What's In A Thing? - Essentialism

A random thought:

There is a common idea that there is a real distinction between appearance and reality. Someone might readily agree that how a person appears is not who they really are because the essential person lies beneath the surface. The real person is like a driver of a automobile and this simile is used to describe the relationship of the soul to the body. The soul is the essential person - the real person - while the body is merely appearance. The relationship of these entities is further distinguished by asserting that the essence or soul or personality is non-physical. While it is undeniable that there is an interior dialogue, that we think thoughts that do not appear to others, it is questionable whether this constitutes an essence separate from our bodies. That our thoughts are invisible to others does not prove that there is a soul, or that there is a spiritual essence that defines and constitutes who we really are.

I got a wee mite dizzy trying to read all of the replies (I blame this 12% alcohol lemon chu-hai & ume juice mix lol), so I hope I'm not re-stating anything here, but...

It seems to me that whenever someone mentions the whole ships-pieces-constantly-replaced-is-it-still-the-same-ship thing, or car, or person via cell replacement, etc., etc., etc., that one thing, while hinted at (knowingly or unbeknowstedly - yes, it's a word, I just made it up lol), or danced around, is nearly never mentioned.

I'll utilize the case of Self. I myself, just like You, Yourselves, are...

More Than The Sum Of Our Parts.

So, yeah, even though all my cells have died and been replaced since birth, I am still the same me, because that bit of me which represents the *more* (than the sum of my parts), has ridden this same collective of constantly replacing cells as my vehicle through life. My parts have juggled along, but I am still me.

The same for the "spirit" of a ship, or the "personality" of a car.

The replaced pieces, collected over time, and reformed - the same as the existing essence?
No, though very similar - more like, a shadow... or mirror image - however reanimate-able. Perhaps even clone-ish, but not the very same.

The essence *is the essence*, or even *quintessence*, if you will.

The MORE, in the more-than-the-sum-of-all-parts, "is the thing", yeah?

Or am I missing something? Maybe I need a few more sips of this here grog...

The more than the sum of the parts argument would work if the sum of the parts would not change, and of course it does as you replace the parts, and if the additional part wouldn't change either. Are you even the same person you were, say, eight years ago? Well, your birth certificate needs no changes, but your body is barely the same, and so are your thoughts and feelings and opinions and motivations. If you lived side by side today with a person who is the same you were a decade ago, nobody would have any trouble telling you guys apart, yet if that person was yourself visiting the future by means of a modified DeLorean, suddenly the distinction becomes debatable.

As Alan said, we tend to differentiate between the surface and the inside, but usually we put a lot of space between the two. We look at the crust and the core, if you will, and make sure to not touch the mantle with either. Looking from this far away the line seems clear, but as we move in closer, evidently it becomes much more blurry to the point where some dare question it is there at all. How superficial is superficial exactly? What if your appearance was not only your looks, but also how you act towards others? What if it also included patterns of behaviour which are intricately connected to your core motivations? The question becomes not so much about where we can draw the line but where we cannot. And if we can do it everywhere, then why do it in any one particular place? And if not doing it in any one place, then why do it anywhere at all? Well, because seeing essences and insisting on meanings to labels is to some extent useful, of course. I propose that we should nonetheless be ever aware of it when we do it, lest we push it outside of mere usefulness and securely into the realm of conflict-breeding magical thinking.

Heraclitus is, I believe, a worthy source for understanding and articulating Jediism. We have settled on the Force as a word-symbol for the pattern or structure of reality. Heraclitus introduced the term, logos, as expressing the world-order. This logos should not be confused with that of the Christian author, John, who is employing the term in a novel way in his gospel written about five hundred years after Heraclitus. What is important about Heraclitus within the context of this discussion of essentialism on this forum thread is that the logos is the word to describe the world-order and that this word is not the structure itself. The world-order is not a thing itself but rather an abstraction, a structure or pattern that we impose upon how the world appears to us. The structure is not itself actual; it is only a reality because thought imposes it upon the way the world appears. The problem with essentialism is that it makes the structure an actual, real pattern that exists separately from the thought that perceives it. Seeing patterns, order and structures in nature is the evolutionary result of how our brains work. We survive as a species because of our human capability to order our perceptions into a workable, and so also, memorable pattern. That is works so well does not then make this perceived pattern real. Thought creates the pattern in its selection and ordering of particular aspects of all the things we perceive and experience.

I wonder if essentialism is derived from ancient animism? Animism is the attributing of a spirit or soul to all things including plants and even inanimate objects. Perhaps Plato and other philosphers took this notion of a spirit and conceptualized it into a philosophical understanding of the underlying natures of each individual "thing" in existence. In modern times, I think scientists have focused on essentialism in terms of cognitive psychology. If one thinks of the brain as a machine, then this machine has inherent definitions of each thing-in-of-itself that it uses to sort and categorize all things.

Immanuel Kant believed that there was noumenal world of ideas that were unknowable to the human mind. He believed that because conceptual knowledge of a thing-in-of-itself is outside the realm of human experience that we could not "know" it. But keep in mind that Kant was major thinker in the philosphy of Idealism which proposed that reality was merely a mental construct of the individual who attempted to perceive it. Other philosophers have come along since Kant and offered helpful criticisms of his work. The Matrix Trilogy is very creative throwback to Kantian philosophy.

I think essentialism can often lead to some heated debate in politics, religion, and social philosophy. For example, there are many who are debating currently over gender. What is "man", what is "woman"? The discussion has given rise to a broader understanding of gender which is helpful for many people who are trying to define themselves. (And also helpful for people who are trying to gain the social freedom to NOT define or apply a label to their own gender). There is still unfortuanately many in our society who define someone a man based on the person's occupation, fashion choices, how deep their voice is, their knowledge of sports, ect.

Feminism has also helped broaden some of societies definitions of gender by questioning and criticising the concept of "gender roles". The words "masculine" and "feminine" are being called into question. For example, how would you define "woman"? You can't define someone as being a woman by her role in bearing children because not all women can or wish to have children. A woman is also not defined by her passiveness, occupations, appearance, sexuality, fashion, ect. The discussion of gender is so huge that it would have to be a whole new topic.

There are just as many good arguments for Materialism as there are for Essentialism and Idealism. So I keep an open mind. Another interesting theory to consider is the Gaia Hypothesis which is a scientific belief that the earth is a living, self-regulating organism that is sustained by the life forms upon it. Most scientists reject this idea but it definitely is something to consider.

Plato uses two terms to denote this essence: Psyche and Daemon .

Animating spirits. Immortal. Divine. As one could guess, Christian Platonists loved this stuff. Psyche become soul and Daemon becomes the Holy Spirit.

The word 'essence' is a Latin derived translation from the Greek word, idea :laugh:.

I think energies fields. Maybe rebuilding an object in a same place has sentimental value for a man or a woman . That is one place to go for ancient presence . A thing is probably an object that is out from substance from the earth . So far it is an natural thing to think that way for me . Thing is Nature it self a thing is grown or an invention is from natural sources . But when a tree grows at the same place is it the same tree . The thing is that we all understand the basic of the first part right the replica of the object is in a sense is not the same one because it is different materials .

But what if the same forest regrows will it be the same spirit . For the same looking object . I think for someone would pay a lot for that one like a collectioner of thing ha ha ha . :ohmy:

So when a man or a woman is eaten up there always will be Jesus . Anyways the matter of believing in a certain way to progress in life is always good . But achieving knowledge is greater that a man could imagine do we have to live everything all the time to comprehend life . Life is lived but are ancestor too and understood buy them and written . So the question is does in a thing have
a life by it self an where does it goes . Be strong my friend you will learn one day .

Now I do not wish necessarily to go all political here (which of course means that somebody else is totally going to), but from what I understand, the modern incarnations of social justice in general and feminism in particular do not necessarily seek to open our eyes to the gap between the word and the thing; the map and the territory, if you will. In fact, it appears that they are so deeply stuck in the notion that words actually do have meanings and concepts actually are the real things that they are positively afraid of their own fantasy to the point where they are willing to fight against the abstractions, effectively engaging in censorship of expression. I find that words like manly or womanly do not define what a man or a woman has to be, but rather serve as shortcuts to describe particular stereotypical patterns, large portions of which apply to the thing we call womanly or manly respectively at any given point. Regardless of whether you think words have intrinsic meaning or power, the abolition or forced redefinition outside of a strictly isolated context is frankly unhelpful in that it gets in the way of communication.

I think much of the credit Kant gets comes from the fact that thoughts like his were not expected in that time. The reason I think this is that I do not think there was much of anything else to them, really. Not only were they antiquated even in his day, some of the big ones are self-defeating, many of the small ones not unjustified by oversight but by design, and that latter point is perhaps the most bugging one of them all: Smugly would he declare that if you dare disagree, you must either not have quite "studied" them enough yet or just be too dumb to be able to comprehend his glorious inerrancy.

Moving on, out of materialism, essentialism and idealism, I have yet to hear so much as one valid (let alone sound) argument for any of those that would not be anything but a feeble exercise in semantics. While essentialism and idealism have quite exactly no leg whatsoever to stand on, all materialism ever does is shifting the buren of proof and once the opposition meets it, the materialist conveniently claims the finding to its own side, effectively restoring the burden by moving the goal post.
Also, the Gaia thing: Not scientific. Not a hypothesis either.

Correction: eidos is the Greek word for 'idea'.

The Politics of Identity: each group has the power to decide what characteristics define membership in that group. The title of that group is a political statement of group identity. Power decides who gets to be called what and what characteristics define that group. So, Identity Politics is a form of this power struggle for the right to name, define and identify. Each group seeks the power to self identify and the political struggle is taking this power away from another group who previously had the power of identity and name. The pejorative title 'Political Correctness' is more accurately the social/political act of respecting and agreeing to each group's right to define and name itself.