. Thus, if one takes three people, they can all be said to be different in terms of their appearance, character traits and the like. However, all three are human and share in common this attribute. For Plato, this means that all three are particular instances of a universal Idea of the human itself. For Plato, all the other important concepts that we have can be parcelled out in similar manner. Beauty, goodness, justice and so forth all have a Form that exists in itself and this Form is what makes any individual instance of them what it is. Whereas the realm of the senses comes into existence and passes away, i.e. is eternally subject to change, the realm of the Forms is what it is eternally. Underlying the realm of the Forms is being itself. The highest of the Forms is the Form of the Good, and it is this that endows all the others with their identity. Just as the sun illuminates the earth and so makes the realm of the visible possible so the Form of the Good is what ‘illuminates’ the human world,

endowing it with meaning by presenting an evaluative standard whereby our actions and beliefs can be deemed either good or bad. Philosophy, in turn, has for Plato the special task of leading us toward knowledge of the good; such knowledge, if properly grasped and acted upon, will lead to virtuous deeds and individual happiness. Thus, the notion of being is conjoined within Plato’s work to the concept of a universal moral code. Nietzsche has little time for this approach, advocating instead a philosophy that embraces the ‘innocence of becoming’. For him, the philosophy of being is not merely pure abstraction and illusion. It is also damaging for it denigrates the only reality available to us, the world of embodiment and sensory experience, putting in its place an empty fiction to serve as the goal and purpose of enquiry and life. (See especially in this connection Nietzsche’s discussions of Socrates, reason and the concepts of appearance and reality in Twilight of the Idols).