So, yes, DNA is very much like the molecular counterpart of 'essence'. — Wayfarer

Is your claim that if the dog we call Bee had a different DNA, it would be a different dog? That seems to be agreeing with the modal definition of essence - that "Bee" has a certain DNA in every world in which she exists, and that if we stipulate a world in which @frank's dog bee has a different DNA, then we are stipulating a world in which Frank has another dog that happens to have the same name as Bee.

But this is part of the problem here - the sliding between different definitions of "essence".

So Tim, from what I have understood, would reject the modal definition of essence, maintaining somewhat hyperbolically that essence is what makes a thing what it is, but is not the necessary properties of a thing.

You seem now to be saying that essence is what makes a thing what it is, and that is the properties it has in every possible world.

Asa I've maintained, the modal definition has the benefits both of not being circular and being arguably consistent.

Is your claim that if the dog we call Bee had a different DNA, it would be a different dog? — Banno

Of course, but it would still be a dog, not an elephant or a cat. Surely the distinction between different canines can be accomodated by the Thomistic distinction between essence and accident.

I'd be happy to help rehabilitate essence.

So if the "Thomistic distinction between essence and accident" is understood as the modal difference between properties had in some possible world and properties had in ever possible world, we could move on.

But if we do that and invoke god, a being for whom every possibility is a necessity, we again risk modal collapse - there would be no difference between necessity and possibility. The devil is in the detail, and so, perhaps, is God...

So we are back to the challenge to theists: give a coherent account of god's nature.

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. — Banno

Neither do I see what you are saying.

Language only involves interpreting utterances?

How about more context for whatever you are trying to say.

Language involves utterances, a speaker who utters them, what the utterances are about.

What the utterances are about seems to be broken out into how the speaker interprets his words, and how the listener interprets her words.

So what? How does that say anything about essence?

Essence is what the utterances are as out. It’s how the speaker exchanges and idea with a listener through the language.

In essence, you are blowing me off as usual. You didn’t make your point.

I'd be happy to help reinstate essence. — Banno

Whoa. Then you want God’s essence? One step at a time.

I guess so.

I've pointed to Davidson once or twice. That's were I'm pointing now.

If I havn't made a point, it;\'s becasue I can't follow what youa re saying.

And there's stuff like this:

Language only involves interpreting utterances? — Fire Ologist

No. Why did you choose to include the word "only"? Language involves interpreting utterances.

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. — Wayfarer

I agree. Metaphysics is about what is. Throw out metaphysics, there is no point speaking about the world in any scientific way.

And it seems straightforward, but is considerably more difficult.

Seeking ‘what is’ is impossible (or pointless) if you think meaning is use, because if you think meaning is use, then ‘ what is’ becomes ‘what is used’ as well. We make reality up when we speak about it, so who cares about any other reality.

Language only involves interpreting utterances?
— Fire Ologist
No. Why did you choose to include the word "only"? Language involves interpreting utterances. — Banno

Because you won’t talk about anything else. For fuck sake! :lol:

I keep listing all of the other things language involves and you won’t talk about them. Like speakers, and what is spoken about (notice “what” or quiddity…”)

Whatever.

I still do not understand what you are saying.

I still do not understand what you are saying. — Banno

Can’t quite capture the essence of my words?

ADDED:
So is that a problem with the words,
or with me the speaker,
or is something vague about what the words mean,
or is it a you, the interpreter, thing?

Metaphysics is about what is. Throw out metaphysics, there is no point speaking about the world in any scientific way.

And it seems straightforward, but is considerably more difficult. — Fire Ologist

Even though I can see your point, I understand Banno's bafflement. You're saying it goes deeper than language, and I agree.

I've mentioned before the book Thinking Being: Introduction to Metaphysics in the Classical Tradition. (bookmarked .pdf file). The introductory section on Parmenides, and the chapters on Plato and Aristotle, help to re-state the terminology of classical metaphysics in their original context.

But the point is, modern analytical philosophers have a pretty jaundiced view of metaphysics. As far as they're concerned, it's archaic or superseded even while it deserves respect as part of the Western canon. That's a big part of their 'plain language' approach.

I've tried to read up on contemporary modal metaphysics but found little sustenance in it. This is where Catholic and Orthodox philosophers are significant, as for them, philosophy is part of a living faith, a way-of-being. That's what I think you're trying to articulate. (There are also secular sources. Iris Murdoch's books on the Sovereignty of the Good and the metaphysics of morals for instance.)

There's not a lot of point in many of these threads, because the theists will always look for reasons to believe, and the non-theists reasons not to. I'm nearer the former, but I do try and stay within the lanes of philosophy, rather than appeals to faith.

(Another Catholic author and editor I very much admire was the late Stratford Caldicott. Poignant, as he had the same birth-year as myself, but died in 2014. Worth studying in my opinion.)

modern analytical philosophers have a pretty jaundiced view of metaphysics. — Wayfarer

I doubt Charmers would agree. Like most of the generic critique of analytic philosophy - itself now an anachronistic term - that's more a caricature than anything of content.

One thing I've taken from this thread is that I'm somewhat intrigued by the reliance of your "classical tradition" on a logic limited to single place predications. I conjectured earlier that this might explain much of the reification of being. It'd be a big topic to address, but might elicit some interest.

I'd maintain that more recent (ie, post-enlightenment) logic shows that the way metaphysics was done was quite muddled. Metaphysics is still happening, but with less of the making shit up and more of the working through the issue.

As for Olo, I just haven't been able to interpret what he said as a coherent chain of statements. Harsh, perhaps, but that's what it amounts to.

I had in mind Aristotelian metaphysics, in particular. I realise that many subjects are now explored under that title, and that there is a revival of interest.

Given your affinity for neoplatonism, I'm quite surprised it doesn't at least make some sort of sense. In its broadest sense, the general idea is quite flexible.

I had in mind Aristotelian metaphysics, in particular. — Wayfarer

Me, too.

While there are various ad hoc workarounds, and no doubt Tim can give you the details, syllogistic logic deals in A,E,I and O, and these are single-placed predictions - all predicate letters have one argument-place, f(a). So "Socrates is older than Plato" has to be changed to "Socrates is a-thing-older-than-Plato". This pictures relations between individuals as properties of substances. Relations are reified - they become "things" - rather than relations between things.

In the case of identity, "Socrates is Socrates" is parsed as "Socrates is a-thing-that-is-Socrates", an a strange substance is invented, a-being-that-is-Socrates.

Consider cats again. "There are cats" in more recent logic is ∃(x)(x is a cat) - "there is an x such that x is a cat". But in syllogistic logic it is parsed as something like "The cat has the property of being a cat", thereby inventing "the property of being a cat", which is subsequently reified into "catness" and the rigmarole of essences.

So it seems that adopting a primitive logic leads pretty directly to an odd metaphysics, inhabited by "catness" and "Socratesity" and so on.

Of course, it's possible that there are aspects of reality captured by syllogistic logic but lost in more recent work. But that's a case to be argued, not an assumption to be made.

Anyway, well off topic. Time to move on.

That's an interesting thought.

Relation is one of the categories in the Categories though. It isn't a "thing." That would be substance. This is quite explicit. The logic was developed with the metaphysics in view.

However, what you have described might be responsible for the later calcification of essences. I've seen that thesis expressed before. But one doesn't find such a reification in the Patristics or early-high Scholastics. Everything exists in a "web of relations" as Deely puts it. It's a very relation heavy ontology. The calcification and reification is more of a post-nominalism thing. Commentators have supposed that it has something to do with the limitations of logic at that point, but this is also combined with a particular (new) view of what logic is/does and a particular metaphysics of univocity. Whereas, in the earlier metaphysics, metaphysics always deals in analogy.

I think this would be more a question about universals in general though.

That's an interesting thought. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Cheers. No more than a conjecture, and even a literature review would be a months of work.

Good counterpoints. I suspect that Aristotle's distinction between relations and substance is different to what I've suggested, since in first order logic relations are not so much an ontological category as a syntactic one. Any work here would need to avoid this category error. The various permutations would need to be worked through in detail. We might be heading in different directions yet again. And doubtless the development of these ideas was not complete in Aristotle. We've talked about the limitations of analogically reasoning previously.

Given your affinity for neoplatonism, I'm quite surprised it doesn't at least make some sort of sense. In its broadest sense, the general idea is quite flexible. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You were talking about definitions as if the definition is the words used, and the essence is what the definition refers to. That's garbled. A definition is the content of uttered sentences. The definition is what the words in the definition mean, which is, what they refer to.

This isn't a logical point. It's just how we use the word "definition."

You were talking about definitions as if the definition is the words used, and the essence is what the definition refers to. That's garbled. A definition is the content of uttered sentences. The definition is what the words in the definition mean, which is, what they refer to.

Ah, I see the disconnect. I should have clarified, I mean "definition" in the sense Aquinas or the later Neoplatonists/Scholastics tend to use it. So, there is a proper definition that signifies the essence of a thing, it's quiddity (exclusive of accidents), generally through the convention of specifying its genus and species specific difference. Whereas the practice of dictionaries today is that the definition is simply a function of how the word is used.

That's not really an Aquinas thing though, it comes through Aristotle, but I am pretty sure it is somewhat common by late antiquity.

It's like all the debates over the meaning of terms in Plato. The point isn't that people cannot communicate because they lack the proper definition of terms such as "piety" or "justice," but rather that they don't understand them, and so they fail to achieve/desire justice, etc. They can still engage in dialectic though. Guys like Euphyphro and Thrasymachus do have their own "definitions" of these terms.

An adherence to merely syllogistic logic might explain some of the difficulties had hereabouts. — Banno

It has many ways of dealing with many placed predicates and relations. The ancients and medievals did not lack a notion of polyadic properties. Indeed the core sign relation for language, supposition, and epistemic relations are all triadic. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Gyula Klima recently made available his contribution to the The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Logic, "Consequence." It offers a helpful remedy to the historically ignorant opinion that Medievals did not study non-syllogistic forms of logic.

Certainly,

I've never done such a thing. — Moliere

@Moliere

op cit.