Being

That which is. In Plato , it refers to the classification concepts or the intelligible universal characteristics of things, the Ideas or Forms. In Aristotle and scholasticism, it refers to particular existing and developing things and rational or conceptual being, i.e., true statements that have a mental existence as contents of minds. In Heidegger and the existentialists, it distinguishes between "being" (the thing as it is) and "Being" (the thing it will become). See Necessary being and Supreme Being