Wikipedia:Peer review/Existence/archive1

Existence

I've listed this article for peer review to prepare it for a featured article candidacy. I was hoping to get feedback on its current status and what improvements are required to fulfill the featured article criteria.

Thanks, Phlsph7 (talk) 13:35, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

@Phlsph7: This has been posted for over a month without comment. Are you still looking for feedback? Z1720 (talk) 19:32, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

@Z1720: Thanks for the ping, I'll wait a little longer to see if some responses come up. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:12, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

@Phlsph7: I recommend reaching out to editors who are interested in this topic area, or posting in the Wikiprojects attached to the article. Many editors do not check PR for articles to review, so this is a great way to inform editors of this PR. Z1720 (talk) 17:07, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Comments from Jenhawk777

Hello Phlsph7. I have just started reading this article and would like to make some comments. First, I find the first two sentences inadequate. "Reality" is used to define existence without defining reality, so I would ditch that, and begin with your third sentence.

Hello Jenhawk777 and thanks for all the helpful suggestions. I managed to simplify and combine the first two sentences. I didn't remove them altogether since articles should start with a definition is possible according to MOS:LEADSENTENCE. It's true that the definition is not particularly helpful to readers who don't know what the word "reality" means but I'm not sure that there are non-circular definitions of reality either. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:23, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Hello, Hello Phlsph7. I am so sorry this has taken so long to answer. I have been out of town and busy in RL. My response remains: you can do better. 'What people know' is not how WP is written. I understand a lead sentence should be a good definition, but this isn't one. It's a partial definition at best. Simple is good. Comprehensive is better. I also understand that defining this is really quite difficult, and you're right, it is circular - it's all circular - but that's what we've got. Here is an interesting article solely on the difficulty of definition: Drake, Durant. “On Defining ‘Existence.’” The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 28, no. 9, 1931, pp. 237–44. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2016381. Accessed 5 Apr. 2024. The lead sentence needs improving. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:43, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Alright, let's give it another try. I had a look at definitions from a few sources:

• The existence of something is the fact that it is present in the world as a real thing.
• Existence, in metaphysics, that which applies neutrally to all and only those things that are real.
• ... the sum of reality ... [or] what differentiates real things from fictional ones
• the state or fact of being real or living or of being present
• The fact or state of existing; being.
• the fact of something or someone existing

What do you think of the following: "Existence is what all real entities have in common" we could also add "... and how they differ from fictional ones". It's quite a challenge to find a definition that is at the same time non-controversial, interesting, and concise. If you have other suggestions, I would be interested in hearing them. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:27, 6 April 2024 (UTC) Phlsph7 (talk) 08:27, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

It's quite a challenge to find a definition that is at the same time non-controversial, interesting, and concise. Too right! Sorry to be such a pain, but this does seem rather important. How about combining your first two sentences? Maybe, "Existence is the state or fact of having being in contrast with nonexistence and nonbeing." (I'm trying to find a way to avoid the words real and fictional, since fictional beings can maintain a powerful 'existence' within human consciousness. They never "lived," yet some of my best friends growing up were in books!) Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:50, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Done. I hope you don't mind that sneaked in the word "reality". Phlsph7 (talk) 08:24, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

• This sentence: A common distinction is between the existence of an entity and its essence, which refers to the entity's nature or essential qualities. needs further explanation - how about something along the lines of "by comparing how an entity's qualities relate on the most fundamental level"? Anything easier for sophomores without a philosophy background to follow will do.

  I slightly expanded this sentence to better clarify the contrast. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:23, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  • Okay. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:43, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
• Use simpler words to explain first-order, second order, ontology and instantiated. Remember we write for the average sophomore.

  There are a few footnotes sprinkled around the article to clarify the meanings of some technical terms. It would be difficult to avoid these terms but let me know if you encounter difficult explanations then I'll try to simplify them. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:24, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• Your prose is good, but please get in the habit of avoiding the use of jargon. There's a lot of it in this article. Jargon is a short cut for those in that field of study that just trips up those who are not.

  I agree that this is a difficulty especially for the more theoretical parts like the section "Theories of the nature of existence". The challenge is to strike a balance between precision and accessability, which I guess involves defining the essential technical terms while trying to replace non-essential technical terms with easier expressions. There is probably no perfect solution but I'll keep an eye out for this. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:29, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  Nope, no balance to be struck on this one. I can't tell you how many times I have had to redo articles to remove jargon. Take my advice, I only mean you well. Get rid of it all. FA reviewers will fail you for it.Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:43, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  Alright, I'll see what can be done. Could you give me some examples of terms in this article that should be avoided so I have an idea what you have in mind? Phlsph7 (talk) 08:28, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

  I agree with @Jenhawk777, but I feel less strongly about it. If it is important to distinguish this article from ontology – (I genuinely have no idea if it is) – then this would be a nice step in that direction. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 22:07, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

• While removing and simplifying jargon into their short definitions, I would also suggest making it clear this is a philosophical discussion. I say that because there is also a sociological discussion of existence, a biological one, and one going on in physics. In the "Various disciplines" section, these are not mentioned.

  Do you know about some sources on the discussion of existence in sociology, biology, and physics. I had a short look and I found Existence theory as a relatively recent approach in sociology. Maybe it could be discussed in the section "In various disciplines". As far as I'm aware, biology and physics focus not so much on the general concept of existence but on certain features or laws of specific types of things, like living entities or material things. But if there are good sources on this, I would also consider adding more on these topics to the article. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:39, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  Yes absolutely in various disciplines. Waddington, Conrad H. "The basic idea of biology." The Origin of Life. Routledge, 2017. 1-41. has a little bit from a biological perspective, and Nikkhah Shirazi, Armin. "Existence in Physics." (2019).,along with Grandpierre, Attila. "The fundamental principles of existence and the origin of physical laws." (2002): 127-147. on physics. Einstein's article is quite fascinating: Einstein, Albert. "Physics and reality." Journal of the Franklin Institute 221.3 (1936): 349-382. Heidegger would be good to include. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:43, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  I expanded the section "In various disciplines" with various topics suggested by you and Patrick. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:41, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

  Heidegger gets a short mention in the section "Definition and related terms". Phlsph7 (talk) 11:44, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

  I support in principle with the major disclaimer that I have not reviewed this material. Once again, if it is important, this would help to distinguish this article from the one on ontology. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 22:09, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

• I really like the section on Physical and Mental but I would like to see it further up - perhaps in the definition section. How something is defined, and why, is so singularly important in philosophy that it impacts everything that follows. This article should be set up accordingly.

  The difficulty here is that the overview sources that I'm aware of, like Lowe 2005, Casati & Fujikawa, and Nelson 2022, give very little importance to this point. Maybe there is another way by keeping this subsection where it is and adding a sentence or two to the definition section. Do you have an idea about what we should emphasize? Phlsph7 (talk) 12:39, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  Well, I think subsuming it into another section can't really be considered as making it more important. I like the section as it is, I just think it would add more to understanding the difficulties of definition, and could easily be worked in there. It doesn't really deserve a section of its own.Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:43, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  I expanded the discussion of the thick concepts of existence in the section "Definition and related terms", which may go a little in the direction you intended but is probably not exactly what you had in mind. One difficulty I see with moving the discussion of physical and mental existence to the definition section is that this constrast is not so much a discussion about how to define the word "existence". Instead, physical and mental existence are different types of existence that are related to each other in certain ways. If you know of a good source that makes this contrast explicitly about the very definition of existence then maybe I could add some more. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:09, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

• Making it clear there are contrasting definitions is important.

  I made a few adjustments to the definition-section to make this point more explicit. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:53, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  Accepted. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:43, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

• This sentence is excellent: Second-order theories hold that existence is a second-order property, that is, a property of properties. Without going into a full theory of properties, I still want more. Perhaps an example would be good and would only add a sentence or two. Something that makes it clear properties contrast with individuals - that properties are manifested and only individuals manifest properties.

  That's good point, I added a short definition to the paragraph right before that passage. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:08, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  Well done. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:43, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

• "This exists" is a contingent truth. It does not locate a quality of existence but only a quality of an individual entity - which may not exist in some instances. I found some of this all the way down in 'singular and general', but that means the ideas are being discussed before they are defined for the reader. As a result, I would like to see the 'types' section move up before 'theories'.

  Done. I moved the section "Modes and degrees of existence" as well since it is closely connected to the type-section. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:13, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  Well done. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:43, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

• Somewhere in definition it should be made clear that this view of existence concerns that which exists separately from human consciousness. If that's in the article, I didn't find it.

  That exact claim is not in the article but there is a related claim: Existence is what sets real entities apart from imaginary ones. There could be some difficulties involved in talking about existing separately from human consciousness in general since this may not be true for all entities, like mental entities, and some idealists and phenomenalists might also be unhappy about that. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:25, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  Then shouldn't that be discussed? Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:43, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  I expanded the definition section to address this issue. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:39, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

• "Why anything exists at all?" does not contain an adequate discussion of this essentially metaphysical question imo. It's just my opinion, but this section should either be expanded - More neutrally - or dropped entirely.

  I added that section because several overview sources discuss it, like Lowe 2005 and Casati & Fujikawa. I'm open to expanding it but I'm not sure how. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:31, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  I understand. Do you consider those discussions comprehensive? This section discussing something vs. nothing contains no discussion of nothingness: Is nothingness possible? Creation myths are mentioned but dismissed as circular with no acknowledgement of the circular nature of ALL definitions of existence. That seems non-neutral to me. There's nothing from Leibniz or Wittgenstein. There is no discussion of causality and whether existence can be defined by us since the cause of existence is outside our experience. You'd need to add a discussion of necessity and sufficient reason. This is a decidedly complex and perhaps unanswerable question, and these few paragraphs don't even raise all the issues nevertheless address them. You decide. The article doesn't require this section to comprehensively cover the main topic, but if you are going to include it, please do a more careful and complete job, that's all I ask. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:43, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  I removed the section and added instead a paragraph to the subsection "Possible, contingent, and necessary" so that the topic is at least mentioned somewhere. If you know of a good source that treats the topic in a way you consider comprehensive then I would be interested in taking a look and maybe a modified form of the section could be restored. The previous version followed the presentation found in Lowe 2005 and Casati & Fujikawa but maybe they are not good sources for this. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:57, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

  I agree that you could cut this section. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 22:10, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

• I note the images all have alt descriptions. Well done.
• That's my first skim through. It's a good article. It needs only a small amount of effort to get it to FA I think. Jenhawk777 (talk) 01:18, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  @Jenhawk777: I hope I was able to address the main issues and didn't miss any major points. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:23, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

  I'm sorry! I have been out of town and occupied in RL, will be back tomorrow to normalcy - or at least my approximation of it. Later Jenhawk777 (talk) 00:24, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

  I'll close the peer review now and I hope that any remaining problems can be addressed in the FA discussion. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:08, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Comments from Bilorv

• Just a couple of ideas, not a full review. As I'm no expert, feel free to reject these suggestions:

  Hello Bilorv, I appreciate your suggestions and I'll see how to best address them. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:55, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  • Would Hegel be due weight here among "Western philosophy"? In Science of Logic, as I understand it, he takes "(Pure) Being" as a starting point: an object with no characteristics. From this he derives "Nothingness", "Becoming" and a number of other concepts. (I notice this article talks about "being" and "reality" as sometimes synonymous with "existence".) Though "Being" vs. "Nothing" isn't his most famous dialectic, Hegel's ideas were foundational to idealists and to Marxists. Lenin studied Science of Logic.

    This was also suggested on the talk page so I added a sentence. This is probably a borderline case: Hegel is important but I'm not sure that his specific concepts of being and existence have been that influential. I hope by adding one sentence, we have something of middle way. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:55, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

    I believe that I am the one referred to as suggesting mention of Hegel. Per my recollection, however, this was in the context of a stronger recommendation of including Spinoza's definition of substance, which I think should be in the article (whether or not Hegel is also mentioned as arguing that it must be conceived as "just as much subject").

    Otherwise, speaking as a small-time Hegel expert, I'm not sure this article needs him. If he is to be included, however, feel free to use the language from my comment below or to ask me to draft something up along whatever other lines or help out with sourcing. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 22:18, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  • In logic/maths, "uniqueness" often accompanies "existence" ($\exists !$), so I was surprised it's not mentioned. I guess existence is dual with universality, not uniqueness. I'm reminded of the identity of indiscernibles but I don't know if this is too off-topic.

    That's a good point about the unique existential quantifier, I found a way to mention it in the subsection "Formal logic". The principle of the identity of indiscernibles is related but I'm not sure that it is important enough to deserve an explanation in this article. Some forms of Meinongianism struggle with this principle but this may go too deep. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:18, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  • Under formal logic, I think words like "Horse" should be formatted without italics, like function names ($\sin$ not $sin$).

— Bilorv (talk) 21:19, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Done, I removed the italics from all predicates but I kept them for singular terms. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:24, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Looks good! — Bilorv (talk) 13:17, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Comments from PJW

Hi Phlsph7,

I just noticed that you're planning to nominate this to FAC, and I thought I should give it a read and share some comments. Overall, I'm happy to say, it looks to be in good shape.

• The second paragraph of the lead is quite dense. Any way to simplify?

  A few changes were already implemented in the last few days to this paragraph. Is there a specific part that you feel still needs more work? Phlsph7 (talk) 08:35, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

• The current version looks good. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:47, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

• You draw on figures from different periods of history without indicating this. When to do so is a matter of editorial judgment, but I think it would, in at least some cases, be helpful to say, for instance, when you're talking about someone from the 18th century and when you're talking about someone from the late 20th.

  I added dates for all the philosophers mentioned. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:35, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

• Great, thanks!

• Another reviewer found the mention of Heidegger obscure. Surprise! Heidegger is obscure—but this is at least partly my phrasing. "Background context" could be substituted for "horizon" if that would make the meaning clearer. Possibly then another clause or sentence could be added to the effect that, as with the horizon, you can always advance in pursuit of unpacking the background conditions of intelligibility, but you can never finally arrive; the horizon forever recedes with your approach. Charles Taylor's contribution to the Cambridge Companion is good on this.

  Agreed, explaining Heidegger is challenging and doing so in only 3 sentences is even more challenging. I implemented your suggestion. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:35, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

• You might consider including Aristotle's dictum that "being is said in many ways" (1003a32). In addition to its importance for his own metaphysics, it has been quite influential.

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:35, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

• The ontological argument for the existence of God, which comes up in a couple of places, could be made its own section. I imagine a lot of readers will be particularly interested in this, and it might be nice to have it appear in the TOC.

  I added a more detailed explanation to the section "In various disciplines". I'm hesitant to make this into a full-blown section since the overview sources that I'm aware of mention this only in passing if at all. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:35, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

  That's fine with me.

• This might not always be possible to do in an appropriately economical way, but the article sometimes reports on the positions of various figures without providing any motivating reason to help explain why they held those positions, which makes it rather unhelpful to readers who do not follow all the wikilinks. For instance, even their admirers acknowledge that the positions of Spinoza and Lewis are highly unintuitive. Would it be possible to add something to the effect that this position solves problem x or is motivated by consideration y?

  I added a short explanation for Spinoza and Lewis. The main difficulty is that there are not always clearly isolatable reasons and even if there are, it can be quite challenging to explain them in an accessible and concise manner. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:52, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

• I agree it's more important not to misrepresent thinkers. I'll try to give the article another close read this weekend, and if I have any specific suggestions I'll either mention them here or just add to the article for your consideration in that way. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:47, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

• The section on second-order theories feels like it could be cut back a little bit for the general reader.

  Are there any specific passages that you feel should be simplified? Phlsph7 (talk) 08:04, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

• No. I just think this section, and to a lesser extent, the other sections under Theories, are a little bit too much in the weeds for general interest readers who finds themselves here rather than at ontology. It's clearly written, though, so by all means leave it if you don't share my view. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:47, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

• Hegel's point in the opening dialectic of the Logic is actually that the effort to think "being, pure being" is indistinguishable from the thought of nothing; they cannot be held in conceptual opposition. This shifting from one to the other is becoming, and the rest of the book elaborates (in sometimes excruciating detail) the progressively determinate categories of thought/being. This is supported by the reference to Rosen (I didn't check the other one, which I saw well-reviewed, but have not read).

  I'm not 100 % sure about this point: from Rosen p. 15: Pure being cannot possess any determinations whatsoever, for then it would no longer be pure. That is, it would be some other category, such as becoming or existence. As nothing in particular, being just is, or is inseparable (but not, as we shall see later, indistinguishable) from nothing. Maybe being is distinguishable from nothing but indistinguishable from the thought of nothing. This difference might be too specific to mention here. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:12, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

• There is a huge literature on this passage, and I agree that this article is definitely not the place to discuss it. But, if you'll indulge me, I'll try to explain a little bit here. This is the opening of the Doctrine of Being, which is the first of the three major books of the Logic. The categories of being "pass over" into progressively more determinate categories. The only exception is the back-and-forth transition between being to nothing, which Hegel emphasizes is something that "'has passed over,' not passes over" (p. 21.69). This is part of his general critique of what he calls "immediacy". If I were to write something about this dialectic for this article, I would say something along these lines: "According to Hegel, any effort to directly think pure being must reveal that our access to reality is always already conceptually mediated. To accommodate this 'failure', he offers a variety of other more determinate categories to describe existence." This has the advantage of also expressing a more general point about Hegel's philosophical position. Another alternative would be to find some accessible language from a commentary that parses his claim at 21.142 (the German pagination in the margins of the Cambridge edition) that "The claim that the finite is an idealization defines idealism." What is there now is not strictly wrong, but I believe it is, as Hegel would say, "one-sided"; it fails to adequately capture the "identity of identity and non-identity" of being and nothing that gives rise to a metaphysics, not of being, but of becoming. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:47, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

  We could add a short footnote with your suggestion. One difficulty could be to find a source that directly supports the link between these concepts. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:13, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

  What's unusual about Hegel's treatment of being and nothing is the claim that the distinction cannot be sustained. Right? If you want to include a perspective that places them in strong opposition, I'd look to Sartre. (Being and Nothingness earns its title—even if Hegel would have been horrified by Sartre's appropriation/interpretation of his language of the in-itself and for-itself.)

  Otherwise maybe take a look at the relevant entries of either or both of Michael Inwood and Glenn Alexander Magee's Hegel Dictionarys for something more substantial than the current report on how Hegel uses the terms? (In this context, I do, however, support sticking with di Giovanni's translation of Dasein as "existence"—unless you expand coverage to include the category of Existenz, in which case no one has found a great translational solution.) Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:41, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

  I had a short look at the entry "Being, Doctrine of (die Lehre vom Sein)" in Magee's dictionary: it talks about related issues but does not directly support this claim as far as I can tell. There is a lot of information there so a more in-depth research would likely reveal more but I'm not sure that this issue is important enough. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:29, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

  I thought you did not think the language I suggested was appropriate for the article. I suggested the Dictionaries just as good sources where you could easily find something more contentful to say about this opening dialectic. Right now, it's just an assertion about how Hegel uses the terms.

  If you do want to use something along the lines of my suggestion, the "Mediation and immediacy" entry in the Bloomsbury Companion (at p. 232) supports my proposal here and at a higher level of generality, which would be entirely appropriate in this context.

  Wherever you land on this, the language used should not be incompatible with Hegel's claim in this section that Pure being and pure nothing are therefore the same. (p. 21.69; emphases in the original). Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 15:47, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

  I added a short footnote. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:49, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

  A few comments to close this out:

  1. Still not convinced readers of this article need to know that Hegel uses Sein and Dasein differently. But if you believe this is the Hegelian claim most significantly relevant to the article, I would consider adding a footnote sourced to di Giovanni's Translator's Introduction explaining why he chose "existence" to render Dasein, and also alerting readers who might want to pursue this further that it is frequently rendered "determinate being", or else as "being-there" or "thereness".
  2. The footnote you added very much buries the lead. The SL sections on Being and Nothing are both only one paragraph long, and both conclude that the concepts are the same. This is then reiterated in the first section of Becoming, which I cite above.
  3. Skipping over the category becoming is a missed opportunity to say something more substantial about Hegel's account of existence. Any source discussing the first two moments of the dialectic will also say something about this moment.

  Cheers, Patrick (talk) 16:52, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

  If we want to focus on the relation between being and nothing, we could replace the passage with: "Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) explored how being and nothing pass into one another in the process of becoming."

  Given the difficulty of finding an acceptable presentation of Hegel's position (including potential problems associated with different translations), another alternative may be to simply not discuss him. I mentioned Hegel since it was requested here but none of the high-quality overview sources that I'm aware of discuss him. So, strictly speaking, I don't think we need to either. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:25, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

  I implemented the suggestion and I'll close the peer review now. I hope that any remaining problems can be addressed in the FA discussion. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:07, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

• Please (as always!) disregard if this falls into the category of niche stuff that just happens to interest me, but the existence of mathematical entities is only just barely mentioned in passing. Anecdotally, this seems like something about which people have sometimes conflicting intuitions or just find deeply puzzling. "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences" could be mentioned in this regard.
• Should the article more directly address scientific realism, that is, the position that what exists is whatever exists according to the best scientific theories? It's mentioned in relation to Quine, but my impression is that it's fairly common among both scientists and non-scientists who consider themselves scientifically minded. Maybe it deserves a little more attention?
• The article does not currently address the existence of social institutions. This strikes me as a serious omission. Some people say that money, for instance, or the nation state have the same status as fictional entities. But there are more sophisticated theories that I would contend do much better justice to this domain of reality. One accessible source on this is chapter 5 of John R. Searle's Mind, Language and Society.

  I expanded the section "In various disciplines" to address this and the two preceding points about mathematical objects and scientific realism. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:15, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

• That seems good on math. I'd still do more on social institutions, probably using money as an example, but that's your call. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:47, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

  I'll keep it in mind in case I come across something that could be used. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:18, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

  In case it's useful, Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is the work I had in mind as describing social institutions as "fictions". Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 20:05, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

• Late addition!: Is there an image of Avicenna you could use that is not a postage stamp? Philosopher stamps are cool, but it looks weird to me in this context, directly juxtaposed with a non-stamp rendering of Thomas.

Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:08, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

• I found an alternative, have a look if that is better. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:30, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

• Yup! Looks better. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:47, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

• Another thought on the section on Western history: Should Descartes get a sentence or two? The cogito is just crazy famous.Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:47, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

  Do you have an idea how this could be included? Form the perspective of epistemology, it's an interesting insight that we can't doubt our own existence but I'm not sure how to present this as an interesting claim about existence in a wider sense. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:40, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

  You're right. It's not the cogito per se, but the general substance dualism that I had "in mind" as deserving coverage in this section. Your call, however. It is mentioned elsewhere. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:44, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Hope some of this is helpful!

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 15:45, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for all the comments, I'll try to address them once I've responded to the earlier suggestions. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:17, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

No rush on my behalf! You seem to be juggling quite a bit even just on Wikipedia. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 14:56, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Round two:

• I didn't want to tinker with the lead, but I would encourage you to remove the footnote. I don't see what it adds to the sentence. Also, anything that actually needs an explanatory footnote probably does not belong in the lead of a featured article.

  Done. I added the footnote because someone on the talk page requested it to have an expanded explanation of the term "Ontology". But given that the sentence using it is pretty much a definition of the term, I hope we can get by without it. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:46, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

• the expression "the integer between two and three" refers to a fictional abstract object : Does it? I would say it describes something that does not (and cannot) exist, rather than something fictional. I assume you're following a source here, but is there maybe a better example?

  The example is taken from Prior 2006, p. 493. I guess it depends on your ontology, similar to the problem of whether Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective or a non-existing detective. If you can point me to a source with a better example then I would be happy to take a look. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:59, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

  To be on the safe side, I attributed the view to Prior. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:15, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

  Okay, that's a good middle ground. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:55, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

• Since I added dates above, the history of Western philosophy section now contains repeat dates. I don't think this is a problem, but I haven't checked the MOS.

  I'm not sure what the best approach here is. One would be to only use the dates for the first occurrence. Another would be to only use them in the history section since this is where they matter most. This should be easy to fix either way if someone complains so I'll leave it as it is for now. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:45, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

  I actually think that it is in the earlier sections that the dates are most important. In the history sections, the readers know that they're getting everything more or less chronologically. Up above, however, there's some jumping around among thinkers separated by hundreds of years that I think ought to be signaled for readers who have never heard of them before. But, yeah, see what others say. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:48, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

• You begin this section with the Presocratics, which is entirely sensible. But maybe a sentence on how they broke with previous more mythological accounts of existence? (Also: maybe something about, e.g., animism in Others—in order to help broaden the scope of an article on such an extraordinarily general topic?)

  I mentioned the contrast to mythology. Maybe animism could be mentioned in the subsection "Physical and mental" but the sources on this topic usually do not discuss it. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:03, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

• The decisions about who to include in this section seem fine to me. In some cases, though, the article repeats mention of those already discussed above, and in at least a few cases (e.g., Descartes, Heidegger) it passes over major figures (presumably because they have already been mentioned?). Is there some way to make the principle of selection more clear? I don't know whether this matters for FAC, but both this section and the one on Eastern philosophy are likely to attract unproductive contributions from well-meaning editors. If there's a way to lock it down (so to speak) a little bit more, that would probably be good for the article long term.

  I agree about the danger of attracting problematic contributions to these subsections but I'm not sure that there is a good way to lock them down. The existence articles from the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy have been quite useful as overview sources to get the main points down. I didn't mention Descartes and Heidegger there because these overview sources did not mention them, but I guess they could get a sentence or two. Grayling 2019 was also helpful for the overview.

  I already removed some overlap but this can't be entirely avoided since it would be strange to not mention the most important contributions in the historical overview because they were already discussed earlier. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:22, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

• As someone who generally foregrounds history in the presentation of a topic – on the grounds that you don't understand something if you do not understand how it came to be – I support the decision, in this case, to include this historical information, but to place it near the end of the article.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:43, 13 April 2024 (UTC)