[MD] logic of Essentialism

[Ham Priday]

Ron:

> The fact that logic is used to communicate in understandable
> terms it is not a method of determining absolute truth.  A true
> statement is one which applies to experience, which is
> ultimately subjective, if there is a consensus agreement to
>.your statements of experience then for all intent and purpose
> they are "true".

Yes, I understand the difference between subjective concepts that can't be 
proved, and objective facts that are experienced as "truths".  I also 
realize that intuited or intellectually developed concepts do not "prove" 
anything, no matter how well formulated the logic is.

> People understand synthetically, (art, poetry literature) but
> they reason analytically by virtue of our culture and language.

Okay.

[Ham, previously]:
> Quality = Experience = Reality. ...
> Would you call that a "synthesis" or an "analysis"?

[Ron]:
> I would call it a deductive inference validated synthetically.

Sounds good -- almost logical, in fact ;-).

> Language is our window to our concepts; if that window
> is dirty or fragmented it does not portray the concept
> accurately, all we deal with here is language, consequently
> our conceptions are formed by it.

That's a great analogy, and you'd make an exemploray teacher.  However, I 
don't agree that "all we have to deal with is language."  Intuition is not 
limited to language and conceptualization is an abstractive or synthesizing 
process involving forms, images, feelings, agencies, relations, and reason. 
I started my metaphysical reasoning by contemplating nothingness for days at 
a time, until I got a firm grasp of what it meant.  Language had no part in 
this conceptualizing process until I began to express it in words.

When I asked for your take on the 'Not-other' principle, you gave an 
epistemological analysis, relating its logical "advantages" to the 
tretralemma:

> Exactly what the principle of explosion does for you and the
> meaning of the tetra lemma, the divine may not be described,
> it may only be experienced.  Experience is not a logical
> proposition it simply 'is".

Cusanus knew that the divine source was indescribable, which is what is so 
rematkable about his first principle.  The indefinableness of God rules out 
any definite proposition about the Divine essence.  Any such proposition 
will necessarily impose a limitation which is incompatible with 
absoluteness.  "Not-other" avoids attributive description while affording a 
usable symbolic representation for the ineffable that is both 
non-oppositional and non-restrictive.  In my philosophy, it makes all 
difference 'negational' while maintaining the absolute intrgrity of Essence.

What I really wanted was not an analysis or a comparison with some other 
theory, but a personal evaluation.  Specifically, does Cusa's logic help in 
relating Absolute Essence to Differentiated Existence, and is it a 
reasonable basis for my philosophy?  I might also ask, Can we "deductively 
infer" from it that Essence is negational?

If you've read Hegel's philosophy, you may be acquainted with his theory 
that Appearance is the negation of the negation of Being, whereas Actuality 
is the negation of the negation of Essence.  I don't know if Hegel was 
familiar with Cusan logic or the Tetralemma, but I've borrowed his idea of 
the "double-negation" in my creation ontogeny.  I've also quoted from the 
Israeli art critic Tsion Avitol (Marsha's reference), who in an essay on 
Assymetry wrote, in part:

"The wonder of Creation is perhaps the wonder of the creation of negation. 
Everything else is derived from it.  The first verses of Genesis describe 
the first distinctions that God made, which are also the creation of the 
first complementary pairs: heaven-earth, light-darkness, etc., but no 
distinction is possible without negation, and negation and double negation 
therefore preceded all distinctions that followed.  For the same reason 
complementarity too, which was generated by negation, preceded the 
complementary pairs that were created.  Actually, the first Asymmetry, which 
according to the Big Bang theory is the moment of creation, could not be 
without negation. ...Not only is epistemology impossible without negation 
and double negation, but neither is ontology possible without this 
mindprint.  That is to say, there is no Being at all levels without its 
complementary opposite, nonbeing or nothingness.  In both cases, in the 
noetic world and also in the material world, negation creates otherness: it 
splits unity and simplicity and thus creates diversity and complexity."
             --T. Avital, Mindprints 3: http://www.mi.sanu.ac.yu/

Okay, now you're into it, liike it or not!  You initiated this thread, Ron, 
thank you.  The ball is now in your court.

Essentially yours,
Ham