Lib, I understand how existence is a subjective convention of human thought, but I’ve never quite grasped why essence is not. Could you elaborate?
To understand the answer to that question, it is necessary to understand the etymology of the word. “Essentia” was a word coined by confounded Roman philosophers who were baffled when translating Aristotle: specifically, his phrase “to ti ên einai”, literally, “the what [that] it was to be”. A thing’s essence, basically, is its tautological identity, or as Aristotle called it, its “kath’ hauto” (meaning, “in respect of itself”). It is that which a thing — if it is to exist at all — cannot help but be. A thing can have essence without having existence. Take, for example, a unicorn. It does not exist, but if it were to emerge into existence, its essence is already known. In other words, you would recognize a unicorn if you saw one despite that you never will. (Important note: Understand that we are not talking about the word “unicorn”, but the thing unicorn. This is similar to the differentiation between the numeral “2” and the number 2.)
Another way to put it is that essence is necessary. Underlying all subjective attachments is objective essence. The universe, for example, is essentially a probability distribution. But different creatures and things may or may not attach significance to any or all perceived attributes of it. To a rock, the universe is nothing more than its essence. But to a modern physicalist, the universe is a rich tapestry of existential meaning with enormous potential for discovery. Without essence, existence would be devoid of all context, including subjectivity.
If I understand you, we grasp essence only through the “filter” of our own subjectivity, whatever that subjectivity may be (yours, mine, a rock’s, a camel’s, etc).
Given that, I’m not getting how we can grasp the essence of, say, a unicorn. It seems to me that we’d be in the position of blind men fondling an elephant; able to provide rich descriptions of our subjective experience, but completely oblivious of the elephant.
I’m not seeing how my subjective unicorn-y thoughts enable me to know the essence of “unicorn” any more than a blind man holding an elephant’s tail knows what an elephant is.
If essence is the clay from which we subjectively mold our experience, how can know of the clay qua clay? Is our knowledge of essence arrived at strictly analytically, or is there a subtle experiential component I’m overlooking?
It doesn’t really matter. (It seems like) you’re trying to figure out whether essence is noumenal or phenomenal, analytic or synthetic, a priori or post priori, in an attempt to — pardon the pun — Kantify it. All perception is subjective. Once you have found a unicorn, you might show it to another man who says, “Bah. That is not a unicorn. That is just a horse with a horn on its nose.” Neither your discovery, nor the man’s cycnicism, changes what a unicorn essentially is. As another example, a man might mistakenly get five when he adds two and two, but that doesn’t mean that the essence of everything involved has changed. In fact, what we would say is that the man is essentially mistaken, the unicorn is essentially a fabled creature symbolic of virginity, and an elephant is essentially what it is, while the men examining it are essentially blind. If these things weren’t all true, then your question wouldn’t even make sense. If the elephant had no essence, then it wouldn’t matter who is touching what part. In fact, the parts would be indistinguishable from all other parts, and elephants indistinguishable from unicorns.
How do you distinguish between moral will and non-moral will, then?
A moral decision is an aesthetic judgment — it contributes either to edification (goodness) or destruction (evil). Other decisions are more primitive; e.g., intellectual decisions (Is this inference valid?), emotional decisions (Does this make me sad?), motor decisions (Should I scratch my itch?), etc.
What counts as edification or destruction?
I disagree, essesence must come from something, it cannot reside on it’s own.If man was created to the image of God then he would be invisible! For you cannot see God,and unless you believe that God is everywhere. And to say God is he, is a fallacy, for the Word is a noun, (Person place or thing). You can believe “A " God exists, but that is your right to do so, and I would defend your right to believe. But if you interpet the Word to mean what exists,Which is what The Torah quotes God saying o Moses, that” I am what is". Of course there is no historical evidence tha Moses was a historical person except in the Torah.
Monavis
The closer you are to what you value most, the more edified you are; the further away, the more destroyed.
Being created in the image of God does not mean that man is invisible, nor does it mean that God has arms and walks on two legs. Being created in the image of God means that the essence of man is spirit.
Amen
So is “man” the only creature created in this image and consisting of this “spirit”?
So if someone values being a cannibal, they’re being good by doing that?
Yes, of course. Why would you think otherwise?
Not necessarily. But possibly.
I agree to disagree. A horse is said to be spirited, we use this word in may ways, but not as a personification of someone. We say he,she, or it is in good spirits today. I do not see the essence of a man being spirit.you do and that is your priviledge.
Monavis
Okay. What do you see as man’s essence? The flesh? Call it what you will, but whatvever part of us survives this mortal body, is what I refer to as our spirit, or soul if you prefer. The other uses of the word don’t diminish anything.
There’s no point in equivocating. A logical fallacy isn’t going to help your argument.
Essence described in the dictionary is: :the basic or necessary constituent of a thing;a substance from a plant,drug,or the like by distillation,infusion, etc. a spiritual or immaterial entity". So we were in existance before our birth as was everthing. When we our bodies decay we go back to being the atoms etc. that we were made of before. I believe we were not created but came about as the atoms etc. of which we are composed came together in our ancestors genes and have been passed down so in other words I live as a human and will return to existance as i was before. We know we shre DNA with all things. Chimpanzee’s share over 90 % of our DNA.
Monavis
I would add a post script.
In the Genesis story the price for sin, was death, not loss of soul. " Now that you know the difference between good and evil you must die". It didn’t take into account that animals and plants were dying so man could eat. They decided later on, when good people were dying, that perhaps man had a soul and that is what didn’t die, but then came the idea that Good people went to a happy place and the bad went to hell. It gave people a reason to try to be good.And man did not like the idea of not living.
Monavis