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?
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
That’s exactly what I’ve argued.
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.
I don’t see the contradiction. Please elaborate?
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).
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.
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.
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”.
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
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.