Does existence really precede essence?

[Lost1]

If you believe that essense is not set in stone - that it is the sum of what you were born with, and all your experiences and reactions to said experiences from birth to present and you also believe that yes in fact you have existed from the moment birth, but existence did not count until you reached the age of reason -- the essense came first. Small and incomplete but still there first

Determinism always comes across as useful only if you are a seeker of excuses.

No matter what your place in the order of things was at birth, no matter what experiences you have had over your lifetime it is always YOU, making the choices that become the sum of who you are to YOU.

Lost1

[Fido]

Originally Posted by Lost1

If you believe that essense is not set in stone - that it is the sum of what you were born with, and all your experiences and reactions to said experiences from birth to present and you also believe that yes in fact you have existed from the moment birth, but existence did not count until you reached the age of reason -- the essense came first. Small and incomplete but still there first

Determinism always comes across as useful only if you are a seeker of excuses.

No matter what your place in the order of things was at birth, no matter what experiences you have had over your lifetime it is always YOU, making the choices that become the sum of who you are to YOU.

Lost1

You are working on the fallacy of individuation, as Schopenhaur called it...We may live as individuals, but our existence is a quality we share with all living beings, and this in the physical sense too, since we must eat life to be life...Does the life die because we make it the stuff of our life??? Essence is just a way of conceiving of being...What is the essential of you??? Theology might say it is your soul, but soul is the equal of animis, Life...So what is your life??? It is a quality you got specifically from your parents, and they from theirs...I don't need to explain it...It is a continuous chain of life, and the germs have the same as the elephant, and each has it, but can only make it real by sharing it with offspring...And here the pita people and the Anti abortion people have a point, because if we do not revere life outside of our own we will not revere it as our own...It is all quite remarkable, but it is those who have no sense of the interconnectedness of life who make life a hell for all....The native in killing the beast thanked him for his sacrifice, and recognized in that life, his own... So, we should not say my life, and think we were created...We are conceived and born, and our lives are gifts we bear to another, or let fall into the grave with us...We are life, and that life is something larger than ourselves, the hope of all our dead parents past, that some part of them would be eternal, and see again the sunrise they could not with long dead eyes see...It is not your essence, but our essence, and the essence of all life...

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Fido

Don't buy into a bunch of philosophical dogma...And Dogs are a good example now that I have them in mind...Do you think there is a difference between the dog and his essence??? We conceive of dogs by what is essential to all dogs, and what is essential to all dogs is essential to one dog, and yet, all dogs are different, so how can there be an essential dog that accepts all differences and finds a common bond between them???We conceive of all dogs spiritually, and it is this conception to the extent it reflects reality that is their essence- in our minds...But their essence, individually, or together is a notion inseperable from their being... We could not have the idea, the conception of the thing without the thing, but in the seeing of it, in the existing with it, our essence become easily confused with it, so Schopenhaur was correct to say, that when I die the world dies with me...Our being is essential to the perception of all being, and as with all being we conceive of ourselves spiritually, but the fact is not that ones essences or any things essence is a thing apart, but is one part of the whole...

Those who believe in essences argue that if dogs did not have an essence, something all dogs have in common which make them dogs, then we would have no good reason to call such different creature, "dogs". In essence, we would be punning each time we called something a "dog". Therefore, they argue, there must be an essence of "dog".

Schopenhauer was obviously wrong-unless you think you do not exist. What Schopenhauer must have meant is that when he dies, his view or understanding of the word dies with him (not that the world dies with him). The fallacy of fancy language, once again. Why can't philosophers say what they mean, which is true, rather than dress it up in fancy jazzy language which makes what they say, false? The world is not "my idea". My ideas die with me, but the world goes on. We all know that: So did Schopenhauer

[bsfree]

Fido, you say "Our being is essential to the perception of all being, and as with all being we conceive of ourselves spiritually, but the fact is not that ones essences or any things essence is a thing apart, but is one part of the whole... "

I agree. This is the fundamental truth of existence.
We express ourselves through words that are already once removed from the feelings that prompted them, and the feelings themselves are in flux, prompted and shaped via the stimulation of our essence.
That said, and the truth of being but one part of the whole recognized, is it not in the common grounding of our essences that harmonious existence can occur?
As truth is the only common denominator, and is never so much proven as felt, the fact that we live on Earth is misleading, and, though factual, gives no commonality to any essence beyond that fact.
To be aware that we are but one part of the whole is to invite truth to the essence of existence.
Feelings can only find temporary rest journeying through a fact-based existence.
Essence must reside in truth to join with the whole of which it is part.
My essence tells me that the truth is not that we live on Earth, but that we are Earth.
Only the insecurity of ego separates essence from the whole, and ego is born of knowledge, not truth.

[MMP2506]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

It turns out that human DNA is what might be called, "the essence of humaness" if there were such a word. Of course, that is because being human is a biological category. But, I don't suppose that existentialists would be fazed by that news.

Plato believed that essences existed even if what partook of the essence did not. In fact, he believed that the essence was more real than anything that partook of it.

That is a very interesting point that DNA may by the scientific term to describe ones essence. In a sense, it actually supports the idea of universals.

You're right about Plato's forms as well; however, Plato might say in a world without humans, the form of humanity also wouldn't exist. This is one area where Aristotle disagreed with Plato, as he suspected no form could exist without being constituted in matter. He called it hylomorphism, and reminds me of DNA constituting life.

It makes you wonder how having our current knowledge of material world would have affected the Ancients. I see many of our recent discoveries tending to side more with the Ancient's view of life than with later philosophers.

---------- Post added 02-06-2010 at 01:45 PM ----------

Originally Posted by bsfree

Fido, you say "Our being is essential to the perception of all being, and as with all being we conceive of ourselves spiritually, but the fact is not that ones essences or any things essence is a thing apart, but is one part of the whole... "

I agree. This is the fundamental truth of existence.
We express ourselves through words that are already once removed from the feelings that prompted them, and the feelings themselves are in flux, prompted and shaped via the stimulation of our essence.
That said, and the truth of being but one part of the whole recognized, is it not in the common grounding of our essences that harmonious existence can occur?
As truth is the only common denominator, and is never so much proven as felt, the fact that we live on Earth is misleading, and, though factual, gives no commonality to any essence beyond that fact.
To be aware that we are but one part of the whole is to invite truth to the essence of existence.
Feelings can only find temporary rest journeying through a fact-based existence.
Essence must reside in truth to join with the whole of which it is part.
My essence tells me that the truth is not that we live on Earth, but that we are Earth.
Only the insecurity of ego separates essence from the whole, and ego is born of knowledge, not truth.

Absolute Beauty!

Truth=essence=meaning=language

Language shapes reality and thus creates essence. It is the essence of humanity is to recognize the importance of the whole! Great post.

[Reconstructo]

I think etymology is useful. Others might not. For me the linguistic turn in philosophy was crucial. Most abstractions are dead/literalized/context-learned metaphors. I think we should look at our tools, decide if we know what we are about.


essence http://www.etymonline.com/graphics/dictionary.giflate 14c., from L. essentia "being, essence," abstract n. formed in imitation of Gk. ousia "being, essence" (from on, gen. ontos, prp. of einai "to be"), from prp. stem of esse "to be," from PIE *es- (cf. Skt. asmi, Hittite eimi, O.C.S. jesmi, Lith. esmi, Goth. imi, O.E. eom "I am;" see be). Originally "substance of the Trinity," the general sense of "basic element of anything" is first recorded in English 1650s, though this is the base meaning of the first English use of essential (mid-14c.).
existence http://www.etymonline.com/graphics/dictionary.giflate 14c., from O.Fr. existence, from L.L. existentem "existent," prp. of L. existere "stand forth, appear," and, as a secondary meaning, "exist;" from ex- "forth" + sistere "cause to stand" (see assist).

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Reconstructo

I think etymology is useful. Others might not. For me the linguistic turn in philosophy was crucial. Most abstractions are dead/literalized/context-learned metaphors. I think we should look at our tools, decide if we know what we are about.


essence http://www.etymonline.com/graphics/dictionary.giflate 14c., from L. essentia "being, essence," abstract n. formed in imitation of Gk. ousia "being, essence" (from on, gen. ontos, prp. of einai "to be"), from prp. stem of esse "to be," from PIE *es- (cf. Skt. asmi, Hittite eimi, O.C.S. jesmi, Lith. esmi, Goth. imi, O.E. eom "I am;" see be). Originally "substance of the Trinity," the general sense of "basic element of anything" is first recorded in English 1650s, though this is the base meaning of the first English use of essential (mid-14c.).
existence http://www.etymonline.com/graphics/dictionary.giflate 14c., from O.Fr. existence, from L.L. existentem "existent," prp. of L. existere "stand forth, appear," and, as a secondary meaning, "exist;" from ex- "forth" + sistere "cause to stand" (see assist).

Etymology is useful. A term rarely frees itself completely from its etymology. But what is fallacious is to argue from the past meaning of a term to its present meaning. Just because a term used to mean so-and-so, it does not follow that it still means so-and-so. That argument commits the etymological fallacy.

[Reconstructo]

Originally Posted by housby

I have had many conversations with regard to "free will" and "determinism". This is a fascinating topic because there has never, in my opinion, been a definitive argument in either direction. Of course free will has to exist because if it didn't then all "wrong doers" would be guilty of nothing as they would be simply following their "destiny". We would then have the absurd scenario of child molesters, rapists and murderers claiming that they were simply "following orders". However, an element of "determinism" is there due to the "laws" of cause and effect. We are all the product of our upbringing and environment. Some of us are "pushed " in one direction and some in another. We all make choices hundreds of times each day. Do these choices accumulate to make us what we are? Are we then "forced" to be the way we are because of the choices we make at various points in our lives? Are we the product of Pirsigs "Metaphysics of Quality" in a world in which the only "meaning" is the struggle for "better-ness" regardless of morals? As he readily states, the "higher" form of existence must always take priority. Morality, according to Pirsig, is not necessarily a product of society but is a "given". If I am off track on this please feel free to say.

I like this post. Good points. We are determinists when we start our car and free-willers when it's time to tie the noose. As a people I think we are of two minds on this. Most of us like the notion of freedom, and choice is certainly experienced as "real," but then we listen to theories of human nature which seems implicitly deterministic, excepting those descriptions of human nature that emphasize freedom.

Sartre valued freedom maybe for the heroic role-play it could offer us. No freedom means no true glory. Funny, isn't it? Isn't "free will" part of our Christian heritage? Was free will invented to justify hellfire? I don't really think it's that simple, but I think we should look to the feelings that free will and determinism allow/encourage. In fact, I think we should do this with all philosophy, remembering always that philosophers are needy language-using organisms.

[Lost1]

[QUOTE=Fido;125430]You are working on the fallacy of individuation, as Schopenhaur called it...[QUOTE]

It's okay with me if you wish to and Schopenhaur wished to believe my philosophy to be a fallacy, allowing others to use the thoughts that work best for themselves is a large part of my so called fallacy of individuation.

[QUOTE] We may live as individuals, but our existence is a quality we share with all living beings, and this in the physical sense too, since we must eat life to be life...Does the life die because we make it the stuff of our life??? [QUOTE]

Yes that which is no long living is dead.

[QUOTE] Essence is just a way of conceiving of being...What is the essential of you??? Theology might say it is your soul, but soul is the equal of animis, Life ...So what is your life??? [QUOTE]

The essence of me is the end results of my genetics, each of my past and present experiences and my thoughts of both.

My life is infact whatever I choose it to be

...again the sunrise they could not with long dead eyes see...It is not your essence, but our essence, and the essence of all life...

Part of the beauty of life is knowing that we all share our known world, (working towards learning how to best share it is a part of my philosphy)yet we are alone with our thoughts and our choices.

Lost1

[kennethamy]

William James once said that he always assumes that he has free will, but that everyone else is determined. It makes life more pleasant.