[MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism

[David M]

Hi Scott

Nice quote. It does seem to cover both aspects
of experience that must not be forgotten. As human
individuals we are subject to our environment as
it impacts on us for good or evil, but we are not
passive subjects only, we are also actors/agents
and can anticipate, respond, utilise, accept, etc
these possible impacts. We in turn impact upon
the environment. What else is life and civilisation?

DM



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Roberts" <jse885 at localnet.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 01, 2006 6:58 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism


> 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
>
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