Maybe I'm just naive, but how is the well-documented physical phenomenon/fact of negentropy not in and of itself sufficient evidence of this? — Pantagruel

I think you two are defining "order" differently. Metaphysician Undercover means determinate form, and you are referring to the number of ways macroscopic properties can be microscopically instantiated -- for that is what entropy describes.

And then there’s Nietzsche’s take on causation: — Joshs

Aquinas says that we cannot know essences (including our own) directly, but infer them from the actions flowing from them. Nietzsche (or maybe his sister) seems to want to do more, saying that there is nothing out of which what we observe to be dynamically continuous flows. I think that is metaphysically impossible, as potential acts are not yet operational. So, they cannot operate to make themselves actual. Consequently, something already actual must be the source of our phenomenological acts.

Where does Aristotle demonstrate this? We can distinguish between the final and formal cause but they are always at work together within a being. — Fooloso4

Exactly.

the number of ways macroscopic properties can be microscopically instantiated -- for that is what entropy describes. — Dfpolis

Interesting. I have heard entropy characterized as the tendency to disorder or randomness, negentropy as the opposite. I'm also familiar with the information-theoretic usage, which some people believe overlaps. Order arises out of disorder, it's a natural(istic) fact.

I just reviewed the entire thread, didn't find any reference to the microscopic instantiation of macroscopic properties (other than when you brought it up just now).

Aquinas says that we cannot know essences (including our own) directly, but infer them from the actions flowing from them. Nietzsche (or maybe his sister) seems to want to do more, saying that there is nothing out of which what we observe to be dynamically continuous flows. I think that is metaphysically impossible, as potential acts are not yet operational. So, they cannot operate to make themselves actual. Consequently, something already actual must be the source of our phenomenological acts. — Dfpolis

I know this is straying off-topic, but I would love to know how your readings of Aquinas and Aristotle influence your political leanings. This, and the moral philosophy that goes along with it, is where one’s views really matter in the world. Would it be fair to say you sympathize with social conservative perspectives on many matters?

I just reviewed the entire thread, didn't find any reference to the microscopic instantiation of macroscopic properties (other than when you brought it up just now). — Pantagruel

That is because we were not discussing entropy, or even order per se.

Would it be fair to say you sympathize with social conservative perspectives on many matters? — Joshs

No, I respect the human person, so, I am socially liberal except for abortion, where the problem is complex. I see a distinction between being alive and being a person, and rights as prospective.

I do not think that there is a universal exemplar idea to which persons should conform. Rather, I think that each individual is unique, as is their self-realization (which I see as the basis of morality).

I came across some notes on philosophy while house cleaning that read:

"My notes,

If an object exists physically then it is affected by physical matter.

And if an object is physical matter then it can affect physical matter.

By observation, thought can affect physical matter and be affected by physical matter so thought is physical matter."


It seems to present a logic problem but it might not be air tight. However, if there is an alternative what is it? My view is that consciousness is a special case of physical matter that has evolved or emerged.

If an object exists physically then it is affected by physical matter.

And if an object is physical matter then it can affect physical matter.

By observation, thought can affect physical matter and be affected by physical matter so thought is physical matter." — Mark Nyquist

First, this line of thought does not preclude intentional realities from acting on physical reality.
Second, it does not show that purely physical operations have intentional effects. We can and do know physical things and events, but we do not know them without first turning our attention to them. So, knowing physical things requires a prior intentional act, i.e. choosing to attend to them, and that choice is an act of will.

You are right. That's maybe why it seemed incomplete to me. It needs specific context.

I looked for support for your idea in the paper and did not find it. Perhaps you could point to what appealed to you.

The essay is interesting and I will quote the part I think speaks to Aristotle's project:

To put the matter in a nutshell, the ontological vocabulary of the Greeks lead them to treat the existence of things and persons as a special case of the Bestehen von Sachverhalte. It is remarkable that not only onta but every other Greek word for "fact" can also mean "thing", and vice versa:-(Cf. chremata = pragmata in the fragment of Protagoras; ergon in the contrast with logos: "in fact" and "in word" gegonota as the perfect of onta, etc.) This failure on the part of the Greeks (at least before the Stoics) to make a systematic distinction between fact and thing underlies the more superficial and inaccurate charge that they confused the "to be" of predication with that of existence.
It may be thought that the neglect of such a distinction constitutes a serious shortcoming in Greek philosophy of the classical period. But it was precisely this indiscriminate use of einai and on which permitted the metaphysicians to state the problem of truth and reality in its most general form, to treat matters of fact and existence concerning the physical world as only a part of the problem (or as one of the possible answers), and to ask the ontological question itself: What is Being? that is, What is the object of true knowledge, the basis for true speech? If this is a question worth asking, then the ontological vocabulary of the Greeks, which permitted and encouraged them to ask it, must be regarded as a distinct philosophical asset. — Charles Kahn

If I had been in Kahn's class as this lecture unfolded, I would have asked about how this feature of the language should be understood against the background of Aristotle's specific statements about predication and demonstration in his Metaphysics and elsewhere.

Which would be a great question, and one which I am in no way qualified to answer. I will find the passages I thought significant a little later when I have some time.

"Consciousness" conflates two completely separate things: intelligence and qualia

All claims made of consciousness must be true of both at the same time, or else you aren't referring to consciousness, but just intelligence or qualia.

Intelligence
These are your thoughts. Every time you choose to do anything, it's your intelligence that chose to do it.

Qualia
Qualia are instances of living experiences. You experience your thoughts, senses, and emotions, among other things.

Somehow, your intelligence knows all of your qualia, but they are completely separate concepts and things.

Somehow, your intelligence knows all of your qualia, but they are completely separate concepts and things. — Leftist

They have to be united in the act of knowing.

Maybe I'm just naive, but how is the well-documented physical phenomenon/fact of negentropy not in and of itself sufficient evidence of this? — Pantagruel

Wikipedia tells me "In information theory and statistics, negentropy is used as a measure of distance to normality." Care to state your case?

I’m wondering how this relates to phenomenology, which it seems to me attempts to reduce all forms of causation to a single non-determinist form, thereby dispelling the spiritual woo-hoo without falling into materialist determinisms.

And then there’s Nietzsche’s take on causation: — Joshs

I think non-determinist causation would be considered by most as spiritual woo-hoo. I tend toward agreement with the Nietzsche quote though.

When I piece together what you ascribe to Aristotle, I don't understand it as a thought by itself." — Paine

Of course it's not a thought by itself it's a vast multitude of thoughts. And the problem with any multitude of thoughts is to maintain consistency throughout them all. it appears like you never got to the point of understanding the consistency the way that I do. That's most likely due to my inability to express myself clearly. Metaphysical principles are not easily expressed.

The fact that you find it repugnant to think that order could emerge from disorder, tells us nothing about what occurs in nature or the rational mind. — Fooloso4

The problem with this principle, that order emerges from disorder, is that it is completely unintelligible to think of order without a cause for it. Therefore positing it as a real representative principle is to premise that some aspect of reality is unintelligible. This is self-defeating to philosophy because it kills the philosopher's desire to know by assuming that this is something which cannot be known. That is why the theological principle "God" is much better suited to philosophy, because "God" is in principle the highest form of intelligibility, yet fundamentally unknowable to human beings in their current condition. This inspires human beings to better themselves in the effort to know God.

You can posit a pre-material final cause but in doing so you part ways with Aristotle. The final cause is always the end or telos of some being and does not exist apart from it. — Fooloso4

Yes, that would be God. And Aristotle spoke of God, so I don't see why you think I part ways with Aristotle.

Where does Aristotle demonstrate this? We can distinguish between the final and formal cause but they are always at work together within a being. — Fooloso4

It is what is known as the cosmological argument, where he demonstrates in his "Metaphysics" the need for an actuality which is prior to material objects, as the cause of the first material form. All material objects are preceded in time by the potential for their existence. But a potential requires something actual to actualize it and become an actual material form, because potential cannot actualize itself. If the first actuality coexisted with potential, it would be just another material form, and this would produce infinite regress. So the first actuality (as a final cause, known in theology as God's Will) must be prior to, and distinct from material forms.

First actuality is being operational. Second actuality is operating. — Dfpolis

This is somewhat incorrect, and really shows that you are the one confused, because "being operational" is a capacity, a potential. It is the potential to operate. If we do not maintain this description, that "being operational" is a potential to operate, then we have no difference between "being operational" and "operating". This is the principle whereby Aristotle showed that all the powers of the soul are properly characterized as potencies, rather than actualities. Since they are not operating all the time, they are all potentials which need to be actualized in order to operate. Therefore we cannot say that "being operational" is an actuality. Aristotle described it more like having knowledge, and notice that the actuality of having knowledge is provided by the thing which has the knowledge.

As such, and to maintain consistency with Aristotle's conceptual space, this capacity of "being operational" must be attributed to the matter of the living being, not the form or "soul". And this is why Aquinas attributed to the potential, the properties which we call "habits".

However, as demonstrated in his "Metaphysics", in his discussion of how it is that a material body comes to be the very body which it is, rather than something else, Aristotle describes a need to assume an actuality which is prior to the organized material body, as the cause of it being the organized body which it is. And, as stated in his definition of soul in "On the Soul", this "first actuality", which is necessarily prior to the organized material body as the cause of it being what it is, is what he calls "the soul". This is what has the knowledge.

So, we have your stated potential "being operational", and the actuality of operating. We need to assume a "first actuality" which actualizes the potential to operate (described by you as being operational), causing the actuality of operating. It is impossible that the actuality of operating causes the potential to operate (described as being operational) to actually operate, because actually operating is posterior and the cause needs to be prior. And we cannot, as you claim, say that being operational is itself an actuality because then there would be no difference between "being operational", and "actually operating. So Aristotle separated these as potency and act. Therefore we need a further "act" which is responsible for causing the potency of being operational, to actual operate, and this is "the soul".

I am not arguing against having more than one principle in an organism (not against matter and form) as Aristotle recognized, but against having two things (res cogitans and res extensa) as Descartes thought. I've told you this a number of times before. — Dfpolis

This is your hypocrisy. You tell me you are only rejecting Cartesian dualism, and that you do not reject other dualisms. But in your article it is clearly stated "Seeing dualism as a representational artifact disposes of both ontological and property dualism." And your op here states "The article rejects dualism as a framework...".

You clearly propose a means for rejecting dualism. Then when you are criticized concerning how effective the means would be, you claim that you're not really trying to reject dualism, only one special idiosyncratic type of dualism. That's why I accused you of being disingenuous. Why don't you just take the honest route, and accept that your means for rejecting dualism does not work? Then you might start to embrace dualism as the means toward true understanding.

Aristotle does not say that the human mind creates forms, but that it actualizes the intelligibility belonging to the form of the sensed object. He even says that in doing so, the nous becomes, in some way, the thing it knows. Thus, the known form is the form of the known. — Dfpolis

Again, this is incorrect. There is a very explicit difference between the form of the sensed object, being a particular, complete with accidentals, and the form which is intelligible to the human mind, being a universal, consisting only of the essentials. So it is impossible that the human mind actualizes the form of the sense object, because it actualizes a completely different form, what we call an abstraction. The form of the particular is completely separate from the abstraction and is not the same form at all. If he says that the mind "in some way" becomes the thing which is known, then this is clearly metaphorical.

I have not proposed such a duality. Again, the known form is the form of the known. — Dfpolis

This demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of Aristotle. A material object consists of matter and form, and in having matter the actuality of that material object, which is the form of the material object, has accidents which are unknown to human beings. The known form does not consist of the accidents. This is the purpose of the law of identity, to expose this type of sophistry. A thing is the same as itself. It is not the same as the known form or else there would be more than one of the same thing.

it appears like you never got to the point of understanding the consistency the way that I do. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is certainly one possible explanation.

Wikipedia tells me "In information theory and statistics, negentropy is used as a measure of distance to normality." Care to state your case? — Metaphysician Undercover

I actually covered a lot of my views relating thermodynamics and information theory by way of cybernetics in the dialog with ChatGPT I just posted in the Lounge. There is a lot of preamble because I needed to contextualize the discussion to make sure the neural net was weighting things correctly. The history of the conversation appears to change the nature of the response to any given question.

There is an additional portion to the chat I had subsequently that brings in the concept of analog computing, which is interesting because in it information is instantiated as form/structure. I might take that a bit further so I haven't appended it to the main dialog yet.

Kahn's essay mentions Aristotle in a few places. I've gone back and looked at the passages I highlighted. My original contention is that there is a distinction to be made between 'being' and 'existence' that is not generally made in the modern philosophical lexicon. Naturalism presumes that what exists, and what is, are co-extensive or coterminious. Whereas, I argued, the original meaning of ontology was not simply an exhaustive catalogue of everything that exists, but is nearer to 'the meaning of being'. In support of this, I quoted an etymological dictionary which pointed out that the term 'ontology' is derived from the first-person participle of the verb 'to be' - which is, of course, 'I am'. (This is the point which the ex-moderator used to hysterically denounce.) Note also the resonance with the Biblical definition of God, viz, 'I am that I am'.

One passage which I refer to in support of my contention is:



This makes almost exactly the point I am seeing to make: that 'what exists' is only ever an aspect or facet of 'what is', which has to be grasped through the 'unitive vision' which I believe the fragmentary poem of Parmenides is testimony to. Of course, this is grounded in my interpretation of the mystical basis of Parmenides vision of 'to be' - Parmenides and the other early Greek sages are much nearer in spirit to the Buddhist and Hindu sages than modern philosophers generally (cf. Peter Kingsley, Thomas McEvilly). Of course, there is always a resistance on this forum to such ideas on the basis of their affinity to religion, this being a resolutely secular (not to say misotheist) ensemble of individuals (which incidentally I respectfully differ with on the whole).

In any case, 'knowing' in this sense is much nearer to a form of gnosticism - not in the sense specific to the gnostic sects, but in the sense that the kind of knowledge or insight being sought was itself transformative and not simply propositional or formulaic.

Now a few more words about @Dfpolis' essay. I generally agree with his diagnosis of the malady of the 'post-Cartesian conceptual space'. I don't exactly agree with the specifics of his critique of it, but that this problem exists, and that its consequences are pernicious, I generally agree with. In my analysis, it basically stems from Descartes' designation of mind or consciousness as 'res cogitans' which means 'thinking thing' ('res' being Latin for 'thing or object')*. This leads to the disastrously oxymoronic conception of 'a thinking substance' which is the single biggest contributor to modern physicalist philosophy. So this, I entirely agree with:

Similarly, metaphysical naturalists project nature onto an a priori model defined over a restricted conceptual space. With historical myopia, they tend to see dualism as the sole alternative to physicalism. — DfPolis

:100: :clap:

I also agree with the gist of the 'fundamental abstraction', although again, I differ somewhat in my analysis of it. I trace the 'fundamental abstraction' to early modern science - a consequence of Cartesian dualism, and equally, the division of the world into primary and secondary qualities or attributes, with the primary qualities being the objects of physics and the secondary being assigned to 'mind' and thereby subjectivised and relativised**. I agree that Aristotle's hylomorphic model is vastly superior to the Cartesian, and also note that Aristotelian metaphysics is enjoying a comeback in the biological sciences.

There are other points that I agree with, and disagree with, but that will have to do for now.

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* I also have the sense that, had Descartes lived longer, or had had better successors, he could have answered many of the critics of his philosophy and elaborated it in the face of many of the objections. I have respect for Descartes' genius and his seminal contributions to the establishment of modern culture.

** Leading to the 'Cartesian Anxiety': "Cartesian anxiety refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other".

Richard J. Bernstein coined the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis.

Metaphysician Undercover — Metaphysician Undercover

There is no point in continuing to respond to you.

I also agree with the gist of the 'fundamental abstraction', although again, I differ somewhat in my analysis of it. — Wayfarer

I have no problem with your elaboration. My central point is that abstractions leave data on the table.

I actually covered a lot of my views relating thermodynamics and information theory by way of cybernetics in the dialog with ChatGPT I just posted in the Lounge. There is a lot of preamble because I needed to contextualize the discussion to make sure the neural net was weighting things correctly. The history of the conversation appears to change the nature of the response to any given question. — Pantagruel

The problem with something like the ChatGPT is that it tends to represent common, conventional ideas, sort of like Wikipedia, so this is not very useful for representing the peculiarities or idiosyncrasies of the thought of a specific philosopher like Aristotle. For example, in your question of hylomorphism it equates matter with substance. But this is not consistent with Aristotle's definition of substance in his "Categories". He proposes primary substance, and secondary substance. Primary substance is the individual. And the individual is a combination of matter and form, not just matter. Secondary substance is species, and this is conceptual. Therefore your later question to ChatGPT, can there be form without substance, just plays on an unAristotelian meaning of "substance".

I also think that you need to be very careful to watch for equivocation, in using something like ChatGPT.

Do you accpet that a "system" is an artificial thing? So any experiments carried with a system are designed and ordered by the engineers of the system, therefore not necessarily giving a proper representation of what is natural.

This leads to the disastrously oxymoronic conception of 'a thinking substance' which is the single biggest contributor to modern physicalist philosophy. So this, I entirely agree with: — Wayfarer

The problem here is not so much Descartes' use of words, as it is the use of words in modern vernacular. In Descartes' time Aristotelian logic was still taught, and "substance" maintained its definition according to Aristotle's principles of logic, as that which substantiates, or grounds logic. Check my reply to Pantagruel above. At that time, the use of "substance" in chemistry was becoming the prominent use, over the logical definition, and this usage in chemistry was consistent with Aristotle's "primary substance". However, that primary substance (the individual) consists of a combination of matter and form, and that secondary substance consists of forms, was soon forgotten by the monist materialist mindset, so that substance in its common usage became equated with matter.

This is the separation which allows for the conception of "prime matter". When matter is conceived to exist as substance without any form, we designate the fundamental "substance" of reality as unintelligible. This is because "form" provides for intelligibility as that which is intelligible. So the cosmological argument is very significant and important, to demonstrate that substance must be formal, and the conception of prime matter as basic substance is a misdirected adventure into the unintelligible. A properly directed adventure into the aspects of reality which appear to be unintelligible is to assign principles which would bring those apparently unintelligible aspects into the intelligible through the process of understanding, not to assign principles which would designate the unintelligible as impossible to understand, eg prime matter.

So the fault is not in Descartes usage of "thinking substance" which is consistent with secondary substance, the fault is in the unnecessary narrowing of the mind by monist inclinations. We no longer recognize the terms of Aristotelian logic, to see that "substance" is what grounds logic, therefore substance must have a formal aspect.

I also agree with the gist of the 'fundamental abstraction', although again, I differ somewhat in my analysis of it. I trace the 'fundamental abstraction' to early modern science - a consequence of Cartesian dualism, and equally, the division of the world into primary and secondary qualities or attributes, with the primary qualities being the objects of physics and the secondary being assigned to 'mind' and thereby subjectivised and relativised**. I agree that Aristotle's hylomorphic model is vastly superior to the Cartesian, and also note that Aristotelian metaphysics is enjoying a comeback in the biological sciences. — Wayfarer

I believe that the division of primary and secondary qualities was meant to be consistent with Aristotle's primary and secondary substance. Primary substance is the individual, the material object. Secondary substance is the species, the type, which we use to classify the individual, "horse", "man", etc.. Notice that a judgement is required in the case of secondary substance, and that is why it is "subjectivised". So if we take the syllogism "Socrates is a man. All men are mortal. Therefore Socrates is mortal", substance or grounding, is provided by "is a man". We cannot take that actual individual (primary substance) and place that individual into the syllogism. So, we make an initial, primary, or fundamental judgement to classify the individual, and this classification acts as a stand in, or representation of the true properties of the individual; this is secondary substance. What we say of the individual, as a true representation within the syllogism, is secondary substance. You can see that the secondary substance is based in a human judgement in relation to a primary substance, and this less than perfect grounding is how logic loses certainty.

There is no point in continuing to respond to you. — Dfpolis

A very common response from the monist mindset, deny and ignore the complexity of reality. Ignorance is preferable to facing the reality of a complex world.

Do you accept that a "system" is an artificial thing? So any experiments carried with a system are designed and ordered by the engineers of the system, therefore not necessarily giving a proper representation of what is natural. — Metaphysician Undercover

Systems are absolutely a fundamental feature of natural reality. I completely espouse Laszlo's perspective that the systems theoretic framework is a paradigm shift in conceptualizing the nature of reality, one which handily absorbs pseudo-problems like that of mind-matter, since mind-matter systems demonstrably exist and can be evaluated in systems-theoretic terms.

If anything, the relationship between "purely" artificial systems - qua models - and natural systems is of key interest to me.

I am using ChatGPT more as a way of fleshing out my own thoughts, as I'm already well-acquainted with the details of almost every answer it gives. However it does catch some stuff, and it even presents interesting novel points once in a while. The philosophical content is in my questions/statements, to which the responses are usually parenthetical.

A "system" is a whole, and as such it requires a boundary, or principle at least, which validates its supposed existence as a united whole. Such principles are applied with degrees of arbitrariness. This is the point covered in my reply to Wayfarer above, concerning secondary substance. When the substance is a species, or type of thing (secondary substance) as is the case in systems theory, a human judgement is required which designates the individual thing being judged as fulfilling the conditions of the species, the type of system in this case.

In "conceptualizing the nature of reality" we need to have respect for this fact, that the representation of the individual is not the individual. That is the problem which dfpolis demonstrates above, by insisting that "the known form is the form of the known". This is the type of sophistry which Aristotle's conceptual space was designed to battle against. Simply stated, the sophistry manifests as the Parmenidean principle, being and knowing are the same thing.
.
Therefore I suggest that you pay attention to the fact that "a system" in systems theory is a theoretical representation of a real "thing", not the thing itself. And, when "system" is used to refer to a real physical thing, in engineering, this type of thing is always a created thing. Therefore there is no way around the fact that "a system" is always artificial, whether "system" is used to refer to a theoretical representation of something natural, or whether it is used to refer to physical, engineered system. In both cases "the system" is a type, not an individual thing.

A "system" is a whole, and as such it requires a boundary, or principle at least, which validates its supposed existence as a united whole. — Metaphysician Undercover

Systems are functional entities characterized specifically by their differentiation with respect to an environment and their stability, among other things.

If a system isn't a real thing then certainly, by your logic, there are no real things. An atom is a system. And yes, it is an 'arbitrary' boundary if by that you mean at some point the atom didn't exist and at some point it will cease to exist. Again, if that is your definition of arbitrary, then we live in a Heraclitean world and the only thing that really exists is change.

That is why the theological principle "God" is much better suited to philosophy, — Metaphysician Undercover

Time to change your username to Metaphysician Uncovered or much better suited Theologian Uncovered.

All material objects are preceded in time by the potential for their existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

Where exactly in Metaphysics does he say that material objects are preceded in time by the potential for their existence? Where does Aristotle say that God acts on potentiality to make it into something actual?

I understood the quoted passage to be saying that the Latin word existere was too much like gignesthai (coming to be) for it to express the sharp contrast to that word given through the use of einai in Greek.

In Liddel and Scott's lexicon, the third use given for the word is: "to be as opposed to appearing to be, as esse to videri, τὸν ἐόντα λόγον, the true story, Herodotus." I think that captures the emphatic quality Kahn is talking about.

Which "etymological dictionary" are you referring to? In Liddel and Scott, verbs are given according to their form as 1st person singular, active voice, in the present tense unless there is a reason not to do that. I don't know why the convention was established. The groovy new Cambridge lexicon (which I do not possess) uses the same convention but lists some parts of speech separately when it clarifies a specific use. The idea that one part of speech is more 'original' than another in the use of a verb is new to me. I am keen to see that argument in action if you can cite the source of it.

I don't know if there is an initiation into a 'gnosis' in Parmenides' thinking. It is interesting that Socrates refused to disparage him the way he kicked Heraclitus and Protagoras around in Theaetetus. Be that as it may, Parmenides is a poster child for Kahn's point about the strong separation between the language of Being from the language of Becoming:

Necessarily therefore, either it simply Is or it simply Is Not. Strong conviction will not let us think that anything springs from Being except itself. Justice does not loosen her fetter to let Being be born or destroyed, but holds them fast. Thus our decision must be made in these terms: Is or Is Not. Surely by now we agree that it is necessary to reject the unthinkable unsayable path as untrue and to affirm the alternative as the path of reality and truth. — Parmenides, Way of Truth,7, Wheelwright collection (Emphasis mine)

*. I agree that Aristotle's hylomorphic model is vastly superior to the Cartesian, and also note that Aristotelian metaphysics is enjoying a comeback in the biological sciences. — Wayfarer

How would your respond to the suggestion that to return to Aristotle from the vantage of the 21st century is to filter his ideas through the entire lineage of Western philosophy that came after him and transformed his concepts? The implication is that for someone who has assimilated the insights of Descartes and those philosophers who followed and critiques him, to prefer Aristotle over Descartes is to re-interpret Aristotle from a post-Cartesian perspective. In this sense your ideas are much closer to Descartes than to Aristotle even as you draw on an Aristotelian ‘style’ of thinking generated from within that post-Cartesian framework. One might say that to return to Aristotle is to move farther away from him.

This makes almost exactly the point I am seeing to make: that 'what exists' is only ever an aspect or facet of 'what is', — Wayfarer

Isn't Kahn's point that existence is not an adequate translation of einia because to "step out" is to step out from something? Given Parmenides denial of not being, being cannot be a stepping out from something, from non-being. In addition, as @Paine pointed out, Parmenides' being precludes becoming.

I think you overstate the case. It is not simply a matter of style but of philology and context. We need to be aware of how key terms were used and how they have changed over time. With regard to context, the beliefs and arguments he is directly and indirectly responding to as well as political constraints. The saying, attributed to Aristotle:

I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy.

is applicable not only to his flight from Athens rather than face charges of impiety, but, as he learned from Plato, to speak in a theologically favorable way.