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    If existence were genuinely accidental to essence, then t... — Carmelics
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    Supports→Avicenna's conception of being, used to establish the Necessary Existent, is spurious

    If existence were genuinely accidental to essence, then the existence of existence would itself require grounding, collapsing the Necessary Existent argument into vicious circularity.

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    1 reason for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.If essence and existence are truly distinct, existence needs explanation just like any contingent fact does.
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    • 2.A necessary being cannot have existence as an added property; it must be self-explanatory by definition.
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    • 3.Allowing contingent existence of existence itself creates an infinite regress unless grounded in necessity.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.The claim conflates logical grounding with causal grounding; existence needs no prior cause to be real.
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    • 2.A necessary existent avoids circularity by having existence as its intrinsic nature, not a separate fact requiring explanation.
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    • 3.The argument assumes existence is a property needing grounding, but existence may be fundamental and unanalyzable.
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    Key Terms

    Accidental (in philosophy)(as used in metaphysics and philosophy of religion)
    Something that happens by chance or coincidence, not because it was planned or designed to happen that way.
    Necessary Existent(Avicenna's metaphysics, contrasted with Aristotle's cosmological approach)
    A being whose existence is established through analysis of being itself, as distinct from beings whose existence is inferred from motion or moved objects
    essence(Medieval realist metaphysics)
    The defining nature of a species, held by some to be distinct from and capable of surviving the destruction of all individual members of that species
    existence(Kant's analysis in the Critique of Pure Reason as applied to the ontological argument)
    Not a real predicate or positive determination; it does not add to or enlarge the concept of a subject.
    grounding(Drawn from contemporary metaphysics; proposed as potentially applicable to understanding the foundations of legality.)
    A metaphysical relation in which some entities or facts are more foundational than others, providing a hierarchical structure of the world.
    vicious circularity(Psillos's criterion for distinguishing benign from vicious rule-circular arguments)
    A circularity in which the use of an inferential rule guarantees a positive conclusion about that rule's own reliability, thereby providing no independent justification

    Connections

    2 topics

    Against an attribute of God1 linkedNatural Theology1 linked

    Related

    A necessary being cannot have existence as an added property; it must be self-ex...A necessary existent avoids circularity by having existence as its intrinsic nat...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    Allowing contingent existence of existence itself creates an infinite regress un...
    Avicenna's conception of being, used to establish the Necessary Existent, is spu...
    +3 moreShow less
    If essence and existence are truly distinct, existence needs explanation just li...The argument assumes existence is a property needing grounding, but existence ma...The claim conflates logical grounding with causal grounding; existence needs no ...