James asked:

Please define Being in simple terms.

and Simplico asked:

What is to be?

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Grammatically spoken, "Being" is simply the nominalized infinitive of "to be", but to the chagrin of
human beings has a cluster of meanings, including:

*the quality or state of having existence

*something conceivable as existing

*something that actually exists

*the totality of existing things

*conscious existence: life

*the qualities that constitute an existent thing : essence; especially : personality

*living thing; especially : person

The study of Being is subject of metaphysics, more accurately subject of ontology. This term was
introduced by the German philosopher Christian Wolff, intended to denote the branch of philosophy,
which deals with the "theory of being". Depending on the point of view, this can mean a theory of
what really exists in contrast with what only seems to exist, of what permanently exists in contrast
with what only temporarily exists, and of what exists independently and unconditionally in contrast
with what exists dependently and conditionally: As metaphysical questions go beyond any merely
empirical considerations, all of above meanings of Being have their role in ontology and Being doesn't
only refer to (material) existence, but also to properties and relations.

Summarized it can be said, that according to the long philosophical tradition, there are kindsand
modesof being. The kindsof being may be subdivided in various ways: for instance, into universals
and particulars and into concrete beings and abstract beings. Another term for 'being' in this sense is
'entity' or 'thing'. In a second sense, being is what all real entitiespossess.Being in this second sense
has various modes.Thus the being of concrete physical objects is spatio-temporal while that of
abstract mathematical entities like numbers is eternal and non-spatial.

Perhaps the most puzzling metaphysical problem concerning Being is why anything should exist at all
— why isn't there rather nothing? One response is to say that the question is absurd, because it
presupposes that we can make sense of the idea of absolute nothingness as a genuine alternative to
the existence of at least something. While it may indeed be impossible to imagine a world in which
nothing exists, the notion of a wholly empty world is not obviously incoherent. But isn't coherence
again a sort of Being?

One attempt to escape this bewildering situation is given in Being and Nothingnessby Jean Paul
Sartre. Sartre holds that the world is constructed of both being and nothingness. Hence the title of his
book. Sartre distinguishes: Being= being in-itself = mind-independent reality. Nothingness= any
aspect of the world we experience and act in which does not have it's own being = that which
depends on my consciousness and activity. World= that which we experience and act in. Made up of
being in-itself, plus instrumental and moral values.

Simone Klein