- Fair enough. :up:

I was thinking of starting a reading group on the SEP article, but I don't currently have time to field it. Feel free to start it yourself. A lot of current discussions are swirling around this issue, and I think that SEP article is very readable and easy to understand. Granted, you wouldn't need to utilize the SEP article if you don't want to, and it wouldn't need to be a reading group. The key in my opinion would be getting folks to understand the problem that the attempted solution presupposes.

We say someone has the concept "five" when they can add to five, count five, divide by five and so on. — Banno

Yes, and we say that someone has the concept of a triangle when they can draw, identify, and work with triangles. But it does not follow that the concept of a triangle is the drawing of a triangle, or that the concept of five is the counting to five. Someone who counts to five is doing something with five, and thus this cannot itself be five.

"Triangle" is a concept which encompasses all sorts of different images, both mental and real. It is universal - it spans many particulars. To understand triangularity or have the concept of a triangle is not a particular, whether that be a particular thought, action, image, etc.

What kind of benefit do you think they would get from not impugning it? — Apustimelogist

Intelligence, for one.

If it is just saying that there are statistical structures and regularities in reality, then fine. But why do I need to use the word "essence"? Seems to connote something more than is required so I don't need to use the word. — Apustimelogist

I agree you don't need to use the word. Essences aren't exactly about objective structure, as that's more universals, but that is the core issue this thread floats around. That is, essences are about the objective structure of species, but we are more interested in objective structure per se.

Note the way essences entered the thread:

Let's assume for the sake of argument an older, realist perspective. Things have essences. Our senses grasp the quiddity of things. We all, as humans, share a nature and so share certain sorts of aims, desires, powers, faculties, etc. Given this, given we are already interacting with the same things, with the same abstractions, and simply dealing with them using different stipulated signs, translation doesn't seem like that much a problem. We might even allow that our concepts (intentions) and understandings of things might vary, but they are only going to vary so much.

The idea that "all we have to go on is behavior" seems like it could be taken as an implicit assumption of nominalism. Yet then the conclusion seems to be, in some sense, an affirmation of nominalism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's pretty mild. It's pretty close to what Sider is saying (although a bit more expansive).

But note that Banno then immediately starts in with his polemical trolling campaign against "essences," as he is so wont to do. The confusion around the term comes from this sort of polemical and ignorant propaganda, and this thread is no exception.

If it is just saying that there are statistical structures and regularities in reality, then fine. — Apustimelogist

Yes, and that should be commonly accepted, right? The problem is that it's not. Sider knows he is being controversial when he says that reality itself has a structure, as lots of people on this forum and elsewhere are committed to denying that idea. In fact the thread on Sider never even got off the ground due to the fact that Sider was so effectively sidelined by those who are opposed to this sort of thinking.

But this is not at all the same as actually thinking, or experiencing, "I think p". This is reflecting on your own thought, which you do sometimes, but certainly not always. — hypericin

I agree.

And so, there is a confusion caused by language: accurately notating that you ate indeed thinking-p, and reflecting on your thought, are both notated as "I think p". — hypericin

Are they, though? The issue I see is that you cannot notate that you are thinking p without self-consciously thinking p. If the words "I think p" are uttered, then the self-reflection on thought is already present. And so it seems that the "notation" cannot be first-personal if it is to properly prescind from this self-reflection. It must be, "He thinks p," or, "p is thought." For this reason I don't find the I think to be ambiguous in this manner.

I'll have to come back to this paper when I have some time. I would like to get a handle on the more formal aspects of Sider's account. — Banno

It was one of the central pieces of the OP in "Quantifier Variance, Ontological Pluralism, and Other Fun Stuff," a thread in which you posted 69 times without once referring to Sider. :meh:

Thanks again for taking this discussion seriously and engaging with it fully. — Banno

The reason this discussion has been so wily is because the OP is insubstantial.

People pile up citations and technical terminology as if by sheer weight these will prove the point in question. — Count Timothy von Icarus

For sure. That's a whole new level of what I was talking about, where a mountain of sources are adduced in favor of one's position without any real argument ever occurring.

Thanks , that is helpful, especially insofar as you shine a light on the role that Hegel is playing here. I am pretty ignorant when it comes to Hegel.

Retreat? Deflect? And what does he mean by "waive that claim"? — J

:up:

It seems like he is making the 'factual' in "factual interest" do a heck of a lot of work.

If you're willing, go here and read pp. 16-20. — J

Sider is an interesting figure for the discussion, and it's unfortunate that he was ignored in your thread on Ontological Pluralism. He is willing to consider forms of modal essentialism, and he doesn't see problems with bare particulars. He therefore fills an important gap between Aristotle and Quine.

Here is Sider:

A certain core realism is, as much as anything, the shared dogma of analytic
philosophers, and rightly so. The world is out there, waiting to be discovered,
it’s not constituted by us—all that good stuff. Everyone agrees that this realist
picture prohibits truth from being generally mind-dependent in the crudest
counterfactual sense, but surely it requires more. After all, the grue things
would all have turned bleen at the appointed hour even if humans had never
existed; under one of Reichenbach’s coordinative definitions one can truly say
that “spacetime would still have been Euclidean even if humans had never
existed”. The realist picture requires the “ready-made world” that Goodman
(1978) ridiculed; there must be structure that is mandatory for inquirers to
discover. To be wholly egalitarian about all carvings of the world would give
away far too much to those who view inquiry as the investigation of our own
minds. — Theodore Sider, Ontological Realism, 18

He is doing a good job of digging into an issue that Peter Abelard originally opened:

Is a word called “common” on account of the common cause things agree in, or on account of the common conception, or on account of both together? — Abelard via Paul Vincent Spade | Medieval Universals | SEP

And:

The main thrust of [Abelard's] arguments against the collection-theory is that collections are arbitrary integral wholes of the individuals that make them up, so they simply do not fill the bill of the Porphyrian characterizations of the essential predicables such as genera and species.[29]

29. No wonder that in modern philosophies of language, mostly inspired by the “collection-theorist” view of quantification theory, we have the persistent problem of providing a principled distinction between essential and non-essential predicates. — Abelard via Paul Vincent Spade | Medieval Universals | SEP

The issue becomes protracted when nominalists like Ockham come on the scene.

The problem for Abelard and Sider is this: Suppose we try to say that something "counts as" a tiger, without there being any common cause residing within each real tiger. That is, suppose that our common noun "tiger" merely indicates a collection of individuals. On this view, what holds the collection together as a non-arbitrary collection? What undergirds the "counts as" relation itself?

Very little of this thread has been about Quine, but at some point a new thread should be created or else we should move this into the Sider thread.

(CC: @Srap Tasmaner and @fdrake)

You are welcome to set out what you think McDowell is saying that Anscombe says. — Banno

You are welcome to listen to McDowell's lecture.

Thanks for that, . Your posts in this thread have helped me understand Kant.

Personally, I think it warrants the weight — Mww

I agree. I don't see principled reasons for why it wouldn't.

- :up:

---

- Okay, thanks. So is the idea that he follows Hegel in disagreeing with Kant about noumena but he does not disagree with respect to his interpretation that, "The I think accompanies all my thoughts"?

But if some posited "belief" cannot be put into the form "x believes that P", then I think that is good grounds for discounting it as a belief. — Banno

That is very close to what Rödl thinks. McDowell uses Aristotle and Anscombe to show why it is wrong.

So my next question is, Can you imagine a situation in which resolving the disagreement between the two scientists would result in changing the meaning of the word "tiger"? — J

Maybe it will help if I offer my own answers. No, I can't imagine a case where further knowledge about what a tiger is -- even knowledge about its essence, if any -- would change what we mean when we use the word "tiger." — J

See, I disagree. But let's distinguish the term in your conclusion, namely "the meaning of the word 'tiger'."

I bought my nephew a National Geographic book filled with photographs of animals. He can't read yet, but he loves animals. Let's suppose that the picture in the book is his first encounter with the animal and his first encounter with the word "tiger." We say to him, "That is a tiger." So "tiger" is for him the animal pictured in the book (and if he were younger it might be the picture itself). Suppose we then take him to the zoo, and he spends 10 minutes watching real tigers through the glass. Has the meaning of the word "tiger" changed for him? Of course it has. Now when you say "tiger" he thinks of something quite a bit different (and more accurate) than what he thought of before he visited the zoo.

But if your term is meant to be abstract, such that "the meaning of the word" means the denotation of the word "tiger" for all 1.5 billion English speakers, and in all of the literature since the middle 12th century when tigre is first documented in Old English, then no, "the meaning of the word" has remained unchanged, or at least my nephew has not altered it in any noticeable way. Nevertheless, a linguistic community develops its language in the same way that my nephew develops his understanding of the essence of tigers. Zoologists, for example, advance the meaning of words like 'tiger', particularly in the early stages of development.

For purposes of comparison: Is Pluto still a planet? — J

And no, Pluto is no longer a planet, because the scientific community has changed the reference of that term, and provided good reasons for doing so. We should ask, What is the difference between the tiger case and the Pluto case? — J

I don't think your explanation is an explanation. "No, because the scientific community has changed the reference of that term." Does that tell us anything? Ironically, it sounds like a claim about metaphysical superglue, namely that a metaphysical superglue operation was conducted to change the meaning of "planet," and voila!, Pluto is no longer a planet. (And I assume you are talking about the reference of the term 'planet'.)

The question you ask is loaded, "Is Pluto still a planet?" It implies that the definition of "planet" has remained stable. We might similarly ask, "Is Jupiter still a planet?," and the answer is not obvious. Hopefully we both understand that our solar system has nine planet1s and eight planet2s, and that in 2006 there was a push to redefine "planet" from planet1 to planet2.

What arguably happened in 2006 is that the nature of a planet was better grasped, and this improved understanding changed Pluto's status (although I don't know much about the details of the case). But talking about inanimate astronomical bodies is not a great way to get into the topic of essences. Tigers are much better.

Similarly, my nephew might consistently mistake a Savannah cat for a tiger, but then at some point grow in personal knowledge and learn to distinguish them. Reality, concept, and word are all interrelated, and therefore by coming to understand that the reality of a Savannah cat is different from the reality of a tiger he is utilizing different concepts to understand each reality, and he in turn learns that we have a different word for the Savannah cat. He will be proud, and will say, "That's not a tiger, it's a Savannah cat!" And well he should be, for he grew in knowledge. His understanding of the essence of a tiger was improved, and his understanding of the essence of a Savannah cat was birthed. If the Savannah cats he saw did not have a different nature than the tigers he saw, and Savannah cats did not have a different essence than tigers, then he could never have come to his new knowledge. That is, if Savannah cats are not different from tigers then we cannot know them as two separate kinds. The idea of an essence is really not much more complicated than that, which is why @Count Timothy von Icarus and I find it so odd to see people hell-bent on impugning it. It is the abstracted common nature of a natural kind, which is signified by a common noun. Those who do the most work with essences are biological scientists, not purple-haired, crystal-wielding "metaphysicians."

-

My suspicion is that you think that a referent remains fixed even as meaning changes or grows. I think that commits us to the very strange view of bare particulars that <Spade speaks to>, one which closely mimics the incoherencies of accurately referring to possible-world entities which have no necessary properties. It is the strange idea that referent and meaning are clearly separated, an idea that naturally follows upon the weird way that modern logic conceives of bare property-bearing entities. But I wonder why we would want to let modern logicians set the standard for how language works, given that their logic wasn't much interested in language at all? In fact often castigating it?

If Rodl had said that Kant arguably implies it there would be no problem at all. What he was doing was name-dropping Kant in favor of his theory.

The weird thing here is that you and J seem unable to admit that Rodl has done something which is strongly misrepresentative of Kant in at least a prima facie way.

he underscores that this "I think" is the unifying activity of consciousness — Wayfarer

No, he doesn't. He says that the unity of the pure apperception is the transcendental unity of self-consciousness, and that the pure apperception produces the representation I think, which must be able to accompany all other representations. Indeed, the I think is not an activity at all, as Mww has pointed out for us.

That's the thing: if we want to use a text we have to read it. We can't just make it mean whatever we want it to mean, to suit our purposes. That is the big sweep of my complaint here. (It's also why I would defer to Mww on Kant or Paine on many thinkers - because they are careful in handling texts and do not warp them.)

On my limited view, if Kant thought the I think accompanied all thoughts (or even representations), he would have said so! It would be a bit wild to deftly say all the things he does about self-consciousness, the I think, and accompaniment, without stating that much more straightforward claim. He seems to actually be going out of his way to avoid saying that the I think accompanies all our representations. I mean, why would someone continually say, "X is able to accompany Y," if they hold that X always accompanies Y? That makes no sense at all.

but that does not amount to lying. — Wayfarer

Of course it does. If someone claims that Kant has said things that they know Kant has not said, then they are lying. And if we are averse to that word, then at the very least he mislead, misrepresented, deceived, or spoke in a knowingly inaccurate way.

Kant’s texts are notoriously dense and subject to varying interpretations. Rödl is working within the tradition of Kantian scholarship that sees self-consciousness as central to Kant’s project. — Wayfarer

If someone with an expertise in Kantian scholarship told me such a thing I would probably believe them, but I think we both agree that you are not that person, don't we? Else, if you do have the requisite knowledge for such claims, then give me a handful of other individuals who belong to this same school and would affirm Rodl's interpretation of Kant.

Indeed, I am familiar with thinkers who are considered transcendental Kantians, but I have never heard them claim that the I think accompanies all our thoughts.

To claim that Rödl is "lying" presupposes not just a disagreement but an intentional misrepresentation, which is a serious charge requiring compelling evidence. — Wayfarer

And the evidence is present in the endnote.

This is a line from the early part of the thread: "Kant said that?" "I don't think he did." "Where is he supposed to have said it?" "Maybe here... or here?" "But neither matches up." *More digging* "Oh, there's an endnote here where Rodl is clear that Kant doesn't say what he said he did." "Wtf?"

also said — Wayfarer

The point being, "This isn't a thread on Kant, so we don't need to belabor the point." Relevant here too, I think.

The point to cash out is this: if Rodl (or J) wants to argue for the strange thesis, he is going to have to do more than make a false allusion to Kant. This has more to do with the OP than Rodl, because I would presume that Rodl does make arguments for his central thesis.

"That counts as a tree for the purposes of horticulture" — Banno

The whole question is about unpacking the word "that." You are begging the question. The word "that" does not solve the age-old philosophical question of how the mind knows reality. It presupposes the limb that you think you have successfully chopped away.

- :up:

: At some point the web has got to include statements -- beliefs -- about how propositions connect with that world.

: I quite agree! But what will these be like? One solution is that they will involve some sort of stipulation; that this counts as an "a".

: So the interesting question, if we wanted to pursue it, is whether there are grounds for a given stipulation that are justified by the world itself...

-

Or in other words: stipulation is no solution at all. J is quite right: what is at stake are propositions, not terms. This is also the manner in which one dispenses with considerations of "metaphysical superglue." From SEP:

That is to say, properly speaking, it is only an act of judgment that can be false, by which we think something to be somehow. But a simple act of understanding, by which we simply understand something without thinking it to be somehow, that is, without attributing anything to it, cannot be false. For example, I can be mistaken if I form in my mind the judgment that a man is running, whereby I conceive a man to be somehow, but if I simply think of a man without attributing either running or not running to him, I certainly cannot make a mistake as to how he is.[12] — The Medieval Problem of Universals | SEP

Klima's conclusion is salutary (my bolding):

These developments, therefore, also put an end to the specifically medieval problem of universals. However, the increasingly rarified late-medieval problem eventually vanished only to give way to several modern variants of recognizably the same problem, which keeps recurring in one form or another in contemporary philosophy as well. Indeed, one may safely assert that as long as there is interest in the questions of how a human language obviously abounding in universal terms can be meaningfully mapped onto a world of singulars, there is a problem of universals, regardless of the details of the particular conceptual framework in which the relevant questions are articulated. Clearly, in this sense, the problem of universals is itself a universal, the universal problem of accounting for the relationships between mind, language, and reality. — The Medieval Problem of Universals | SEP

Note that the perennial question of how mind relates to reality through language can in no way be solved by mere stipulation. Which term-token gets associated with which concept makes no difference at all. What makes a difference is, as J said, propositions, namely the combination of terms through a copula.

Similarly, stipulative reference presupposes the ability to recognize linguistic/conceptual terms in reality; it presupposes a knowable mapping between language and reality. But that relation between mind, language, and reality is the whole problem in the first place. No one was ever confused about our ability to stipulate what a term means, and this ability to stipulate in no way solves any of the substantial issues at stake.

(@Janus)

I spelled out the exact passage in which you said he does this, and compared it to the passage in Kant — Wayfarer

But that was already done on page 6 and even earlier than that. This began when our resident Kantian, Mww, kept telling us that Kant does not say what Rodl says he does in the OP. So we finally tracked it down, back on page 3, and it looks like Mww was (unsurprisingly) correct.

Here is what Rodl claims Kant says on page 6:

• "the I think accompanies all my thoughts."

And here is what Rodl admits Kant actually says in the endnote:

• "the I think must be able to accompany all my representations."

As noted earlier in the thread, there are two issues here: thought vs. representation, and "accompanies" vs. "must be able to accompany." Rodl misrepresents on both accounts, but the latter is more egregious.

I [...] could discern no difference between them — Wayfarer

I find that hard to believe.

---

Of course Rodl hides behind the strange words, "More precisely..." But that's like saying, "Kant told me that he lives in Virginia. More precisely, he told me that he lives in the United States." That makes no sense. It would have only made sense for Rodl to go in the other direction, "Kant told me he lives in the United States. More precisely, he told me that he lives in Virginia." Rodl is trying to make his interpretation of Kant more than an interpretation, by claiming that Kant himself affirms that interpretation.

What puzzles me in your charge of dishonesty is that it dissolves Rödl's efforts to separate first person thinking from objective judgment. — Paine

I am saying that Rodl lies about what Kant says (and this issue was a theme throughout the early parts of this thread). Why think that if Rodl had not misrepresented Kant then he wouldn't have been able to separate first person thinking from objective judgment?

It's sort of like if Rodl had written an open letter and forged Kant's signature at the bottom of it. Not a huge deal, but the OP depends heavily on that signature.

Edit: Or perhaps you are claiming that Rodl mildly disagrees with the idea that he attributes to Kant? The issue here has primarily to do with the early effort of trying to address the OP at a time when no one had Rodl's book (except J).

So the idea is supposed to be that Rodl lies in the text, and then quotes the source in the endnote that demonstrates it was a lie? — J

Rodl says, "Kant said: the I think accompanies all my thoughts." Did Kant say that or not?

Surely not. — J

You're twisting yourself in knots to read the text contrary to what it says. Does "X must be able to accompany Y" mean that "X always accompanies Y"? Yes or no?

He's trying to make it plain that, since the I think does in fact accompany all our representations, it has to be the sort of thing which is able to do so. — J

Except he doesn't say that at all. Kant gives a reason for his claim, but it is not the reason you supply. In fact Kant seems to contradict you. He says of the manifold representations given in a certain intuition, "(even if I am not conscious of them as such)." I.e. There are representations which we need not be conscious of.

Kant says, "All hamburgers are able to be accompanied by ketchup." Rödl says, "Kant thinks every hamburger has ketchup on it." — Leontiskos

---

Related:

I didn't mean it was a mistranslation of the possessive. I meant that different languages (and different eras) have different senses of what connotes "possession," what sorts of things can be mine. — J

But that's worse, not better.

• "The text doesn't support your theory." "No, I'm right. It's probably just a translation issue."
• "The text doesn't support your theory." "No, I'm right. It's probably just a linguistic-cultural connotation issue."

It is post hoc rationalization to blindly appeal to things like this in favor of one's position. My issue here is that the texts are being ignored in favor of some ideology. The example is, "Rodl is worth reading, therefore he couldn't be lying, therefore 'X must be able to accompany Y' means (or at least entails) 'X always accompanies Y'." The a priori judgment is so strong (and biased) that it overpowers the fact that there is a difference between possibility and necessity.

I suppose another consideration is: "should demonstration proceed from premises that are better known than the conclusion?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I see this as the central error of modern philosophy, and I have often considered writing a thread on it. You beat me to it. :up:

Argument (and knowledge) proceeds from premises that are better known to conclusions that are less known. Contravening this Aristotelian dictum has created confusion upon confusion.

The natural and social sciences, and much "proper philosophy," doesn't work like this. It works from established beliefs/knowledge, and then tries to explain what is less well understood in terms of what is more well understood. This doesn't mean current belief is taken to be infallible, but it might be taken as highly credible, or above suspicion until implicated in some way. Biologists and economists, for instance, don't go about their work by doubting all prior publications and theories and trying to work their way back to things that are already assumed to be well understood. — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up:

And note how if one of those things that was "assumed to be well understood" comes up against the skeptic's pet thesis, it always loses. For example, when Hume's highly implausible variety of Empiricism comes up against the idea that causes exist, the idea that causes exist is forfeited. The birthright is forfeited for a bowl of pottage. (See my post <here>)

It's hard to say why folks fall for these sophistries. Part of it is going along with what is fashionable at the time. Part of it is the idea that if Hume has a long string of (sophistical) arguments, and I have only the (illative) belief that causes exist, then the long string of arguments must win on account of quantity. So you have the odd effect where the intelligent become dumb and the common person retains their wits.

Philosophy has a strong tendency in the direction of decadence and self-immolation in that way. In the late Medieval period when philosophy became exceedingly subtle and inward facing, the lay population said, "Screw it. This is too abstruse, pedantic, and pointless. We're leaving it all behind." And so they started from scratch with some of the very errors you note. Our age is another philosophically decadent time, when philosophy is (often rightly) seen to be pointless thumb-twiddling about angels and pins, particularly in the English-speaking world where Logical Positivism haunts the landscape.

This post is a bit of a grab-bag, but I would also note how capricious modern and contemporary philosophy is. Individualism captures philosophy and it begins to border on a cult of personality. Further, instead of systematic rigor philosophy becomes a matter of just investigating whatever you happen to want to investigate. Questions of history become passé and history in fact becomes little more than a foil used in service of chronological snobbery. It is the child without a memory committing the same mistakes day after day, with nowhere to go and no larger end to encumber them.

- Thanks Paine. :up:

So - what about this constitutes a lie or a contradiction? — Wayfarer

To say that Kant says something that one knows he does not say is lying, and this is what Rodl does. He demonstrates that in the endnote. And even if we grant for the sake of argument that Kant presupposes Rodl's position (and it seems that he doesn't), it remains false that Kant affirms that position.

A little further along in the same section from the CPR, further argument which lends weight to Rödl's interpretation — Wayfarer

Yes, after listening to McDowell's lecture on Rodl I was able to understand that this is what Rodl is doing, but it still doesn't justify his claim. Unity in a single consciousness is not self-consciousness, even for Kant.

McDowell chastises Rodl for misreading Davidson in a way that helps Rodl justify his own position, and I think that is also what is happening with Kant. The OP itself is premised on that false attribution in the same way: depending on Kant saying something he did not say.

-

They have been for me — J

And yet you can't say what you have gained or even answer the question, "What are they saying?" The danger of obscure thinkers is that they are very easy to read one's own ideas into, thus approving one's preconceptions. The opaque Other is not Other at all, and becomes only one's reflection in the water.

I found a really useful text for your thread: Paul Vincent Spade's, "The Warp and Woof of Metaphysics: How to Get Started on Some Big Themes."

It is a professor's informal introduction to Aristotelian essentialism for his students, using Quine and modalism as a jumping-off point. He construes modern approaches and bundle theories as a form of Platonism vis-a-vis the Timaeus (which makes sense). He then contrasts Aristotle's approach to the Platonic approach, which reveals the two deep metaphysical approaches on offer.

Beyond that, I think the focus on Assemblage Theory in this thread has functioned as an elaborate excuse to avoid the issues of the OP, despite the fact that there are <ways to engage the OP with approaches like Deleuze's>.

We can all recognize a tiger when we see one, even though we cannot say what the essence of being a tiger is. — Janus

Suppose I tell you that you have a heart inside you that allows you to move and to live. You respond, "Watch. I will move my arm. See? We can all move, even without hearts." Or perhaps I would say that you need firing neurons to think and you say, "We can all think. What need is there for firing neurons?"

In general, if you don't know what something is then you should not criticize it. And if you want to criticize something, then you should be able to say what it is. But folks like Banno are going to criticize things like essence with complete ignorance of what it is, and a refusal to say what they are criticizing. It is prejudice on stilts.

Essence is part of an account of knowledge and cognition. No one who understands what an essence is would merely assert that we can recognize a tiger without knowing something of its essence. Essence = quiddity = "whatness." If you know what a tiger is, then you know its essence (or something of its essence - recall the strawman of claiming that essences are known perfectly and a priori).

Another good principle for those who don't want to be dumb is to ask what question a philosophical concept is answering. Instead of saying, "It's fashionable to say essences are dumb, so I'm going to say essences are dumb, even though I don't know what essences are," one should say, "Hey, the concept of essence was developed continually by hundreds of different philosophers for 2,000 years. Maybe I should give it a fair shake. Maybe I should try to figure out what it is and what questions it was attempting to answer, and whether I have better answers to those questions." Someone like Banno characteristically says, "The solution is stupid; I refuse to say what I mean by the solution; and I refuse to answer the question; we just stipulate; it's just what we do." This is prejudice, not philosophy.

Rather than essences, a better entry point into these issues is universals, and The Medieval Problem of Universals is one of the better SEP articles out there. It is historical and pedagogical rather than simply taxonomical.

Is it essentially the idea that the esse (viz., the parts) depend also on the essence (viz., the whole)? — Bob Ross

Well in the first place esse != parts and essence != whole. Esse/essence is not the part/whole relationship.

I agree with this insofar as living beings aren’t just composed like non-living beings: they have a form that has to do with a process of maintaining and developing as an organism. Is that what you are referring to by “substantial form”? — Bob Ross

Sure, that’s part of it. So for example, if you place all of the parts of a frog together in the correct configuration, there will still be no frog. The frog as a whole is something that the parts cannot effect.

I guess I am not seeing the issue. I would say that a form is instantiated by way of the parts arrangement in such-and-such manners; and so the essence is not strictly reducible to the parts which comprise the being which has it; but this doesn’t seem to negate the fact that the essence itself is contingent for its existence on the parts. — Bob Ross

Sure, there is some sense in which the whole depends on the parts, although not all the parts. If a cat loses an ear or a dog loses a leg it has lost a part but the cat or dog still exists.

The problem begins in premise (4), where you imply that there is an existence in the parts that is not in the whole, and thus we are upbuilding existence from parts to whole. Your idea is something like, “Parts are what primarily exist, and because they exist wholes exist. The existence of wholes is generated by the existence of parts.”

That’s fair, and I hadn’t thought of that. I think this OP, if true, would necessitate that the universe is finite and that matter is not eternal; or at least that matter is eternal only insofar as it subsists in being (from God).

We can also, I would say, object in a similar manner to time, space, and natural laws. None of these have parts themselves, and so they would be immune to the OP; but my point would be that the OP establishes the requirement for God, and establishes the nature of God sufficiently to know that these kinds of things which have no parts themselves must be only in existence through God as well. I would say this because nothing can affect a purely actual being (since it lacks passive potency), granted such a being exists, and given natural laws (or time or space itself—if you are a realist about those) would be a medium which does affect such a being’s ability to actualize, it follows that no such purely transcendent natural laws (or time or space) can exist; for God must be more fundamental than them, as their own actualization. They equally have a potential to exist or not, and God actualizes that potentiality. — Bob Ross

Okay, that’s fair enough.

That is fair, but my thing would be that Aristotelian idea of ‘motion’ is misleading for modern people; and makes them be too dismissive of the argument. — Bob Ross

Why do you say that? It seems to me that motion is more generally accepted than the essence/existence distinction. Of course when Aristotle talks about motion he is also talking about any kind of change, but change too is generally accepted to exist.

Think about it this way: is it easier for someone to deny the essence/existence distinction, or is it easier for them to deny that existence of motion/change?

- Something is composed if it has parts and simple if it has no parts. This is a foundational idea in philosophy. The second premise means that a composed being will stop existing if its parts undergo certain changes. For example, if I chop you in half you will stop existing.

I’ll only add, because of the title, a lot of people will read it to find fault with it, while others (like myself) will read it to find support for their view — Wayfarer

The OP left a bad taste in my mouth given the way it handles Kant. And after an excessive amount of digging we learned that Rodl contradicts himself in the endnote, which to me constitutes a lie:

Kant said: the I think accompanies all my thoughts.³

[3] Critique of Pure Reason, B 131. More precisely, he says that the I think must be able to accompany all my representations, for all my representations must be capable of being thought. This presupposes (what is the starting point of Kant’s philosophy and not the kind of thing for which he would undertake to give an argument) that the I think accompanies all my thoughts. — Rodl, Self-Consciousness and Objectivity

Maybe it was just an unfortunate coincidence that the thread began on such shaky ground, but after the Kimhi threads took a very long time to go nowhere, this sort of equivocation deters.

Yes, and there are those fortunate few who aren't sure! — J

But as the thread on Kimhi demonstrated, you are sure. You are sure that Kimhi and Rodl are important and worth reading. But you don't seem able to give any reasons for that rather dogmatic position. You insist it's worth it and you don't know why:

I have gotten so frustrated with Kimhi over the past month that I've literally screamed, trying to untangle him. But I insist it's worth it. — J

That's fine, but I don't see a neutral or objective reader. I see more of that from Paine, and that is why I am so interested to hear his thoughts.

The only thing that worries me is captured by Srap's response. If anti-Analytic lunges all miss their mark badly, then a real problem is being created. That is, if Kimhi and Rodl don't make any sense, then touting them--explicitly or implicitly--as the champions against Analytic Fregianism only aids the cause of Analytic Fregianism. Honestly, after reading Kimhi I think more of Frege, not less. It's not great when arguments against [Frege] have the effect of improving the general opinion of [Frege].

Additionally, philosophy forums are usually filled with people pretending to do calculus, who do not know how to do algebra. With Kimhi everyone came to the same conclusion, including you, "We don't really know what he is talking about, or where he is going with any of this." The problem created by this can't just be deferred ad infinitum. At some point you have to face the music. But of course Rodl could be different than Kimhi.

So, on the "no privation" view the perfect form of a tiger would be 100% tigerness, just as the form of the perfect circle would be 100% circularity. Same for the Good, Justice, and Beauty. 'No deviation' might be a better term than 'no privation'. — Janus

"Privation" is necessary because you are employing a Platonic version. Note that for Plato there is no "undeviated circle" among the realm of singulars, here below. The perfect Form is never found in a singular.

Therefore, the Platonic answer to the question of what this demonstration was about, namely, that it was about a perfect, ideal triangle, which is invisible to the eyes, but is graspable by our understanding, at once provides us with an explanation of the possibility of universal, necessary knowledge. By knowing the properties of the Form or Idea, we know all its particulars, i.e., all the things that imitate it, insofar as they imitate or participate in it. So, the Form itself is a universal entity, a universal model of all its particulars; and since it is the knowledge of this universal entity that can enable us to know at once all its particulars, it is absolutely vital for us to know what it is, what it is like, and exactly how it is related to its particulars. However, obviously, all these questions presuppose that it is at all, namely, that such a universal entity exists.

But the existence of such an entity seems to be rather precarious. Consider, for instance, the perfect triangle we were supposed to have in mind during the demonstration of Thales’ theorem. If it is a perfect triangle, it obviously has to have three sides, since a perfect triangle has to be a triangle, and nothing can be a triangle unless it has three sides. But of those three sides either at least two are equal or none, that is to say, the triangle in question has to be either isosceles or scalene (taking ‘isosceles’ broadly, including even equilateral triangles, for the sake of simplicity). However, since it is supposed to be the universal model of all triangles, and not only of isosceles triangles, this perfect triangle cannot be an isosceles, and for the same reason it cannot be a scalene triangle either. Therefore, such a universal triangle would have to have inconsistent properties, namely, both that it is either isosceles or scalene and that it is neither isosceles nor scalene. However, obviously nothing can have these properties at the same time, so nothing can be a universal triangle any more than a round square. So, apparently, no universal triangle can exist. But then, what was our demonstration about? Just a little while ago, we concluded that it could not be directly about any particular triangle (for it was not about the triangle in the figure, and it was even less about any other particular triangle not in the figure), and now we had to conclude that it could not be about a universal triangle either. But are there any further alternatives? It seems obvious that through this demonstration we do gain universal knowledge concerning all particulars. Yet it is also clear that we do not, indeed, we cannot gain this knowledge by examining all particulars, both because they are potentially infinite and because none of them perfectly satisfies the conditions stated in the demonstration. So, there must have been something wrong in our characterization of the universal, which compelled us to conclude that, in accordance with that characterization, universals could not exist. Therefore, we are left with a whole bundle of questions concerning the nature and characteristics of universals, questions that cannot be left unanswered if we want to know how universal, necessary knowledge is possible, if at all... — The Emergence of the Problem | Medieval Universals | SEP (italics omitted)

On an Aristotelian conception the form of a triangle is a matter of abstraction:

...For example, I can be mistaken if I form in my mind the judgment that a man is running, whereby I conceive a man to be somehow, but if I simply think of a man without attributing either running or not running to him, I certainly cannot make a mistake as to how he is.[12] In the same way, I would be mistaken if I were to think that a triangle is neither isosceles nor scalene, but I am certainly not in error if I simply think of a triangle without thinking either that it is isosceles or that it is scalene. Indeed, it is precisely this possibility that allows me to form the universal mental representation, that is, the universal concept of all particular triangles, regardless of whether they are isosceles or scalene. For when I think of a triangle in general, then I certainly do not think of something that is a triangle and is neither isosceles nor scalene, for that is impossible, but I simply think of a triangle, not thinking that it is an isosceles and not thinking that it is a scalene triangle. This is how the mind is able to separate in thought what are inseparable in real existence. Being either isosceles or scalene is inseparable from a triangle in real existence. For it is impossible for something to be a triangle, and yet not to be an isosceles and not to be a scalene triangle either. Still, it is not impossible for something to be thought to be a triangle and not to be thought to be an isosceles and not to be thought to be a scalene triangle either (although of course, it still has to be thought to be either-isosceles-or-scalene). This separation in thought of those things that cannot be separated in reality is the process of abstraction.[13] In general, by means of the process of abstraction, our mind (in particular, the faculty of our mind Aristotle calls active intellect (nous poietikos, in Greek, intellectus agens, in Latin) is able to form universal representations of particular objects by disregarding what distinguishes them, and conceiving of them only in terms of those of their features in respect of which they do not differ from one another. — Boethius’ Aristotelian Solution | Medieval Universals | SEP

As it happens, we do know both things, but if we knew as little about Socrates as Socrates himself knew about tables, we presumably could still refer to him, and be unconfused about him in possible worlds. — J

It seems to me that folks take a machination like "possible worlds" or "metaphysically possible" and then start throwing it around without any real sense of what they are doing. "There is a possible world in which Socrates is an alien." "It is metaphysically possible for Socrates to have been a chimp." Does the speaker have any sense of what he is saying with these sentences, uttered in isolation?

We can just pretend/stipulate that we can refer to Socrates without knowing anything about Socrates, but that is merely a promissory note. It begs the question in a discussion about reference.

• "I can refer to Socrates, and I need have no necessity-concept attached to my understanding of 'Socrates'."
• "Why do you think that."
• "For no special reason. Just because I say so. Just because I stipulate that I can."

That is not a real argument against modal essentialism. I don't think anyone talks about Socrates without involving their own essential and accidental properties of what constitutes Socrates. That is why in conversation some of the interlocutor's predications about Socrates will make one question whether the interlocutor is talking about Socrates, and some will not. Some claims about "Socrates" are thought to be incompatible with Socrates, and some are not.

"Possible worlds" is a necessity/possibility contrast. There is no such thing as making a possibility claim without also making necessity claims, at least in the background. And one cannot stipulate that their possibility claim involves no necessity premise.

(For a short defense of modal essentialism vis-a-vis Quine, see the first few pages of Paul Vincent Spade's, "The Warp and Woof of Metaphysics.")

-

• "For every property of Socrates there is some possible world where he does not have that property. Therefore Socrates has no essential or necessary properties."
• "If nothing necessarily attaches to Socrates, then in what does his continuation across possible worlds consist?"

Analytic philosophy characteristically caps off explanations of perennial topics with ad hoc appeals, in this case an appeal to stipulation. What is denied at the front door is snuck in the back door.

It's been pointed out previously and by others that you tend to misrepresent folk and then critique what you want to see — Banno

You always conflate your own opinions with the common opinion.

But pretty much everyone recognizes how silly and vain conversations with you are (or become). For example, from a moderator, "Treat this as an invitation to engage with the thread topic on its own terms... If you want to use this style of analysis, and see the thread through its terms entirely, you're going to remain confused." Many of the posters just ignore you, which I take to be the correct route.

You and Count are both materialists. — frank

Okay, Frank. Thank you for letting us know. :ok:

He seems like a very odd person to me. I would think Aristotle for example would consider him odd — Gregory

I question whether Aquinas wrote everything that is attributed to him. It just so processed and empty that to me it seems the Church has hidden the true story behind their creation. — Gregory

:lol: :lol:

TPF is turning into Reddit, conspiracy theories and all.

- Do you think Rodl might believe that what occurs is consciousness of the activity itself? That was my point - that the option that Kant denies might be what Rodl accepts. Or something close to it, given the way Rodl does not see self-consciousness as accidental to thought.

Care to say more? What do you consider as two ways? — Mww

Using your explanation of Kant, "Consciousness of the occurrence of the activity," and, "Consciousness of the activity itself" ().

(I should have said "could" rather than "can." There are here two different ways of conceiving consciousness of one's own thought.)

Cheers! :nerd: — frank

I think Kripke saw the point I am making and instantiated it in his rigid designators. It's not that hard to progress the thought. Someone using a rigid designator is thinking of something which has continuity across possible worlds, and which therefore has at least one essential modal property.

Indeed, if you and I are arguing about Socrates, then we are both thinking of something which has at least one essential modal property. Then we navigate that difference and close the distance between our two conceptions by reflecting on the other person's essence-conception, or as you said, by "putting ourselves in their shoes." If at the end of the day we end up agreeing (which sometimes happens in the real world), then our two essence-conceptions of Socrates will have become aligned. That alignment is the first step toward better understanding Socrates in a dialogical context. For example, if two scholars of Socrates sit down and talk for a few hours, they may well come away with a more unified historical theory of Socrates, and that unified theory will in turn represent progress towards the goal of understanding the real Socrates.

Although essences are not of individuals, I think this helps to show how we get at the real, whether of individual (objective referent) or species (essence). The operative concepts (referent or essence) are operative throughout the entire dialogical process in tightly nested spirals. We are constantly switching between thinking about our subjective/intentional referents, our interlocutor's subjective/intentional referents, the objective referent that we are both aiming at, and then the various recursive mental acts, such as how our interlocutor is conceiving of our own subjective/intentional referents. In doing this, in allowing reference to be analogical in that it involves a complex intersubjective dance of different shades and colors of reference, we eventually arrive at knowledge of the referent that we are both ultimately aiming at. But if we make "referent" a flat, objective reality independent of our thinking, intentions, and personal understandings, then we are doomed from the start.

(I am obviously appealing to modal essentialism here.)

When I first encountered the Logical Positivist thinking in Banno's thread on Kit Fine, it was very strange. It was strange to encounter folks who think of reference and essence as, "Either we have an infallible pre-packaged reference/essence, or else it does not exist at all." I am still working out how someone can get to such a confused position in the first place. And perhaps that was Quine's motive, "Reference doesn't work that way, kids. You're barking up the wrong tree." The adamant resolution to sever reference from speaker's intention is obviously at the heart of the problem, and this has to do with reifying language as an unchanging something that exists apart from speaker's intentions and extramental objects, and can therefore be studied in isolation from these things.

* Banno is a living example of these problems. For example, even the thought of taking speaker's intention into consideration makes Banno start shrieking, "Humpty Dumptyism! Humpty Dumptyism!" The propaganda campaign is well established by now.

Being human isn't essential to Socrates because he could have been an alien. — frank

Why? Why not say, "Being Socrates isn't essential to Socrates because he could have been Patrocles"?

If there is any rhyme or reason to these claims; if possible worlds are to do any work at all; then there must be some necessary property or properties of Socrates, and once we admit that we're already into modal essentialism.

Yes, but Kripke's essential properties are stipulated. — frank

SEP is correct here:

Even so, the appeal to stipulation is more like a promissory note than the satisfaction of an explanatory obligation. The appeal to stipulation puts off for another occasion any attempt to resolve how we succeed at doing what we take for granted that we manage somehow to do: namely, how we succeed at referring to the right individual, by means of our stipulative effort. — Rigid Designators | SEP