[MD] Essentialism

[Ham Priday]

Ron --


> Through the process of negation you mentioned
> "Each being that he constructs is a "secondary negation"
> performed by his intellect and corresponding to the
> relative Value he perceives.  Metaphysically, the
> Value he acquires in the process of intellection "fills"
> or supplants the nothingness at his core, ultimately
> dissolving the division and affirming ("refreshing?")
> this value in the Oneness of Essence"

[Ron]:
> Negation is open to many outcomes, ie, infinite negation
> v.s. ultimately dissolving the division into oneness with
> essence.  My question is why ultimate dissolving into
> oneness.  Why not infinite negation?

As I see it, "infinite negation" is what Essence does to differentiate
awareness from otherness in the first instance.  This would hold true,
whether what is negated is Nothingness or Value.  How do you see it
differently?

[Ham]:
> I see this whole issue as a refusal by some to
> acknowledge that Conscious Awareness is not an
> organic entity.  The MoQ compounds the error wuth its
> collective notion of Intellect.  It's all to avoid the S/O
> duality.  It seems to me that Mind, as Hegel develops it
> in his Phenomenology, is what I call "awareness" -- 
> if you will, the "psychic" or "spiritual" component of
> existence.  Everything else is "otherness".  I, also, seek
> to get beyond this otherness; but we can't do it by
> pretending that it doesn't exist.
>
> Think of Existence as a dichotomy consisting of Being
> (the appearance of things) and Awareness (apprehension).
> Awareness [or Value-awareness] = the "I" of each individual,
> regardless of its organic entanglements.  Awareness is the
> core "You", your psychic identity, soul, and locus in
> existence.  All experience is proprietary to this identity.

[Ron]:
> This ties in with what Fichte was saying.
>
> "The I posits itself insofar as it is aware of itself, not only as
> an object but also as a subject, and finds itself subject to
> normative constraints in both the theoretical and practical
> realms, e.g., that it must be free of contradiction and that
> there must be adequate reasons for what it believes and does.
> Furthermore, the I posits itself as free, since these constraints
> are ones that it imposes on itself.
>  Next, by means of further reflection, the I becomes aware of
> a difference between "representations accompanied by a
> feeling of necessity" and "representations accompanied
> by a feeling a freedom" - that is, a difference between
> representations of what purports to be an objective world
> existing apart from our representations of it and
> representations that are merely the product of our own
> mental activity.
> To recognize this distinction in our representations, however,
> is to posit a distinction between the I and the not-I, i.e., the
> self and whatever exists independently of it.
> In other words, the I comes to posit itself as limited by
> something other than itself, even though it initially posits itself
> as free, for in the course of reflecting on its own nature the I
> discovers limitations on its activity."
>
> "First, the I posits a check, on its theoretical and practical activity,
> in that it encounters resistance whenever it thinks or acts. This
> check is then developed into more refined forms of limitation:
> sensations, intuitions, and concepts, all united in the experience
> of the things of the natural world, i.e., the spatio-temporal realm
> ruled by causal laws. Moreover, this world is found to contain
> other finite rational beings. They too are free yet limited,
> and the recognition of their freedom places further constraints
> on our activity."
>
> And if I understand essentialism, other finite beings are
> constructs of the "self posited I".
> Am I correct in this?  This is what is difficult the Micah
> stance that the subject is the primary source
> But if every subject is the primary source...wait wait,
> I see, you're saying primary essence manifests itself ...

I think your confusion is a result of positing two "sources".  There is only
one source: Essence.  When Micah says "subject is the source (of objects)",
he means that the subject "I" intellectualizes their appearance.  Thus, we
are all collaborators with Essence in "creating the physical world".  But
the primary source of the whole drama -- negate (self), value, and phenomena
(objects) -- is Essence.

[Ron]:
> In multiplicity in a quantum sense that everything that was
> ever, is ever and will be ever aware is "I" or essence.
> And objective reality is only a constuct of that multi-manifested
> "I"; So is time for that matter.
> Yes?

Remember: Negation makes everything in existence differentiated by
nothingness.  The intellection of the subjective "I" (self) is the beginning
of differentiated awareness.  Since awareness (the negate) presupposes a
referent, I assume that the Value of the awareness/otherness divide is its
primary "object".  There is no "I", however, until awareness is identified
with a particular "being-aware", that is, an  individuated body.  This
identification is pre-intellectual and occurs as a function of the primary
Negation of otherness (the "essent').  That is to say, the negate "becomes"
an individualized essent as a consequence of the awareness/otherness split.
This creates the subjective "I".  As Fichte said, "The I posits itself
insofar as it is aware of itself, not only as an object but also as a
subject."

But this "I" is a "fiction" in that it is constituted entirely of Value
realized by the organism -- a construct of negation.  So your statement
"everything that was
ever, is ever and will be ever aware is "I" or essence" is incorrect.  "I"
is NOT Essence; it is only an infinitesimal valuistic perspective of
Essence.  The true essence of everything cannot be any single thing, nor can
Essence be broken down into fragments.  All of the differentiation occurs as
a result of the affinity of the negate for its undivided source, which is
Value.  In other words, awareness is the "I" that makes value relative and
objectivizes it as "things", but there is no such individualized awareness
in Essence.  The Absolute Sensibility of Essence does not recognize either
finitude or individual perspectives.  The "I"-self is maintained only in
existence to make being-aware (of Value); it is Value, not the individuated
self, which is essential (i.e., ultimate Oneness).

You're making good progress, Ron, and I commend you studying Fichte and
Hegel.  I just hope their ontologies haven't added to your confusion.  I
find that my own ontology starts to fall apart when I try to adapt it to
some other philosopher's scheme.  (Yet it's always necessary to compare
them.)

Essentially yours,
Ham