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Existential quantifier, used in logic to express existence

Existence is the state of having being or reality. It is often contrasted with essence, since one can understand the essential features of something without knowing whether it exists. Ontology studies existence and differentiates between singular existence of individual entities and general existence of concepts or universals. Entities present in space and time have concrete existence, in contrast to abstract entities, like numbers and sets. Other distinctions are between possible, contingent, and necessary existence and between physical and mental existence. Some philosophers talk of degrees of existence but the more common view is that an entity either exists or not, with no intermediary states. It is controversial whether existence can be understood as a property of individual objects and, if so, whether there are nonexistent objects. The concept of existence has a long history and played a role in the ancient period in pre-Socratic, Hindu, Buddhist, and Daoist philosophy. (Full article...)

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Selected anniversaries

August 6

Street fighting during the Battle of Saint-Malo

686 – Second Fitna: Pro-Alid forces defeated the Umayyad Caliphate in the Battle of Khazir, allowing them to take control of Mosul in present-day Iraq.
1623 – After the death of Gregory XV, a papal conclave in Rome elected Maffeo Barberini as Pope Urban VIII.
1944 – World War II: Allied forces attacked German fortifications at Saint-Malo, France, beginning the Battle of Saint-Malo (pictured).
1979 – An earthquake struck along the Calaveras Fault near Coyote Lake, California, injuring sixteen people.
1997 – Korean Air Flight 801 crashed into a hill on approach to Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport in Guam, killing 228 of the 254 people aboard.
2011 – A series of riots broke out in several London boroughs and in cities and towns across England in response to the shooting of Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police officers.

Ludwig Ross (d. 1859)
George Kenney (b. 1889)
Lucille Ball (b. 1911)
Edsger W. Dijkstra (d. 2002)

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