Being

Use in the book

At 315a Socrates calls true opinion the discovery of what is and law something that wishes to be that discovery. The companion immediately pluralizes the expression: if “the things that are” have been discovered, why do the laws vary? Socrates' reply returns to the singular: what law wishes is what is, but people may fail to discover it. The stable object and variable human attainment are distinguished.

At 316b Socrates generalizes from judgments about justice, weight, and the fine: the things that are are accepted as being, not the things that are not. The next sentence introduces error: someone who misses what is misses the lawful. Read together, these sentences cannot sensibly mean that no human being ever has a false belief. Rather, the discussion treats acceptance insofar as it correctly grasps its object, and then names a failure to achieve that correctness. How far the universal language proves rather than assumes the relevant common standard remains a question.

The examples keep the phrase connected to what is true of a subject. Things that weigh more really are heavier; just things are to be called just. A “discovery of what exists” read only as the inventory of physical objects would not capture the prescriptive and evaluative work the phrase is doing. Conversely, a complete metaphysics of immutable moral entities is not set out. The dialogue proceeds through analogies and criteria of right judgment rather than defining being in general.

The craft argument gives the object a practical setting: what a knowledgeable doctor, gardener, cook, or statesman gets right about the matters of that craft. At 321b the truth of what is is specifically connected with administration of a city. The lawgiver's discovery is therefore not detached contemplation in the argument's own presentation. It should result in right distributions and benefit to human souls.

The last question marks the remaining gap. Socrates and the companion cannot specify what is distributed to the soul to make it better. Knowing that genuine law must answer to what is does not yet mean that they have discovered what is in the relevant case. The phrase supplies the claimed standard and goal; it does not substitute for the inquiry the goal requires.

Places to read

1. 315aτοῦ ὄντος ἐστὶν ἐξεύρεσις — What is as the object of true opinion's discovery
2. 315aτὰ ὄντα γε ἡμῖν ἐξηύρηται — The companion's challenge supposes the things that are already discovered
3. 315bὃ βούλεται ὁ νόμος, τὸ ὄν — What is as the object law wishes
4. 316bτὰ ὄντα νομίζεται εἶναι, οὐ τὰ μὴ ὄντα — The universal formula of correct acceptance
5. 316bτοῦ ὄντος ἁμαρτάνῃ — The possibility of missing the object
6. 317dτοῦ ὄντος εὕρεσιν — The phrase in the restated account of law
7. 321bτοῦ ὄντος περὶ πόλεως οἰκήσεως — The object is related specifically to civic administration

Translation in this edition

“What is” and “the things that are” keep the participial construction visible. The translation does not replace it everywhere with “reality,” “facts,” or “Being,” each of which would settle a range of interpretation too early. This article likewise uses those broader English descriptions only to explain the local alternatives, not as additional Greek attestations.

The things that are — τὰ ὄντα (ta onta)

τὰ ὄντα (ta onta)

The things that are. The companion's plural expression for what would have been discovered if law were successful discovery. Attested: τὰ ὄντα (315a). What is and the things that are.

The things that are not — τὰ μὴ ὄντα (ta mē onta)

τὰ μὴ ὄντα (ta mē onta)

The things that are not. The negative counterpart in the formula that what is is accepted as being. Attested: τὰ μὴ ὄντα (316b). What is and the things that are.

What is — τὸ ὄν (to on)

τὸ ὄν (to on)

What is. The object of discovery, encompassing what is so rather than only a list of physically existing objects. Attested: τοῦ ὄντος (315a). What is and the things that are.

Use in the book

“God is being” is expressly said to require a literal reading. The next compact sequence distinguishes being, world as place, matter as appearance, body as the soul’s mold, and life as beginning. A work, by contrast, must be a being rather than an arbitrary thing: proportions, limbs, stature, and personality make the claim concrete. The same noun can therefore speak of divine being and of an organized individual work, without making a literary work divine.

The idea of a government established of itself separates giving it firmness from giving it being. That contrast asks about origin rather than simply durability. These witnesses support a contextual lexicon of être; they do not justify promoting every grammatical “to be” into an ontological proposition.

Places to read

1. I, p. 231, entry 4, ¶3God as being is explicitly marked for literal interpretation.
2. I, p. 232, entry 1, ¶1Being is distinguished from place, appearance, mold, and beginning.
3. I, p. 153, entry 5, ¶2A composed work should have the individuality of a being.
4. I, p. 248, entry 10, ¶1Giving a government consistency differs from giving it being.

Translation in this edition

The English translation uses “being” for the noun and does not replace it uniformly with existence. The literary passage keeps the parenthetic formulation and bodily list that give the abstract word its local force.

Use in the book

The philosophical noun is most sharply defined in the account of God as a simple being whose essence is to be. Divine existence is not a neutral substrate to which perfection is subsequently added. God is wholly actual and perfect, and therefore able to satisfy the soul's highest demand for goodness. Created beings have existence as a gift and possess differing powers through which that gift may become enjoyable. Immateriality does not make the soul a lesser reality: its invisible being can know, love, and contain objects intellectually beyond the reach of a body. Traherne's language of being therefore links actuality with value while refusing to equate reality with visibility. Existence matters because beings are capable of relations, services, and delighted reception.

Places to read

1. I.67God is named the most glorious of beings, whose image is the highest created dignity.
2. II.23The inward human being exceeds bodily visibility through knowledge and love.
3. III.63God’s simple being is pure act, inseparable from perfection.

In this edition

Context must decide whether “Being” is the metaphysical noun. Capitalization alone is unreliable because the prose capitalizes many emphatic words.

Use in the book

B 12 makes two claims: nothing can arise from what does not exist, and what exists cannot be utterly destroyed. Its final image of always being there wherever one presses it emphasises persistence, though the fragment does not furnish a developed theory of physical pressure. B 11 states the same objection polemically against short-reaching thought.

B 172 applies it to the All. Nothing can be added from elsewhere, nothing can disappear into a region empty of the constituents, and these same things run through one another to become different things. There are therefore two legitimate scales of description: a compound changes or ceases, but the sources of its composition endure. The apparent contradiction between becoming and always being is addressed by that qualification, not by denying that the poet describes a moving world.

B 15 extends the warning to the boundaries of mortal lifetime. It is unwise to say that mortals are nothing before being compacted and after being loosened. The verse leaves the relevant continuity to be interpreted through the surrounding doctrine, rather than explicitly defining an immortal personal soul. The introduction situates this reasoning in engagement with Parmenides; that historical comparison is the modern introduction's framing, while the positive mixture-language belongs to the quoted verses themselves.

Places to read

1. B 12The explicit impossibility of generation from non-being and destruction of what is.
2. B 11The same assumptions are attacked as foolish and insufficiently reflective.
3. B 17.30–35No addition or loss is possible; persistent constituents become different combinations.
4. B 15Mortal lifetime does not delimit all existence of what is compacted and loosened.
5. Introduction I (editorial discussion)The engagement with the Eleatic argument is identified in modern apparatus.

Translation in this edition

“What is” is more faithful here than a capitalised, self-standing “Being” as if the fragment had announced another deity. The source of B 12 is the pseudo-Aristotelian On Melissus, Xenophanes, and Gorgias, not a direct manuscript of Empedocles.

Use in the book

Esse is often the substantivized infinitive, meaning the fact or act of being rather than an individual existing thing. Ficino calls being the common effect of the universal cause. Other agents produce this or that determinate being, whereas God gives the being presupposed by every determination. Being is first in the order of nature and last to be lost: losing a quality or a particular condition does not immediately mean ceasing to be altogether. This priority is explanatory and need not describe successive instants in the production of a thing. In God, being, understanding, and operation are identical; in other agents, acting through being means acting through a natural power inherent in their constitution. The distinction matters because esse purum belongs to the first agent in a stronger sense. Ficino also treats pure being as excluding both actual privation of being and the capacity not to be, connecting the word to divine necessity and eternity.

The distinction between being and a mode of being appears concretely in the account of corporeal change. Lower bodies pass into and out of existence; of higher bodies Ficino first says they change from one being into another, then qualifies this as change between modes of being. The editorial division between II.7.7 and II.7.8 can obscure that correction if either paragraph is read alone. Similarly, when Ficino says non-being belongs to a product “before” being does, his surrounding argument concerns what the effect has from itself and what it has from its cause. It is therefore safer to explain this as an order of dependence than to turn it into a universal chronological story in which each possible effect first spends time in nonexistence.

Further passage references. II.4.2–32; II.7.6–9234; II.7.26–32234567; II.8.5; II.9.7

Places to read

1. II.6.2Being is the universal effect of the universal cause.
2. II.7.7–82Change of being is qualified as change in mode of being for higher bodies.
3. II.8.5The first agent acts through pure being; other agents act through an inherent power.
4. II.9.13Divine being and understanding are identified through simplicity.

Translation in this edition

Read II.7.7 with II.7.8: the English “or rather” preserves Ficino’s immediate qualification from “another being” to “another mode of being.” Pure being in II.8.5 is expressly stronger than the subordinate agent’s action through its natural power.

determinatio / affectio

determinatio / affectio. Printed forms: affectiones; determinationes.

A determination or modification of being. Specific character presupposes being and is distinguished from the first cause’s universal gift of being itself. References: II.7.28, II.7.30. See Being.

esse / ens / exsistere

esse / ens / exsistere. Printed forms: esse; Esse; essendi; existunt.

Being or existing, distinguished from being this particular kind of thing. Being is the common effect on which determinations depend, while the scope of cognition includes actuality and potency. References: II.4.2, II.7.28, II.7.29, II.10.3. See Being.

esse / fieri

esse / fieri. Printed forms: est; fit; semper fit.

Be / become. The stable angel, changing quality, and always-changing soul are distinguished by combining persistence with becoming, not by three identical meanings of existence. References: III.2.2. See Being.

esse — existence and predication

esse — existence and predication. Printed forms: erit; esse; esset; est; Est; sit.

Be or exist. The existence–becoming contrast gives the ordinary verb a metaphysical role; elsewhere it functions as a copula, so morphology alone cannot assign one sense. References: II.12.5, III.2.2. See Being.

essendi modus

essendi modus. Printed forms: essendi modo; essendi modos.

Mode of being, distinguished from simply being or not being. The correction in II.7.8 clarifies higher bodies’ changes as changes of mode rather than sheer disappearance. References: II.7.8, II.9.17. See Being.

essendi principium

essendi principium. Printed forms: essendi principium.

A principle by which something has being. A form of matter supplies being to its recipient; it is distinguished from God as being itself. References: IV.1.25. See Being.

fieri / constare

fieri / constare. Printed forms: constare; constat; fit.

To become or result, and to consist or stand together. Body consists of matter and quantity, while multiple qualities can coexist in one subject; these relational uses are not definitions of independent substance. References: I.2.1, I.2.15, I.2.17. See Being.

modus / modo

modus / modo. Printed forms: modo; modus.

Mode, way, or manner; adverbial modo may instead mean only or at one time. Modes of being distinguish things; divine understanding has a mode above created intelligence. References: II.7.8, II.9.13, II.10.5. See Being.

quantum ens est

quantum ens est. Printed forms: quantum ens est.

Insofar as it is a being. The formula shifts from a particular being’s features to what accompanies being as such in the argument for divine will. References: II.11.28. See Being.

res

res. Printed forms: rebus; rerum; rerumque; res.

A thing, reality or matter under discussion. The Proem distinguishes shadows of things from true realities; the broad noun leaves the kind of thing to its modifiers and the argument. References: Proem.9. See Being.

Thing or reality, capable of referring to individuals or the objects of causal and cognitive claims. The argument’s scope includes every smallest thing and even what is said to exist in potency; res is not restricted to bodies. References: II.1.1, II.9.14, II.10.3. See Universals and individuals.

res / re ipsa

res / re ipsa. Printed forms: re ipsa; res.

Thing or reality / in reality or as a matter of identity. Real identity of being, understanding, and willing in God is contrasted with their difference in creatures; re ipsa is not merely another physical thing. References: II.12.6, II.12.8. See Being.