I tend to use the noun 'being' as a count noun: You and I are both beings; maybe the number seven is also a being (although of a different kind from you or me). I'll therefore use the words 'existence' or 'reality' for what you seem to refer to by 'being' in your question. When it asks questions about existence or reality, modern-day philosophy -- including analytic philosophy -- ranges as broadly as you like. Philosophy doesn't confine itself to the world described by natural science. Often philosophy asks about the existence or reality of non-natural beings such as abstract objects (maybe numbers, properties, propositions) or concrete, non-natural beings (maybe immaterial minds or souls, maybe God). It's true that analytic philosophers tend to respect natural science, but they shouldn't (and largely don't) think that all legitimate questions are questions for natural science. Furthermore, contemporary philosophy -- perhaps especially analytic philosophy -- asks about ways that reality could have been but isn't: for example, in analyzing counterfactual conditionals, identity, cause and effect, the concept of knowledge, the concept of merit or desert, and countless other things too. I think contemporary analytic philosophy is much less narrowly scientistic (i.e., uncritically science-worshiping) than you may have been led to believe. For just two of many examples of analytic philosophy venturing beyond the realm of natural science, see these entries in the excellent Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (an online resource I keep recommending!):

SEP, "Abstract Objects"
SEP, "Transworld Identity"

Some random suggestions: (1) David Pears pointed out that even if Kant's argument were wholly clear and wholly successful, which it is not, it could only show that existence is not an ordinary predicate, if it is a predicate. His view is that it is a predicate, just a very peculiar one; (2) There is also the view of the celebrated logician, mathematician and philosopher Bolzano, who writes in the Theory of Science ("Kinds of Propositions") that 'I take being [Sein] or actuality [Wirklichkeit] to be precisely what language makes it out to be, namely an attribute; whoever denies this confuses (I believe) actuality with substance. By substance I mean an actuality which is not an attribute of another actuality; hence I admit that we cannot truly predicate the putative abstractum of the substance (substantiality) of any object. For it is part of the concept of substance that there is no property of this kind. But it is not the same with actuality, which I consider to be a mere attribute, not only of substance itself but of each of its attributes, since every attribute of an actual thing is itself actual. And since every attribute of an object can be ascribed to it in a judgment of the form 'A has b', why not the attribute of actuality?' (3) There is a related argument deriving from Russell's Theory of Descriptions in my own Philosophical Propositions, despite the fact that Russell himself took the implication of the theory to be that the ontological argument is no good; (4) There is a defence of a stripped-down version of the ontological argument by the late Gary Matthews and Lynn Baker Rudder in Analysis for 2010.

Sure. Even if existence is not a predicate, it's at least arguable that necessary existence is. (As Norman Malcolm pointed out years ago, there really are two versions of the argument, and the second one deals with necessary existence.)

We doubt that existence is a predicate because, roughly, saying that something exists tells us nothing about what it's like. Not so for necessary existence. Not just anything could exist necessarily. The computer I'm typing on is the wrong sort of thing to be a candidate for necessarily existing thing. Assuming that some things are of the right sort to exist necessarily, necessary existence would be a predicate.

Whether this is a defense of the argument all things considered is another matter. But I think the point made here is fair as far as it goes. A being that merely happened to exist wouldn't be a being than which none greater can be conceived.

You certainly have asked THE big question! Many religious thinkers do believe that there is a meaning to life and a purpose as well. For a good representation of a broadly Christian point of view (but one that would be satisfying to traditional Jews, Muslims, and some Hindus) you might check out Mark Wynn's book God and Goodness. In this philosophy, you and the cosmos as a whole exist because it is good that you and the cosmos exist; moreover, it is created by an all good God whose purpose for creating was to being about goodness. I personally adopt such a position, but many fellow philosophers do not, either because they simply deny that there is a God or they are suspicious about objective values like goodness. But leaving aside religious concerns, if you simply recognize values like happiness (or flourishing) then you will find yourself among many philosophers (religious and secular) who think that a big part or the meaning of life (its point) is for there to be human flourishing, and going beyond that a flourishing of the whole community or body of living things that make up our planet. Aristotle is a good source on that, and a modern defender of happiness as the meaning of life today is Stewart Goetz.

Some of the things you might want to distinguish in your question: when someone asks for the meaning of life, I suggest two questions are at issue: the person is asking "what exists?" and "what should I value?" The first question is (I think) unavoidable and it has an answer even if no one knows that that answer is. In other words, either there is some kind of God or not, either there is some purpose for the cosmos or not, and so on... The second may lead in two directions. The first is the one I take which is that there really are goods and ills (justice and friendship really should be valued and cruelty and injustice should really be avoided or fought). A second approach is more skeptical and assumes that there are no real objective values. On this account, values might actually simply come down to felt, changing preferences. Then there is also a middle of the road: some things are objectively good and somethings (like whether you choose to have a romantic partner or a lifetime of celebacy --as the great scientist Newton chose and was proud of it).

Good wishes! For another great book on all this, check out Thomas Nagel's short book on what it all means (approximate title).

Why not? Both vegetables and us having being, albeit rather different.

I recall a show many years ago which had a very human plant in it, but the trouble with it for our purposes here is that really it was a human being dressed up as a plant, as far as I could see from its behaviour, and so hardly expressive of a very different life form.

Great question. I don't have an answer. But some thoughts depend on how you frame things. If by "causation" you have a certain model in mind (e.g. where something is transferred from cause to effect) then it does seem contradictory to say that 'something comes from nothing' -- if that is taken to mean 'nothing causes something to come into being' -- for that seems to require both that something be transferred from cause to effect (by the word 'causes') yet that there be nothing to be transferred (since 'nothing' is said to be THE cause) .... But who is to say that 'causation' should be understood on that model? And even that model would not rule out the metaphysical possibility of something coming from nothing, if what that means is 'something comes into existence uncaused' -- there does not seem to be a contradiction, or at least not an obvious one, in the latter, since no 'causation' is being implied .....

hope that's a useful start!

ap

While Ayer's verificationism has gone out of fashion (he and others could not settle on a formulation of it that did not rule out science or some such apparently meaningful discourse) there are forms of what is called anti-realism which define 'truth' in terms of warranted assertability, which would rule out the possibility of there being truths that are out of reach from what we can know (at least in principle). Alas, there is a good argument against such a position in Thomas Nagel's work The View From Nowhere.

One other idea to consider is that your friend may be right but in a way that has nothing to do with THIS (our) world. Some philosophers (David Lewis etc) have argued that there are indefinitely many POSSIBLE WORLDS. So, you might reply that, yes, leprechauns actually do exist but in a possible world not remotely related to ours! Check out Lewis's book on the plurality of worlds. It is awesome.

I share your qualms in regard to common formulations about how society approves of this and condemns that. But most societies have some fairly determinate decision procedures that can result in collective decisions and actions, as when Danish society does not recognize polygamous marriages. In cases of this kind, a society can be said to act: to decide to recognize same-sex marriages, to declare war, to ban the use of pesticides. Saying this makes sense when there is a decision procedure which is widely recognized within the society and whose decisions are effectively enforced (insofar as they are not voluntarily complied with).

There is a considerable literature on this subject. As a place to start, I suggest "Why anything? Why this?" by Derek Parfit, reprinted in "Metaphysics: a guide and anthology" edited by Tim Crane and Katalin Farkas (Oxford University Press, 2004), as well as the discussion of this question in Robert Nozick, "Philosophical Explanations" (Harvard, 1981) -- a large book that touches on many other topics besides this one. Further references can be found in those places. Also relevant are several papers by Adolf Grunbaum and Dean Rickles. There is also a story that Sidney Morganbesser was asked why there is something rather than nothing and replied, "Suppose there had been nothing. You wouldn't have been happy then either!"

Hm, it's not quite clear where this question is coming from -- if by 'property' you mean something like 'attribute' or 'feature', the kind of thing that can be possessed by objects or substances, and if you mean by 'metaphysical concept' the kind of thing studied by people who say they are doing metaphysics, then yes! But that seems to simple an answer, as if you have some underlying issue that's motivating the question -- but I can't quite figure out what it is? What turns on answering this question yes or no?

ap