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Leonel Delgado
Mrs. OKeefe
English IV
May 30, 2017

How can you prove that you exist?

Existence and how do we know what is real have been ideas of ours since the dawn of

time. No one ever knows what is real and what is a just a dream or an illusion. Many of us can

tell our own experiences of, for example, falling in a dream and waking up with our heart

pumping harder and faster than what we usually do, but what makes us feel like this dream is just

as real as what we feel in what we consider to be the real world? This question is the core to

philosophy in itself. Existence is expressed in two different ways from the Eastern Philosophers

and western. I will be exploring eastern philosophy as this version of philosophy will help guide

me to find an answer than exploring just the concept of existing.

There have been many theories of proving existence; furthermore, the most common

concept anyone will mention is the statement I think, therefore I am by Descartes. This is false

as the beginning part of the statement I think assumes you already exist so because you think

you exist; however, you already do exist. This has been explained on how it is true by a man

named James Zucker through a Ted-Ed video I have watched. In this video, it was explained that

the philosopher, Ren Descartes, had created the concept, written in latin, Cogito ergo sum. As I

said, this means I think therefore I am. It is one of the most common phrases many try to use in

order to define the existence of man. In the Ted-Ed video, James Zucker explains to us you

cant be nothing if you think youre something, even if you think that something is nothing

because no matter what you think, youre a thinking thing (Zucker). He is summarizing the

point I think therefore I am. With this ideology being examined in depth, anyone can believe

that this is correct; however, the faults of this theory have been explained by myself, but I also
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know of another philosophy major named Mr. Carroll who explained that the Cartesian

Dichotomy essentially separates the mind from the body, as it is the thinking part that is.

which disproves the claim.

In order to explain how one truly exists you must understand existence itself. We learn

through William F. Vallicella that another point in favor is that, in accounting for what it is for

contingent individual to exist, it at the same time accounts for why an contingent individual

exists (Vallicella 2). To summarize, while we try and figure out what we are, we also figure out

why we are. In the process of solving such an issue, we must solve for both as one question will

not be clear without the other being answered at the same time. We learn through him that the

existence of a thing is its sheer ontological presence, a presence that makes possible, and thus is

not to be confused with, its phenomenological presence (Vallicella 2). This is the most basic

understanding I could find of defining the idea of existence as a whole. To summarize the

explanation of existence provided, existence of anything must be true as it is what allows us to

know something is possible or real. Knowing this concept of what it means for something to

exist provides great insight as to how one must prove their existence. In proving existence, one

must know that everything around them is possible assuming the idea of existence is true.

What does it mean to truly exist? Well we need to know that our being is, in fact, real. We

need to assure that our being in this world is just as real the time and space itself. From

Knuuttila, S. & Hintikka, J., we are told The Platonic concept of Being is constituted not by a

fusion of copula and existence, but by the union of timeless-invariant Being (Hintikka and

Knuuttila 21). To explain this, understanding that the state of Being involves us to understand

that Being is timeless and must be real to allow for such being to even be considered real. Time

itself must be hand-in-hand with the state of Being because as time progresses, so do the beings
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that exist. We do not connect the word be and existence together as the two ideas must be

solved together rather than linking them to try and solve them as one. These ideas are very

different in that the word be assumes that the existence of one is, indeed, true. Then accepting

the idea of existence will also provide the proof that being is real; however, this is if you assume

the word be is true. Assuming any theories will give an idea where to start, however, any

concept created off of this will be flawed if you continue to assume that certain idea are true

when they may or not be.

My personal attempts in trying to prove I exist were during my sophomore year of high

school. My teacher at the time, Mr. Watkins, proposed this question to us and if we could answer

the question correctly, we were guaranteed an A in his class the entire year. The idea I put the

most effort in was the idea of purpose: there is a purpose to any and every thing that is around us

and because of this pre-existing purpose, we exist. I gave the example of a table and its purpose

to hold other items on top of it; furthermore, if the tables legs were to broken off, it can be used

as a skateboard or something in that fashion. Though it is no longer a table, it still serves the

purpose to hold something on top of it. Sadly, I was incorrect as he told me that the purpose of

certain human beings are never truly understood and are not even practiced. With us not knowing

what our purpose is, we do not know if we even exist or not.

When trying to answer the question on how you prove you exist you must accept the fact

that the idea of existence is real. Without it, there would be no such thing as a state of being.

Knowing that there is a concept of existence allows for us to be able to know there is a

possibility for the humanity we know to be considered real. And if the humanity we know is real,

then we are real ourselves. The idea of existence is the whole key to prove if one is real or not.

The famous words I think therefore I am will forever be the building blocks on the
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topic of existence. Though not correct, we can still build off the ideas presented to us and create

more theories that will help us understand what it means to exist and how exactly do we know if

we exist or not. To end, proving existence must also involve accepting the fact that there is such

a thing as existence, otherwise, we just ideas or non-beings somewhere in a dimension that we do

not know of.

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Works Cited

Adams, R., 1981, Actualism and Thisness, Synthese, 49: 341.

Angelelli, Ignacio. "Frege Synthesized." Hintikka vs. Frege On The "Logic Of Being" (1986): n.

Pag.

Web.

<http://liberalarts.utexas.edu/_files/iaa4774/Hintikka_vs_Frege_on_the_Logic_of_Being.

pdf>.

"Department of Philosophy." Panayot Butchvarov | Department of Philosophy | College of

Liberal

Arts & Sciences | The University of Iowa. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 May 2017

Geach, Peter, 1968, What Actually Exists, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol.

42:

716.

"How Do You Know You Exist? - James Zucker." TED-Ed. Web. 19 May 2017.

Knuuttila, S. & Hintikka, J., 1986, The Logic of Being, Dordrecht: Reidel.

Nelson, Michael. "Existence." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University, 10 Oct.

2012. Web. 19 May 2017.

"There Is No Now." PBS. Public Broadcasting Service. Web. 19 May 2017.

Vallicella, William F. A paradigm theory of existence: onto-theology vindicated. Dordrecht:

Kluwer

Academic, 2010. Print.

Wheeler, Michael. "Martin Heidegger." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford

University, 12 Oct. 2011. Web. 30 May 2017.

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Williams, C. J. F., 1981, What is Existence?, Oxford: Oxford University Press.