beings
The term ‘Being’ traverses the depth-psychology corpus as one of its most contested and foundational axes, extending far beyond any single discipline into ontology, phenomenology, mystical philosophy, and linguistic theory. Heidegger’s Being and Time furnishes the dominant modern treatment: Being is not an entity but the condition of possibility for all entities, and Dasein is the being for whom its own Being is an issue — the inquiry into Being is thus simultaneously an inquiry into the structure of human existence, temporality, and care. Plotinus offers a rival and complementary tradition in which Being is identified with the Intellectual Principle, possesses eternal stability, and is coextensive with Intellect, yet remains subordinate to the One that transcends Being altogether. Plato’s Parmenides and Sophist introduce the ancient aporia: if the One is, what is the character of its Being? — and the Sophist’s discovery that Not-being is the principle of otherness running through all things remains a touchstone for every subsequent discussion. Against these metaphysical traditions, Derrida exposes how ‘Being’ is entangled with grammatical and linguistic operations — the copula, the third-person singular of ‘is’ — revealing that ontological categories may be projections of particular linguistic states. Simondon subordinates Being to individuation, insisting that the theory of phases of being must precede ontology proper. Henry Corbin, as cited by Miller, marks the confusing of Being with a supreme being as ‘the metaphysical catastrophe.’ Together these voices chart a field of irreducible tension between Being as ground, Being as event, and Being as grammatical artifact.
Being is thus beyond contact not because it stands alone but because it is Being. For Being alone has Being in its own right.
Plotinus argues that Being is self-sufficient and self-grounding, requiring no external relation, and that all things of the universe depend from it, finding their good through a trace of it.
, The Six Enneads, 270thesis
To confuse Being with a being is the metaphysical catastrophe. It is the ‘death of Being’ to confuse the unity of Being (Esse) with a pseudo-unity of beings (ens) which is essentially multiple.
Via Corbin, Miller argues that monotheism commits the fundamental ontological error of collapsing the transcendent ground of Being (Esse) into a determinate supreme being (ens supremum), destroying the genuine mystery of Being.
, The New Polytheism: Rebirth of the Gods and Goddesses, 1974thesis
This question has today been forgotten. Even though in our time we deem it progressive to give our approval to ‘metaphysics’ again, it is held that we have been exempted from the exertions of a newly rekindled
Heidegger opens Being and Time by asserting that the question of the meaning of Being has fallen into oblivion, and that this forgetting constitutes a philosophical crisis requiring explicit restatement.
, Being and Time, 1962thesis
language is the house of Being in which man ek-sists by dwelling, in that he belongs to the truth of Being, guarding it.
Derrida cites Heidegger’s later position that Being is not a metaphysical object but is disclosed only through language, which is the dwelling-place of the truth of Being.
, Margins of Philosophy, 1982thesis
We do not know what ‘Being’ means. But even if we ask, ‘What is “Being”?’, we keep within an understanding of the ‘is,’ though we are unable to fix conceptually what that ‘is’ signifies.
Derrida highlights Heidegger’s argument that a vague, average understanding of Being is a irreducible fact of human existence, even when we cannot conceptually determine what ‘Being’ means.
, Margins of Philosophy, 1982thesis
not-being is the principle of the other which runs through all things, being not excepted. And ‘being’ is one thing, and ‘not-being’ includes and is all other things.
Plato’s Stranger establishes that Not-being is not the absolute contrary of Being but the principle of Otherness pervading all things, including Being itself — a foundational move for all subsequent ontology.
, Sophist, -360thesis
Being, the most firmly set of all things, that in virtue of which all other things receive Stability, possesses this Stability not as from without but as springing within, as inherent.
Plotinus identifies Being with intrinsic, non-derived stability, arguing that Motion and Stability are co-present genera of Being, manifested in intellection and apprehensible through the being within ourselves.
, The Six Enneads, 270thesis
the study of ontogenesis must be anterior to logic and ontology. The theory of individuation must therefore be considered as a theory of the phases of being, a theory of the being’s becoming insofar as the latter is essential.
Simondon argues that Being cannot be understood as fixed substance; instead, ontogenesis — the process of individuation through phases — must precede and ground any ontological or logical framework.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis
In so far as Being constitutes what is asked about, and ‘Being’ means the Being of entities, then entities themselves turn out to be what is interrogated.
Heidegger clarifies the circular structure of the question of Being: to ask about Being requires accessing entities in their Being, yet understanding Being is what the question seeks — a circularity that is methodologically productive rather than vicious.
, Being and Time, 1962thesis
while the absoluteness of Being was asserted in every form of language, the sensible world and all the phenomena of experience were comprehended under Not-being.
The introduction to the Sophist traces how Eleatic philosophy’s absolute assertion of Being, coupled with the relegation of phenomena to Not-being, generated paradoxes that drove subsequent ontological inquiry.
, Sophist, -360supporting
Being (whether individuated or not) has a spatio-temporal dimensionality, for, in one instant and in one place, it harbors several phases of being; the being is not merely what it is insofar as it manifests.
Simondon argues that Being is inherently polyphasic — harboring multiple coexisting phases at any moment — so that any given manifestation represents only one phase, while latent phases remain energetically present.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
since we affirm that we speak truth, clearly we must say what is… if we speak the truth in saying that the one is not… the one cannot possibly partake of being?
Plato’s Parmenides traces the dialectical difficulty of the One’s relation to Being: if the One is not, it cannot partake of being, yet even the assertion of its non-being seems to require some mode of participation in Being.
, Parmenides, -370supporting
time as the transcendental horizon for the question of Being.
Heidegger identifies temporality as the transcendental horizon within which the meaning of Being must be understood, making the explication of time central to the entire ontological project.
, Being and Time, 1962supporting
Without being a predicate itself, ‘being’ is the condition of all predicates. All the varieties of ‘being-such,’ of ‘state,’ all the possible views of ‘time,’ etc., depend on the notion of ‘being.’
Derrida, following Benveniste’s reading of Aristotle, argues that ‘being’ functions not as a predicate but as the pre-predicative condition enabling all categorization — a privilege that reflects a specific linguistic structure.
, Margins of Philosophy, 1982supporting
the being must be a form of Being appropriate to a source, so to speak, and a first-principle, or rather must take the forms appropriate to all that is comprised in Soul’s being: the being here must, that is, be life.
Plotinus argues that Soul’s being must be understood as life itself — not an extrinsic property — so that Being, Life, and Soul are unified in the order of first principles.
, The Six Enneads, 270supporting
The primary projection of the understanding of Being ‘gives’ the meaning. The question about the meaning of the Being of an entity takes as its theme the ‘upon-which’ of that understanding of Being which underlies all Being of entities.
Heidegger shows that the understanding of Being operates as a prior projection that discloses the horizon within which any particular entity can be encountered and questioned regarding its Being.
, Being and Time, 1962supporting
everything, in the intellectual is in actualization and so all There is Actuality? Why not? If that Nature is rightly said to be ‘Sleepless,’ and to be Life and the noblest mode of Life, the noblest Activities must be there.
Plotinus argues that in the Intellectual sphere, Being is pure actuality — there is no mere potentiality — because the First Principles possess, eternally and of themselves, everything necessary to their completion.
, The Six Enneads, 270supporting
to exceed our outer self of body, life and mind is the condition for this highest being, which is our true and divine being, to become self-revealed and active.
Aurobindo places Being at the apex of spiritual evolution: the true divine Being is hidden within, and its revelation requires transcending the surface self of body, life, and ordinary mind.
, The Life Divine, 1939supporting
the meaning of ‘presupposing the truth’ also becomes intelligible… ‘truth’ belongs to assertion meaningfully only with the Being of that ‘subject’.
Heidegger argues that truth, as Dasein’s disclosedness, is ontologically grounded in the very Being of Dasein — so that the presupposition of truth is inseparable from Dasein’s thrown Being-in-the-world.
, Being and Time, 1962supporting
if we call God a being, then the capacity to be apprehended by a process of intellection is not inherent in His nature, for if it were He would be composite.
Maximos the Confessor argues that calling God ‘a being’ implies compositeness and potential apprehension, which compromises divine simplicity — a theological reflection on the limits of predicating Being of the Absolute.
, The Philokalia, Volume 4, 1995supporting
This uncanniness pursues Dasein constantly, and is a threat to its everyday lostness in the ‘they’, though not explicitly.
Heidegger connects the ontological structure of Being-in-the-world to anxiety (Unheimlichkeit), arguing that Dasein’s thrownness constitutes a permanent, if usually concealed, threat to its everyday absorption in the ‘they.’
, Being and Time, 1962supporting
Being-towards-death is taken as an evasion in the face of death… That in the face of which one flees has been made visible in a way which is phenomenally adequate.
Heidegger argues that everyday Being-towards-death is characteristically inauthentic, a falling evasion, and that full existential acknowledgment of this structure is necessary for authentic self-understanding.
, Being and Time, 1962supporting
individuation is the arrival of a moment of the being that is not first. Not only is it not first, but it brings with it a certain persistence of the pre-individual phase.
Simondon argues that individuation is not the originary moment of Being but arrives within it, carrying forward a persistent pre-individual reality that continues to fuel further amplifying operations.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
The absolute god, who exists in himself, self-contained in his absoluteness, self-sufficing in his majesty, abandons this state and establishes in dependence upon his own absolute being a relative creaturely being.
Bulgakov articulates a sophiological ontology in which absolute divine Being voluntarily grounds creaturely being, so that relative existence is constituted through a relation of dependence on the Absolute.
, Sophia, the Wisdom of God: An Outline of Sophiology, 1937supporting
the verb of existence, out of all other verbs, has this privilege of being present in an utterance in which it does not appear.
Derrida, following Benveniste, examines the exceptional grammatical status of the verb ‘to be,’ which governs meaning even in its absence and whose third-person present form anchors the entire history of ontological discourse.
, Margins of Philosophy, 1982supporting
‘Since, then, we are in a difficulty, please to tell us what you mean, when you speak of being; for there can be no doubt that you always from the first understood your own meaning.’
Plato’s Stranger challenges the friends of Forms to clarify what they mean by ‘being,’ demonstrating that the most fundamental term is also the most obscure and stands in need of rigorous examination.
, Sophist, -360supporting
To seek the principle of individuation in a reality that precedes individuation itself is to consider individuation strictly as onto-genesis.
Simondon contends that the traditional search for a principle of individuation in pre-formed matter or atoms avoids the direct description of ontogenesis and must be replaced by a study of being-as-becoming.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
‘Being mindful’ means being receptively aware of, and present to, an experience as it is happening.
Siegel uses ‘being’ in the experiential, phenomenological sense of present-moment awareness, reflecting the term’s extension into contemporary developmental psychology and mindfulness discourse.
, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, 2020aside