The Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy Podcast, brought to you with the support of Kings College London and the

LMU in Munich, online at www. History of Philosophy.net.

Today's episode, To Bey or Not be, debating Avicana's metaphysics.

Ever since I mentioned her in episode 139, my sister, the former trapeze artist, has been pestering me about working her into another episode.

I resisted at first, but after all, she's family, or at least she would be if she existed.

So let's welcome her back to the podcast.

She's asked me to focus in particular on the plight of people like her,

as she feels that our society has a real bias against non-existent people and does far too little to take their needs into account.

Actually, there's a somewhat serious point here.

In some areas of ethics, there arises a genuine difficulty about whether we could possibly have ethical obligations to people who don't exist.

For instance, environmental ethicists wonder how it could be that we are perpetrating a moral wrong

upon as yet non-existent future generations if we act in a way that will make the world a

worse place for them to live.

But in this episode, I will be returning to the more metaphysical question

I discussed back in episode 139,

what if any metaphysical status could non-existent things possibly have?

It's a question that remains important, even if we show callous disregard to the huge population

of non-existent people not living around us.

For it will help us understand what it means for people like you and me and all of the things to exist.

As we saw in that earlier episode, Avicenna proposed a fundamental contrast that addresses this issue.

He distinguished between the essence of a thing and that thing's existence.

A thing's essence is what makes it the sort of thing that it is.

...