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I was reading an essay by philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti when I ran into these sentences:

“Understanding comes through being aware of what is. To know exactly what is, the real, the actual, without interpreting it, without condemning or justifying it, is, surely, the beginning of wisdom. ”

(Excerpt from The First and Last Freedom, Jiddu Krishnamurti)

What does he exactly mean by "what is"? I have heard of this phrase before, but I always disliked it, since it sounded very hand-wavy and grammatically incorrect/incomplete. When I read it, I say in my head, "what comes after is?" I do not even have a rough idea of what he means here, since I cannot explain with my own words. Perhaps I am not equipped with a cultural context that would have allowed me to extrapolate.

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    A simplistic answer is that this is the existential sense of 'be' (ie 'be' = 'is in the physical world') (perhaps including abstracts that can be sensed, like heat, pain, joy). A satisfactory answer belongs on Philosophy.SE.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented May 1 at 16:54
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    The clause that troubles you is in fact a rhetorical device, designed to bring you up short to emphasise the point being made. 'Never mind," he is saying, what might justifies or explains some thing or event: focus on the fact or thing itself: on what is. The sentence that follows it, in apposition to it, makes this clear. It is not uncommon for thinkers to express themselves in puzzling oracular ways. Wittgenstein's famous Tractatus logico-philosophicus began "The world is everything that is the case. It is made of facts not of things."
    – Tuffy
    Commented May 1 at 17:29
  • Grammatically, it seems to follow the trails of "I think, therefore I am".
    – Centaurus
    Commented May 1 at 18:44
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    "It depends on what the meaning of is is." --American philosopher, Bill Clinton
    – CWill
    Commented May 1 at 21:06

3 Answers 3

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It’s a perfectly natural and grammatical usage. The OED’s first entry (of entries arranged chronologically by appearance in the language) for is is:

is verb
I. Without required complement: to have or take place in the world of fact, to exist, occur, happen.
I.1.a. To have place in the objective universe or realm of fact, to exist; (spec. of God, etc.) to exist independently of other beings. Also: to exist in life, to live. Now literary. Old English–
[selected attestations]
1587   All things that are, or euer were, or shall hereafter bee. —Sir P. Sidney & A. Golding, translation of P. de Mornay, Trewnesse of Christian Religion iii. 29
1827   God is, nay alone is. —T. Carlyle in Edinburgh Review October 347
1961   When all things began, the Word already was. —Bible (New English) John i. 1
Source: Oxford English Dictionary (login required)

So:

Understanding comes through being aware of what [has place in the objective universe].

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    Let us not forget the 1969 Led Zepplin song "What is and what should never be"
    – T.E.D.
    Commented May 2 at 16:30
  • I believe another common (but old) usage would be something like "She is no more".
    – CWC
    Commented May 8 at 13:41
  • @CWC — Yes, all in there under I.1.a.... 1697 Troy is no more, and Ilium was a Town! 1762 The parting Ship that instant is no more. 2004 After 58 years the BBC's Letter from America, the world's longest-running speech radio programme, is no more.
    – Tinfoil Hat
    Commented May 8 at 23:44
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Grammatically, there is nothing special about this phrasing. Any intransitive verb could replace 'is', and 'what' is a relative pronoun replacing the subject of the relative clause.

Jiddu knows what is.

Jiddu knows who remains.

Jiddu knows what jumps.

'is' is intransitive here, though usually as a copulative, expects a following subject. This may be your intuition about what comes after 'is'.

In

I am what I am.

the first 'am' has an following phrase, what I am'. The second one doesn't need or expect anything to follow.

Since 'is' is one of the most common words (in almost any language that uses copulatives (some don't)), it is very general, has lots of nuances in meaning in many different contexts, and therefore without further explanation is very vague.

In usual philosophical style, concepts which are new and abstruse are often explained with vague, non-specific vocabulary in an almost mystical way, striving to get the reader to fill in the opaque gaps. "What does 'is' mean? What is 'real', or 'actual', or 'wisdom'? The author thinks they know and being vague gives them a lot of freedom to be assumed to be profound. Or maybe he just grew up in a household where some parent was 'away for work' but nobody ever said anything and tiptoed around it, being all weird, and as a child he couldn't figure out why, and it turned out the dad was in prison. Why? Oh that's a whole nother story... that's what's really real.

Anyway, sometimes philosopher's get carried away. Sometimes they make up new words for existing concepts and make them obscure, and sometimes they use old words in totally new ways to make them obscure.

But without the full context of Krishnamourti's text, it is difficult to figure out exactly what 'is' means for him (if it is indeed different from the usual everyday 'is').

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    In “I am what I am”, the second am does expect and have something that follows – but that something is the subject complement which has fused with its own antecedent into a single what. ‘Unfusing’ them into that which yields, “I am that which I am”, where the underlying structure is more transparently Iᵢ am thatₓ [whichₓ Iᵢ am _xₓ] (with the co-indexed gap at the end).
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented May 2 at 15:07
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    Oops, an x too much in that comment. The end should read Iᵢ am thatₓ whichₓ Iᵢ am _ₓ.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented May 2 at 16:59
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This is the existential "is" = exists

OED: to be (v.)

I. Without required complement: to have or take place in the world of fact, to exist, occur, happen.

I.1.a. To have place in the objective universe or realm of fact, to exist; (spec. of God, etc.) to exist independently of other beings. Also: to exist in life, to live. Now literary.

the powers that be: see power n.1 II.8b.

to be no more: see no more adv. C.1c.

1961 When all things began, the Word already was. Bible (New English) John i. 1

2004 After 58 years the BBC's Letter from America, the world's longest-running speech radio programme, is no more. Independent 3 March 10/1

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