From: Scott Roberts (jse885@cox.net)
Date: Sun Sep 04 2005 - 08:15:47 BST
Ham,
Scott said:
> I can't say that Essentialism does anything for me,
> since I have no idea what capital-E Essence means.
Ham said:
Essence is the absolute primary source. I capitalize it to distinguish it
from all differentiated or relational entities that may have similar names,
such as "essents", "existents", or "essences". (Since there is only one
Essence, you won't see "essences" in my thesis, unless I'm quoting Plato or
Aristotle.)
Scott:
That doesn't answer my problem. Why call it anything other than "absolute
primary source", if that is the entire extent of its meaning?
Ham said:
What you call (lower-case) essences are the objects of cognizant
awareness -- things and events experienced in physical reality. I refer to
these as "particulars", in the tradition of the classical philosophers,
although I now sometimes use "sensibilia", a word I picked up from someone
here, which may convey the proprietary (cognizant) nature of perceived
objects.
Scott:
No, classical philosophers distinguished essences from particulars, and I am
following that usage. I also refer to objects of cognizant awareness as
particulars. Essences are the opposite of particulars.
Scott said:
> I also can't see an Essence of essences as being a primary source,
> since essences (as I see it) depend on existence to have value
> (and vice versa). And, as I've said before, I do not require of a
> metaphysics that it have an identifiable primary source at all.
Ham said:
Your preferred ontology aside, we all depend on existence -- more
specifically "beingness" -- for our realization of value. But vice-versa
doesn't apply. That is to say, existence does not depend on value because
value is subjective. Although this is contrary to Pirsig's view, I do agree
with his thesis that existence depends on our experience and, to a large
extent, is created by it.
Scott:
The "vice versa" was between essences and existents, that is, that existents
depend on essences to have value. Or to put it another way, an existent has
value because it expresses an essent.
Ham continued:
> The attributes of a particular thing, like the dimensions by which
> we define them, is a given in experience. ...
> In other words, existence is organized and relational rather
> than random and chaotic.
Scott said:
> When you say "existence is organized and relational" you have brought in
> essences, in addition to existents. That's what essences do: organize and
> relate existents.
Ham said:
Forget "essences"; I've already rejected the term. It means nothing to me.
There is only one Essence -- what you refer to as DQ. The "formatting",
"patterning" or organization of physical reality is the intellectual
perspective of the individual. It is the "form" Essence manifests to
sensible awareness when it's divided by time and space and perceived as a
relational system.
Scott:
Then I repeat my original question: what sense can I make of capital-E
Essence if I am to forget "essences"? (And by the way I don't refer to DQ as
the primary source).
The individual does format, pattern, and organize physical reality, but I am
pointing out that s/he couldn't do so unless physical reality were already
formatted, patterned, and organized. This does not imply that the
individual's patterns are the same as those of unobserved and unreflected-on
physical reality -- in fact, we know they are not (since, or so I believe,
the unobserved patterns are not spatio-temporal), but there must be patterns
or we couldn't produce our patterns.
[skipping the "ground of being" business -- too many undefined terms to be
able to say something sensible].
Scott said:
> But do you think there are patterns of physical existence aside from our
> thinking about them? If so, are these patterns not essences?
Ham said:
I see you're going to force me to expose my phenomenalist position after
all!
There are two answers to your question. Let me preface them with a highly
condensed explanation. I define "existence" as that which is experienced as
occurring in time and space. Existence is experienced as a relational
system comprised of existents (objects) that arise and pass in a ground of
being. The one anomaly in this system is the cognizant self which is not a
being at all! (I use Sartre's term "negate" for this "essent" in my
thesis.)
Hence, if you're asking me if physical existence is anything more than our
thinking and experience of it, my answer is yes, it includes Value which is
our subjective link to Essence.
Scott:
So we agree that spatio-temporal existence is solely our experience (well,
it could be that horses also experience spatio-temporally, but no doubt
somewhat differently). But we disagree, or do we, that in the absence of
humanity (possibly also in the absence of the biological) you say there is
no pattern at all, and I say there is pattern. Is that correct?
Ham continued:
On the other hand, if you're asking if Reality is more than
thought/experience, my answer is that Reality is EVERYTHING more. Why?
Because sensible awareness is the negate of Essence (i.e, a nothingness),
while its experienced object (beingness) has no sensibility. This is
Pascal's 'Great Divide' (the mystical "split" you folks are all trying to
track) whereby Essence, the immutable not-other, negates nothingness to
create an autonomous agent with the capacity to respond to its Value.
Scott:
My objection to this is that I do not consider sensible awareness to be a
nothingness. I consider it to be a form of expression. So while it it
doesn't exist independently of our awareness in the form in which it appears
to us, it is also not fully determined by our awareness. It is communication
between different kinds of intellect. At this point a sort of pragmatism
kicks in (on my part) in that I see no need to go beyond this to postulate
anything immutable, except perhaps that contradictory identity provides a
handle on the mutability of all this expression.
- Scott
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