Res, ens and aliquid

Roberto Poli

pp. 1-26

in: Roberto Poli, Peter Simons (eds), Formal ontology, Berlin, Springer, 1996

Abstract

There are conceptual distinctions that have been repeatedly introduced into philosophical reflection and that have been correspondingly disappeared into nothingness without leaving a visible trace of their presence. The systematic constant disappearance of these distinctions after short periods of presence means perhaps that it is a question of false distinctions. But the fact that they keep on appearing again in different philosophical contexts, theories and systems perhaps sends us back to the presence of a theoretical impasse or of a conceptual knot which is not solved yet.