Back on March 25, Andy Latto wrote:

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My view is that philosphers often worry too much about ontology (which things "exist" and which don't), [...]

From: Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net>

Personally, I find existence (of certain things discussed in philosophy, anyway) to be of the utmost interest to me, much as is the case in mathematics.

One thread is about existence aka the verb to be, that menagerie of metaphorically-related predicates, and how sometimes people don't know, or don't care, or are being deliberately vague, heuristic or instinctive about what predicate they're talking about. I think philosophy has assumed confusions indicate Problems and problems must have solutions. Compare the questions in science or math of whether a problem is interesting, or a question is well-formed. (On the other hand I think positivism can get to a point like washing one's hands until they bleed.) Jim's thread is more interesting to me because it's less familiar. Does modern math really manage to be *less* concerned about existence than older math? In what way exactly? I mean, given that we had already stopped asking whether complex numbers "really exist," what more lessness does modern math do? I admit category theory gives me a strange sense of disconnection. I've heard a story from some East/West religion conference where the Easterers finally got exasperated with the West: "We're tired of you obsessing over what's *true*, the question is what *works*!" --Steve