ABSTRACT
An ‘existence fact’ is simply a fact about the existence or nonexistence of something or other. Existence, on the contrary, is the prerogative of some only amongst beings. Existence is a property that belongs only to some beings. In the Greek tradition, existence can only belong to one of two categories: it must be either an individual thing or else a property of such a thing. In the Aristotelian tradition, existence is often said to be a ‘transcendental genus’, that is, a kind that transcends ordinary kinds. The notion that existence is a property of individual things is an essential assumption of the so-called ‘ontological proof for the existence of God’. Gottlob Frege thought at one point that existence is nothing but self-identity. Frege later abandoned the ‘identity view’ and defended a quite different one; a view, moreover, which, due to its acceptance by Bertrand Russell, has many followers.
