Considering whether existence, i.e., being, is a thing might seem like the height of aimless metaphysical chin stroking. However, the issue—specifically, whether existence is a quality—is significant, bearing on how reality, this all-encompassing totality, is. On one view, reality at large is ontologically fixed, the sum total of things does not (and cannot) vary; on another view, reality is ontologically transient, the sum total of things varies. I first show that if existence is a thing, that reality is ontologically fixed (...) follows. So I consider whether existence is indeed a thing. I demonstrate that “it” could not be: existence is no existent. I then discuss what it is to exist, given existence is nothing at all. I maintain there are no grounds for the view that reality is ontologically fixed. I argue, from the irrefragable basis of temporal differentiation—the world going from thus…to as so—that reality is ontologically transient. I consider some objections to ontological transience and conclude by considering the key to understanding the overall structure in reality and what it reveals about how very inconstant all this is. (shrink)

We distinguish three debates within current analytic philosophy of time: a first one regarding the passage of time, where static and dynamic views oppose each other; a second one concerning the existence or non-existence of temporal entities, where presentism and eternalism are main contenders; a third one about permanence, where the conflict is between permanentism and temporarism. We then consider how Severino's Parmenidean view may be related to such debates and argue that it is best viewed as a kind of (...) temporarist static eternalism. (shrink)