existentie

Existentie is the state or condition of existing; it denotes the fact of being real or present, as opposed to being imaginary or nonexistent. In Dutch usage, existentie refers to existence as a concept or category, and the term is common in discussions of philosophy, logic, and everyday language when distinguishing what is real from what is not.

Etymology and usage: The word originates in Latin existentia and entered Dutch through later European languages. The noun is generally written as existentie, used to discuss the abstract notion of being and the presence of entities in the world, rather than the act of existing itself, which is often expressed by the verb bestaan.

In philosophy and logic: Existentie plays a central role in ontology, the study of what kinds of beings exist and what it means for something to exist. Debates typically distinguish existence from essence or nature, and from attributes or properties. Some theories treat existence as a property or mode of being, while others treat it as a primitive notion not reducible to other concepts. In contemporary logic, existence is formalized through existential quantification, as in statements of the form “there exists an x such that P(x).” In Dutch, existential claims are often phrased with er bestaat or er is.

In linguistics and semantics: Existence interacts with reference and presupposition. Language often presupposes the existence of entities it mentions, and discourse can shift or challenge what is assumed to exist in a given context.

See also: bestaan, ontologie, existential quantification, presupposition.