[MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism

[Scott Roberts]

Ham,

Scott said:
> An essence of something is defined as "what makes
> that something what it is", or something like that.
> An essentialist, then, would be someone who thinks
> that this essence that makes something what it is is
> independent of the somethings. So there is an essence
> of horse, in addition to horses.
> Plato's Forms are, of course, quintessentially essences.
> (I'll let you explain how your self-description as an
> essentialist differs from this. I've asked you a couple
> of times why you call your primary source 'Essence',
> and never got an answer.)

Ham said:
Sorry, I must have missed your question or thought I'd answered it by
explaining the ontology behind it.

For me, there is only one Essence, which is why I refer to it as the Primary
Source.  All differentiated entities are of course derived from this source,
the dynamics of which have been the subject of much debate between Reinier
and myself.  So, while I'm not an essentialist in the platonic sense, my
philosophy is founded on Essence and my metaphysics borrows from the
thinking of the Neo-platonists, Eckhart, Cusa, and to some extent Hegel (an
existentialist).

Scott:
Yes, but why do you call your source 'Essence', and not just, say, 'Source', 
or 'the One' (Plotinus), or 'the Godhead' (Eckhart'), or 'God' (Cusa)? If 
the word 'essence' has the traditional meaning -- where there are lots of 
them (horseness, catness, etc.), what are you taking from that meaning to 
name the Source 'Essence'? In other words, I don't see how the unfolding of 
your metaphysics in any way depends on your choice of the word 'Essence' as 
the Source, and not something else.

Scott said:
> A concept is something like an essence, in that each
> utterance of the word 'cat' means what it means because
> we have a concept of catness. When I say "a concept is
> dependent on its expression" I mean that there is no
> concept unless and until it is expressed.

Ham said:
What do you call an idea, then, before it is "expressed"?

Scott:
Non-existent. But this is for us non-Awakened fallen human beings. In some 
esoteric sense, there might be something like Plato's Forms. For us, though, 
ideas must be conceptual -- without that we don't know them -- and to 
acquire concepts requires their expression.

Ham continued:
  And where do we
all get the concept of "catness" if not by seeing (or experiencing) the
cuddly four-legged furry animal with whiskers and a tail?

Scott:
If you try to work this empiricist belief through, you will end up in 
paradox. How is the first seeing of a whole cat accomplished? How is one 
sight of a cat connected to another? Without the concept of catness this 
would be impossible. Without concepts there are only qualia (unconnected 
colors, shapes, feel of furriness, etc.) without anything to connect them 
into a whole called a cat. In other words, without the concept of a cat we 
cannot see a cat. But without seeing a cat we cannot acquire the cat 
concept. (Actually, we can, if we have some related concepts available. We 
can, for instance, have a concept of a winged horse, without having seen 
one).

Ham continued:
  The word "cat"
does not have to be "uttered" for you or me to picture it in our mind as a
concept. In fact, we could have the concept without the name.

Scott:
For example? I can agree that there might be something like an inchoate 
idea, some vague presentiment that hasn't been expressed. But the reason for 
trying to express it, and what is accomplished by expressing it, is to make 
it a concept. This is why one says "all language is metaphorical", because 
the first expression must employ metaphors (using old concepts in new ways). 
After a while, they become dead metaphors.

Ham continued:
  The problem I'm having with you and the semiotics people (or are you
nominalists?) is that you equate the concept with the label, which almost
makes language your essence.

Scott:
They (Arlo, Matt, etc.) are nominalists (as are you, apparently, insofar as 
think there is only one Essence, and all else is existents -- and, by the 
way, nominalism and anti-essentialism are, as far as I can tell, the same 
thing). I am not a nominalist.  Neither of us (nominalists or me) are 
equating the concept with the label (labels can change while concepts remain 
the same, and concepts can change while labels remain the same -- the 
meaning of words changes.)

For me, yes, semiotics has the characteristic of 'essence of everything' (I 
say 'semiotics' rather than 'language' to avoid confusion -- I try to 
restrict the word 'language' to human languages, English, Swahili, etc.). 
But of course in saying it is the 'essence of everything' I am not saying 
that it exists independently of everything. So I prefer to just say 
'everything is semiotic'. And please remember that there is a huge 
difference between what I am saying and what nominalists like Arlo are 
saying. For them, it is just the case that humans acquired language, and 
after that, all our thinking and culture  is bound by language. While what I 
am saying is that semiotics is the fundamental characteristic of all 
realities, human or non-human.

You continue:
> Further, in being expressed, it gets used in ever varying
> contexts, so over time and new contexts, the concept changes
> as a consequence of its expression. So there is no concept
> independent of its expression. But on the other hand,
> there is no expression independent of its concept (otherwise
> there is only meaninglessness). So that's the way I think of
> essences and their existents (given that I see every object as
> a sign, though with many of them (physical objects) we have
> lost the ability to pass through them to their meaning).
> They are mutually dependent. Hence to be an essentialist
> and to be an anti-essentialist are both falling off the Middle
> Way. Each privileges one (essence or existent) over the other.

Ham said:
This may be true of some abstractions, such as metaphysical concepts.  But
aren't you completely dismissing experience here?  The bulk of our daily
participation in the world consists in processing information about observed
phenomena, like cats, people, trees, houses, and books -- not abstract
conceptions.  I don't think our concept of these existents changes
significantly just because we "express" them.  I could write a hundred
essays on cats, but my concept of a cat would not change.

Scott:
Without concepts of cats, people, trees, houses, and books, there is no 
experience of cats, people, trees, houses, and books. Without concepts, as 
James famously said, there would only be "blooming, buzzing confusion".

Ham said:
Once again, your epistemology baffles me.  And most baffling of all is that
you don't posit a starting place for proprietary awareness.  In "The World
as Will and Idea" Schopenhauer said that the world is an idea insofar as it
is an object in the mind of a subject.  His ultimate reality, though, was
Will (or what we might call "intent"), and he asserted that if the will is
completely negated the representational world is also negated.  It seems to
me that you are using "idea" in that same context, which would seem to put
you in bed with David who said that the essential "stuff" is an idea.

Scott:
It baffles you because you are evaluating my attempts to express my concepts 
by your realist, empiricist concepts, what philosophers call the "natural 
attitude" (or if they're in a bad mood, "naive realism"). What is odd about 
this is that you consider existents (like cats) to be illusory, but then you 
turn around and treat consciousness as if it were just a passive recipient 
of these illusions, and you treat language nominalistically, as if a 
succession of received illusions could produce a concept. Here's another 
quote from Wolff to ponder. It is in a commentary on his aphorism no. 6: 
"Within the bosom of Consciousness-without-an-object lies the power of 
awareness that projects objects."

"Ordinarily we think of the power of awareness as playing a purely passive 
or receptive role in the receiving of impressions. It is true that on the 
empiric level it does function, in some measure, in the receptive sense. But 
in the ordinary creative activity of men, even, we can see that this is not 
its exclusive function. Thus, a work of art is first creatively imagined, 
then projected in objective form, and finally, received back as an 
impression. In turn, the received impression may arouse further creative 
activity and lead to a repetition of the same process. However, in this 
series, the function of the received impression is that of a catalytic 
agent, which simply arouses the creatively projective power. It is the 
impression from the object that is passive and not the power of awareness. 
Clarity with respect to this point is of the very highest importance, as it 
is right here that the invidious participation in objects begins. When an 
individual views the power of awareness as standing in passive relationship 
to impressions from objects, he places himself in a position of 
subordination to objects, and this constitutes the essence of bondage. The 
universe of objects then becomes a great prison-house, instead of the 
playground of free creative activity. As a prison-house, the universe of 
objects takes on the seeming of evil -- the great adversary of man -- but as 
the playground of free creative activity, it is an invaluable agent for the 
progressive arousal of self-consciousness."

- Scott