A state of affairs *obtains* when it is the case; a relation *holds* between the things it relates; a property *holds of* its bearer; *is the case* is the most general: propositions assert what is the case, and what is the case is what propositions point at. *Exists* and *is instantiated* belong to the same family, with *exists* attached to particulars and *is instantiated* attached to universals. Take one case across the family: the cat is on the mat. The cat *exists*; the mat *exists*; the property of *being-on* is *instantiated* by the pair; the relation *holds* between the cat and the mat; the state of affairs that the cat is on the mat *obtains*; that the cat is on the mat *is the case*. The family looks transparent and is not. Each operator requires something to be there for the operator to apply: a state, the things a relation relates, a bearer, a how-things-are. (Here *exists* carries its ordinary, contingent reading: the cat exists but might not have. On a rival view in the metaphysics of modality, necessitism, the cat necessarily *is something* and is only contingently a concrete cat; that alternative is taken up at [§4.4.6](<4.4.6 Necessitism.md>).)

> [!definition]
> **Existence** · *Definition*
>
> To exist is to occupy a when, a where, and a what: to stand in Time, Space, and Substance rather than outside them. A thing's existing just *is* that standing, not something extra added on top of what the thing already is.

The definition's three demands are the ones [§1.4](<1.4 Three Conditions.md>) named: a when is a position in Time's order, a where a place in Space's interval, a what a standing in Substance's carrying. The cat of the family survey exists in exactly this sense: it is sometime, somewhere, something, and its existing is not a further fact alongside those three but the three taken together. That is what the definition's closing clause rules out: existence as an extra ingredient a thing could have or lack while its when, where, and what stayed fixed. Whether anything could stand *outside* the three (whether there is a Null State to fall back to), and whether the Conditions they bear (Temporality, Spatiality, Physicality, the vocabulary [§1.4](<1.4 Three Conditions.md>) fixed) are jointly required in every possible reality, are Chapter 2's questions; this section fixes the sense in which they are asked.


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← [1.5 Existence](<1.5 Existence.md>) | [1.5.2 Constitution](<1.5.2 Constitution.md>) →
