[QUOTE=Dr. Love]
Within the human sphere, we are quite bad at guessing the course of future technology. One reason for this is that we are never sure what uses will be found for things that are just beyond the horizon – that is, they exist before their essence, their purpose, is found.
[/QUOTE]
Essence and purpose aren’t synonyms. All that essentialism is saying is that whatever you might find in the future (or the present or the past), it will not be found unless there is a way for reality to accomodate it.
Liberal, could you tell me whether I am right that an essence just is a member of the set of all possible things?
[QUOTE=Liberal]
Essence and purpose aren’t synonyms. All that essentialism is saying is that whatever you might find in the future (or the present or the past), it will not be found unless there is a way for reality to accomodate it.
[/QUOTE]
I admit that I don’t know a lot about existentialism, but it always seemed to me that “essence” was a final cause rather than a list of properties. With the latter definition the statement “existence preceeds essence” is useless as well as either meaningless or false. On the other hand, with the former definition the statement becomes a nice, short encapsolation of the belief that we can define our own values in life, our own raison d’être.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
Essence and purpose aren’t synonyms. All that essentialism is saying is that whatever you might find in the future (or the present or the past), it will not be found unless there is a way for reality to accomodate it.
[/QUOTE]
I think essentialism says much more than this. All you are saying here is “If it can’t be, it won’t be.” You don’t have to be an essentialist to think that.
[QUOTE=mswas]
Why does either have to precede? Maybe essence simply exists, it would seem to me that it is essential for it to do so. Liberal’s statement implies that the wheel’s essential wheelness, existed before the invention of the wheel. Does essence not exist, and is not existance essential to the being of essence?
[/QUOTE]
My problem is with metaphysical profligacy. If you say that something exists, you have to tell me what kind of thing it is. And I am very curious to know what kind of thing *wheelness * could be. Where is it? What is it? What is it’s connection to wheels? What is its connection to our invention of wheels? It’s all very mysterious.
[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Here’s the trouble.
We’re NOT free to chose our own particular morality.
Why do people like chocolate? Because they chose to like it? I can chose not to eat chocolate, but I can’t chose not to like chocolate. So I like chocolate for reasons that are beyond my control. And those reasons are the evolutionary history of life on earth that eventually resulted in a creature like me that has certain nutritional requirements, and a brain that evolved to percieve meeting those requirements as pleasurable.
If I were a vampire bat, I wouldn’t find eating chocolate pleasant, I’d only like drinking blood. I wouldn’t choose to like drinking blood, I’d be compelled to like drinking blood, because that would be the kind of organism I was. If I were a cow, I’d like to eat grass, if I were a vulture I’d like rotting meat, if I were a dung beetle I’d like elephant poop, and so on.
So, I’ve got all kinds of drives and needs that I didn’t ask for. And I can’t choose not to have them, I’m compelled to have them, because I’m like my ancestors, and all my ancestors had similar drives and needs, and their neighbors who didn’t happen to have those drives and needs didn’t contribute to my ancestry. An animal that doesn’t care if it lives or dies doesn’t contribute to the next generation, therefore most members of the next generation are organisms that care if they live or die. An animal that doesn’t have a drive to reproduce doesn’t contribute to the next generation, therefore most members of the next generation are organisms that have a drive to reproduce.
And so I’m the kind of animal that doesn’t like being cold or hot, that likes to eat particular foods and doesn’t like to eat other substances, that gets a boner when my sensory organs percieve a sexually available female of my species, I get frightened when large animals attack me. And further, I’m the kind of animal that when I see a younger member of my species I have the desire to take care of them, I have the desire to be a member of a social group, I want to be valued by other members of my social group, I dislike it when other members of my species don’t like me.
But I realize that my human wants and needs aren’t universal wants and needs, they are the wants and needs of a particular animal who lives in a particular time and place on a particular planet. And my wants and needs are real and meaningful…to me. To the universe they are meaningless. My life is meaningless, the survival of the human species is meaningless, just like the survival or extinction of some obscure dinosaur you never heard of is meaningless.
Except I still have my wants and needs, because I’m the sort of organism that has those wants and needs, because an organism that didn’t have those wants and needs or other equivalent wants and needs wouldn’t exist. I’m the puddle that marvels that the hole I fill exactly fits my shape. And knowing that my wants and needs are meaningless doesn’t make them go away. It’s meaningless that I love my wife and children, or that I appreciate a beautiful sunset, or that I like chocolate. It doesn’t matter, I still love my wife and children, I still appreciate the sunset, I still like to eat chocolate.
And I could decide to leave my wife, forget my children, never look at the sunset, and never eat chocolate again, but I couldn’t decide not to love my wife or my kids. I can choose not to follow my desires, but I can’t choose my desires.
I don’t think this is existentialism. Sure, the universe is morally blank, but so what? I’m a human being, so I am governed by human morality, which is partly generated by human rational thought, but also partly generated by the kind of animal humans are. So we choose, say, the right to free speech as a moral good. But we do that because if we institute the right to free speech that gives results that our ape brains interpret as pleasant.
Does this mean there’s no free will? Maybe it does, but so what? Thing is, the universe is the exact same thing it was when you believed God loved you and when you figured out that there was no such thing. Human beings are still the same sorts of beings as they were before. Nothing changed. The universe didn’t change, humans didn’t change, even you didn’t change. It’s not particularly frightening to know that there’s no such thing as God. That’s like a blindfolded guy walking along a tightrope imaging that he’s frightened because he took off the blindfold. But his situation hasn’t changed, he just understands it a bit better. He’s not in more danger because he doesn’t have the blindfold, he’s in less danger.
[/QUOTE]
I think this is all much more to the point of why existentialism is false, much more than this discussion of essences. Existentialism says, basically, the world is meaningless and you are free to create your own values. But the point is you don’t create your own values. Your values come from your needs and desires, and from (as I posted above) values you have been taught. Even if you reject many of the values you have been taught, you reject them on the basis of other values you have or have been taught–e.g., you might reject racism on the basis that it conflicts with the imperative to love. But these aren’t values you create on your own. They are already there; you merely select among pre-existing values (and in many cases you cannot choose; you simply are what you are and you cannot change that–existentialists would call that ‘bad faith’, but that just shows that existentialists had no understanding of human psychology or the source of values).
[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion]
My problem is with metaphysical profligacy. If you say that something exists, you have to tell me what kind of thing it is. And I am very curious to know what kind of thing *wheelness * could be. Where is it? What is it? What is it’s connection to wheels? What is its connection to our invention of wheels? It’s all very mysterious.
[/QUOTE]
Also, if wheelness is needed for wheels to exist, then wheelnessness is needed for wheelness to exists, and wheelnessnessness is needed…
Even Plato was puzzled by this, though mostly he ducked the issue.
[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion]
My problem is with metaphysical profligacy. If you say that something exists, you have to tell me what kind of thing it is. And I am very curious to know what kind of thing *wheelness * could be. Where is it? What is it? What is it’s connection to wheels? What is its connection to our invention of wheels? It’s all very mysterious.
[/QUOTE]
Well I would assume that by the essence of wheelness he is talking about potential. In that case by the existence of geometry the nature of the wheel is implied through the arrangement of a concentric circle around a center point. A tree cut cross sectionally is essentially a wheel. What brings the ‘wheel’ into existence is purpose and interpretation of form. It is what we use it for that makes it a wheel, even though many other forms in nature have ‘wheelness’. A perfect demonstration of this is in Sesame Street’s “Grover invents the Wheel”.
[QUOTE=mswas]
Well I would assume that by the essence of wheelness he is talking about potential. In that case by the existence of geometry the nature of the wheel is implied through the arrangement of a concentric circle around a center point. A tree cut cross sectionally is essentially a wheel. What brings the ‘wheel’ into existence is purpose and interpretation of form. It is what we use it for that makes it a wheel, even though many other forms in nature have ‘wheelness’. A perfect demonstration of this is in Sesame Street’s “Grover invents the Wheel”.
[/QUOTE]
Again, though, this makes the doctrine of essentialism pretty empty (this is related to what I was saying in post #43). Okay, for something to exist, it has to have the potential to exist–i.e., it has to be possible (geometrically, physically, etc.) for it to exist. (This seems to be what **Liberal ** means when he talks about the ‘contingencies’ which are required for a wheel to exist.) But how is that essentialism? That is just a statement that only possible things can become actual. Great. Any modal logician could have told us that. Hell, any engineer could have told us that.
[QUOTE=Dr. Love]
Liberal, could you tell me whether I am right that an essence just is a member of the set of all possible things?
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I’d say so, yes, but it is also a member of the set of all necessary things.
I don’t think essence is a list of properties, and I don’t know why people have to rephrase what I say. When I say that essence implies what is necessary, it is echoed that I said essence implies what is possible. When I say that essence identifies a thing, it is echoed that I said essence defines a thing.
I really don’t understand why any of this is difficult because, after all, essentialism was the default position of almost every philosopher for thousands of years — including Eastern philosophers, like Fa-tsang with his Gold Lion (is it essentially gold or essentially a lion?). I suppose it is the modern ubiquity of existentialism that is to blame. If the first thing a philosophy student hears in his 101 class is a reading of Nietzsche, then there is hardly any wonder that Aristotle sounds strange.
[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion]
I think essentialism says much more than this [: All that essentialism is saying is that whatever you might find in the future (or the present or the past), it will not be found unless there is a way for reality to accomodate it.]. All you are saying here is “If it can’t be, it won’t be.” You don’t have to be an essentialist to think that.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, you do. As you say yourself, “Existentialism says, basically, the world is meaningless and you are free to create your own values.” Essentialism says that the world is meaningful (because there is an underlying essence to everything in it) and that what you pursue depends on what you essentially value.
Take the example often given of a little old lady standing on a street corner. Existentially, she is nothing more than a collection of electromagnetic waves and subatomic particles suspended in a field of gravity. She pre-exists her essence. That means that you are free to apply whatever moral interpretation to her that you wish. You may mug or rape her just as well as you may help her cross the street, and either one has whatever moral value you want to attach to it, if any.
On the other hand, essentially, she is a free moral agent living out her moral journey and you have intercepted her. She pre-identifies her existence. The decision you make — of whether to help her, say a kind word to her, mug her, rape her, or ignore her — is a moral one, and is essentially made before you even know she is there. She merely represents an opportunity to pursue that which you most value. If you value goodness, you will edify her in some way. Any other thing would represent the same opportunity, be it a young man, a lost dog, or a hundred dollar bill.
[QUOTE=Larry Borgia]
Also, if wheelness is needed for wheels to exist, then wheelnessness is needed for wheelness to exists, and wheelnessnessness is needed…
Even Plato was puzzled by this, though mostly he ducked the issue.
[/QUOTE]
Wow, that’s a pretty gross misrepresentation of Permenides. Plato not only doesn’t duck the issue, he resolves the issue. Miller — the same Miller who debunked Kant’s existence/predicate theories — points out that the problem is one of interpretation, namely, that forms exist in the same way that rocks exist. This is what I’ve pointed out repeatedly and is something that no one has yet addressed; i.e., the non-copular nature of existence. In other words, there is no infinite regress of “wheelness” because wheelness is not something that exists materially. The statement “Wheelness is X” is a copula only, and is not an ontological claim.
ETA:
I do not mean to say that your misrepresentation is in any way dishonest, merely that it simply does not represent the complete dialog.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
As Edgar Allan Poe observed, “No man has ever had an original thought.”
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I believe Poe was wrong. I believe every thought of mine is original. Since my location in time and space is unique, every one of my thought is entirely unlike any one else’s - a point you’ve raised before, yourself. So it follows that my thoughts can never be an exact copy of another’s. Sure, they may be similar, but that’s not what you’re saying, is it?
[QUOTE=Liberal]
The essential idea had to be there, else where did my idea come from?
[/QUOTE]
It arose as a synthesis of you. I believe what you refer to as the essence emerges simultaneously with the idea i.e. doesn’t pre-exist it. I know that makes me a piss-poor hard existentialist, but there you are, life’s like that.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
We would surely agree that thoughts like those in our posts are synthetic in nature (as opposed to analytic), emerging from what we’ve synthesized through our experience.
[/QUOTE]
That’s exactly what I’ve argued.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
You might argue that the idea therefore emerged from my brain, which already existed; however, I’m not the first essentialist, so we cannot attribute the idea to the existence of MY brain.
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Why not? Your version of essentialism is not exactly like anyone else’s in every respect, if only by its context, so yes, it needed YOUR brain to exist.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
And yet, that’s where you say it came from. It’s the contradictions in existentialism (and materialism generally) that bother me.
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I don’t see the contradiction. Please elaborate?
[QUOTE=MrDibble]
I believe Poe was wrong. I believe every thought of mine is original. Since my location in time and space is unique, every one of my thought is entirely unlike any one else’s - a point you’ve raised before, yourself. So it follows that my thoughts can never be an exact copy of another’s. Sure, they may be similar, but that’s not what you’re saying, is it?
[/quote]
No, and it’s not what Poe was saying either.
Let me reiterate, again, that no one is saying that essence pre-exists existence; it is that essence precedes existence. It is a copula, not an ontological claim.
Versions may differ in certain particulars, but the underlying principle of all existential thought is that existence precedes essence:
“Existence precedes essence”, is a philosophic concept based on the idea of existence without essence. For humanity, it means that humanity may exist, but humanity’s existence does not mean anything at least at the beginning. This concept can be applied at the individual level as well. The value and meaning of this existence—or essence—is created only later. It directly and strongly rejects many traditional beliefs including religious beliefs that humankind is given a knowable purpose by its creator or other deity. The idea of “existence precedes essence” is a key foundational concept of existentialism.
I’ve done that at length, and in quite some detail in posts with others. I would refer you to those.
I think part of the problem is that the meaning of ‘essence’ is equivocal, and many posts in this thread trade on the different meanings. Usually, when there is talk of objects having essences, it means that they have certain essential properties, and without those properties they would be some other object altogether. (So, for example, God is essentially omniscient; any being lacking that property would of necessity not be God.) Now I have difficulty imagining what the essential property of a wheel could be–a wheel needn’t be round (citation: the Island of Misfit Toys in Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer); it needn’t be affixed to an axle (you could engineer a wheel that didn’t have an axle or rotate on a central hub); it needn’t be used to transport an object from point A to point B. There is no essential wheelness.
In other places in this thread, ‘essence’ is just used to mean ‘form’ or ‘properties’. And of course, something cannot have existence without having form, so if this is all that is mean when we say “existence requires essence”, then I have no bone to pick with that. To the extent that the existentialists claimed that a person could exist without any psychological characteristics or values (and then create these ex nihilo), then the existentialist is full of crap. But that is a rather different point than the one discussed in the previous paragraph.
Oh, and just to clarify, I think that (for example) **Liberal ** is using the first definition of ‘essence’ and ‘essential’ in his post 50, and the second in his discussion of wheels, etc. I think to refute existentialism, one need only refer to the second, less controversial definition (although I basically agree with what **Liberal ** says in post 50).
[QUOTE=Liberal]
Wow, that’s a pretty gross misrepresentation of Permenides. Plato not only doesn’t duck the issue, he resolves the issue. Miller — the same Miller who debunked Kant’s existence/predicate theories — points out that the problem is one of interpretation, namely, that forms exist in the same way that rocks exist. This is what I’ve pointed out repeatedly and is something that no one has yet addressed; i.e., the non-copular nature of existence. In other words, there is no infinite regress of “wheelness” because wheelness is not something that exists materially. The statement “Wheelness is X” is a copula only, and is not an ontological claim.
ETA:
I do not mean to say that your misrepresentation is in any way dishonest, merely that it simply does not represent the complete dialog.
[/QUOTE]
You’re probably right. It’s been over twnety years since I read Parmenides, and my memory of it is dim.
Could you gloss what you mean by copula? A copula seems to be a verb that links a subject to a predicate. At least that’s what a quick search on the word reveals.
Also, I’m not sure if all this metaphysics really helps the OP. She seemed more concerned with Existentialism as an attitude about morality and choice.
[QUOTE=Larry Borgia]
Also, I’m not sure if all this metaphysics really helps the OP. She seemed more concerned with Existentialism as an attitude about morality and choice.
[/QUOTE]
Word. This is what I’ve been saying. Which is why I’ve been arguing that no choice of values is really made in a vacuum; you don’t create your own values ex nihilo, as the existentialist seemed to think. But my posts to that effect have been largely ignored, leading me to believe (a) that they sucked balls and nobody has anything to say about them, or (b) that everybody finds the metaphysical discussion more interesting and would rather talk about that.
[QUOTE=Larry Borgia]
Could you gloss what you mean by copula? A copula seems to be a verb that links a subject to a predicate. At least that’s what a quick search on the word reveals.
[/QUOTE]
I’m using it with respect to “to be” versus “to exist” because some people are reading the phrase “essence is so-and-so” to mean “essence exists as so-and-so”. See, for example, the post talking about wheelness needing to exist before wheels. It might sound picky, but it isn’t. Wheelness doesn’t “exist” at all. And while I’m typing, I’d like to address Sophistry’s point about equivocation. I’m using “essence” strictly in the Aristotlean sense, of “the what it is to be”.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
I think the PC apeman’s post is closely tied to yours. It’s important to understand that using “to be” to mean “to exist” is non-copular. It is not the case that essence existed before existence did; it is that essence is a prerequisite for existence — i.e., the latter is contingent on the former. “The what it was to be” doesn’t imply a pre-existing state of existence; rather, it implies a pre-existing state of identity.
And so, it isn’t that the essence of the wheel existed before the wheel existed; it’s that the wheel could not exist without there first being the contingencies that make the wheel’s existence possible.
Look at it another way: under what condition can there exist a rational square root of 2? None. Therefore, there is essentially no such thing — that is, such a thing cannot emerge into existence. That’s why contradictions do not exist. It isn’t because we haven’t yet discovered one; it’s that that is the essence of a contradiction. That which is metaphysically impossible cannot ever be true (or exist) under any circumstance, which differs from an epistemic impossibility which simply doesn’t exist for all we know, but could under the right circumstances.
[/QUOTE]
If any thing (essence included) exists, it is in existence, if it isn’t in existence it is non existent. Where is essence at if it doesn’t exist?
Monavis
[QUOTE=Liberal]
I’m using “essence” strictly in the Aristotlean sense, of “the what it is to be”.
[/QUOTE]
Fine, but with reference to your post #50, I don’t think that there is any X such that a wheel is essentially X in the same way that there is a Y (having a certain moral status) such that people are essentially Y.