We know from Kripke and friends that essences are logical rubbish.

So it is reasonable to reject the idea that it is an essence or soul that is reincarnated. Hence one can reject ↪Metaphysician Undercover — Banno

I never said, or implied that a soul is an essence. I don't know where you got that idea, or even what you mean by "essence" in this context. Those are not my words at all.

What I said is that we can infer from logical demonstrations, that when there is a living body, there must be something which has that body, and this is what we call the soul. The soul has a body in the same sense that a subject has the property attributed in predication. So, where there exists a property, there must be something which has that property. And since the living body is a property, there must be something (a soul) which has that property.

I’d said:
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It's hardly unusual, improper or inappropriate to give a name to a proposal. ...by which to refer to it. — Michael Ossipoff
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Wayfarer says:
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Except when you take some recognizable terminology and use it in an entirely idiosyncratic way

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Forgive me the idiosyncrasy of suggesting that the rejection and avoidance of assumptions and brute-facts is skeptical :)
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“Skepticism” is an English common-noun. We don’t have to stop using it because the Ancient Greek philosophers used it as a name.
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I gave that name to the metaphysics that I propose, because is eminently, undeniably, completely, maybe uniquely, skeptical.
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That name is an accurate description, and therefore an appropriately-chosen name.
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“Skepticism” is skepticism, by that common-noun’s standard meaning.
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…hence its name.
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There were already more than one philosophical position using that name. I defined another. English (probably like other languages too) has many words that are used in many ways. “If you don’t like that too, that’s too bad.”
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I’d misleading, at best, to say that I idiosyncratically used a recognized terminology. Skepticism, as I mentioned above, is a common-noun, and I used it with that common noun’s meaning.
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The other “Skepticism” s, at least the ones that I read about, aren’t metaphysicses. My “Skepticism” is a metaphysics. I use the word “Skepticism” when discussing metaphysics. Therefore there’s no reason for Wayfarer to be confused about what I meant.
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It has been pointed out here that “Physicalism” is used with at least 2 different meanings: Metaphysical Physicalism, and Science-of-Mind Physicalism.
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“Hey, you can’t name your son ‘George’! There’s already someone named ‘George’. “
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Any dictionary contains many, many words with more than one meaning. Usually a word’s listing in a dictionary will have a whole list of meanings, enumerated with numbers and letters.
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How about this hypothetical one:
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Skepticism:
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1. An attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity, either in general, or toward a particular object.
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2. By extension, a certain particular metaphysics that embodies skepticism as defined above.
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[end of definition]
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No, as a metaphysics, Skepticism isn’t in the dictionary. No newly-coined name could be. But its derivation is in keeping with standard practice.
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Requoting:
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Except when you take some recognizable terminology and use it in an entirely idiosyncratic way, which makes you a self-appointed expert

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Regarding the “expert” part:
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Hyperbole, a common troll tactic. Did I claim expertise regarding the dictionary definition of skepticism?
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I invite Wayfarer to look it up.
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…in a school which has a single member.

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More hyperbole. At no time did I say that Skepticism is or has a “school”. It’s a metaphysics.
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In the usage that Wayfarer referred to, “school” means:
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A group of persons who hold a common doctrine, or follow the same teacher (as in philosophy, theology, or medicine).
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…also, the doctrine or practice of such a group.
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[end of definition]
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At no time did I claim that Skepticism is or has a school.
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Flamewarrior-hyperbole reveals something about its perpetrator’s intent, and that intent isn’t serious discussion.
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It’s, rather, whatever flamewarriors have as their intent.
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(but they’d know their intent better than I would).
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Something has recently upset Wayfarer.
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Want to tell us about it, Wayfarer?
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First, I’ll briefly add to a previous reply:
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Wayfarer said that he’d twice posted sarcasm about me. Duly apologetic, I admitted that I hadn’t noticed it, because sarcasm isn’t something that I look for or expect at a philosophy forum.
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But I can give another excuse:
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A lot of posts are about someone referred to as “He”. I have no idea who “He” is, and so I routinely ignore such posts. Again, sorry.
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Now, let me just outline some recent events here:
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I hadn’t intended to post about reincarnation, because, though reincarnation is consistent with Skepticism, it isn’t part of the Skepticism proposal.
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But someone started a topic about reincarnation, asking some questions about it.
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Others began posting about whether and how reincarnation could be true.
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Eventually, I decided to comment on those questions.
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So I posted a description of how reincarnation could be consistent with Skepticism.
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My suggested reincarnation mode was the one that didn’t posit indestructible souls, morphic fields, morphic resonance, or a distributed extra-corporal (extra-spatial?) holographic memory-repository, or any such assumption or brute-fact.
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That’s right about the time when Wayfarer began having his hissy-fit.
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Honest, I didn’t mean to upset him.
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I’m not responsible when someone gets upset, unless they’re upset for some specified justifiable reason having to do with something that I’ve said.
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In keeping with this forum’s guidelines, I welcome anyone to comment on, criticize, find fault with, argue-with, question, of inquire about Skepticism, or my reincarnation mode suggestion.
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However I do require the following:
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You must be specific with us about what statement, passage, or conclusion, in what I wrote, you disagree with. In other words, if you say (in one wording or another) that what I wrote contains an error, a mis-statement, or an unjustified conclusion, then you must specify it.
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If you want to say that its meaning isn’t clear, then quote a passage to which that claim applies, and, if possible, make some effort to say why you didn’t understand it. Characterizations of “blather” or “gibberish” don’t qualilfy.
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If you don’t want to do that, that’s ok. Then don’t comment, and, thereby, don’t waste your time and mine.
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2.
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You must make at least some effort to not say things that you won’t be able to justify. Of course it’s easy to speak without sufficiently well checking what you’ve said. But I don’t want your post to be so sloppy and careless that you obviously haven’t made any effort to check what you’re saying for justifiability. …so sloppy that you’re obviously just spewing-forth.
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Otherwise you’re just being a slob, and you don’t deserve the time that it would take to reply to you.
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(This post takes time to write? Yes, but I wanted to clarify this matter, once and for all—and I do mean once.)
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I’m sorry, Wayfarer, but you’ve demonstrated an inability to meet the above qualifications, and I henceforth won’t have time to reply to you.
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Apologies.
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I emphasize that when I don’t reply to something posted by Wayfarer, it isn’t that he’s said something irrefutable. It’s just that he doesn’t meet the above-specified requirements
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Michael Ossipoff

And since the living body is a property, there must be something (a soul) which has that property. — Metaphysician Undercover

Waves do not have the ocean and the ocean does not have the waves. They are one and the same. It all depends upon on how one views it. There is an ocean. There are the waves. There is the ocean. It is a continuous, inseparable whole. I do not observe any gaps anywhere.

I’m sorry, Wayfarer, but you’ve demonstrated an inability to meet the above qualifications, and I henceforth won’t have time to reply to you. — Michael Ossipoff

No apologies required.

What I said is that we can infer from logical demonstrations, that when there is a living body, there must be something which has that body, and this is what we call the soul. — Metaphysician Undercover

I had understood that this demonstration was much the same as that used to show that individuation requires substance.

I apologise for mischaracterising you. Please, show me the logical demonstration you mention.

We know from Kripke and friends that essences are logical rubbish. — Banno

Why do you say that?

Rigid Designation and Essentialism

Throughout Kripke's discussion of names in lecture 1 of Naming and Necessity he takes it for granted that the distinction between essential properties of an object and its contingent properties is a legitimate one. — Soames 2003

I think it's an important part of his observations in Naming and Necessity.

There's a lurking issue in all of this about the nature of identity. The question always seems to be, is the person in one life, the same person as that in another life. As I mentioned before, the stock Buddhist answer is 'neither the same, nor different'. It sounds trite, but if you drill down, actually it conveys a profound principle.

I've just been reading some contemporary Western theology, and I noticed a very similar point.

To Aquinas, “pure” essence (form without matter) is, by definition, not found in the realm of material existence. That is, existence is always a partner with essence such that “to be” within existence requires both matter and form. So “pure” form cannot be fully known or expressed by any existing being, but is only generated and fully known in the immaterial mind of God. Put bluntly, “pure” essence does not exist. But then, pure existence (matter without form) cannot concretely “be” either. So there can “be” no concrete actualization of any “thing” without intellective form, and there can be no merely factual concretion without any ordered and coherent structure to make matter (which is always already formed in some manner) into some particular thing.

Tyson, Paul. De-Fragmenting Modernity: Reintegrating Knowledge with Wisdom, Belief with Truth, and Reality with Being (Kindle Locations 418-421). Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.

So, from a Platonist perspective, what is real is the idea (eidos) of the being, which is a facsimile of the pure form that 'dwells' in a purely intelligible reality.

Now the reason this will always remain completely incomprehensible to moderns, is because there is no longer any conception of the transcendent which was found in traditional theology. And this is why most moderns will declare 'essences' to be 'logical rubbish'. After all, 'essence' is 'what a thing truly is'. But in Platonic theology, what a thing truly is, is different from the (mere) worldly being, who is only a facsimile of the 'real' being.

By way of contrast, Buddhists say that you can't find an essence in anything which has a determinate identity; that is the meaning of 'emptiness'. Of course, Buddhism and Platonism differ on this point, but they are disagreeing about something which 'modern philosophy' doesn't understand at all.

What? Essential properties are not essences.

There's a lurking issue in all of this about the nature of identity. — Wayfarer

Lurking? I thought it the point of the OP... X-)

Essence: the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character.
"conflict is the essence of drama"
synonyms: quintessence, soul, spirit, nature; More
PHILOSOPHY
a property or group of properties of something without which it would not exist or be what it is.
plural noun: essences

What am I missing?

Meta appears to think that essences can be used to individuate.

Kripke shows that any properties, including those that are called essential, can be removed from an individual, and yet that individual remains. T

Individuation is not a function of the individuals properties.

So, if you prefer, "We know from Kripke and friends that using essences to individuate is are logical rubbish"

Identity is there memories we carry, which morph but which even so maintain as the essence.

Kripke shows that any properties, including those that are called essential, can be removed from an individual, and yet that individual remains. T

That kind of goes against the whole concept of "essence" and "essential," and definitely against Aquinas' view of the matter. How does he explain that can happen with those properties still being essential?

Identity is not memory. Loose all your memories - and it is still Rich who can't remember.

Read Naming and necessity. It's worth it.

I'll give it a shot, but for what Wikipedia's worth, it makes clear Kripke says the opposite of what you said, as--like Aquinas--he sees essences and essential properties as things you can't remove and still remain essential. That makes more sense, since what you posited would be counter to the whole idea of "essence" and "essential".

Identity is not memory. Loose all your memories - and it is still Rich who can't remember. — Banno

To you, I may be Rich who doesn't remember. To myself, I am someone else. An example:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/transient-global-amnesia-what-total-memory-loss-is-like

Identity always relies on memory.

When Michael Thomas Boatwright, 61, was found unconscious in a Palm Springs, California, motel on February 28, no one would have ever expected what happened next. As Michael awoke in the emergency department of Desert Regional Medical Center, he claimed his name was Johan Ek and that he spoke only Swedish, he failed to recognize his son, and most important, he couldn’t even recognized himself. A baffling mystery of forgotten identity, Boatwright continues to stump the medical community and surprise the world with each new discovery.

This is an article about Boatwright. When he thinks he is not Boatwwright, he is wrong.

he sees essences and essential properties as things you can't remove and still remain essential. — Thanatos Sand

What?

That's what it said. But if that's wrong, just explain how Kripke can say that any properties, including those that are called essential, can be removed from an individual, and yet that individual remains. If you can't, I understand.

I think he is who he is. I am very accepting.

Kripke shows that any properties, including those that are called essential, can be removed from an individual, and yet that individual remains. T — Banno

I don't think so. Rigid designators and essential properties are connected ideas. Anyway, he was talking about stipulated possible worlds. We have a priori knowledge of objects in those worlds (per Kripke).

It's interesting to compare the view you're expressing with Hume's bundle theory.

And now we are starting to talk about individuation, which is the philosophical issue behind reincarnation.

Two was of viewing individuation.

In the Bundle theory, what makes an individual is the bundle of properties that make it up. Change the properties and the identity changes.

In the Essences theory, the properties are like pins stuck in a blob of essence. Change the properties and the individual remains the same, because of its essence.

Kripke transcendes these views by showing that individuation is about names - rigid designators.

HE proposes a causal theory for names, and hence for individuation.

My view is slightly different, in that I view naming as something we do; we use names to pick out individuals.

But do you also think he is who he thinks he is?

Because that seems to me to be an error.

Because that seems to me to be an error. — Banno

His son remembers him as his father. That is his memory. He remembers himself as someone different. It's a good example of what happens when memories are in conflict with each other. There is no right or wrong, just differences in what is remembered. What is going on here is fascinating, especially if someone, as myself, is studying memory as holographic and the brain as the reconstructive mechanism. Notice, he is speaking Swedish. Absolutely fascinating. I'll have to see if I can parse this out from a holographic viewpoint.

There is no right or wrong, just differences in what is remembered. — Rich

I don't agree. When he thinks he is Johan Ek he is wrong.

That is to say, it is Michael Thomas Boatwright who thinks he is Johan Ek. It is not John Ek that others think is Michael Thomas Boatwright.

If people insist he is someone because of the way he looks or his fingerprints, that is how they feel. That is their memory of him. But to him, he is someone else. Who's correct? Well actually no one or everyone, since there is no right or wrong. There is memory dissonance. You can use this example, if you wish, to begin to look upon identity in a different way.

One might think so, if, for example, one wanted to fetishise relativism.

He is wrong.

Kripke transcendes these views by showing that individuation is about names - rigid designators.

HE proposes a causal theory for names, and hence for individuation. — Banno

Nixon comes already individuated at the beginning of the story. The causal chain might account for the use of a certain name, but for how parents distinguish their baby from a lamp?

My view is slightly different, in that I view naming as something we do; we use names to pick out individuals. — Banno

I guess you missed my post about how langauge paints a certain picture and for all practical purposes the objects in that picture are real. Lacan says language plays a role in individuation.

lol. Always looking for right and wrong. May the force be with you.