Existencerelated

Existencerelated is a term used to categorize topics and inquiries that concern existence, being, and the ontological status of entities, properties, and events. It denotes a broad umbrella for questions about what there is, what it means for something to exist, and how existence is grounded in theories of reality.

In philosophy, existencerelated topics appear in ontology, metaphysics, and metaphysical debates about universal versus particular objects, the reality of abstract entities, and the grounding of properties. It also encompasses discussions of modality and the conditions under which things exist in different possible worlds. In logic, existential concerns surface through existential quantification and the analysis of what it means for something to be asserted as existing within a given framework.

In information science and knowledge representation, existencerelated work involves developing ontologies, taxonomies, and data schemas that encode what exists within a domain. This includes representing concrete objects, events, and propositions, as well as the relations among them, to enable clear interpretation and reasoning by machines and humans.

Existencerelated topics are sometimes related to but distinct from existentialist philosophy, which focuses on human existence, freedom, and meaning, and from existential risk, which concerns threats to the continued existence of humanity. While the exact term is not widely standardized, existencerelated ideas contribute to clarifying how we define and reason about existence across disciplines. See also existence, ontology, existential quantification, and existential risk.