- The proof is in the pudding. Essence is obvious. Life, consciousness, truth…
- How does this refute the essences you believe in?
You’re welcome to point that out - but it doesn’t have much bearing on anything - since cart before horse is just a manner of speaking, and essence and existence are no more parts of a circular cause and consequence than sculpture and sculptor. Essence is abstraction - it is preceded by what exists.
Not sure how this proves anything.
Here’s how you defined essence: “'An essence characterizes a substance or a form, in the sense of the Forms or Ideas in Platonic idealism. It is permanent, unalterable, and eternal;”
For me, there is nothing necessarily permanent, unalterable, or eternal about essences. There can be such a thing as a tree-as-it-ultimately-is without it being permanent, unalterable, or eternal.
- Assumption.
- ‘Abstraction’ is every bit as real as 10110011101.
- Abstraction exists, essence exists. There is nothing that doesn’t exist.
A. OK well you can always come back later when you understand me.
B. You are entitled to your opinion. However as this is a philosophy board I will offer an alternative: if something exists it is eternal because non-existence doesn’t exist, things cannot just jump onto the non-existence plane at will. Energy is always conserved.
The law of conservation of energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed - it can only change form. It’s the changing of form that challenges you.
reasoned observation
sure it is, but reality doesn’t order itself according to 10110011101, 10110011101 orders itself according to reality
but there is that which is neither essence nor abstraction - if existence, on the other hand, is everything, then you tell me which is likely to have come first
gotta go -b back later
Material ‘forms’ of energy are not Plato’s forms.
… sorry…
… I’m trying not laugh…
Someone needs to write an etiquette handbook.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
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- Based on what your assumptions of what ‘reason’ are.
- Assumption.
- What and from which perspective? The only thing that could ‘come first’ is existence, which would mean both came first.
Hey, you’re the one who brought up the energy conservation law.
I don’t believe in Plato’s forms.
…
A. That much is clear.
B. It was an analogy in effect.
Well, whatever it’s an analogy for, I take issue with the ‘unchabeability’ characterization. There is very little, if anything, that is unchanging.
How about abstract concepts?
Like forms.
Sure, abstract concepts can be unchanging - insofar as they are defined as such - but how can you be sure the concept is of something that actually exists?
I didn’t say I could. What is your point?
Oh, nothing - just wondering where you stand on conceiving the unchangeable. I would guess one like yourself would like to believe that unchanngeable essences exist, and a plantonist style of thinking would suggest that to conceive of such a thing is to perceive it’s existence in a realm of forms.
For my part, I’m just trying to answer to original question: why essentialism is so poo-pooed in our times.
Can you explain your idea of essentialism and how it differs to Plato’s, I’m interested.
I will later. Right now, I gotta go.
First of all, my view on essentialism (or essences) can be given without recourse to a particular theory of mind, but depending on the mind theory you adopt, I will have different things to say about exactly ‘what’ the essence of things finally are.
Having said that, my view on essence, in plane words, is that the essence of a thing is what that thing ultimately is in reality. I don’t think essences belong to classes of things, but only to particular things (and usually only for a particular moment in time). So, for example, there is no essence of man as such, but each man, in a moment of time, has his own essence. He is, after all, something ultimately!
Like I said, though, the question of what this something is can differ from one theory of mind to another. To the niave realists, it is exactly what you perceive it to be. The essence of a tree, for example, is just the tree that you see before you - leaves, branches, trunk, roots, etc. - and exactly as you see it. To an idealist or a Kantian metaphysicist, the essence of things is something beyond perception, but just as real as you or I. The tree, for example, may not be exactly the green leaves or the rugged trunk or the moist roots, etc., but some imperceptible, perhaps inconceivable, thing outside one’s perceptual range. That thing, however, is nonetheless represented by the tree as perceived, and if you were to see the tree somehow perish (say in a fire) and its ashes be scattered about such that there is no more tree, the same would have to be said of the essential tree that exists beyond the realm of perception (so there is no permanence in this realm either).
I suppose you could count the platonic theory of mind whereby the conception of things (as in the conception of ‘mankind’) is a sort of ‘seeing’ into a realm of ‘forms’, and on this theory, my fundamental rendition of ‘essences’ falls apart, but like I said, I ain’t no platonist. 