Thanks. All good stuff.

African Elephants were long thought to be one. While there is some morphological difference between savanna and forest elephants, they were taken as the same species. However their DNA was shown to be statistically quite different.

Are we to count them as one species with two subspecies, or as two distinct species? Mitochondrial evidence showed that the two groups had not interbreed in any large scale for millions of years. So the decision was made to count them as two species.

Actually, that decision was made over time, as the differences in data became clearer. But the final step had some conservation implications. By splitting into two species they (the IUCN African Elephant Specialist Group) were able to list the African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) as critically endangered, and the savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana) as Endangered - whereas together they only met the criteria for being endangered.

Australian Eucalypts are notorious for mingling their DNA - to the extent that it is now not uncommon for them to be considered a cluster of species rather than insist on separating and shrinking the number of individuals in a species.

The take away is that DNA does not divide the world up neatly in to species. We do the dividing, sometimes using DNA evidence, sometimes not.

DNA does not provide clear natural essences or clear-cut natural kinds.

Apologies to all for the digression. It wasn’t my intention.

digressions don’t trouble me. But I think that actually pretty relevant.

You could have just reached for "domesticated animal" or "livestock." But no, I was clearly asking for a culture that doesn't distinguish the species at all. Find one and I would be shocked.

There are also slightly different words for colors across different cultures. And yet not a single one has a unique name for colors in the ultraviolet spectrum. Why? I think it's easy to chalk this up to causes that are prior to usefulness. Such differentiations are not useful because of what man is and which colors he is able to distinguish with the naked eye. Color schemes are also remarkably similar, despite lacking the more clear distinction of species.




I'm not arguing against the formalism, but the claim that cats are cats in virtue of someone being able to write down "x exists and x is a cat."

To see how it works, you have to do the work.

So everyone who truly understands modal logic believes that things are what they are in virtue of our ability to write that it is so? I suppose very few people properly understand it then.


In response to: "Ok, then explain in virtue of what would [cats] be cats in this case [where there is no one to declare them cats]?" You wrote:

In virtue of the supposition of a world that includes cats but not people.

That's how modality works. We can stipulate a possible world in which there are cats but no people to call them cats

You don't need modal logic for this sort of metaphysics. You can just put it plainly: "cats are cats because I stipulate that it is so. They would still be cats even if I didn't stipulate this however, and this simply because I can say 'I stipulate that this is so regardless of whether or not I have actually stipulated it."' The appeal to logic just dresses up the reliance on assertion to make anything any thing.

He even humorously suggested that Aristotle deserved a Nobel Prize in biology for this insight (however Nobel prizes are never awarded posthumously, much less to someone who died more than two millenia ago.)

As a consolation, he and Darwin remain the most cited people in the field IIRC (although often in a pretty cursory fashion to be fair). Although, arguably this is old news by Aristotle's day and he is just formalizing it. The earlier parts of Genesis, which pre-date the Hebrew language, and some of which go back at least to almost 4,000 year old tablets, have to notion of "each according to its kind," arising from seed according to its kind, with an animating life force of sorts that disspates back into the "dust" of no longer ordered matter. I don't recall Homer focusing on animal life in quite the same way though (although he does have canine virtue in old Argos!).

On a related note, I have often considered that the ancients, who spent considerable time with animals, often sleeping with them, using them for all forms of work and transportation, and traversing wilds that were actually still wilds instead of depopulated reeling ecosystems, might make better psychologists vis-á-vis the man/brute distinction than many moderns who are writing from a perspective of maybe having owned a pet.

Delbrück highlighted that it's the formal aspect of DNA, the information it carries, rather than the physical material of DNA itself, that is crucial for inheritance and development. This aligns with Aristotle's view that the soul (form) is distinct from the physical body. Also, presumably, one of the reasons that Aristotle's hylomorphism is still very much a live option in contemporary philosophy.

Indeed, but we could also consider here epigenetics and developmental biology, or the possibility of non-DNA life, or self-replicating non-living systems such a silicone crystals. The idea of an essence and substantial form is the more general one here, which is partly what makes it more useful. It isn't pinned down to any particular material. So, in the case of xenobiology, were there different forms of life discovered on Mars or the Jovian moons that were close to "bacteria" but also distinct in chemical composition, it is the broader notion that would help capture the similarity (principles unifying the disparate "many" into a knowable "one"). Information theory is a pretty popular way of doing this now, and the etymology is not incidental, "information" being what "in-forms."

Yet information is sometimes presented in a way that tends towards reductionism, although it need not be. It seems to me that hardcore mechanists realize this best, and this is why they still largely deny the existence of biological information as anything but a useful fiction, mere mechanism as seen through the lens of the illusion of function.

What has this to do with essence? It's that the same philosophical heritage that gave rise to 'essence' and 'substance', also gave rise to the scientific disciplines that discovered DNA. And I don't think this is coincidental.

Right, Schrodinger's (a big Platonist fan) landmark "What Is Life?" which was the first to clearly posit something like DNA to look for builds on these notions.

The concept cat wouldn't exist do to there not being a language, but the fact (the state of affairs in which cats exist) would still obtain. In other words, facts would still exist without the concepts that refer to them. Modal logic does apply. Modal logic deals with possibility and necessity, and you're positing a possible world without humans, if I'm following you correctly.

Facts are facts in virtue of modal logic? The question here is metaphysical, what makes things what they are. No doubt, modal logic can be used descriptively—as you say—but I am not sure about modal logic as an explanation of why anything is any thing at all. Or "anything is anything at all because of modal logic.

That is:

"Why are cats the specific sort of organic wholes they are?"
"Because modal logic allows us to stipulate x exists and x is a cat."

This is still an explanation that posits that logic or human speech is constitutive of what things are, that things are what they are in virtue of us saying so.

By contrast, a truth maker theory would say that states of affairs/facts obtain in virtue of actualities that are not posterior to human logic or speech.

Are you saying the essence of a my dog, Bee, is her DNA?

You left out the interpreter. — Banno

I know. I had a longer post discussing that and took the interpreter (communicant) out. You don’t give me much time.

Like here, why do you raise the interpreter? I have no idea of what you are thinking or how/if this addresses essence. To me, you are now taking about the essence of communication, or of a discussion between two or more people.

Speaker.
Words
What they are about, to the speaker.

Interpreter
Same Words
What they are about, to the interpreter.

The words line up, because the same words are said as are heard, so enunciating and hearing are not your issue.

But when what the words are about lines up between the speaker and the interpreter, just like the same words line up, we have a successful communication.

So what? How does this scenario eliminate essence?

We still need at least all of these three ‘speaker/interpreter - words - about world’ to have meaningful language and exchanges - these are exchanges of ideas, of essences.

And when the interpreter’s meaning of the words and the speaker’s meaning for the same words don’t line up, the missing piece is something in the world to refer to upon which the two speakers/interpreters can argue.

Like which category makes sense for which elephant. You need to point to the elephants, not to meaning as use (because you haven’t used a distinction between Savanah and forest before, and how do you ground this distinction but again by drawing DNA samples from the world…. Discovering the different elephants sub-species supports essence, not use.

I do not think that there must be a set of properties that are necessary and sufficient to set out what it is for something to be a cat. I have consistently argued, using material from both Wittgenstein and Quine, that we use such word despite there not being such a set of properties. — Banno

“We use such word despite there not being…”

That means, “the essence of the word ‘essence’ is as a placeholder for speaking.’ You, and Quine and Witt just want to misuse ‘essence’. So Witt and Quine are avoiding the issues not resolving them.

And Count is right, this is metaphysics. “Despite there not being..” is something Witt said we shoukd be silent about.

I take effective language use as granted — Banno

But you have no use for the word “essence” and when people use it anyway you don’t take their language use for granted.

Language use begs the question. It doesn’t provide the answer.

Babies use language. So what? What are they doing?

To me, essences just seems like an easy way of being over-reductive about things in the world when often we can't even characterize what we are talking about in a way that is unambiguous, precise, unique, informative enough to deserve the name "essence". The whole thing seems completely redundant. — Apustimelogist

I think that this is what is going on. But none of that means “there is no such thing as essence.”

And no one, not Aristotle, no one says defining the essence of some thing is easy. Looking for essence is an easy method of saying HOW to say what things are, but there is no need to ever say we’ve ever listed every necessary and sufficient condition essential to some thing (especially if the thing is a physical thing, subject to change). Understanding and saying what is essential is the goal. We can know something essential about some thing in the world, but we have much more to know if we want to say we know the entire essence of that thing.

We all live in the same world of muddle for the senses and use and misuse of language. Essences help us organize it and speak about it.

I take effective language use as granted — Banno

So then why argue? “Elephant” has been sloppy use for years in Africa apparently.

Are you saying the essence of a my dog, Bee, is her DNA? — frank

No.

I’m sure you’d rather hear Count’s answer.

I would think not. A stray hair has your dog's DNA. A severed cat tail or paw has cat DNA. In theory, you could take a cat embryo and tweak its environment so as to make it develop into nothing but muscle tissue or nothing but liver tissue. But a stray hair is not a cat, not is meat a chicken, or a severed tail a monkey. Likewise, the form of a cat can be, to some degree, present in a statue or photograph.

I think information theory and complexity studies is perhaps the better lens to think of essences in terms of physics. They would be informational structures/morphisms. Although, whether or not what things are is reducible to information is questionable. There are a lot of open problems in the philosophy of information that are relevant to this. I would lean towards saying that such principles are realized analogically. The idea of essence/form is very broad, it's just the idea of a prior actuality that stands in relation to interaction.

The idea of essence/form is very broad, it's just the idea of a prior actuality that stands in relation to interaction. — Count Timothy von Icarus

A what?

The take away is that DNA does not divide the world up neatly in to species.

:up:

But that's sort of the point. Again, although you represented "a spreadsheet lookup array" metaphysics as my position, I actually presented that as a deeply flawed conception of essences. Unifying principles are realized analogously in the many. The idea of a sort of univocal, mathematical lookup variable for essences is critically flawed. This isn't how the term was originally used, but is rather a product of late medieval nominalism and its demand for total univocity.

The question isn't: "how exactly do we categorize species?" or again "how do words signify species?" but rather, how are there species? English, for instance, is full of unique words that specify domestic animals by sex and age, or by having been castrated. The exact classification scheme isn't the point. That there are species does not require a "lookup array." The negation of the position is not "but species cannot be defined as static, logical entities (as in a computer database)" but rather "there is not any actuality that is responsible for different species being different species." Or, something like: "there are no different species and genus simpliciter, but only things called such," which also suggests "there are no things, no organic wholes, but only things called such."

Think about it this way. Prior to my writing this post, it only existed potentially. That it has become actual shows that it existed potentially. My post had to become actual before you could read it. Its moving from potency to act, i.e. actually being written and posted, is prior to and causally related to your act of reading it (which is also a move from potency to actuality).

So too for essences. Different kinds of things interact in different ways, which has to do with what they are (their form/actuality).

But the basic point doesn't require this terminology. It's simply the point that some actuality must preceed and determine any move from potency to actuality. If it didn't, and things/events could spontaneously move from potency to actuality, they would occur "for no reason at all." That is, they would be wholly uncaused.

Different things interact in different but reliable ways. The idea of substantial form is really just the idea that there must be something that causes such interaction to be one way and not any other.

The quote from Norris Clarke here lays this out in terms of epistemology.

Different things interact in different but reliable ways. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don’t think that anti-essentialists think this is the case.

Which is an odd way of interacting with the world.

So if I throw a pair of dice, snake-eyes is in potential. Let's say snake-eyes shows up in actuality when the dice land. Where is an example of essence in this?

I think that this is what is going on. But none of that means “there is no such thing as essence.”

And no one, not Aristotle, no one says defining the essence of some thing is easy. Looking for essence is an easy method of saying HOW to say what things are, but there is no need to ever say we’ve ever listed every necessary and sufficient condition essential to some thing (especially if the thing is a physical thing, subject to change). Understanding and saying what is essential is the goal. We can know something essential about some thing in the world, but we have much more to know if we want to say we know the entire essence of that thing.

We all live in the same world of muddle for the senses and use and misuse of language. Essences help us organize it and speak about it. — Fire Ologist

I think my main issue is just that, given how my views toward scientific realism and anti-realism have evolved over time, I just don't see the point of this area. I don't see what it is doing anymore. It just seems like a pointless field of study - trivial, redundant, not informative, not interesting in light of my perspective on the world.

So if I throw a pair of dice, snake-eyes is in potential. Let's say snake-eyes shows up in actuality when the dice land. Where is an example of essence in this? — frank

It’s more like “what are dice?”
- they come in pairs
- each die is six-sided
- each side has a number 1 through 6 represented on each side.
- etc.

Dice are things in the world. These non-specific things are potentially “dice” when recognized or built by an intellect and actually dice when built according to my plans above…

I don't see what it is doing anymore. It just seems like a pointless field of study - trivial, redundant, not informative, not interesting in light of my perspective on the world. — Apustimelogist

Every time you see “what” you point to an essence.

“It just seems like a pointless field of study - trivial, redundant, not informative, not interesting in light of my perspective on the world.”

What is “it”.
What is a “field” and where are its limits? How do you limit thing thing you call “field”?
What is a “perspective” and is that different from a view or experience, and if so, what are the specifics.
What “world” - if we both have different perspectives, what gives you this notion of “the world” apart from our “perspectives on the world.”?

Essences are everywhere to study in your statement.

To experience, freely decide, and create are examples of abilities that only mind-sort substances have. Mind-sort substances have properties as well, such as location and other properties; let's call the set of properties that mind-sort substances have X. Non-mind-sort substances, such as matter, have a set of properties as well, such as mass, location, etc., let's call the set of properties that non-mind-sort substances have Y. X is a subset of Y; otherwise, mind-sort substances neither could affect non-mind-sort substances nor could be affected.

Essences are everywhere to study in your statement. — Fire Ologist

So essences is just giving definitions.

So essences is just giving definitions. — Apustimelogist

Definite description maybe

The way St. Thomas puts it in De Ente et Essentia, which is fairly standard, is that essences are the metaphysical reality, and definitions are the signification of that reality (the signification of the quiddity). A "nature" by contrast, is the same idea as respects change and motion (interaction), it's the essence as a principle of action.

Now in the classical metaphysical tradition (Pagan, Jewish, Islamic, and Christian) there is no distinction between primary and secondary qualities à la Galileo, Locke, etc., and so the phenomenological "whatness" of things is included in this picture. The phenomenon of understanding is considered to be the primary datum of epistemology.

The way St. Thomas puts it in De Ente et Essentia, which is fairly standard, is that essences are the metaphysical reality, and definitions are the signification of that reality (the signification of the quiddity). . — Count Timothy von Icarus

All that says is that an essence is what a definition signifies.

Yes, exactly. :up: So if we say an essence is a definition, it'd be a bit like saying New York City is the name "New York City," or that smoke, as a sign of fire, is fire.

Yes, exactly. :up: So if we say an essence is a definition, it'd be a bit like saying New York City is the name "New York City," or that smoke, as a sign of fire, is fire. — Count Timothy von Icarus

What amazes me is that this makes sense to you.

essences are the metaphysical reality, and definitions are the signification of that reality (the signification of the quiddity). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Three things:
Speaker
Words (definitions, significations of..)
Essences (reality, what the words are about, quiddity)

You don't need modal logic for this sort of metaphysics. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If a theory of how names work does not account for modal contexts, it's broken. That's what went wrong with the description theory of reference. If essences are understood as a theory of how names work - that the name refers to the essence - then they will have the very same issue with modality. The response would be to say that the essence is had in every possible word - that is, necessarily. This amounts to the view that essences are the properties had by an individual in every possible world in which it exists.

It's not a question of needing modal logic, but of seeing how names work.

But I'd understood that you rejected defining essence in terms of necessary properties. I think it is still up to you to give an account of what you mean by "essence", or to accept that your account - that which makes a thing what it is and not something else - is circular and unhelpful.

You can just put it plainly: "cats are cats because I stipulate that it is so. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Both you and Olo miss the bit about it not being "I" but "we". That the word "cat" refers to cats is a fact about the way the community of speakers of English use "cat", not some individual foible.

They would still be cats even if I didn't stipulate this — Count Timothy von Icarus

"They would still be cats" already uses the word "cats".

Think on that. You are already using language, in an attempt to talk about a world without language. So you end up using the word "cats" in the very act of explaining that there are cats despite our use of "cats".

And all you are doing here is saying that cats might have been called something else, or that we might have divided the world up differently, not differentiating cats from other mammals. And of course here you would be right.

So we return to what might be the fundamental issue, that your are already using language in order to formulate the very theory you think you need in order to use language. You want to talk about a world with no cats, without reference to cats, but of course can only do so by referring to cats.

We are always, already, embedded in an interpretation of the way things are.

...how are there species? — Count Timothy von Icarus

There aren't, not until we name them. Yet we give different species different names becasue of their differences.

I was clearly asking for a culture that doesn't distinguish the species at all. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As I understand it, Old English used "hind" for the female of the species we now call deer, and "hart" for the male, but had no word specifically for the species. They divided things up quite differently to us, being perhaps more interested in sexual dimorphism than genetics, around reproduction and hunting rather than taxonomy. That's becasue the divisions are made by us, as a part of a community, and not handed down by god or found in nature independently of our language. They did not distinguish the species at all. That's what you asked for. But no doubt you will somehow contrive not to be shocked.

This sort of thing:

"Why are cats the specific sort of organic wholes they are?"
"Because modal logic allows us to stipulate x exists and x is a cat." — Count Timothy von Icarus

...misrepresents what is being said in reply to your essentialism. It's not what @Sam26 said. Sam might reply, but seems to me not worth addressing further.

I think the dialogue may be ending, since I don't see anything new today. Doubtless the thread will go on for a few more pages. that's to be expected, in a forum where a simple problem will attract five hundred replies. I think my case is carried.

Are you saying the essence of a my dog, Bee, is her DNA? — frank

As I understand it, and Heaven forbid, were it to come to pass that your dog Bee was caught in some terrible calamity, such that her mortal form were utterly destroyed, provided what was left was not incinerated, then her identity could be definitively ascertained from her DNA, by comparing it with remnants left on her artifacts etc. So, yes, DNA is very much like the molecular counterpart of 'essence'.

Banno and I have discussed this before, but a Platonist riddle is sometimes presented in school texts, in regard to the question of form and identity:

A man (not a man)
Throws a stone (not a stone)
At a bird (not a bird)
On a tree (not a tree)

The solution is, a eunuch (not a man, because, you know...) throws piece of pumice (not a stone, because it floats) at a bat (has wings, but also fur) hanging from a reed (not a tree, because no branches.)

I suppose it's a rhetorical exercise in appearance and reality.

I think the undercurrent to all of this (and metaphysics generally) is indeed the search for definition, in the sense of the ability to see what is. When reduced to textbook examples for pedagogical purposes, it seems straightforward, but in real life, it's often considerably more difficult.

why do you raise the interpreter? — Fire Ologist

Becasue language inherently involves interpreting utterances.

I'm sorry, I wasn't able to see what you were saying.

It just seems like a pointless field of study - trivial, redundant, not informative, not interesting in light of my perspective on the world. — Apustimelogist

Yet, here you are :wink: