The problem with being
A distinction gives a value. There is the value of the thing distinguished as a thing and there is the value of that which it is not. As such, in order to make one whole, you necessarily make at the very least two things: that which it is and that which it is not.
“This is a chair” “That?” “No, that is not a chair.”
The function that the value acquires is the property of the thing distinguished. In our case chairness is the first property that the chair acquires.
A concept can never exist by itself, it must exist as a network of other concepts that represent values of the thing distinguished and conceived and at the very least its negation.
The values a thing conceived has, will form its meaning in use. Those values that are the most useful will form a thing’s definition.
Definitions tend to come in the S(ubject) = p(redicate) format (the stone is red; the wall is beautiful, and the house is useful), so all S = p definitions are of the form Concept1 = Concept2 , and Concept2 will not be able to be understood for its value unless it is itself defined using further concepts.
In this way concepts form a grand tautological framework much like our conception of the universe itself as a thing containing all, and much like our dictionaries, which are the archived equivalent of a conceptual universe.
But the S = p format has its restrictions.
What is being? What does it mean to say S is p?
First of all S is always more than p. A comfortable chair is more than just comfortable. It is a lot of other things besides. As such S = p and S is p are not quite the same statements. S = p should be commutative, we ought to be able to say p = S. But with our example of the chair and its comfortableness, such a course would be silly. And the difference is of great instructional value. For S to = p, p would be made up of an indeterminate number of properties all of which are exactly identical to S so that S and p would be identical.
Whereas to say that S is p means that of all the things S is, it is at least also the predicate p. So if instead of S we substitute ‘this stone’ we could make a long list of all its predicable properties of which p is at least one.
The full list of predicable properties would, if complemented by a good description of how each relates to all the others and how they all work together as a team, constitute a commutable equations such as S = p. But we should really rewrite that as S = P1+ Pn+1.
Instead, in ordinary language we use the more modest S is p which merely says that the stone is red and leave tacit the fact that the stone has a lot more properties than being red. So S = p requires completeness because it must be commutable whilst S is p is selective of properties that are of concern during a conversation.
That makes it interesting for intentional behaviour, where we are looking for reasons to do this or that.
This gives us something of a view of what a full understanding of a thing might entail in terms of causal and modal competence to inform intentional behaviour. The richer the concepts one holds, as long as they are well dressed, the more sophisticated the decision making based on that understanding.
The problem is that not only are the number of possible properties attributable to a thing indeterminate. The thing itself changes, changing the properties it has. And the environment in which the thing manifests properties changes, as does the observer of those properties.
The concept ‘being’ is applied to a situational configuration of things that can be recognized as something in that situation but cannot guarantee the persistence of that something in another situation.
As everything is unstable to a degree —everything changes: πάντα ῥεῖ (panta rhei)— a stable kind of being can only be maintained by a constant doing, whilst an unstable being is undone by a doing.
All things, even stones, have to do something to maintain themselves as that which they are. As such we ought to deliberately and systematically transform the S is p format into an S does p format. Not the strawberry is red, but the strawberry colours red in this situation, which thankfully is reasonably stable here on earth..
As Aristotle put it, we have to learn to understand what things are in terms of what they do, we need to think of Jane as someone who Janes; our nouns have to become verbs our adjectives adverbs.
So, instead of thinking of things as being part of ‘kingdoms’, ‘fields’, and ‘areas’, instead of thinking of being as a static possessional thing, we need to think of being in terms of a maintenance activity.
In order to ask what something is we need to ask what it does. We do this by asking simple questions such as: ‘What does it do in order for it to be what it is?’ and ‘How does it do it?’ or, ‘How does it behave?’ ‘What does Jane do to make her (recognizable as) Jane?’
A thing is what it does and for a thing to do what it does we shall assume it is made up of working parts, interacting with the working parts of other things.
A definition cannot capture all that something is or does. Nor should it. Definitions are selective.
A fully elaborated concept might have a near infinite number of properties, some belonging to its definition, others belonging to a situation which the concepts helps qualify.
As such definitions are asymmetrical, the one side of the equation is never equal or commutative to the other in a mathematical sense, it merely picks out certain properties that are evident and useful in that situation.
Any single entity has many properties, some that are easily objectifiable, others that are strictly subjective.
There are no definitions that cover an entity’s complete set of properties without becoming impossible to manage.
As such we select that which is most important to us in a particular context or situation.
In this way all definitions come ready-subjectified or at least partially subjectified to appeal to various scales of human being: all of us, some of us, only me.
In this way we deal with the plethora of meaning available to each of us. This means that certain values are privileged over others in a certain context or situation. This is the moment when values become selected and arranged perspectivally, that is from a specific point of view.
That point of view can be led by an intention, such as in the definition: ‘a chair is a construction made for sitting in’, thereby forcing to the background any other uses that a chair might afford, such as an instrument for taming lions.
The point of view can also be led by considerations regarding material constitution, form or structure, such as ‘wood is a material, that can be shaped in many different ways, has great tensile properties and comes from trees’, or indeed efficient cause: ‘a chair is an object made by a carpenter’.
These values can be easily objectified, without paying too much of a price, whilst their use value is no less, but that use value is a semantic or ontological use value and comes from a proper analytical understanding of wood, which can then be harnessed for any possible use or purpose.
In assigning something a property, such as for example in the sentence, ‘the stone is hard and brittle’, we assign it a semantic value.
That semantic value gives us an image of the stone and its behavioural properties under certain conditions.
Those properties tell us how it behaves under certain specified circumstances, although these circumstances are often left implicit, although they are circumstances familiar to those working with stone.
Those who have not yet worked with stone will be told about these properties and begin to understand their meaning when they start working with them.
So, semantic values whereby a thing is assigned an ontological property thus become subject to a logic that finds paths of inference or planes of consistency whereby the semantic values (the properties of a thing) allow certain inferences as legitimate and others as illegitimate.
All semantic values are use values.
Through the activity of objectification analysis allows universal statements to be made, whilst the activity of subjectification, critique, allows particularized statements to be made that are valid subjectively and may be shared intersubjectively, fitting value to specific uses, occasions and situations.
© jacob voorthuis, 2025. Please cite Jacob Voorthuis as the author, The Theoria Project as the title and the page address as the location. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially under the following terms: No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits. Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.