From: David M (davidint@blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: Tue Aug 30 2005 - 19:48:33 BST
Scott: The usual use of "essentialist" in philosophy is to claim the reality
of the
> essence of things beyond the transitory appearance ("existence") of
> things.
> It is, as far as I can tell, the same universalist stand as opposed to the
> nominalist: horses are horses because they have partake in horseness,
> which
> exists (if one is an essentialist) in addition to the particular horses. A
> Platonic Form, in short, which a nominalist or anti-essentialist (same
> thing, as far as I can see) will call "just" a word or concept.
>
DM: Materialism is also essentialist in terms of claiming that there
is some ultimate simple that is more real than other phenomena.
Scott:> However, suppose one doesn't insist that all essences be eternal and
> unchanging. Then the MOQ would appear to be essentialist, only it calls
> essences "static patterns of value".
DM: I think that is bending the word too far, if it is
historical/contingent/chosen it is not essential.
Therefore I thinkthe below is unjustified.
Scott: Note that a particular horse in a given
> instant is not an SPOV. Rather it instantiates SPOV (by being a horse,
> also
> by being a particular horse, say Trigger, over time). Because it follows a
> bunch of SPOV we can to some extent predict its behavior. And we can talk
> about it. Without essences there would be no language. But Paul (and
> probably Pirsig) claim that the MOQ is anti-essentialist. From this I
> guess
> one must conclude that they assume that until there was language, there
> were
> no SPOV. But if that were the case how could there have ever been a horse,
> even if there was no one around to say "that is a horse"?
DM: language implies a universal claim, it does not mean that it is not a
historical
contingent. I think you are confused. The point of the DQ/SQ distinction is
to proclaim that there is not essential being, rather a continuous pouring
of
SQ into existence, some SQ is more common than other, some SQ has been
around a long time, in the end it probably all comes from and goes back to
the
abyss. Any thoughts otherwise are probably just a time frame error.
>
> In other words, one cannot say that essences exist, and one cannot say
> that
> essences do not exist, etc.
>
> - Scott
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <hampday@earthlink.net>
> To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
> Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2005 12:32 AM
> Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: MD the MOQ conference hoax
>
>
>
> Erin, Platt --
>
>
> Platt asked:
>
>> I don't know if I'm essentialist or anti-essentialist since I have no
>> idea
>> what the term means. Does it have anything to do with Ham's essentialism?
>
> I've been wondering the same thing. I note that Erin uses the phrase
> "more
> left-wing as anti-essentialist". Can we infer that "right wingers" are
> Essentialists? If so, maybe there's some hope yet for raising the current
> administration's flagging public opinion numbers. (Since Pirsig is
> considered to be anti-essentialist, I assume it is the politically correct
> MoQ position.)
>
> Could you enlighten us with a definition, Erin? Perhaps I can use it in
> my
> thesis.
>
> Ham
>
>
>
>
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