Descartes argues that there is no less contradiction in conceiving a supremely perfect being who lacks existence than there is in conceiving a triangle whose interior angles do not sum to 180 degrees.
A widely noted problem for this way of drawing the distinction is that it makes existence into an essential property of each object, since no object could lack existence and yet exist.
(Thus, I'll Have Another exists but does not have wings; Pegasus lacked existence but had wings).
But however much they differ, they all try to accommodate what seems to be an intuitive datum facing philosophers who theorize about fictional entities: these entities lack existence, or at least existence as ordinary physical objects.
Its lack of existence I think helps us better understand where both private and public currently stand.
For an X that lacks real existence is not that than which no greater can be conceived.
To put it briefly, though I lack corporeal existence, you would be exceedingly foolish not to heed what I say.
The chief reason given for the strengthening (Cameron 2008, 2010) is this: if the Ks are not fundamental entities, if they lack real existence, then a theory can entail that Ks exist without thereby incurring ontological commitment to Ks.
And furthermore, in lacking independent existence, they presuppose something else something belonging to a distinct category, something which does have an independent existence and in which they need to be instantiated.
For "an efficient cause" means nothing else but that through which a possible thing receives all the determinations of it which were lacking for actual existence" [Moses Mendelssohn: Philosophical Writings, edited by Daniel Dahlstrom (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p.282].
Nowadays, in power systems, we still lack the existence of standardized test systems that can be used to benchmark the performance and solution quality of proposed optimization techniques.
