On the Reality of the Existentialist Lifestyle

Great Debates
81

[QUOTE=begbert2]
But, it wouldn’t be the “very same” CD as it was before. It would be a differently colored CD. (Apparenly this matters, as Liberal was quite insistent about the redness of the red cube mattering.)
[/QUOTE]

Well, I think you need to distinguish between qualitative sameness (having all the same properties: e.g., electron x and electron y are qualitatively the same) and numerical sameness (being one and the same object; e.g., Mark Twain and Samuel Langhorne Clemens are numerically the same). If I alter your CD, it is qualitatively different, but it is numerically the same, as long as I don’t alter it too radically (e.g., by incinerating it). Small changes in properties are compatible with an object retaining numerical identity. Imagine the absurdity if this were false: I murder someone and then paint the gun a different color. Now I am no longer in possession of the murder weapon, because it is no longer the (numerically) same gun, and so you can’t use the gun against me in court.

82

[QUOTE=Liberal]
I, too, have (repeatedly) denied the existence of essence. You were aware of that, right?
[/QUOTE]

Well, I admit to a bit of confusion. You have said in this thread, among other things:

“But in every case, at the root of it all, existentialism requires that existence precede essence. And I believe with every fiber of my being that that is bass-ackwards.” (post 9)

“Here’s what I believe: there cannot exist a wheel without there first being the essence of what a wheel is to be.” (post 17)

etc.

So no, I guess I didn’t know that you were denying the existence of essences. Quite the opposite, really.

83

[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion]
Well, I think you need to distinguish between qualitative sameness (having all the same properties: e.g., electron x and electron y are qualitatively the same) and numerical sameness (being one and the same object; e.g., Mark Twain and Samuel Langhorne Clemens are numerically the same). If I alter your CD, it is qualitatively different, but it is numerically the same, as long as I don’t alter it too radically (e.g., by incinerating it). Small changes in properties are compatible with an object retaining numerical identity. Imagine the absurdity if this were false: I murder someone and then paint the gun a different color. Now I am no longer in possession of the murder weapon, because it is no longer the (numerically) same gun, and so you can’t use the gun against me in court.
[/QUOTE]
An important point, Soph. Going back to definitions, Aristotle said that essence is akin to a definition, but only in the sense that an essence defines a thing rather than a word. (Wittgenstein waxed endlessly about that same distinction.) That’s important because if someone means a specific thing — like a murder weapon — it’s still essentially that no matter what is done to it. But a generic thing, like a horse or a cube, can have practically endless permutations of properties.

84

[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion]
Well, I admit to a bit of confusion. You have said in this thread, among other things:

“But in every case, at the root of it all, existentialism requires that existence precede essence. And I believe with every fiber of my being that that is bass-ackwards.” (post 9)

“Here’s what I believe: there cannot exist a wheel without there first being the essence of what a wheel is to be.” (post 17)

etc.

So no, I guess I didn’t know that you were denying the existence of essences. Quite the opposite, really.
[/QUOTE]
I’m completely flummoxed by this. Surely, you could not have missed the many times I paintstakingly differentiated between a copula and an existential claim. “To be” in reference to essence is a copula only. It does not mean that essence “exists”. I have said repeatedly that it does not. To say that essence precedes existence in fact so differentiates the two that it should be obvious that it isn’t an ontological claim (a claim about the nature of existence). Even Monavis understood what I was saying. Maybe you just haven’t looked at my responses to the many others arguing at me.

85

[QUOTE=Liberal]
I’m completely flummoxed by this. Surely, you could not have missed the many times I paintstakingly differentiated between a copula and an existential claim. “To be” in reference to essence is a copula only. It does not mean that essence “exists”. I have said repeatedly that it does not. To say that essence precedes existence in fact so differentiates the two that it should be obvious that it isn’t an ontological claim (a claim about the nature of existence). Even Monavis understood what I was saying. Maybe you just haven’t looked at my responses to the many others arguing at me.
[/QUOTE]

No, I completely understand that you don’t think essences exist independently of actual objects/beings; I understand you don’t think they have separate existence. I guess I am objecting to the use of the word ‘essence’ to describe an object’s form or properties in the first place, since use of that word has certain metaphysical implications which you yourself seem to reject.

86

I guess I just don’t understand all the controversy my comments have generated. I mean, I’m not defending the MOP or anything; I’m just stating the standard case, both for essentialism and existentialism. Even if no one trusts the sources I’ve given, they need only Google the phrase “existence precedes essence” to see for themselves that that is what this is all about. I even gave the etymology of the word “essence”, and that’s not controversial either. Is there just a general notion that “there’s a Liberal post, so it must be something crazy”? I wonder especially since I’ve been accused of making ridiculous claims about how wheelness “existed” before wheels and so forth. I just think I have nothing to contribute here that anyone will view as useful, so I may as well bow out.

87

[QUOTE=Liberal]
Mr. Dibble, I’ll do this bit of homework for you, but you’re as capable of checking me out as you are of challenging me with “cite?”. One is simply lazier than the other.
[/QUOTE]

Asking you for a cite on this matter is hardly laziness - I am simply unconvinced that you know when Sartre was being metaphorical. I think your own bias makes you see it that way, but you have no statement from Sartre to back it up.

[QUOTE=Liberal]

This page is a fairly plain-spoken overview of what I’ve been saying: that essentialism and existentialism are opposites; that the former is defined primarily by the notion that essence precedes existence, and the latter by the notion that existence precedes essence;
[/QUOTE]

I have no quibble with any of this.

[QUOTE=Liberal]
that essence is “fixed, pregiven, pre-established, predetermined, essential, necessary or involuntary nature”.
[/QUOTE]

That isn’t Sartre’s definition, is it? And it contains an “or”. And it contains “essential”, which makes it quite circular.

[QUOTE=Liberal]
A thing that is fixed does not change. Without change, there is no time.
[/QUOTE]
Pithy, but wrong. The context can change, even if the thing itself is fixed.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
The page represents the views of an existentialist, chosen to counter the implication that I’m making shit up to suit myself.

[/QUOTE]
Take the “implication” bullshit to the Pit. You stated as a fact that Sartre was using metaphor, I asked for a cite that it was so. That page contains no such cite. Any “implication” is you reading into things. This is GD - I would not even imply you were lying since the rules changed, I’m still too unsure of them.
[QUOTE=Liberal]

For this purpose, though, they are in the set of essence and existence, one emerging from the other.
[/QUOTE]
That’s a conveniently small, circular and useless set. But what is it called? Why is it a set? What’s the commonality?
[QUOTE=Liberal]
I acknowledge up front that you don’t like that answer or, even worse, may say that it isn’t an answer. But I don’t know what you expect of such a broad and vague question. What set are you in? Aren’t you in quite many?
[/QUOTE]

Yes (an infinite many) - and my order (in those sets that are ordered) is determined by more than whim. The type of set determines the order. So what set are the two in, that their order is so obvious to you? And what is the ordering mechanism? This is what I’m trying to get at - in what way is essence precedent over existence? To say one emerges from the other is just to restate the same precedence declaration.

88

Aaargh!

89

[QUOTE=Liberal]
I guess I just don’t understand all the controversy my comments have generated. I mean, I’m not defending the MOP or anything; I’m just stating the standard case, both for essentialism and existentialism. Even if no one trusts the sources I’ve given, they need only Google the phrase “existence precedes essence” to see for themselves that that is what this is all about. I even gave the etymology of the word “essence”, and that’s not controversial either. Is there just a general notion that “there’s a Liberal post, so it must be something crazy”? I wonder especially since I’ve been accused of making ridiculous claims about how wheelness “existed” before wheels and so forth. I just think I have nothing to contribute here that anyone will view as useful, so I may as well bow out.
[/QUOTE]

Now don’t take your toys and go home just yet. I think part of the problem is that I can’t make some of the things you are saying fit together. So far you have said:

  1. An object has an essence, but not like a shirt has buttons; more like a piece of playdough has a shape. The object and the essence aren’t distinct things; they aren’t separable. Seen this way, I don’t see how we can understand an object’s essence as anything other than its properties (although it may be more than just that); but you deny the equation of essence with properties early in the thread.

  2. You endorse the above definition of essence as “fixed, pregiven, pre-established, predetermined, essential, necessary or involuntary nature.”

  3. You seem to agree that something’s numerical identity doesn’t depend on the properties it has–you write above that “if someone means a specific thing — like a murder weapon — it’s still essentially that no matter what is done to it.” Thus, the properties are not necessary or essential to the numerical identity of the object in question. This seems to contradict #2 above, which emphasizes necessity and essentialness.

So it’s not that we are interpreting you in bad faith; it’s that for whatever reason we cannot reconcile the things you are saying. Maybe it’s our fault. But there it is.

90

[QUOTE=Liberal]
No, it doesn’t require it. No one said it requires it. How can you even ask that question immediately after quoting the phrase “you are free to apply”? That doesn’t mean you’re required to do anything; it just means you’re allowed to. If you’re going to poke fun at my posts as though I’m not in the room, at least poke fun at what they actually say.
[/QUOTE]
I wasn’t joking. The entire moral argument against existentialism in that post hinged upon the assumption that the existentialist have a tendency to fail to recognize the old woman as an old woman (and that the essentialist fail to recognize that she is, essentially, an ambulatory meat sack). My question is is there anything about materialism that requires it to use a stupid assessment system for things (as you seemed to imply), as opposed to the usual, subjective assessment system that everyone applies (and that essentialists pretend has ultimate backing).

The answer appears to be “no”.

[QUOTE=Liberal]
That’s because you identified it as a “red cube”. It can still be a cube without being red, but it cannot be a red cube without being red. Is it really necessary to explain this?
[/QUOTE]
Right, but “red” was still an “essence” of the cube. Ergo, it seemed reasonable to extrapolate that the color of the CD was, similarly, an “essence”. (Which would seem to imply that it only loosely means “essential property”, and really means “any property”, realizing that the essence itself is of course only the left-hand side of the definition, not the entire definition itself, technically, of course.)

I think I understand the “metaphysical” aspects of this fine. I’m still waiting to hear how these relate to the moral aspects, of course.

[QUOTE=Liberal]
Morality has to be spiritual? You can’t be moral without a god or something?
[/QUOTE]
Nothing about the definitional aspects of these essences (as I currently understand them) gives them any moral properties whatsoever. Until some mechanism is shown by which the moral implications can be legitimately derived from them, the moral connection can be assumed to be something that is spiritual (ie: can’t be shown to exist; must be taken on faith; is very conveniently supportive of the inclinations of the believers.)

[QUOTE=Liberal]
That’s just interstitial recklessness. I would think that those things would edify her, and have said nothing to indicate anything to the contary.
[/QUOTE]
I hope you meant “wouldn’t”.

I repeat: where does the morality come from? Defintions are amoral; one presumes essences are similarly amoral. What is the moral argument? (I acknowledge that you mentioned a link; I hope you weren’t referring to that massive incomprehensible one on the stanford site. Surely it can be phrased more simply than that.)

I hope it’s not just that the essentiallist is more moral because they fail to recognize that there are multiple different ways to interpret scenarios, aside from the way the essentialist picked/was told by their religion. That would be so disappointing.

91

[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion]
Now don’t take your toys and go home just yet.
[/QUOTE]
I see. Apparently, the misunderstanding has been on my part.

92

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
This is GD - I would not even imply you were lying since the rules changed, I’m still too unsure of them.
[/QUOTE]
Simply not introducing the word “lying” to the conversation would go further toward persuading the Moderators that you were not attempting to circumvent the rules by referring to the rules.

Understood?

[ /Modding ]

93

Here’s something you can maybe address, Lib. (In all your spare time…)

While you deny the involvement of a temporal component in “essence preceding existence”, it seems to me that the existentialists are all saying that such a temporal component IS involved—that existence precedes essence IN TIME, not just in order. Is this apples and oranges?

94

[QUOTE=Liberal]
I see. Apparently, the misunderstanding has been on my part.
[/QUOTE]

No, I’m willing to entertain the possibility that I just don’t understand. There have been previous threads where I thought you were wrong, but I just didn’t understand (until you explained it) how it all fit together. Maybe this is one of those. Or maybe you are wrong. I don’t know.

95

[QUOTE=toadspittle]
Here’s something you can maybe address, Lib. (In all your spare time…)
[/quote]
:smiley: Thanks, I needed that. It does become onerous when you’re one against nine, and despite whatever care and attention you pay to answering each one first thing in the morning, you’re dismissed as everything from a crybaby to a liar. I think I may never get involved in another philosophical in Great Debates. I’m just too old for it.

Well, the existentialists have to say that because time begins when existence does. Things have always changed (and therefore been temporal) since the Big Bang. We know very well that particles cannot become completely at rest (which is what the lack of change would imply) because then we would know both where they are and where they are going — an impossibility according to Heisenberg. Therefore, if existence precedes essence, then the emergence of essence is merely an event in space-time. But if it is the other way around, there can be no coherent mention of time before existence. Therefore, for the essentialist, essence must be atemporal.

96

[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion]
No, I’m willing to entertain the possibility that I just don’t understand. There have been previous threads where I thought you were wrong, but I just didn’t understand (until you explained it) how it all fit together. Maybe this is one of those. Or maybe you are wrong. I don’t know.
[/QUOTE]
To address your particular questions, I said that essence doesn’t equate with properties because, as I explained, the assignment of properties may be incorrect while the essence remains in contradiction to those assignments. I gave the example of the sun for some time being assigned the property of a coal-burning furnace. I don’t know why you need your numbers 2 and 3 to be reconciled. I’ve always said that reality may be defined as that which is essential, necessary, and eternal. Essence is real; existence is an illusion — a probability distribution — that emerges from reality.

In any event, I would have thought you might cut me some slack, since I am dealing with everything from a person with an apparent grudge to a person who entered saying he knew very little about any of this and is now saying he understands the “metaphysics of this just fine”. If you interpret this as soliciting sympathy or taking my toys home, you are sadly misjudging me. If you think it is a fair playing field, then I have sadly misjudged you. Either way, we are drifting apart here, and that bothers me. It also bothers me that it doesn’t seem to bother you. If I’ve put you on a pedestal, that’s my fault. If you search my posts for your name, you’ll find unqualified praise whenever you are mentioned. Your condescension surprised and disappointed me.

97

[QUOTE=Liberal]
In any event, I would have thought you might cut me some slack, since I am dealing with […] a person who entered saying he knew very little about any of this and is now saying he understands the “metaphysics of this just fine”.
[/QUOTE]
Which you would be entirly correct in taking credit for via your explanations so far, in that they form a coherent and consistent image in my mind such that I now am confident that I have a working feel for what the term means. Which is why I am no longer quizzing you on what an essence is, at least in the context of this discussion.

Of course, I seem to have extrapolated a definition of the term “essence” such that essences are not “real” by any meaningful sense of the term. So, perhaps I have misnderstood you after all, and should discard it all and start over.

98

[QUOTE=Liberal]
In any event, I would have thought you might cut me some slack, since I am dealing with everything from a person with an apparent grudge to a person who entered saying he knew very little about any of this and is now saying he understands the “metaphysics of this just fine”. If you interpret this as soliciting sympathy or taking my toys home, you are sadly misjudging me. If you think it is a fair playing field, then I have sadly misjudged you. Either way, we are drifting apart here, and that bothers me. It also bothers me that it doesn’t seem to bother you. If I’ve put you on a pedestal, that’s my fault. If you search my posts for your name, you’ll find unqualified praise whenever you are mentioned. Your condescension surprised and disappointed me.
[/QUOTE]

Then I apologize. I didn’t foresee (although I should have) that my post would have come across as condescending or insulting. I will exercise greater care in the future, as you are one of the posters I respect most.

99

[QUOTE=Liberal]
Don’t know about mswas, but I’m not saying that. Just because you are free to assign whatever essence you wish to a thing doesn’t mean you believe you’re the only person who exists.
[/QUOTE]

Fair enough.

The question “Is it possible to live a purely existentialist lifestyle?” was answered on page one. The discussion on existentialism vs. essentialism was not.

Since I think that I am the “person with an apparent grudge” I apologize for my tone and will stop my previous line of argument.

100

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Simply not introducing the word “lying” to the conversation would go further toward persuading the Moderators that you were not attempting to circumvent the rules by referring to the rules.

Understood?

[ /Modding ]
[/QUOTE]

I’m sorry, but being accused of saying someone is - and I quote - “making shit up” would strike me as the first introduction of the concept. Is it just that I used the word “lying”? Like I said, I’m still unsure of the new rule - is asking for a cite still OK? Lib doesn’t seem to think so.