inexistence

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See also: in existence

English

Etymology

in- +‎ existence

Pronunciation

Noun

inexistence (usually uncountable, plural inexistences)

  1. The state of not being, not existing, or not being perceptible.
    • 1648, Robert Boyle, Seraphic Love, Kessinger, published 1997, →ISBN, page 57:
      Our inexistence indeed was a condition, wherein nothing in us was capable of being a motive of God's love; but our enmity proceeded further, and made us worthy of his detestation; []
    • 1941, Giuseppe di Gioia, Swift are the Shadows, page 78:
      In order to prove the inexistence of God, he challenged Him to strike him down in five minutes while timing himself with a watch.
    • 2007, Jacques-Alain Miller, “The Sinthome, A Mixture of Symptom and Fantasy”, in The Later Lacan, →ISBN, page 57:
      Axiomatics (namely, that everything that will be used for the purposes of a demonstration is explained) does nothing more than formalizing this wiping clean — in other words, inexistence is posed as the condition for necessity to emerge.
  2. The state of existing in something
    • 1663, Isaac Barrow, “A Defence of the Blessed Trinity”, in The Theological Works of Isaac Barrow, published 1830, page 188:
      that there is a mutual inexistence of one in all, and all in one; []
    • 1854, Christopher Walton, Notes and Materials for an Adequate Biography of the Celebrated Divine and Theosopher: William Law, page 207:
      She distinguished as to this, the inexistence in God from eternity, and the figurative manifestation in time.
    • 2005, Louis Dupre, The Enlightenment and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture, →ISBN, page 303:
      Berkeley's theory of the creature's permanent inexistence in God evoked a suspicion of pantheism.
  3. That which exists within; a constituent.
    • 1768-1777, Abraham Tucker, The Light of Nature Pursued
      where could they find such receptacle for their inexistence

Usage notes

  • In modern philosophical writing, this is chiefly used with the sense "nonexistence" as a literal translation or calque of a corresponding term in another European language, such as the German Inexistenz or the Spanish inexistencia.

Synonyms

French

French Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia fr

Pronunciation

Noun

inexistence f (plural inexistences)

  1. inexistence

Further reading