From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Sun Sep 11 2005 - 19:50:13 BST
Scott,
>Paul said: Firstly, I don't see how an essent that necessarily depends on
>something else can be meaningfully called an essent. I thought the whole
>point of an essent was that it was non-relational.
>
>Scott:
>It may have been for Plato, but not so, or not so much, for Aristotle. I
>see
>this as a case where one can shift the meaning of 'essence' in a way that
>keeps a lot of its philosophical value, but without maintaining its
>Platonic
>absolute existence. See below.
Paul: I really don't see how the 'essence' of 'something' is necessarily
'something else'. Not in anything other than a completely watered-down
sense anyway.
>Paul said:
>Secondly, in Derridean terms you seem to be saying there is a signified
>(concept) waiting for a signifier (word) for its expression. However, if
>you want to be a thoroughgoing 'differentialist' i.e. one who completely
>rejects the principle of self-identity, then signifier and signified cannot
>form the unity you seem to refer to. Instead there is an ongoing process
>of
>signification - differance. This seems to contradict your position as
>stated above, yet you claim consistency with the differential mysticism of
>Magliola.
>
>However, I can hear the sound of Nishida approaching.... :-)
>
>Scott:
>You hear correctly. They do not form a unity, rather they form a
>contradictory identity (I think differance is another formulation of
>contradictory identity).
Paul: I'm not convinced. As far as I can tell, entitative theory, which
Nagarjuna repudiates, is a corollary of any identity one can postulate,
contradictory or otherwise. Magliola talks about Heideggerian
contradictories in 'Derrida on the Mend':
"Recall that conventionally, think and Being are considered not just
contraries, but contradictories - thinking is the contradictory of
non-thinking, and non-thinking is Being...In other words, Heidegger is
affirming the identity of these contradictories....The superb irony, of
course, is that here we see Heidegger deconstructing the first phase,
logocentric rationalism; and [later] we shall see the Heideggerian sort of
logocentrism likewise deconstructed!" [Magliola, Derrida on the Mend, p74]
Regards
Paul
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