Does existence precede essence?
I want to find a reasonable critique of Sartre's: ''Existence precedes essence.''
Why is the statement wrong? And could it be proven wrong without using religion?
Why is the statement wrong? And could it be proven wrong without using religion?
Comments (202)
I wouldn't say that has any bearing on religious claims, unless we're specifically talking about a religious claim that hinges on essences preceding or occurring simultaneously with existence.
You'd have to explain this and the other post in detail for me to have a clue what you're talking about (although keep in mind that I'm of the opinion that Heidegger is basically garbage and I'm not very fond of continentalism in general).
Existence precedes essence simply because all that essence is is ideas about the necessary and sufficient properties for considering some x (some particular) an F (some type/kind). Or in other words, it's the nutshell (well, or the nut) of an individual's concept of F.
From the biological point of view, humans are a type of organism. Normal specimens have two arms, two legs, genitals, a large head, various organs, etc. They are born in a rather gross manner, grow up in around twenty years time, and do various things before they die at ~75 years of age.
But from the phenomenological point of view, a human (or a self), isn't really anything essentially, and the self has to battle against itself when it recognizes the nothingness in which it seems to arise. In this case, there is no essential part of the self that the self can recognize and see as a suitable justification for its own existence. Without God, there is no higher, transcendental power to devote oneself to. And worldly-affairs are imperfect machinations. So a human being is quite literally thrown into the world and finds himself wondering where he is, where he is going, and who he is as a person. He exists, but has no essential properties that he can depend on.
The details of our existence -- our bodies, our experiences, our nurture, our nature (genetic endowment), our parents, our peers, our teachers, our fortunes and misfortunes, become our essence. Nature and nurture combine to simultaneously make us so alike that we can perceive a "human essence", but at the same time so different that we can't miss our individuality.
Is 'essence' individual or group? Is essence a pool into which we all are submerged? Or is one person's essence unlike all others?
Big 'if', though.
Molten metal (man-made) can be cast then rolled, hammered, annealed, beaten, cut, etc. What is the essence of a railroad spike? It's spikiness, or it's iron bar form, or it's molten metal form, or maybe its un-smelted ore form? Is the essence of iron a generality that can be transformed into any particularity one wants? If you melt the spike and make a cup out of it, which essence does it have?
Doesn't transformation present a problem for determining 'essence' of some kinds of objects? What is the essence of a river (which we never step into the same one twice)?
I think what causes an issue is the 'mutual exclusivity' of essences. if something has the essence of 'human' it can't have any other sort of essence. The issue is that the same object can be seen to have different essences. An object that's seen as a 'tree stub' is a 'barrier' in a war zone; an object seen as a 'knife' is a 'screwdriver' when there's no screwdriver in the house; an object seen as a 'mug' is a 'cereal bowl' when all the other cereal bowls are in the dishwasher. So, essence seems context-specific and dependent on the kinds of activities/functions one takes the object as capable of performing. So essence doesn't seem to be intrinsic to the physical structure 'housing' the essence. -If that makes sense.
Maybe you can provide an alternative by, first, getting rid of that 'exclusivity' clause. And conceive of essence as something hierarchial or multi-oriented? Hierarchical: for some object to have the essence of 'human' it must have the essence of 'animal', for it to have the essence of 'animal' it must have the essence of 'organism', for something to have the essence of 'organism' it must have the essence of 'living'... all the way up to 'object'. And an object can instantiate any 'essence' that shares some properties with the set of 'essences' that it's initially understood as instantiating. So.. tree-stubs can be seen as 'barriers' because both 'barriers' and 'tree-stubs' share some set of properties in common. Multi-oriented: Objects can have 'multiple' essences -- essence can be instantiated so long as the physical structure has the capacity to perform the functions characteristic of that essence.
In both cases - neither precedes the other. Existence and essence are always found together -- for something to exist it must have an essence. For something to have an essence it must exist.
There's a problem with this argument.
"All objects are particulars."
I agree with that.
"Each and every object exists as the particular object which it is, and nothing else."
I agree with that.
"When a particular object comes into existence, it necessarily comes into existence as the particular object which it is. It is impossible that it is other than what it is."
I agree with that, too.
"Therefore what it is, or the object's essence, must precede the object's existence."
I disagree with that however. First off I disagree with saying that what the object is has anything to do with "essence." You could, however, be saying that you're just defining "essence" as "what an object is," without any of the other typical associations that "essence" has, and that would be fine, but in that case, saying that what an object is must precede the object's existence makes no sense. The object can't be whatever it is prior to it being something (existing) in the first place.
"If it did not, it would be possible for the object to come into existence as an object other than the object which it is, and this is contradictory."
This seems to me like it's probably buying that substances separate from properties can make sense (which is something I disagree with).
Yes, that's how I define "essence", basically as what the object is. It is the traditional way, from Aristotle. Each object has it's own particular properties, and this is its essence, referring to exactly what it is. In a different way, we use "essence" as the essential properties of an object, for classification. So in abstraction we separate essential from accidental properties to produce the essence of "a book" for example. But any particular book, to be the book that it is, it is necessary that all its properties are essential, this is the essence of that particular book.
I am not saying that the object exists as what it is, prior to its own existence, I am saying that its essence exists prior to its existence. So the argument is that the something which the object will be, and this is its form or essence, must be prior to the thing itself. It's a simple principle, well adopted by determinism, what the object will be when it comes into existence is predetermined. But we can ditch the determinism when we give reality to this form or essence which must precede the object, and analyze the existence of this pre-existent form.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I think that what is the case here, is that you disagree with the idea of separate forms. Because of this you deny the argument which demonstrates the necessity to assume separate forms. You will probably continue in your refusal to understand the argument because it proves wrong, what you currently believe.
First, that's just a claim--it's not really an argument. Aside from that, it's contradictory. If essence is "what an object is," then it's contradictory to say that "what an object is" obtains prior to the object existing. An object has to be--that's what "is" refers to, for it to be what it is. An object can't be something prior to that object coming to be. That would be the case just as well under strong determininsm. "What object x is prior to object x existing" is simply incoherent nonsense.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No you can't. At least not if what essence is is what the object is.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
What would be the motivation for positing additional subsistents (or whatever you want to call them), one per particular, that existents then fulfill by existing? In other words, why in the world would anyone believe that?
Sure, all definitions are claims, you have to start somewhere with your argument, it's called a premise. If you don't like what I refer to as the essence of a particular thing, then don't accept it. That's fine, we don't really have anything to discuss here then.
Quoting Terrapin Station
No, that's not true at all. There's a difference between an object's essence and an object's existence. This difference allows us to talk about non-existent things. We refer to what that thing is, without the thing existing. So if I'm planning to build a house, I can talk about that house even though it doesn't exist. You are just attempting to make syntactical difficulty by not respecting tense, in the sense of "what will be".
Quoting Terrapin Station
That's right, an object can't be anything prior to coming to be. That's not what we're discussing. What we're discussing is the essence of that object. The essence of the object is known to be separable from the object itself, that's what we do in abstraction, separate the essence from the existence of the object. Since we know that the essence of the object is separable through abstraction, there is nothing inconsistent, nonsensical, or incoherent, about the proposition that the essence of the object has existence separate from the object prior to the object's existence.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It isn't what "object x is prior to object x existing", it is what object x will be. You're just making a misrepresentation so that you can say that it's nonsense. But clearly it's not nonsense to speak about the house I will be building, before it's built. if you don't have respect for the fact that we can speak about an object prior to that object's existence, then we clearly have nothing more to discuss.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I think it's quite obvious to anyone with formal training in philosophy, that we understand things by understanding the form, or essence of the thing, what the thing is. That's what comes to the mind as a visual image, a form of the object. If there wasn't something particular about each thing, its essence, which we could abstract, and hold within our minds, how would we ever individuate between one object and another?
If there's an object with an essence, than the object is something (an object with an essence).
I still suggest that using the term "existence" in these two different senses is counterproductive. I would say, instead, that the essence of the object has being separate from the object prior to the object's existence--i.e., esse in futuro. This also avoids the objection that the essence of the object must itself be an (existing) object; the mode of its (real) being is not actual, it is potential.
Of course, for someone who denies the reality of abstractions, this particular argument will carry no weight anyway.
Yes, all objects have an essence. That's what makes any particular object intelligible to us, its essence. And each particular object has a particular essence, which makes it the particular object which it is. The argument is meant to demonstrate that the essence of the object necessarily precedes the existence of the object.
Quoting aletheist
I agree that it may be confusing to some, to conceive of two distinct categories of "existence", but I don't see how using "being" instead of "existence" helps. In fact, the ancient Greeks contrasted being with not being. Then there was "becoming", and becoming was excluded from reality by logic and the law of excluded middle. This gave great fuel to sophistry. So Aristotle allowed for exceptions to the law of excluded middle, such that becoming could be allowed entrance into logical reality. In Latin, "existence" became the more general term, such that being and becoming are different modes of existence, just like actual and potential, and this allows that there are existents which are immaterial as well as existents which are material.
So I think that the move to insert "being" instead of "existence" is a step in the wrong direction due to the fact that being is often opposed to non-being. Then becoming is of a different category from being, and this is a category which does not consist of opposing terms. If we have being and non-being, as well as existence and non-existence, and also becoming, then it all gets more complicated than necessary..
Right, so it is something at that point--an object with an essence. So when you say "an object can't be anything prior to coming to be" that means that it can't be an object with an essence prior to it coming to be. Again "is something" is the same thing, in conventional English, as "being something."
??? I was explaining in slightly different words why the idea you're suggesting is a logical contradiction.
The properties that make a thing a certain something. What is the essence of an electron?
Mass, charge, spin, and whatever else distinguishes electrons from other particles.
What makes a cat different from a dog?
Biological species are less exact, but the genetic and phenotypic properties of a feline that are unique. The big difference between an electron and an animal species is that the first might not be made of simpler parts, while the second is made of many simplers. But that still results in unique properties such that we can classify animals.
So you are saying they are what we use to group things into sets or classes?
So, you can see that the essence of a thing, or its nature is only realized at the end of a process of becoming. It was never otherwise.
The contradiction is in:
(1) That is an object with an essence
&
(2) The object hasn't come to be yet.
(1) is the object being something--an object with an essence. So (2) contradicts (1).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm an anti-realist on essences. Essences are merely a way we think about objects--basically they're our conceptual abstractions, our universals/type categories. So yeah, that's different than an object itself, since objects themselves have no essences.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Sure, if I am referring to the same time, that would be a contradicton, but I'm not. That's the whole point of the argument. It was stated in the argument: "When a particular object comes into existence..." So it is very clear that I am assuming a time prior to the existence of the object. It is a temporal argument, assuming certain things about time and objects, namely that objects come into existence in time.
Quoting Terrapin Station
OK, this is why you're having difficulty understanding, you are not apprehending that an object itself necessarily has an essence. I didn't realize that you didn't grasp this necessary part of the argument. In fact, the whole argument refers to the essence which inheres within the object, not an essence within someone's mind.
Do you agree that each and every object is distinguishable from every other object? There is something, or some things, about each object which makes it other than every other object. This is "what the object is", and we call that its essence. The essence is inherent within the object itself, and this is what makes the object itself, what it is, and not some other object.
When we come to know the object, we reproduce that essence within our minds, then we claim to know what the object is. But this is a reproduction of the object's essence, just like the visual image of the object, within your mind, is a reproduction. This reproduction of the essence is not the same thing as the essence which inheres within the object, or else we'd have to conclude that the object is within the person's mind when the person knows the object. But there must be an essence within the object or else there would be nothing which would allow us to distinguish one object from another.
Right, you're saying that (1) obtains prior to the object coming to be, which is what makes it contradictory. There's no object to have an essence prior to the object coming to be.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well, because that's clearly false.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That's better known as haecceity. If in your definition, "essence" is the same as "haecceity" I'd say that there is "Metaphysician Undercover 'essence'," but I'd add that's it's incoherent to say that it's anything other than the object itself, so it can't exist (or subsist, or whatever tortured verbiage we'd need to use to refer to it) aside from the object, and I'd also add that it's (the particularness of) every single property of the object itself (which makes it not map well to "essence" in its conventional definition rather than your definition).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That I don't at all agree with. I wouldn't say that we reproduce it at all, and we certainly wouldn't reproduce every single property of it. Rather than reproducing it, we perceive it (from a particular reference point only), we either file it with respect to concepts we've already formulated and/or we formulate new concepts about it, etc.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You'd not be able to reproduce every single property of it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That only follows if you believe that what it is to know an object is to know its essence. That's certainly not something I would say.
No! (1) is the existence of the object., the object with essence, or as you say "haecceity". Prior to the existence of the object (object + haecceity) there is only the haecceity of the object, which is necessary in order that the object comes into being as the object which it is, and not something else. Where's the contradiction?
Quoting Terrapin Station
OK great, we have a term we can agree on then, haecceity (my spell-check doesn't like that, but I'll go with it). You can assert that the haecceity is nothing other than the object itself, but go back to the argument I first presented, replace "essence" with "haecceity", and tell me how it is not necessary to conclude that the haecceity of the object precedes the existence of the object itself.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Do we perceive the haecceity, or do we perceive the essence?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yes, that's exactly the case, and that's why the essence of the object (which is what exists within one's mind), is not the same thing as the haecceity of the object, which is inherent within the object. Now the question is, is it not necessary to assume that the haecceity of the object is prior to the existence of the object itself? If the object comes into existence in time, which is what the argument assumes, then it is necessary to conclude that the haecceity precedes the object in time, in order that the object will come into existence as the object which it does come into existence as, and not something else. If you remove this necessity, then there will be no object coming into existence, only randomness.
Which is what I'm referring to by (1) (It was my formulation after all!--you can't tell me what it was referring to contra what I had in mind!). There is no object to have haecceity prior to the object ___ing to have haecceity. (I used a "blank" because I don't want to fill in a word that you'll misunderstand--whatever you call it. The object has to ____ in order to have haecceity)
(By the way, haecceity always seemed to address a bizarre non-problem to me as a nominalist. I can only imagine that being an issue if someone buys realism for universals. As a nominalist, what's inexplicable is that anyone would have difficulty with why an object is that particular object versus whatever else it could be in their view.)
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It's only not necessary to conclude that, but it MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO FRIGGIN SENSE WHATSOEVER to conclude that. There can't be a something of an object prior to there being the object in question. To me it just reads like you must be insane, because the idea is completely incoherent.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You perceive the object. That's all there is. As I said, the haecceity issue always seemed like a bizarre non-problem to me. But I agree that "this" object is "this" (and not a different one or whatever we'd suppose it might be on whatever bizarre view is fueling the dilemma in the first place).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
What in the world? You'd just said that we reproduce the object's essence on your view. Now you're agreeing that we cannot do that?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
An object coming into existence would BE time, by the way. Time is not something that other things happen "in." Time is change/motion itself.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
"The object might come into existence as something else" seems completely random--why in the world would anyone believe that, and what might it even mean? (Does it depend on something like a belief that there are substances that are independent of objects? If so, that's a reason that that's a completely ridiculous belief.) Hence why this is a non-problem. You'd have to explain why you believe it's a problem in the first place.
Right, we agree that there is no object to have haecceity prior to that object ___ing. Now, what necessitates your claim that the haecceity which the object has, is not prior to the object itself? My argument necessitates the conclusion that the object's haecceity is prior to the object itself.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Well, we notice that objects exist as the particular objects which they are, and being philosophically minded, we want to know why this is the case. Perhaps as a nominalist this does not interest you?
Quoting Terrapin Station
When the object exists, it has something. We are calling this its haecceity. Why does it make no sense to say that the haecceity exists prior to the object having it? In fact, the argument presented proves that it is necessary to conclude that the haecceity exists prior to the object having it. Your only objection to the argument is that this "MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO FRIGGIN SENSE WHATSOEVER". Does it not make sense to you that my computer existed prior to me having it? Please, explain to me what I am missing, because it's you who's not making any sense whatsoever.
Ah--so you're just getting at the idea of platonic forms, basically? I don't at all buy that ontologically. Only dynamic structures/relations of matter exist, and they're all particulars. (I'm using "exist" there so that it encompasses everything there is in any sense.) So if there was haecceity, or essence, or anything like that, it would necessarily be dynamic structures/relations of matter. Or it would BE a particular object. In my ontology there are no (real) abstracts. Abstracts are concrete mental occurrences--that is, particular concepts held by individuals.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That doesn't justify it. You need some reason to wonder why it's the case, including that you'd need to be able to make sense in the first place of the possibility of it not being the case. That's what prompts doing philosophy about why it's the case.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'd say that when objects exist, they are something--they're conglomerations (not in any conventional "emergent" sense) of all of the properties of the dynamic structures/relations of the matter in question.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, of course. So you're saying the essence/haecceity is an object like a computer that other things can then purchase and have possession of, given a concept of ownership?
Perhaps essence involves the combination of logical understandings with sympathetic intuitions/memories of what & how some thing is. A functional or generative definition, providing a dynamic cognitive and sensate(intensive) history of what and how some thing differentiates it from other things.
OK, so you're saying that the haecceity is dynamic structures/relations of matter. There's one peculiar problem with this perspective. Matter only exists as objects, and the haecceity of the object is necessarily prior to the object. This means that these relations which matter will have, when it comes into existence as objects, have some sort of existence prior to the matter itself. The relations which the matter will have when it comes into existence must exist as some sort of formula, which determines how the matter will exist, prior to the matter itself existing.
You can relate to this by referring to the so called "laws of nature" as describing these relations. In order that it is true that matter always, and necessarily behave according to the laws of nature, it is necessary that the laws of nature precede matter itself. Otherwise, when matter comes into existence, there would be no pre-existing laws of nature, and matter might not behave according to the laws of nature at this time. But this possibility must be ruled out if it is true that matter always, and necessarily behaves according to the laws of nature.
How can there be something at time T1 that comes into existence as an object at time T2?
You are having difficulty because you refuse to consider the haecceity as something other than the object itself. But it is something other than the object, that is why one is called the object, and the other is called the haecceity
Okay, but if the object in question only comes into existence at T2, then that particular object doesn't have its essence (or haecceity) at T1, right?
I'm always good for tedium.
What would philosophy be without it? 8-)
Correct, but the object's haecceity exists at T1. Now, you've told me that this makes no sense to you, the possibility that the haecceity of the object could exist prior to the object itself, so let's just refer to it as X. So at T1 X exists, and there is no object. At T2 there is an object which has X. At T2 you might call X the object's haecceity. But X at T1 is the very same thing as X at T2, so despite the fact that it doesn't seem right to you to call it the object's haecceity, because the object doesn't exist, nevertheless, it is the same thing as the object's haecceity, so why not call it what it is?
What is the difference between the object's haecceity and the haecceity of the object?
Maybe I misread that previous post of yours then. I thought you were saying that the haecceity of the object is at T1 but the object's haecceity is only at T2.
Re this last comment, I'd in no way deny that we can talk about something that can come to be. When we talk about it prior to it coming to be, we're imagining it. At that point, something like "My house's new windows" only exist as something we're imagining. That's not what you're saying with "essence precedes existence," though, is it?
No, it's clearly not what I am saying, it's just an example of how it is not nonsense to talk about a thing prior to that thing's existence. In order that this is not nonsense, the words must refer to something, but the object itself does not exist. So the words refer to the object's essence, "what" the thing is. This indicates that what the thing is, is something other than the thing itself.
The haecceity of the thing, as a "what" the thing is, is also something other than the thing itself. And according to the argument presented earlier, the haecceity of the thing is prior to the thing itself.
No. The words refer to the idea you have, your imagination of it.
Call it what you like, "idea" of the object, "essence" of the object, "image" of the object, "what" the object is, it's all the same thing, just different names. The object does not yet exist, but its idea does. This exemplifies how it is not nonsense to say that the haecceity of the object exists, when the object itself does not yet exist. It exists prior to the object's existence in the same way that the idea of the object may exist prior to the object's existence.
Okay, but it's important to clarify that nothing belonging to the object exists prior to the object, nothing that's at all a property of the object, because the object in no way exists prior to the object.
If we're just saying that an idea or imagining that there could be something like a particular object can exist prior to an object, I certainly agree with that--it's the case as long as there are people in the world and those people imagine things. But all that exists in that case (relative to these concerns) are particular brain states. If you want to call that the "'essence' or 'haecceity' of an object" that's fine. In this case, the properties in question are actually properties of brain states.
So then we could say that the essence or haecceity of an object can exist prior to the object, in this particular, idiosyncratic sense of those terms, as long as people exist and they imagine that there could be something like a particular object (and then once an object obtains, people count it as that particular object), but this would only go for a very small percentage of objects (people don't pre-imagine most of the objects in the world), and it would only be the case that essence or haecceity exist prior to the object in question relative to the object in question. That is, essence or haecceity wouldn't precede existence in general/unqualified, because it turns out that people have to exist in order for them to imagine things. So existence comes first in general. In the history of the world, there's nothing like this sense of essence or haecceity until life begins and people evolve, so that we can have people who imagine objects and then who count objects that obtain or that they become aware of after their imagining, as the objects they imagined
But I seriously doubt that the above is anything like what you'd want to say in this regard. After all, if it were all you wanted to say, you could have just started with, "You can imagine an object prior to it existing. That's all I mean by essence preceding existence for a given object." And then I would have noted that that seems to be an unusual way to use the word "essence," and that would have been that.
This is where we disagree. I think that the haecceity, which belongs to the material object, and is specific to that particular object pre-exists the material object. I've produced my argument for this. You haven't yet supported your claim that nothing which is a property of the object could be prior to the object. That X is a property of Y at T2 does not exclude the possibility that X existed at T1 and Y did not.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That an idea of the object is prior to the object, was an example that I used, to show how "what" the object is may be prior to the object. All these things, "idea", "essence", "haecceity", are instances of "what" the object is. I am not saying that the haecceity is an idea, because clearly ideas depend on human existence, as you explain, and the haecceity precedes the existence of the object , as per the argument, so these two are not the same thing.
The issue though, is that the haeccity of each particular object is necessarily prior to that particular object, so by inductive reasoning we can conclude that haecceity is prior to all objects, in a general, and absolute sense.
As for existence in general, I would say that the haecceity exists, prior to the object, though altheist suggested that I switch "being" for "exists" here, which I explained, I think is a mistake. So existence in the most general sense might precede the haeceity of the object. (This is what allows theologians to say that God exists). But the point of the argument is to demonstrate that the haecceity, which is an immaterial, non-physical existent is prior to the physical existence of the object.
Here is a suggestion by which we might resolve the disagreement expressed at the beginning of this post. Let's assume that the haecciety is properly called "the object". "The haecceity" and "the object" refer to one and the same thing, object X. Then the object exists as the haecceity prior to having a physical presence as a material object. The material existence Y, is the property. Then we have a continuity of existence of the object, and at T1 the object X, has no material presence, but at T2 the object has a material presence, Y. At T1 X is only a haecceity, at T2, X has the property of material existence, Y.
No problem there (aside from I don't care for "properly called," but I can just ignore that part).
Right.
A big "Huh???" there. That seems like quite a non sequitur.
Also, related to an earlier statement in your post--"But the point of the argument is to demonstrate that the haecceity, which is an immaterial, non-physical existent is prior to the physical existence of the object," if that's what you're referring to by haecceity or essence, then I'd say there's no such thing, period. I don't buy that there are immaterial, nonphysical existents period. In my view, the very idea of nonphysical existents is incoherent. Now, you can see that as not your problem--the idea of nonphysical existents is presumably coherent in your opinion, but without the idea of it being made coherent for me, there's no way I'd agree that something is a nonphysical existent.
At T1, X wouldn't be anything if it has no material presence.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That's due to the simple fact that what properties are in the first place is identical to (dynamic structures and relations of) matter. Properties are simply what matter/those dynamic structures are relations of matter are "like," the qualities they have, the way they interact with other things, etc. You can't have that if you don't have the dynamic structures and relations of matter in question. As I mentioned earlier, your view seems to at least partially hinge on you believing in substance as something that can then be "bestowed with" particular properties, as if something were passing out properties to otherwise amorphous material stuff. In my opinion that view is incoherent and there's no reason to believe it. Properties are what the material stuff is like, and that's all there is to properties.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If the haecceity of each particular object were necessarily prior to that particular object, then sure, that would follow. But there's no reason to believe that the haecceity of anything is prior to the thing in question--necessarily or not, especially since the idea of that doesn't even make any sense. When you brought this up earlier, I commented on it being a non-problem. There's no reason to wonder why something comes to be as some particular and not something else unless we can even make sense out of that idea. You pretty much just ignored that and didn't bother trying to explain how that idea could make sense in the first place.
Rather than "properties," consider a quality, such as the color red - not a red thing, like a stop sign, but the color red itself, apart from any instantiation of it; not the particular range of electromagnetic wavelengths that correspond to it, or how we perceive it, or even how we imagine it, but what it is in itself. Is the color red, in this sense, real? Does it have being? Does it (in some sense) exist, even when not actualized? I think that I know how you both will answer, but I am hoping that this might help further clarify your disagreement.
Properties and qualities are synonyms in my view. I don't believe that there is any "red itself" apart from any instantiation of it.
Remember that I'm a nominalist, including that I'm a nominalist in the sense of rejecting realism for abstract existents in general. I don't believe that anything exists (or "subsists" or anything like that) that isn't physical and that isn't a concrete particular.
Also, in general, I don't buy that anything exists if it's not actualized. That's not to say that I reject possibilities (that is, more than one option for future states), although I'll refrain from explaining what I think possibilities amount to so as to not derail the conversation to a big discussion about that instead. I'll only bring that up if it's necessary for the present discussion.
Agreed, I was just suggesting an example that is more familiar to most people than haecceity; especially since I tend to think of the latter as the distinct property that only actual things have, so that I am not inclined to equate it with essence myself. Instead, it is the brute "here and now" aspect of any individual thing that reacts with other individual things.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I remember; again, just hoping for clarification.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I know; again, I agree with you, given my terminological preference for limiting "existence" to actuality.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Fair enough. Maybe start a new thread on that topic? Or have you already discussed it at length previously?
I talked about possibility a bit on a couple other threads recently (although really, I can't remember now if it wasn't on another forum, possibly the old "philosophy forum"), but I'm enjoying the conversation with Metaphysician Undercover as it's proceeding in a pretty friendly way where we seem to actually be getting somewhere.
Obviously, I included the conclusion of the earlier argument, which demonstrated that the haecceity of the object is prior to the physical presence of the object, as a premise. Your claimed non-sequitur is because you conveniently forgot this conclusion, and didn't include that premise.
I suggested that "the haecceity" and "the object" refer to one and the same thing, and you claimed to accept this. But I can see now that you do not really accept this. You have not released the idea that the object is necessarily a physical thing. Haecceitty refers to what the object is, and there is no necessity that what the object is physical. This is an unwarranted assumption if you agree to that proposal.
Quoting Terrapin Station
OK, you do not really agree then, you insist that an object must be physical. Therefore you do not agree that "the haecceity" and "the object" refer to one and the same thing. "The object" is necessarily physical for you, and since I described the haecceity as non-physical, the haecceity is not necessarily physical. If you say that the haecceity is necessarily physical, then we have no agreement.
We will have to resolve the issue of the original argument in another way then. Remember that the argument demonstrates that there is something prior to the physical object, which determines that the physical object will exist as the particular physical object which it is, when that physical object comes into existence. So by inductive reasoning we can say that there is a "determining factor", or "determining factors" which are prior to each and every physical object, and therefore prior to all physical objects. Clearly this is something other than a physical object. Since your claim here is that only physical objects exist, then we have to assign something other than "existence" to the "determining factors".
Quoting Terrapin Station
But we have to respect that argument, which assumes that a physical object cannot be anything other than the physical object which it is, and therefore there must be a determining factor, or determining factors which are prior to that object, ensuring that the object is the physical object which it is, when that physical object comes into existence. This is T1, it is a time prior to the existence of the physical object. We cannot say that the "determining factor" is nothing, because if it were really nothing then it would not have the capacity to determine the particularities of the physical object.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I think you are misunderstanding something here. You say that properties are what dynamic structures and relations of matter are "like". So "properties" aren't the very same thing as dynamic structures and relations of matter, they are some form of similitude. You observe that the human mind creates these similitudes, as ideas, descriptions of the real dynamic structures and relations of matter. However, you do not take the necessary steps to advance your understanding, to see that the dynamic structures and relations of matter only exist because of the determining factors, and in fact, the dynamic structures and relations of matter are themselves just a similitude of the determining factors. As much as you say that we cannot have ideas about the dynamic structure and relations of matter without the dynamic structures and relations of matter to copy, there cannot be dynamic structures and relations of matter without the determining factors which create these.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I really don't see the issue here. The world is the way that it is. We notice the contingency of objects, and because of this we can change the world to an extent, to make it be more the way we want it to be. Due to the nature of contingency we can see that it was not necessary that the world came to be in the way that it did. Therefore the question of why the world is the particular world which it is, and not some other world, is a very reasonable question.
Quoting aletheist
Let's assume that the haecceity is as you say "the brute here and now" aspect of any individual thing. We can ask, what constitutes "here and now". Doesn't that particular spatial-temporal position simply define what the object is, in the most simple way? The object which has this very particular position. But space and time are completely conceptual, so how does this conceptualization of the object coexist with the object itself, such that the object has an actual, and real haecceity, rather than just a conceptualized spatial temporal positioning.
Are they? That seems more like nominalism than realism. I lean toward the latter, as I believe you do, and was merely suggesting that there is a distinction between haecceity and essence. It may be just another Peircean terminological preference on my part, like limiting "existence" to actuality.
Yeah, definitely I didn't just assume that I should insert sentences from other posts there. I'm not sure which sentence(s) you were wanting me to insert.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm fine with saying that the haecceity and the object are the same thing--and in fact, I'd say that insofar as haecceity makes sense, that's necessarily the case. The "thisness" of any object would be it's particularness as an existent thing. I'm not about to release the idea that the object--and any and everything else--is a physical thing prior to someone at least persuading me that the idea of nonphysical existents makes the slightest bit of sense.
And that's indeed what I'd say. That haecceity, again along with any and everything else, is a physical thing.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You'd have to copy and paste the argument you're referring to.
As I noted earlier, I don't agree that there's any issue of a particular physical object existing as the particular physical object that it is--I'd not be able to make any sense out of any alternatives, so we'd need to establish why this would even be an issue in the first place.
By the way, we should probably clarify whether we're talking about, say, an electron (or all or the physical universe, say) "popping into existence" or whether we're talking about, say, a table "coming into existence" where earlier than that, there was maybe a tree that supplied the wood for the table. I keep wondering exactly which one we're talking about. I'd say the issues are different in both cases. For the former case, I don't reject that "something can come from nothing," although I also don't reject that the physical stuff we've got has always existed. Both are counterintuitive, but I'd say that we have no option other than counterintuitive options.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
But I don't at all buy that the fact that a particular is the particular it is implies that there's some prior determining factor for that. I don't think that's been established at all. As I've repeatedly said, I don't think it even makes any sense that we'd say that an object might be something other than the particular object that it is. So we'd need to establish how that would even make sense prior to wondering why one option rather than the other is the case.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The misunderstanding is occurring with how you're parsing "like." For one, the term "like" was in quotation marks. I'm not using that term in the sense of a similie. I'm using it to denote something that I spelled out immediately after I used the term: the qualities they have, the way they interact with other things, etc. That's what "like" refers to there.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I didn't say anything like that, and it's not something I agree with. (That's not to deny qualia in the mental sense of that term, but that's not what I was talking about in the passage you are responding to. I was talking about properties period, without any reference to persons at all--we could imagine no persons existing, for example)
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
C'mon, man Don't start to get patronizing. I could easily be patronizing to you, but that's not something I'd do unprovoked.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is all fine, but it has nothing to do with the idea that an object could somehow be something other than the object it is. You'd need to support that particular idea (that it could even make sense). A suggestion as to how you might support it is by giving an example of it (that hopefully makes some sense).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't at all agree with that by the way.
It's anti-realism, but it doesn't have anything to do with nomalism (it's not about either universals or the idea of abstract existents . . . well, unless one takes space/time to necessarily be abstract existents, but I sure don't. I'm a nominalist and a realist on space and time. It's just that space and time are not "substances" in any sense that exist apart from matter/dynamic relations of matter.)
Okay, my mistake. It sounded like nominalism to me in the sense that "space" and "time" are just names that people give to concepts. I would not describe them as "substances," either. Rather, everything that exists (in my narrow sense) does so within space and time; together they serve as the theater in which all actual reactions occur. They are thus real, not merely conceptual. Space is that which makes it possible for different objects to have identical properties, while time is that which makes it possible for a single object to have contradictory properties.
The way I see it, we perceive objects. We have developed the concepts of space and time to assist us in understanding the existence of these objects. The concept of space helps us to understand relative positions, size, etc., and the concept of time helps us to understand change. I do believe that these concepts are substantiated by something real, or else they wouldn't be helping us to understand the existence of objects, they would be producing a misunderstanding of the existence of objects. That said, I think there is a fair degree of misunderstanding of the existence of objects, as is evident from my discussion with Terrapin. Therefore, the exact nature of the real things which are represented by these concepts, space and time, I don't believe is very well understood, and this is evident from the fact that the existence of objects is not well understood. So there is an issue of dispelling the misunderstanding, and redeveloping the concepts of space and time, before we can truly say that "space" and "time" refer to something real.
On my view space is simply the extension of matter and the extensional relation between matter, and time is simply the changing/in-motion relations of matter.
Are spatial and temporal relations the only relations that you consider to be real?
,
I am curious to know what both of you think of this statement that I offered earlier: Space is that which makes it possible for different objects to have identical properties, while time is that which makes it possible for a single object to have contradictory properties.
All this time, I thought we were discussing the results of that original argument I presented. Now I see that you've totally forgotten it. Here it is.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is your reply:
Quoting Terrapin Station
So, your primary objection had to do with the word "essence", which we've replaced with "haecceity". Your second objection is that it makes no sense to you, that the properties of an object can exist prior to the physical object itself. But you have not backed this up with any logic. And, despite the fact that I've given you numerous examples now, of how it is so, that the properties of an object exist prior to the physical object, you keep whining like a little child, claiming "it doesn't make sense", "it doesn't make sense". But I see through your childish attitude, and what you are really saying is "I don't want it to be like that, therefore I refuse to accept the reality of this". You know, when a child can't accept that things are not the way that it wants them to be, it gets whiney.
With respect to this second objection, in order to quell your dissatisfaction with the idea that properties exist prior to the object, I suggested that we switch things around, such that physical existence is a property. In this way, the non-physical haecceity can exist as the object, and then receive its physical properties. But now you go back to your whining, saying that anything non-physical existing doesn't make sense.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Well you seemed to agree to this in the initial argument. See, it states that when an object comes into existence it necessarily comes into existence as the object which it is, and not something else. That word "necessarily" implies a cause. If there were no cause, then the object wouldn't necessarily be the object which it is, it could be absolutely anything. But it's not anything, it is the object which it is, and therefore there is a cause of that, and this is what I now call the determining factors, if you like that better than haecceity.
Quoting Terrapin Station
OK, now I've compared you to a whiney child, does that provoke you? Or is it impossible to provoke you?
Quoting Terrapin Station
That's the whole point, an object cannot be other than what it is. We totally agree. So we have a premise which we both agree upon, now let's proceed. I ask, why is this the case, and see that it can only be the case if the object is caused to be the object which it is. If there were no cause of it being the object which it is, it could be absolutely anything. It is not absolutely anything, it is the object which it is, and nothing else. Therefore there must be a cause of it being the object which it is.
Quoting aletheist
That's a good question. I don't think I've ever considered it before. It may be that we attempt to reduce all relations to space and time relations. That might be physicalism. But if there are non-physical existents, which I claim, then there are likely to be non-physical relations as well. As I implied in my last post, I don't believe that our present concepts of space and time are adequate for a full understand of the existence of objects. This would mean that there are aspects of reality which are not properly represented by these concepts, so if there are relations here, these may not be space or time relations.
In Christian theology they revere the father/son relation, represent it as Father/ Son, and this relation is sometimes called the Holy Spirit. Whether this relation can be represented completely in terms of space and time is questionable because there is a material element, content, which is the continuity of life, or some such thing, within the father son/relation. "Father" and "son" refer directly to a formal aspect Space and time are formal aspects, terms of essence. But there must still be another type of relationship which relates the formal to the underlying material aspect.
Thanks, but I was mainly asking Terrapin Station, in response to his statement that "space is simply the extension of matter and the extensional relation between matter, and time is simply the changing/in-motion relations of matter."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Aside from my preference against using the term "existents" for anything non-actual, I am inclined to agree.
That's a good question, especially as I'm not completely sure of my answer, but I would guess yes, that all relations I'd accept would be analyzable in terms of change/motion and extension.
Quoting aletheist
I don't believe that different objects can have identical properties.
Aside from that, though, I can't really grasp how that would work on your view.
Quoting aletheist
Well, the properties at T1 can contradict properties at T2 (if we ignore that contradictions should be p & ~p at the same time, in the same respect, etc.), but I wouldn't say that literally, an object has contradictory properties. We could say it had properties that "contradict" its present properties, I suppose.
Well, that was the first problem I was bringing up, yeah--the idea of essences (where essential properties are contrasted with accidental properties and so on).
An equal problem with it is that in my opinion, the conclusion ("Therefore what it is . . . ) doesn't at all follow.
And another problem is that "it would be possible for the object to come into existence as an object other than the object which it is," doesn't make any sense in my opinion. I wouldn't say that was possible. As I noted, it might at least appear to make some sense on a view that substances are some sort of mysterious, amorphous somethings that are later bestowed with properties, but I don't really think that view makes a lot of sense in the first place, and there's definitely no reason to believe it in my opinion.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It seems kind of ridiculous to me to say that something not making any sense to someone should be "backed up with logic."
The only thing we can do when something makes no sense to someone is to try to explain it to them so that it does make sense to them. That might not be possible, of course, but if something makes sense to me but not to someone else, I'll approach it by trying to explain it in a bunch of different ways to see if starts to click with them at all. We'll all have varying degrees of patience with that, though . . . to wit:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Okay, did you see the comment about not being patronizing?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
One option for you is to try to explain how the idea of nonphysical existents makes sense. Of course, you can not bother, but I'm just saying that that's an option if it really makes sense to you. I may be skeptical that it does (make sense to you), but I'll try to refrain from being patronizing for a post or two more to see if we can get back on track.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, I definitely agree with that part.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That part I don't agree with at all, however. I'd have no idea where you're getting a notion from that "necessarily" implies a cause. For example, if necessarily A = A, presumably then you'd think that there must be a cause for that. I just don't know why you'd think that. I suppose you see modal logic as significantly resting on causes then? That would be an unusual view.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I've asked this a number of times. Could you give an example, at least a hypothetical one, of an object not being what it is? Like maybe your example would be something like "A sock might be a puppy otherwise!" Maybe an apt example from you would help me figure out what it might amount to for something to be something other than what it is. Not that "A sock might be a puppy otherwise!" would do the trick, because I have no idea how the heck a sock could be a puppy. But maybe you could explain that.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm hoping to have a serious, good-faith conversation with you, because I'd like to try to figure out how some of this stuff works under the umbrella of your views.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'd say that it's simply a matter of identity (that is, A=A) and non-contradiction (that is ~(P&~P)). I wouldn't say that has any cause. I've run into people who say that the idea of a materially instantiated contradiction or violation of identity makes sense to them, and where on examination they seemed to understand what it is to claim this (so that they weren't equivocating, etc.), but I've never been able to comprehend how they can conceive of this.
Is that significantly different from "the reason we call it by such-and-such a name"?
Not even as a thought experiment? It seems possible to me, at least in principle, for there to be two objects that are identical in every way, except for their spatial locations and the particular particles that comprise them. All of their qualities would be the same.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Right, that is what I meant; it is still the same object at T1 and T2, despite having different properties that would be contradictory if possessed simultaneously.
Do you think some names are descriptive, they carry along their own history/meaning which is already in language as spoken. If so then what is entailed by a name is not significantly different from what I am calling an essence?
Or is it different, that names are not synonymous with descriptions, that it is all quite arbitrary, depending contingent circumstances.
The notion that Sartre was attempting to justify - that we 'choose' ourselves - drops out of meaning scepticism fairly readily; if meaning is a more or less arbitrary construction, then the meaning of any given individual's life is also a more or less arbitrary construction.
That strikes me as a much better approach than the almost medieval 'existence precedes essence'.
Sartre is on about a little bit more than just arbitrariness of meaning. He's pointing out that in our notions of "essence," we mistake an assigned meaning for who someone is and how they are capable. To think of it only in terms of "meaning" is all too throwaway. It not merely "meaning" that's at stake, but who and what we think people are, and it's relationship to logic. Not only is "meaning" to be "made," but it means our understanding go things cannot just be given "by nature." The world has do do some work.
Worldly meaning cannot be expressed simply by logic floating in the aether- no use of meaning (or language) can be so regardless of the world. Existence (the world) precedes essence (used meaning). One cannot go, as the essentialists do, from meaning (e.g. "human nature," "savage," "male," "female," etc., etc.-- essences) to a particular use in world (e.g. "humans who are necessarily X by nature" ).
OK, so we're in agreement here. As I said, it is necessary that the object comes into existence as the object which it is. Otherwise, "it would be possible for the object to come into existence as an object other than the object which it is", and this doesn't make any sense to you nor to me. So we have complete agreement on this necessity. The one is necessary because the alternative is nonsense.
Now we can ask, what makes this a necessity, what makes it so that it does not make any sense to me nor you, that the alternative could be the case. That the alternative is nonsense is what makes the first a "logical" necessity. But it is not the fact that we agree, which makes this actually the case, that this is true, It is the fact that it is a truth, which makes us agree. So, the object necessarily comes into existence as the object which it is. Why? It is not because the alternative is nonsense, that may be what makes us agree, but it's not our agreement which makes this the truth.
Quoting Terrapin Station
You don't agree that if A = A there must be a cause of that? I would say that on both the right side, and the left side of the =, there is the same symbol, A, and the = sign represents some form of sameness. That is "why" A=A, or the cause of that necessity. When something is necessarily the case, this means that it is impossible to be otherwise. This is the exact opposite of a random or chance occurrence, which is said to be an uncaused occurrence, so there must be a cause of what is necessarily the case. If it were uncaused, it would be a random or chance occurrence, and not something which is necessarily the case. So do you agree, that when something is necessarily the case, such as "when an object comes into existence it is necessarily the object which it is, and not something else", it is very reasonable to ask why this is the case? It is reasonable to ask why because the necessity of the occurrence implies that there is a cause of it.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I think we've already been through this. We've talked about ideas. To me, ideas as non-physical existents makes sense. That's the most simple and straight forward way to understand the existence of ideas, i.e., as non-physical existents. It doesn't matter that the humanly produced concept, or idea, depends upon, or is created by the physically existing human being, the idea itself is still non-physical. Likewise, it doesn't matter that the physical object depends upon the non-physical as its cause of existence, it still exists as a physical object. I really don't see how you can make sense of reality without referring to non-physical existents.
Quoting Terrapin StationDon't you see that things like identity and non-contradiction must have a cause? If there was no reason why A = A, or why contradiction was unacceptable, then we wouldn't accept these as fundamental principles. It is because these are reasonable, i.e. there is a reason why they are acceptable, that we do accept them as fundamental principles. It is not because we accept them, and agree on them that they become fundamental principles, it is because they are acceptable. Therefore there is a reason for identity, and non-contradiction, and that is that they state something real and true about the world, and this is why we accept them. So these principles have a real cause of existence, the cause is the way that the world is. The way that the world is causes the existence of these principles. If the world were otherwise, such that it were not describable by these principles, we would not have developed these principles.
Can you seperate what is said from what it is about in this way? I think not.
Not really. That reading is all too empirical, as if "existence before essence" was suggesting something existed before the use of its meaning-- an obvious contradiction.
The statement is really about logic. It's not describing states of the world (e.g. the state was "nothing" until someone gave it a meaning), but rather identifying what we can say with logic. It's pointing out we can't use a concept or or idea to determine what the world must be.
We can't just say, for example, that "Humans are necessarily kind. It's always their nature." Or: "There Banno. He's necessarily a waiter by his nature." In any case, the mere logical idea is not enough to define that use of meaning.
The world has to do it. Humans are only kind when they are kind. Banno is only a waiter when he is a waiter. In the world, no use of meaning is necessary. It has to be performed by the world (existence). Therefore, the world (existence) must be in any performance of meaning. Mere logic alone ( "Banno is necessarily a waiter" ) has no performer and so cannot be a use of meaning.
More like separate. Existential quantification (something exists, a meaning is used-- e.g. Banno is a waiter) is different to logical quantification (a necessary truth-- e.g. Banno is necessarily a waiter and will be no matter what happens in the world).
They cannot be substituted. The essentialist cannot be correct. I can't say: "Banno is, by nature, necessarily a waiter." Since Banno is a state of the world, it takes an existential quantification ( "Banno is a waiter" ) to make it so.
No matter how absurd it is to me that Banno could be something other than a waiter, it's true.
And he is saying that they are different.
But which precedes which?
No, I don't agree with that at all. For one, you're committing a category error by trying to read it temporally--you're talking about cause in a temporal sense, in the sense that we talk about causality in physics.
Aside from that, you seem to be imagining that there's some default state of randomness where nonsense could obtain so that something might not be itself if there isn't something to prevent that possibility. I have no idea why you'd believe this, though. What evidence, empirical or logical, would suggest such a default to you? (And re logical, I'm talking about entailment/validity, not loose heuristics that seem intuitively right to you.)
Perhaps you simply believe that "everything must have a cause," or "everything must have a reason that isn't itself," but I don't believe either, both obviously lead to infinite regresses, and neither has any empirical or logical support.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm not just asking you to name something as a nonphysical existent, though. You're not understanding that I think that the very idea of nonphysical existents is incoherent. So when you say that understanding ideas as nonphysical existents is the most simple and straightforward way to understand them, I read it as "understanding ideas as <> is the most simple and straightforward way to understand ideas."
What I'm looking for is some explanatory clue with respect to "what the hell we might be referring to." For all that "nonphysical existent" refers to in my view, we could just as well say, "understanding ideas as splooraffatoolees is the most simple and straightforward way to understand ideas." The semantic content of that would be the same for me. If I were to keep mentioning splooraffatoolees, and you said "I have no idea what that's referring to," it wouldn't do any good for me to say, "Coconuts are a good example of splooraffatoolees. That's the easiest way to understand coconuts." You haven't the faintest idea what splooraffatoolees is referring to/no one can make any sense of it for you. Associating coconuts with it doesn't help.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No. I see the belief that they must have a cause as completely unsupported.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That's a fact about them, not a reason for them, and certainly not a temporally prior cause of them.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, they are the way the world is.
There might be some confusion, by the way, a la thinking that I'm mentioning logical identity (A=A) as something we're claiming. I'm not. I'm mentioning it as an ontological fact--as a way that things are.
If you can't separate what is said from what it's about you'd be in store for a lifetime if serious confusions.
What's p in that contradiction?
It seems obvious to me that something existed "before the use of its meaning" (setting aside that "before the use of its meaning" is wonky in my opinion)
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
?? Existential quantification doesn't include predication. Existential quantification is simply that "there is an" or "there exists a" or "there are some" or "for some" etc. In other words "there exists an x" (and we could add "such that x is Banno")--that's the existential quantification part.
Anyway, I don't agree that Sartre was doing logic per se.
As far as I know, there is no type of cause other than temporal. Cause is a temporal concept, the cause is necessarily prior (temporally) to the effect. If you don't agree, then maybe you could describe a type of causation which is not like that.
Quoting Terrapin Station
The way that people use the terms "chance", "random", and "stochastic" suggests this to me. Referring to scientific theories, people talk about chance, or random mutations of living beings, and stochastic systems. If the entire universe went to a complete state of randomness, where it was impossible to predict what would be, from one moment to the next, there could be no objects here because the existence of an object requires a temporally extended stability (sameness for a period of time). In that universe it would be impossible for a thing to be itself because being itself requires that temporal extension. So this idea, "where nonsense could obtain" is science based, empirically based, it is the progress of science itself which has suggested this to me.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I believe that if things exist in an orderly fashion, there must be a reason, or cause for this. I think that it is definitively true, necessarily true, in the same sense that it is necessarily true that an object cannot be other than itself, that order cannot come from disorder, without a cause. Consider randomly placed objects strewn about in a disorderly way. If they are going to take on some sort of order, they must be moved, and this movement requires a cause. Any type of disorder requires movement before it can become ordered, and this requires a cause. A moving disorder will continue forever to move disorderly, according to the law of inertia, unless caused to move in an orderly way. I observe that things exist according to order, I know that there must be a cause of this.
Quoting Terrapin Station
You're really self-contradictory here Terrapin. You use the word "idea", saying "I haven't the faintest idea", of what you mean by "idea". Don't you see that this is most likely some sort of lie, or deception, or at best contradiction, to say "I haven't the faintest idea what you mean by idea". Clearly you are using the word in a comprehensible way, so you must have some idea of what it means, yet in the same sentence you are claiming that you haven't the faintest idea of what it means.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Wow, I can't believe you are saying this, when my entire discourse with you for the last few days has been exactly that explanation. Do you not remember how I described that "what the object is", is separable from the physical object itself, and how I can talk about the house that I will build despite the fact that it hasn't been built yet, because I refer to what it is, rather than the physical object itself? And you said that this is a case of referring to the "idea" of that house? Do you always close your eyes when someone is trying to show you something? That's why I compared you to a whiney baby! You keep your eyes closed tight while I show you over and over again, and you exclaim: I CAN'T SEE IT! I CAN'T SEE IT!
Some people use "cause" as a synonym for "reason"--a la "what's the reason" for something, where they're looking for an explanation or simply for something to be put into other words. That's different than a cause in the other sense. You seemed to be conflating the two at times.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Why wouldn't you instead simply question their usage of those terms? It's not as if they're saying something that's accurate ontologically or that even makes sense just because they're saying something. And are you talking about people on message boards, or are you talking about confirmed academics from relevant fields (the sciences, philosophy, etc.)? Re the former, they might have very little idea what they're talking about. It could be some computer programmer who has an interest in science and who has read enough to be able to use key terms, but who is really saying a lot of things that evidence a lack of knowledge and understanding about the field. Someone in the "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" category. Message boards are full of folks like that. A lot of people don't really know what the fuck they're talking about to put it bluntly.
I don't know, it just seems completely absurd to me to say that the reason you'd take some random state where nonsense like "object x not being itself" could obtain in lieu of causes that prevent that state as a default is the way that people use terms like "chance," "random," etc.
Anyway, so re your if:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
We'd probably need to define just what we're saying in that hypothetical, but we could assume that you're saying something like "if it were in a state of 'maximum entropy'" (leaving the phrase "maximum entropy" unanalyzed just to make it easier) . . .
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That part I don't at all agree with from a couple different angles:
(1) For there to be a universe at all, there has to be physical stuff (on my view, of course). That means, there at least need to be elementary particles, whatever they turn out to be (maybe quarks and leptons, etc., or whatever else they turn out to be). Well, those things are objects on my view. Maybe you were meaning something else by "object," though--I don't know.
and
(2) I don't buy logical identity through time. Part of the reason for this is what time is on my view--time is change or motion. So for time to occur, change/motion occurs, which means that the things in question are not identical (in the A=A sense) from Tn to Tn+1, at least in their relations to other things.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This again I do not agree with. Identity obtains when we're dealing with the same thing, at the same time, in the same respect (that is, from the same perspective for example). Things are necessarily what they are, and they're not necessarily what they're not at particular moments of time.
Talking about something, like a tube of toothpaste or whatever, being "that same tube of toothpaste at T1 and T2" is an abstraction insofar as A=A identity goes. Really, it's tube of toothpaste1 at time T1 and tube of toothpaste2 at time T2, where tube of toothpaste1 is not logically identical to tube of toothpaste2. I've had a discussion about this before on this board, and the other guy was conflating logical identity (A=A) and the notion of identity found in personal identity (through time), which is related but different, and necessarily conceptual. Tube of toothpaste1 and tube of toothpaste2 (I should have picked an example with a shorter name) are the "same" tube of toothpaste by virtue of our conceptual abstraction, which has a lot to do with the fact that tube of toothpaste1 and tube of toothpaste2 are developmentally related via causality, contiguity, etc.
So something being itself doesn't require temporal extension at all. It obtains at the same time.. Hence why it's impossible for something to be other than whatever it is at a given time. Whatever it is, it is that, and it doesn't make any sense to suppose that it could be something else at that moment in time. At a different moment in time, on my view, it necessarily is something else, something non-identical (yet closely related) to what it was previously, that is.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You just said that it was based on the way people use words, and I'm betting dollars to donuts that it's mostly a matter of what you've seen people you've encountered on message boards say.
Otherwise, let's actually specify some of the science in question. Let's start with this: what science posits the world as random by default? Let's see if we can find any sort of science textbook that says anything like that.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Okay, but that's not a belief I share. If it seems like an undeniable, brute fact to you, there's probably not much we can do about us disagreeing on this.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't even put much weight on the idea of order versus disorder. I believe that those terms are extremely messy in most usages and typically relative and based simply on subjective concerns. Re entropy, it's often expressed as order versus disorder, especially historically, but there's still a lot of vagueness there, and it's often contemporarily defined in terms of energy dispersion at particular temperatures (which has its own ontological problems in my view).
At any rate, whatever it would turn out that we're saying exactly with "order coming from disorder," I don't actually believe that "order can not come from disorder without a cause." I have no problem with the idea of all sorts of acausal events occurring. It doesn't seem intuitively obvious to me that such couldn't obtain. I'd be more prone to (at least epistemological) skepticism of causality in general, a la Hume, than I would be to rejecting that events could happen acausally.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Literally, on the received view of the sciences, this wouldn't actually be possible by the way--to have randomly placed, medium-sized-dry-goods objects strewn about.
I wouldn't say that it's impossible (although I don't think it's something we can really know, either, and I believe that calling something "randomly placed" would be about our conceptual schemes instead, but anyway, this doesn't matter . . . )
I'd agree that positions have to change, but again, I wouldn't agree that it MUST require a cause. Again, I have no problem buying that all sorts of phenomena could occur acausally.
In any event, the other thing I wanted to say is that throughout this paragraph, you're using "order/disorder" as if they're well-defined, and they're not. If you're strictly using a particular mathematical definition of entropy, that would be well-defined, but I'm not sure that's what you're doing.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't know what "according to order" would refer to. Order/disorder a la entropy is a relative measure, by the way.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That was in response to this:
<>
However, <> is a substition for "nonphysical existents," not a substitution for "idea." I don't know why that would have been difficult to understand, but maybe I should have spelled that out more.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Again, what I was talking about was the idea of nonphysical existents (in general). If that's what you've been trying to explain--maybe it was--that sure flew over my head. I thought that you were just trying to explain why you agree with "essence preceding existence." To me, nothing about that is necessarily about someone positing nonphysical existents, although you did make it explicit eventually that you consider nonphysicality to be a characteristic of essences or haecceities (maybe just haecceities, as I remember you equating essences with all of the properties of an object). Of course, insofar as that goes, I think it's incoherent, and to me, it rather seems like you're closing your eyes to this fact (which I'd say you're probably doing because your views on this are related to ad hoc support of religious beliefs).
What about final causation, which is often subsequent (temporally) to the effect? Even most efficient causation is really simultaneous with the effect, rather than prior to it; e.g., application of force to a mass causes acceleration, which ceases when the force is removed.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I take it that this is why you disagree with my comment about space being what enables different objects to have the same properties (in different locations) and time being what enables the same object to have different properties (at different moments). For you, no object shares any properties with any other object, not even "itself" at another instant. Right?
Sorry--I read your response to me yesterday but I overlooked replying to you. (I couldn't reply right when I read it, then forgot later.)
Anyway, the problem I have with the idea is, in a nutshell, the non-identity of discernibles. Since we're talking about two different objects, we're talking about discernibles.
My rejection of universals is due to my view that the very idea of them seems incoherent. Aside from not being able to make sense of nonphysical existents in general, I can't make sense of how both (a) something (the universal, whatever it would be) would be instantiated in something else (the particular object exhibiting the universal) especially so that it's literally that universal somehow in the object (where the object isn't itself the universal), and (b) how the universal could be instantiated in more than one object so that we're talking about the universal being numerically identical in the two different objects--that is, the same, just one thing insofar as the universal goes.
I can't help but think that the ideas are a confusion precipitated by normal language usage at best.
Thanks for the helpful clarification. A few quick follow-up questions ...
1. Is it fair to say that physicalism is your most fundamental view here, since it seems to be the primary basis for your rejection of universals?
2. If ideas are not properly characterized as nonphysical existents, then what exactly are they?
3. What minimum interval of time is required for an object to become a different object - i.e., something with different properties?
I wouldn't personal use the phrase "most fundamental," but it's definitely one of my core views.
Ideas, and all mental phenomena, are specific brain states.
An object changing or in motion is what time is in my ontology. So whatever the smallest change would be, including the smallest relational change with respect to other objects.
I guess what I meant to ask is this: Do you reject the reality of universals because you embrace physicalism, or do you embrace physicalism because you reject the reality of universals?
Quoting Terrapin Station
In that case, how is it that multiple brains can instantiate the same idea, or that a single brain can maintain the same idea over time? Or is it your view that no two ideas (brain states) are truly the same?
Quoting Terrapin Station
As a thought experiment, what if one object changes, but another does not (at all)? Has time passed for the second object, simply because the first object changed, no matter how spatially distant the two objects are?
Quoting Terrapin Station
That was my basic question - what is the smallest possible change, and how much time does it take for it to happen? Said another way, how many changes occur to an object in one second of time - i.e., how many different objects come into and out of existence during that interval?
There is an interpretation under which Sartre is both correct and profound. With common objects, that it is a chair and that it exists are much the same. With humans, that they are and what they are differ - at least while they have the capacity for choice.
I'm not overly happy with "existence precedes essence" as a summation of this idea. the terms essence and existence are fraught with misunderstanding, and precedes is ambiguous.
An essence of some item is the set of properties that are necessary and sufficient for some thing to be that item.
A necessary property of some item is one that is correctly attributed to that item in all possible worlds.
It is a trivial exercise to posit a possible world in which any particular property associated with an item is absent from that item.
Therefore the notion of essence is incoherent.
This is just a generalisation of Kripke's Thales example.
Such suggestions aren't exactly trival though, for many different idenities extend beyond a singular moment. One may, for example, suggest a possible world where I sprout gills. The property of "no gills" is not actually necessary to me, a human, at all. There are many such changes I might undergo which are thought impossible by "what properties Willow must necesarily have."
The notion of "essence" is incoherent, but Kripke's approach only leads to people asserting it under the guise of what's necessary to a thing-- e.g. "I'm human, so I can't possibly have gills at any time."
Sartre's point is "essence" is entirely incohrent. There are no properties which necessary belong to anything. Not only does it not make sense to pose something without its necessary properties, but the idea of necessary properties within existence is itself entirely mistaken.
Rather than trivial, suggesting something might be other than properties associated with it, picks out a possible outcome.
Existence always has power over "essence"-- my properties can always change because they are an expression of my existence, rather than a rule of what I necesarily am. "Existence before essence" means that presence (whatever it might be) has primacy over associated properties (essence).
What defines a thing is not a notion of what properties are necesarily to it, but rather its existence.
I don't think so. It's more like the measurement problem. Sartre was a wild guy. He was in the French Resistance during WW2.
What is special about people, as opposed to chairs and hills, is that they get to choose what they are.
The latter definitely isn't the case--I don't think that all there is to physicalism is antirealism on universals.
I wouldn't necessarily say that the former is the case, though, either. I see them as consistent with each other, not dependent on each other.
Quoting aletheist
The latter. Again, this is consistent with nominalism.
Quoting aletheist
Yes--time has passed for the objects. This is what I meant by "including the smallest relational change with respect to other objects."
Quoting aletheist
The smallest possible change is just the slightest motion or change of position (of at least a part or a relation to another object then). Time "passing" simply is these changes. A second, per the International System of Units, is defined simply by transitional states of cesium 133 atoms for example. So we're just talking about motion relative to other motion. I have no idea what, relative to seconds as defined above, the "smallest possible change" would be, but that will simply be an empirical issue to answer.
I wasn't leaving that out. I don't know why you'd say that we can't separate what is said from what it is about so that one logically precedes the other.
Quoting Banno
I don't really get what you're saying here. Why would that something is a human and that the human exists not be "much the same" (and just because humans are able to make choices?) I don't get what the distinction between "that they are" and "what they are" would be so that it's different for humans than chairs.
Quoting Banno
? What are some of the different definitions "precedes" suggests to you?
I don't think final cause is subsequent to the effect. "Final cause" refers to the intent which brings about the existence of the object. Otherwise you would have the object being the cause of itself.
Quoting aletheist
The acceleration is subsequent to the application of force, this is evident from the way that physicists describe this as the kinetic energy of the object which acts as the force is converted to potential energy and this is converted to the kinetic energy of the object which accelerates.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yes, there are times when people use "reason" to be synonymous with "cause", but not all uses of "reason" are synonymous with "cause". When "reason" is used as synonymous with "cause", then a temporal order is implied.
Quoting Banno
Since many different objects exist, and the chair is only one of them, how is it that you can say "that it is a chair and that it exists are much the same"? The table exists, and it's not a chair, so clearly, that it is exists, and that it is a chair, are completely different things, or else the table would also be a chair, because it exists.
.
Sartre does focus on human and their decision making and relationships. My point was about the logical structure of what he's trying to say-- what "existence preceeds essence" is getting at. His "freedom" is a forerunner of radical contingency, limited more or less to human actions and idenities.
Humans are no doubt special in that they have particular awareness and self-direction.
Choice is sort of a reflection of radical contingency. In having choice, humans are not bound to any predetermined outcome. Their acts have to make what happens.
Fair enough, thanks.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Does this entail that space and time are discrete, rather than continuous? If not, why not?
The point is measurement problems are incohrent because one does not achieve knowledge by relying on a set of associated properties.
To understand a state, one has to grasp the thing that exists. "Essence" is not a description or measurement of anything. It's just someone pretending to know what something must be.
But that intent is not realized until the object exists and is employed for that purpose. In that sense, the final cause is subsequent to the event. Besides, human purposes are not the only kind of final cause.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, the (instantaneous) acceleration is simultaneous with the application of the force; F=ma at any given time.
Someone could say, "What's the cause of the ? symbol in logic?" Where what they're asking is for an explanation of it: "It's the existential quantifier--you can read it as 'there exists a(n)'"
I wouldn't say it implies either. Again, that's just going to turn out to be an empirical issue (if it's indeed something we can discover).
I don't think this has anything at all to do with Sartre.
To be clear, what is said and what it is about are quite distinct: one is words, the other a thing. That's not at issue.
What I was pointing out to Willow is that the world is all that is the case - to be is to be the subject of a predicate; it's words all the way down.
This branch of the discussion goes thus: Willow says "A"; Banno says "~A". Terrapin says "B" as if it meant "~~A".
We are talking about different things.
It has plenty to do with it-- this is what "bad faith" is about. People deny their responsibility by claiming to measure who people must be. The "measurement" of "It's my nature. I necessarily cannot do anything else" is Sartre's major target.
As I understand final cause, it always precedes the thing brought about, as the intent to bring that thing about. I don't understand what you mean by the intent is not realized until later, the intent is real, as the cause of the free will act which causes the thing to be brought about.
Quoting aletheist
Could you give me an example of final cause which is not human intent?
Quoting aletheist
F=ma is not an expression of causation though.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That really appears like a misuse of the word 'cause' to me, and a real stretch of the imagination on your part. If someone used cause in that way, to ask for the meaning of a symbol, how would you know what the person was talking about? If I asked you what's the cause of "3", or what's the cause of "sun", would you know that I was asking you for the meaning of these symbols?
It seems to me that, on your view, there would have to be some minimum amount of change (or motion) associated with a minimum interval of time; otherwise, nothing would ever change (or move), and there would be no time. Hence space and time must be discrete. If they were truly continuous, then "adjacent" states would be indistinguishable.
It would be a contradiction because it would mean a thing was present without its meaning. My computer cannot exist prior to expressing the meaning of that computer. No doubt many things have existed before my computer, but they are not the something which is my computer.
The meaning of an a existing thing is always expressed when it exists. The existence of my computer cannot preceed being that computer.
P is X, the subject state, whatever that might be.
Again, for Sartre, essence and existence can correspond for ordinary things; but what makes an individual human distinct is that they become what they are only after they exist. Hence the 'precedes' in his aphorism is temporal.
I intend to drive some nails. I make a hammer accordingly. The final cause of the hammer is not achieved until I actually drive the nails with it - after I have made it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The final cause of teeth is biting and chewing food.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It is an expression of the relation between force, mass, and acceleration. If you apply a certain force to a certain mass, a certain acceleration will simultaneously occur.
I don't know what you'd take meaning to refer to. It's definitely different than what I take it to refer to.
More or less the predicate, I think. In this case there is X (a thing) which is a computer. How would one have the existence of this computer prior to that predicate being expressed in the world?
It's impossible. X, the computer, cannot be prior to the computer. When X is a computer, it must always express the meaning of computer, else we would be claming there was a computer before the computer was there.
For Sartre, existence does not precede essence in the case of a computer.
I know. That's why it's not a temporal point. In terms of meaning or idenity, a human at a given point is no different.
Banno as a waiter does not preceed or be without Banno's existence (choice) as a waiter. Just like X as computer does not preceed or be without the existence of such a computer.
The final cause of the hammer is your intent to drive nails. How could you actually driving nails, be the cause of the hammer? The hammer already exists at this time? Final cause is "the reason why", and the reason why the hammer exists is that you intended to drive nails. What about if you intended to drive nails, so you made the hammer, but never got around to driving nails? The hammer exists, and there's a reason why it exists, so it has a final cause, but it never drives any nails.
Quoting aletheist I agree that there is final cause, intent behind the creation of teeth, that they were created for this purpose, like I also believe there is intent, or purpose, behind the dam which the beaver builds, but many people don't agree with this, so it is a contentious issue. So I actually agree with you that there is final cause in things other than human actions, I think final cause can be found in the actions of living things in general, including the growing of teeth. But you and I have a slightly different idea of what final cause actually is.
No, it is the driving of nails - something that is in the future when the hammer is made, not the present or the past. That is why we call it the final cause, or the end. It is the result; it comes last in the temporal sequence.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That is not what I said. The final cause of teeth is biting and chewing food, period. It makes no difference whether they were created intentionally for that purpose or evolved naturally with that function.
Do you now agree that force simultaneously causes acceleration?
I don't agree. I think you misunderstand "final cause". It is contradictory to think that the cause of something is posterior in time to that thing. That is contrary to the definition of "cause", so this is clearly not what Aristotle refers to in his description of final cause. It is called "final" cause because we are referring to the desired "end", having the nails pounded. The efficient causes, which are the act of making the hammer, and hitting the nails, are the means to that end.
Quoting aletheist
No, I don't think force causes anything. "Force" refers to the power which one thing exerts on another thing. It is conceptual. Concepts only play a causal role in the case of final cause, the way I understand final cause, not the way you understand final cause. But in the case of acceleration, we are not talking about final cause, we are talking about efficient cause, so to say that force is a cause would be a category error. One thing causes the acceleration of another thing, and we refer to the power which the one exerts on the other during this causal process, as force.
Ah, so just its properties, or "what it is." I'd agree with that, but I wouldn't call that something's meaning or essence. With respect to essence, this is because what something is is the totality of its properties, where there are no "accidental" properties, and where those properties aren't universals. Meaning and essence, per conventional, "functional" usage, are rather specific ways that individuals think about the world.
This is why I agree with "existence precedes essence." Because given what essence actually is--a specific way of thinking about the world (namely in this case, an individual's necessary and sufficient criteria for considering some x a particular concept and for bestowing a particular name on x), that arrives not only after various things exist, but after the individual in question exists and develops to a point where they're formulating concepts and so on.
Also re Banno, this wouldn't result in a distinction for humans. They're the totality of their non-universal properties as well.
But isn't that what he said--that the final cause of a hammer is driving nails?
(In my case, though, I'd add, "Just in case the person who created the hammer in question had that goal in mind.")
This begs the question; what we are discussing is precisely whether a cause must always be temporally prior to its effect. You cannot just resolve the debate by stipulating a definition of "cause" that requires it to precede its effect.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Exactly. My whole point is to call attention to the fact that when I make the hammer, its final cause is something in the future, not the present or the past.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Fair enough; force is a concept that we have created to represent the phenomenon that results in acceleration of a mass.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And this happens instantaneously. There is no gap in time between the action of the first thing and the acceleration of the second thing. The cause and its effect are simultaneous.
Quoting aletheist
Did you not read "the desired 'end'"? The final cause of the hammer is not the act of driving nails, it is the desire to drive nails. If you really think that the final cause of the hammer is the act of driving nails, then explain to me how the act of driving nails could possibly cause the existence of the hammer. That makes no sense. It does make sense though, to say that the desire to drive nails causes the existence of the hammer.
This concept of final cause is integral to the concept of free will, the will acts as a final cause, and is free from efficient causation. But understanding final cause in that way, your way, leaves free will incomprehensible, as it renders the will as an efficient cause, rather than a final cause and this denies freedom to the will. The act of willing, which brings the hammer into existence is the final cause of the hammer. It is a freely willed act because it is free from efficient causation.
Quoting aletheist
It's not instantaneous though, that's why there is a need for the concept of "acceleration". The motion of one object is not instantaneously transferred to the other object.
"Final Cause: the end/goal of the object, or what the object is good for."
---http://www.uvm.edu/~jbailly/courses/Aristotle/notes/AristotleCausesNotes.html
That page, by the way, begins by noting: "First off, Aristotle's 4 "causes" are not all causes in the way that most modern English speakers think of causes."
“[something may be called a cause] in the sense of an end (telos), namely, what something is for; for example, health [is a cause] of walking.”
---https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/4causes.htm
"End or purpose: a change or movement's final "cause", is that for the sake of which a thing is what it is. For a seed, it might be an adult plant. For a sailboat, it might be sailing. For a ball at the top of a ramp, it might be coming to rest at the bottom."
---https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes
"The final cause: “the end, that for the sake of which a thing is done”, e.g., health is the end of walking, losing weight, purging, drugs, and surgical tools."
---https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/#FouCau
So the final cause of a hammer is to drive nails. The final cause is not the desire to drive nails. That's not the end or goal of a hammer--it's not as if a hammer is made so that it can result in having something to do with desire. The end or goal or the sake of which a hammer is made is to drive nails (assuming that was indeed the goal of creating a hammer in a given case).
(Also, I'm not a fan of Aristotle's four causes analysis, by the way, but if we're going to talk about it, let's at least be able to tackle the conventional understanding of it.)
The reason why I made the hammer was so that I could drive the nails. That future outcome - not my mere desire for it - is the final cause of the hammer. See also what just posted.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, the will has nothing to do with it. Again, the final cause of teeth is biting and chewing food; do all animals with teeth have free will? The final cause of a dropped object is coming to rest on the ground.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You are conflating motion (or velocity) with acceleration. The velocity is zero when the first thing acts with constant force on the second thing, but the instantaneous acceleration - the rate of change of the velocity - is not.
You really should read Aristotle because I can see that you completely misunderstand the nature of final cause. Here's what he says, Physics 194b:
" 'Why is he walking about ?' we say. 'To be healty', and having said that, we think we have assigned the cause."
Notice that the cause of him walking about is "to be healthy". It is not the case, as aletheist claims, that when he has actually come to be healthy, this is the cause of his walking in the past. It is the case that right now when he is walking, the end, the goal, or objective, "to be healthy", was the cause of him walking.
Here's that full passage:
So again, in the case of a hammer, "Why have we made a hammer?" "To drive in nails." We haven't made a hammer to desire to drive in nails. "To drive in nails" is the final cause.
When will he be healthy if he walks about right now? In the future - not instantaneously, and certainly not in the past. The final cause (being healthy) is subsequent to the effect (walking about).
Edit: Of course, "effect" implies efficient causation, and thus is a bit of a misnomer when talking about a final cause. Perhaps it would be clearer to say instead that the end (being healthy) is subsequent to the means (walking about).
Right, "to drive nails" is the final cause. Intent is implicit in the phrase "to...". "I intend to...". So we haven't made a hammer to desire to drive nails, we've made a hammer from the desire to drive nails. Remember, the intent to drive nails is the cause, not the effect. Now explain that to aletheist. Aletheist thinks that the act of driving nails is the cause of the hammer .
I have suggested that driving nails is the final cause of the hammer, the end for the sake of which the hammer exists, which is subsequent to the making of the hammer as a means to that end. Final causes cannot be confined to human desires or intentions, because things that have nothing to do with humans have them - teeth, seeds, balls, etc. - and they are likewise subsequent to the coming-into-existence of those things.
"End" in this sense means "the thing one seeks to attain".
Quoting aletheist
Don't jump ahead of yourself, first obtain a strong grasp of what final cause really means, then move to see how it relates to all these other things. Don't dissuade yourself from understanding by referring to preconceived notions that may or may not be relevant.
In any case, final causes are not limited to human intentions. Why would you think that the seed does not seek to attain being a plant? And why would you limit intention to human beings? Do you realize that anything done for a purpose is done with intention? The birds and the bees are building their nests for a purpose, and this is final cause in action. But there are different ways in which intention relates to things. The hammer is driving the nails, but the intent is not in the hammer, it is in the one swinging the hammer. Likewise, the components in my computer are performing functions, they are acting for a purpose with respect to the whole, and this implies intention. We don't find the intention in the computer though, but in the one who built it.
No, it means "that for the sake of which the hammer comes into existence."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Good advice - for both of us.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It depends on exactly what you mean by "purpose" and "intention." I associate both of those terms with intelligent willfulness and agency. In that sense, seeds do not "seek" anything, and birds and bees do not have "purposes" even though their nests and hives indeed have final causes.
No, the final cause is not the intent to do something. The intent to do something is not the end or goal with respect to the hammer.
It seems like you're trying to necessarily read "cause" in the contemporary sense. Aristotle didn't use the idea that narrowly, especially not when it came to the concept of final cause.
It seems like you're simply ignoring the facts of what Aristotle wrote, to make an unsupported assertion. If you ask me, "why did you make that hammer?", I could answer "to drive nails", or I could answer "I want to drive nails". In the former, intention is implicit, and in the latter, it is explicit. But each phrase refers to the intent to drive nails, I think that is undisputable.
When the hammer is built, there is an intent to do something with it. Aristotle is very explicit on this, and that is the final cause. He expands on a principle described by Plato, the crafts people who use the tool ought to have some say in the production of the tool. You'll find this just before the other passage I quoted, 194a-194b:
"The helmsman knows and prescribes what sort of form a helm should have...".
"In the products of art, however, we make the material with a view to the function, whereas in the products of nature, the matter is there all along.
And this is not the only place where Aristotle describes "that for the sake of which". It is very prominent in the Nicomachean Ethics. He starts by saying that actions aim at some good, "an end". He establishes the difference between an action and a product, and talks about a hierarchy, as products are intrinsically higher than actions, but still, some products are produced for the sake of actions. So there is subordination, some things are designated as for the sake of other actions, and those actions for the sake of producing other things. If this is the case, then we can look for something "which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this)". He then proceeds to question what this is, that which is desired for the sake of itself, and comes to a preliminary conclusion that it could be happiness.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I have full respect for the way that Aristotle used "cause", and understand it quite well. You, on the other hand are trying to assign a meaning to "final cause" which would render it incomprehensible, having the cause of the thing posterior to it in time. But this is natural, because you do not believe in immaterial causes, such as the free will. So until you release this prejudice, final cause will remain inherently incomprehensible, as a cause posterior to the effect.
If you see any evidence that Aristotle is using "that for the sake of which", in some way other than the way I describe, in his physics, then you should bring this to my attention. Until then I'll keep insisting that you are making uneducated assertions, and I'll keep bringing more evidence to support this judgement. And believe me, the evidence is plentiful, because "that for the sake of which" is a common theme in Aristotle.
All that typing and there wasn't one thing in your post that was actually support for a claim that final causes refer to intentions rather than ends themselves.
There is no necessary association there. It is habitual usage which has made you believe that purpose is necessarily associated with intelligent willfulness. Clearly the beaver builds a dam with purpose, and the bird builds a nest with purpose. Our habitual usage of "purpose", to associate it only with intelligent willfulness has made us forget that things act with purpose without intelligent willfulness.
Do you believe that everyone else has this wrong, too--for example, the definitions/explanations I quoted re final causes earlier in the thread?
I do believe in immaterial causes, such as the free will, so that prejudice is not an issue for me. Nevertheless, it seems incontrovertible that the end is always subsequent to the means by which it is achieved - it is a state of affairs in the future. This is really all that I have been trying to point out. As I said before, "effect" implies efficient cause, and I agree with you that an efficient cause cannot be posterior to its effect; however, I still contend that it can be simultaneous.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Who said anything about "necessary association"? How else do we define a word, except in accordance with its "habitual usage"?
The essence of something is that which if you took it away, the identity would change to something else. Identity is usually a convention of language. Humans being the only animals with language, we create identity based on certain measurements/distinctions. Once the convention is established as to the definition of a thing, we can then determine at what point a thing is no longer a thing. Interestingly enough, once a thing has been a thing, it's parts can still be referenced to the prior situation of that thing. A smashed table, can still have legs that once were a part of the thing, but are now its own thing. So oddly, the trace of a thing can not be taken away once it has already been established. The thing can have residual existence beyond its presence as a reference.
Definitions come from animals with language, but what are definitions of something? It is a combination of the material/causal/form/final cause. The problem is how general one goes. Most of the time, definitions of essences have to be as general as possible.. A table can have more than four legs, or no legs at all, so that's not it.. Perhaps a table must be simply made of a solid material and be for the purpose of putting things on.
What Sartre was getting at is that, since we are the creators of the language, and have self-awareness, it is hard to actually put an essence to the very thing that creates essences in the first place. We can say that humans have a certain molecular structure, made from so-and-so-stuff, but purpose-wise, it is hard to provide an essence of individuals, beyond perhaps keeping metabolism at a certain rate. However, even that can be questioned in the case of suicide. Therefore, natural things can only be described in terms of causal, material, and formal definitions, but can not include final causes. It is final causes, where I think Sartre was getting at. If we did provide a definition for a final cause, we would have to be extremely general- perhaps the ability to survive and pursue goals.
What are you talking about? The definitions you've provided are all clearly consistent with my interpretation, and inconsistent with aletheist's. Look what is referred to, a "goal", an "end" in the sense of "what one seeks to attain", "that for the sake of which", which must be interpreted in a way which is consistent with Aristotle's usage, which I've already described.
In any case, the first definition refers to "the end/goal", which is consistent with what I said, and not what aletheist says. The second definition refers to "end (telos)" and again is consistent with what I say, "intention". The third definition refers to "end or purpose", and the fourth refers to "the end, that for the sake of which".
Notice how final cause is equated with "end" (what one seeks to attain), "goal", "telos". Final cause is not, as aletheist claimed, the thing which is brought about by the goal. It is the goal itself. And, as I explained in my last post, in the context of Aristotle's writing's, what is referred to by "that for the sake of which", is the goal, the objective, not the thing brought about by the person who has that goal, it refers to the goal directly.
So, I suggest that you are misinterpreting these definitions. Or am I missing something? How do you make words like "goal", "telos", "end", disappear from the definition?
Which comes first in time, the end or the means? I am not referring to any thought about the end, or the desire for the end, or the decision to adopt a particular end as a goal; I am talking about the end itself.
The end or goal isn't an intention. The end or goal is to drive in nails.
As I said, "end" is defined as "a thing one seeks to attain; a purpose". So the goal, or end is first in time, prior to the means That is "the end itself". Then the individual brings into effect the means which have been determined necessary to achieve the end. The end itself (which is the goal), may or may not be achieved. You seem to be forgetting that the end itself is an object in the sense of "objective", goal. Despite the fact that it may or may not be achieved, it is still the object. You know, in the rules of games, there is "the object" of the game. That is the goal. The object is the goal, which is "the end itself'. So your question is only contradictory. You ask me about "the end itself", yet stipulate that it is something other than the object which is known as the end.
Quoting Terrapin Station
As I said "to drive nails" implies intention. Intention is implicit in that phrase. You even indicate this with "goal". The goal is to drive nails. As the end, driving nails is the objective, the goal. Having that goal, one must obtain a hammer as the means to that end.
These are really simple words, "goal", "end", "purpose", "intention". How is it that the two of you do not understand them? Are we not learning the simple words in school anymore? I don't think that's the case. You all use these words, you just don't know how to relate them to causation. It's not these words that you don't understand, it's final cause you don't understand, so you don't see how these words refer to a cause. That's what Aristotle taught. Clearly, as per your definitions, these terms, "end", "goal", "telos", "purpose", describe what final cause is. Do you not understand what "final cause is the goal" means? You know a goal is something sought, an aim, don't you? Final cause is the goal, the purpose, telos. How many times must I repeat what is written in your definitions before you dispel your misunderstanding in favour of understanding?
But it isn't the same thing as intention, and "final cause" refers to the "drive nails" part, since that's the end in question, it doesn't refer to the intention part.
It's not impossible that it's the final cause, however, because all that "final cause" refers to is the end or "that for the sake of which" something is done. The final cause doesn't have to be realized.
What's throwing you off is the word "cause." Think of "cause" as simply a name in this context--like if we'd call it "Joe" instead. If the "Joe" is the end or goal of something, then the "Joe" in this case is "winning the lottery." The "Joe" isn't "your intention to win the lottery." You're not buying the ticket with the end or goal of your intention.
Excellent, now you're catching on, the final cause is the goal, what is intended, and that's why it doesn't matter if it's realized or not, it still is the cause. There is no necessity of realization, because the cause is the goal itself, not the realization of the goal. According to aletheist's understanding of final cause, it is the realized thing which is the cause. But this is impossible because the caused activity occurs regardless of whether or not the goal is realized.
Quoting Terrapin Station We're talking about a cause here. Do you not understand this? The word "Joe" could refer to any non-existent thing, a pink unicorn, or me winning the lottery which never happens. How could these non-existent things be a cause of anything? All you are doing is making "final cause" into some sort of nonsense. But if the concept appears as nonsense, then surely you have misunderstood the concept. That's what I am trying to demonstrate to you. The way you understand "final cause" renders it as nonsense, my understanding does not. Surely you have misunderstood the concept, especially if you can switch out your understanding for mine, and have the concept make sense.
Right, the goal itself, and not the intention prior to the object in question.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Not in the contemporary, especially colloquial, more limited sense of "cause." That's just the point. You can't think of "cause" in that way and understand "final cause." The word substitution is meant to break the associations you're making with the word "cause," because that's resulting in a mental block.
This happens similarly with students when they're trying to learn various aspects of formal logic, including conditionals, and including validity (where under non-relevance logics, everything validly follows from a contradiction). That's why we stress to not try to parse logic in terms of natural language. Doing so often leads to mental blocks.
What are you talking about? Intention is necessarily implied by goal. There is no goal without intention.
If, when you put the word back in, the result is nonsense, then clearly the exercise has failed. Your exercise demonstrates that any non-existent thing could be a cause. That's the nonsense meaning you're trying to associate with "cause". It's nonsense and should be rejected.
Aside from that though, it's important to not conflate the end or goal with the intention to achieve some end or goal. "Winning the World Series" is different than my (team's) intention to win the World Series--after all, we might not win, despite the intention. But "winning the World Series" is the end or goal. It's not true that our intention to win the World Series is the end or goal. We don't have a goal to intend to win the World Series in other words.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Because you're resuming the contemporary, narrow sense of "cause" when you use that word. Again, try using it as if it were a proper name instead.
It's always some future state that hasn't yet obtained that will be the final cause for a given existent, as that future state that hasn't yet obtained is the end or goal of that object. Hence, "(growing into an) oak tree" is the final cause for a particular oak seed, where that final cause is a future state that hasn't obtained relative to that seed, and where there is no intentionality involved.
You're wrong here, it is true that the team's intention to win The World Series, is the very same thing as the team's goal, or end. Why would you say that it's not true? It's just different ways of saying the very same thing. "Our intention is to win The World Series", "Our goal is to win The World Series", and "Our end is to win The World Series", all mean the very same thing.
You're confusing scope.
"To win the World Series" is identical to the goal. It's the goal under a different name.
"To intend to win the world series" isn't identical to the goal. The goal is not to intend to win the World Series.
"Goal" is the "directed-towards" in this situation. It's not the what's doing the directing, in other words.
I don't know how long you want to go on with this, by the way. You're never going to agree with me, and I'm never going to agree with you. But I don't mind going back and forth with it for as long as you'd like to until you get tired of it.
Have you seen the way that Aquinas demonstrates that Aristotelian principles are consistent with Christian theology? These instances in nature, in which non-sentient beings are observed to have ends, or goals, purposefulness, are attributed to the Will (intention) of God.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Right, "to win The World Series" is the identity of the goal. It is the goal identified, the object identified. Now, we can use your switch tactic, and switch "goal" with "intention", without changing the meaning of the statement. "To win The World Series" is the identity of the intention. It is the intention identified, the object identified.
Quoting Terrapin Station
This doesn't make sense, only because you use some odd sort of phrasing, "to intend to win". Of course "to intend" is not identical with "the goal". To intend is an action, a verb, "the goal" is an object, the noun. You need to maintain consistency "the intention" is the same thing as "the goal"
Quoting Terrapin Station
This demonstrates your misunderstanding of "final cause". Under the concept of final cause, the goal is doing the directing, not vise versa, that's how the goal is a cause. You apprehend "goal" as a "directed-towards", but the concept of final cause requires that we apprehend "goal" as what is doing the directing, that's why its a cause. This is the central principle of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics. When we come to understand the reality of the situation, that the goal is doing the directing, rather than vise versa, then we set good goals, ones which are conducive to good behaviour.
Which is you not caring that you're grafting a contemporary, narrow sense of "cause" on to this.
You think I'm misunderstanding it. I think you're misunderstanding it. Will either of those change?
(Not that this matters for anything in my opinion, by the way. I think that Aristotle's four causes is a waste of time, really)
There's one big difference between my understanding of final cause, and your understanding of final cause. Yours allows that any non-existing thing, and even a thing which never has, or will exist, ever, past or future, could be a cause. This renders "cause", in this sense, as incomprehensible, incoherent nonsense. Can you make sense of the idea that something which never has, nor never will, exist, is a cause? My way of understanding final cause allows that a real existing thing, with observable effects, intention, is a cause.
Simply put, my way of understanding is reasonable, and clearly consistent with what Aristotle wrote about "final cause". Your way, while it may be consistent with what Aristotle wrote, is unreasonable because it renders this sense of "cause" as nonsense. Therefore my interpretation is reasonable while yours is unreasonable.
As a person, it is clear enough that to have the intention of winning the championship is the cause of of some collection of steps I take (or actions, like getting drunk, that I avoid). And the goal has to be clearly foreseen to be effective as a general constraint on my actions.
But finality as a causative constraint is then also something that can be unintentionally accepted. It doesn't have to be a conscious and "freely" chosen thing. Animals follow evolutionary goals that have become embedded in the habits of their genetics. Weather patterns follow thermodynamic goals that are meet the least action principle of entropic material systems.
So telos simply is a way to talk about the reality of constraints as causes.
Because of the great pragmatic success of classical mechanics - treating nature as a reductionist "machine", a blind web of deterministic cause and effect - we find it very easy to accept the notion of causation as nominalistic construction. You take a bunch of Lego bits and build them up into something - the form and purpose of that something being now an arbitrary whim of the human mind.
But through biology especially, we can see that nature is organic. It has a developmental character based on all four of Aristotle's causes - the two upwardly constructive ones of material and efficient cause, balanced by the two downwardly constraining ones of forrmal and final cause.
So the notion of purpose can be generalised to nature by pointing out that nature does serve generalised purposes. And having those purposes results in necessary forms - the ones best designed to serve then. That understanding is now central to modern physics. It is why thermodynamics and the physics of dissipative structure has moved to centre stage as folk try to work out a final theory to unite the dichotomy of quantum mechanics and relativistic mechanics.
Then as to which comes first, which comes second, the whole discussion becomes rather moot if time itself has to be re-thought to make it possible to unify physics.
In a developmental view of the situation - where the trajectory is not so much from the past to the future as from the vague to the crisp - then both existence and essence, both the "material" constructive causes and the "formal" constraining causes, start vague and develop strength as the way they must work together to produce something stable - like a Cosmos - comes into focus.
So neither is first or last. Both mutually co-arise (to pinch the Buddhist term).
Yet also, because the constructive causes are the most local or smallest in terms of spatiotemporal scale, they seem to become established first. They are crisply existent "from the get-go" - even if they happen to be contextless fluctuations or one-off dyadic reactions (Peirce's firstness and secondness) when they first appear.
Then it takes longer for the constraining causes - the forms and the telos - to emerge into view because they are the long-run or global states of being. The essences actually have to develop historically, even if retrospectively, they will be seen as always having to have been a necessary result.
So the paradox is that finality has to undergo an actual history to actually be real in the end. But that end was always immanent - the only real possibility at the start.
Didn't Hegel make that kind of argument for God and the Cosmos - there had to be a journey via "our" imperfection for there to be then the "other" of a heavenly perfection?
So it is a boot-strapping cosmology which Peirce did an even better job on. And now we can appreciate its physical truth as we come to understand the Cosmos as beginning in the chaos of a quantum foam state, the Big Bang, and running down the entropic hill to arrive at its super-dissipated, crisply final, outcome, the infinitely cold and vast Heat Death.
Broken record time: That's because you're grafting a contemporary, narrow sense of "cause" on to this.
No, I'm offering a reasonable interpretation of "final cause", as intention, exactly as it is described by Aristotle. The contemporary narrow sense of "cause" excludes intention as a cause, that is what supports determinism. And, this reasonable interpretation of "final cause" which I put forward is far more charitable than the incoherent, incomprehensible, nonsense interpretation of "final cause" that you've put forward, which is completely inconsistent with Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics..
Yes. You're offering what seems to you to be a reasonable interpretation, where you "modestly" see your interpretation necessarily as identical to Aristotle's, because you're grafting the narrow, contemporary sense of "cause" onto "final cause." The contemporary sense of "cause" wouldn't say that an intention is a cause of something in vacuo, but that's not what you're saying either.
A seed in the ground or a ball at the top of an incline does not have any intentions, yet each has a final cause - the full-grown plant and coming to rest at the bottom of the incline, respectively.
In the case of "final cause", that continuity can be followed from Aristotle through Christian theology. It is this continuity which I adhere to. And this understanding of "final cause" is completely distinct from any contemporary sense of "cause". Your accusation is unjustified.
You, on the other hand, are introducing a narrow contemporary sense of "final cause" which renders "final cause" in the traditional sense incomprehensible.
Quoting Terrapin Station
What you mean by "vacuo", I don't know, but the traditional understanding allows that final cause is prior to any material existence, and that is what I'm saying. And, in theology they demonstrate that prior to material existence there was necessarily final cause, the Will of God. I think you should reconsider your accusation.
In theology, the intention (Will) of God is assigned to such cases of final cause. And the intention of God is not necessarily within the object which acts with final cause. As an example, I explained that the components within my computer act with purpose, toward an end, which is the operation of my computer. The intention involved here is proper to the human beings which made the computer, the intention is not considered to be within the computer itself, though the parts act with purpose (final cause).
That's a claim for which you're supplying neither any empirical evidence nor any argumentation.
This is a Philosophy Forum, not a theology forum. You are effectively conceding that there are no final causes apart from willing agents, which - as I understand it - was not Aristotle's own position.
No I'm not conceding that, this is the theological argument which introduces God as the source of telos in natural things. Aristotle did not seek the source of telos, he just affirmed that it was there. So there is no inconsistency between Aristotle saying that the seed develops with intention, but not determining the source of that intention, and the theologian claiming the source of that intention as God.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I told you, the continuity of usage is within theological principles, try reading Aquinas' fifth way. Furthermore, that continuity of usage continues in modern day philosophy as is evident from the definitions you provide which define "final cause" with "goal", "end", "telos", and "purpose".
It appears we have two choice of interpretation:
1) My interpretation, supported by thousands of years of tradition in theological principles, as well as the definitions provided by you. This interpretation allows for an immaterial final cause (intention), which despite being immaterial, is nevertheless something real
2) Your interpretation, supported by you and alethist. This interpretation allows that something with absolutely no existence, is a final cause.
The choice is clear, unless you can show me something that I am missing.
Which has nothing to do with the claim you made. Your claim was about the conditions required for comprehensibility.
We are not discussing "the source of telos in natural things," we are discussing what that telos is itself. While I am a theist, it seems problematic to me to require the existence/reality of God in order for natural things to have final causes. It also seems highly dubious that Aristotle himself would have endorsed such a view.
I don't think it is necessary to assume God, and I agree that Aristotle probably didn't think this way either. What we do is assume intention, or purpose, as final cause, without claiming to know the source of that intention. Intention as a cause is supported by evidence. All we are doing is making an account of the evidence, a description of how intention causes the production and manufacture of things. However, even in human beings who act with conscious intention, and provide us with much evidence of intention as cause, the source of intention is unknown. And this is of concern to some people.
So we can conclude from the evidence of human beings that intention is a cause, this is the cause of artifacts, artificial things. Then we can proceed to acknowledge this type of causation in other things as well. This does not require that we assume the existence of God, it is just a matter of concluding that intention is a cause, and looking for that cause in various places. However, in theology they want to go beyond this, to account for the existence of intention in general, as it appears to be a very unusual (unnatural) form of causation.
So you think that you can use a word to mean whatever you want it to mean, and this would be comprehensible? I think not, it is the continuity of similar usage from one person to the next which produces comprehensibility.
But we do not normally assume intention, or purpose, as final cause in cases where no human is involved. Again, a seed in the ground or a ball at the top of an incline has a final cause, regardless of whether any intelligent agent (i.e., God) wills it to be so.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Intention may seem "unusual" or "unnatural" to some, but final causes are quite common and natural, as Aristotle observed. That is why I do not think it is accurate to equate the two.
"There is a continuity of usage without which meanings would be incomprehensible" and "You can use words to mean whatever you want them to mean and they'll be comprehensible" is a false dichotomy.
Or in other words, requesting empirical evidence or an argument for the first claim doesn't imply acceptance of the second claim.
I think there is a problem with this statement. Some people would see final cause in these instances that you mention, and most of those people would be religious people, and attribute this intention to the Will of God. Also, many science minded people would not see any instance of final cause here. Physicalists for example claim that all instances of causation are reducible to efficient causation. This is the basis for determinism. So they don't see final cause here at all. If some people, such as yourself, attribute final cause to these instances, yet they do not believe that this final cause is the Will of God, then I think they are of the minority, and I would not agree that this is what we "normally assume".
If you require every final cause to be identical to some intention in some mind, then I agree that this is the only approach that works; but since it effectively presupposes theism, obviously non-theists will reject it out of hand.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
My understanding is that @Terrapin Station is a physicalist, and yet he is arguing for final causes along lines similar to what I have been saying. I think that it is important to be able to talk about final causation without relying on human and/or divine intentions.
Yeah, I'm a physicalist. However, all I'm arguing is that Metaphysician Undercover is not understanding Aristotle's "final cause" as it's normally understood. I'm not actually arguing in favor of final causes, I'm not arguing anything like "there are final causes" where I'm asserting some sort of realism for them. And I don't at all buy teleological accounts of the world. I don't think that Aristotle's four cause analysis is very useful, really. It seems rather unfortunate to me that a lot of folks think it's a good idea, along with a ton of other Aristotle analysis. I think folks of his cultural stature (so also including philosophers like Plato, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, etc.) often get a break simply because of that cultural stature, where I think that a lot of their work should be fit for the garbage bin aside from it being a matter of historical curiosity (and sometimes entertaining because it's so ridiculous). We could do with more iconoclasm and less reverence. Plato, Aristotle, etc. were just guys with ideas and biases etc. like the rest of us.
Fair enough, thanks for clarifying.
But I don't require that intention be related to some mind, I told you this earlier, so I'm in more of a position similar to your beliefs. I associate intention with purpose though, as it is associated by common definition, and I see no reason why purpose requires a conscious mind. That was your claim, that you could not conceive of intention without a conscious mind, but I don't see the need for a conscious mind. I think that this restriction is brought about by habitual usage.
We so often hear, and use "intention" to refer to the conscious decision making of human beings, that this is the most common sense of the word. Since it's seldom used now, we've forgotten about the more general sense of the word, which allows that anything with purpose is intentional. So if we compare human beings with other creatures, we get a very vague boundary between self-conscious, conscious, and non-conscious living creatures, but purpose and intention crosses all these boundaries, such that they all act with purpose (final cause, intention). And, we can see that within the human being, intention crosses the boundary between conscious decision making, and subconscious acts. We are sufficiently habituated in our ways of acting, we just respond to the situations which we find ourselves in, without making conscious decisions, the acts are initiated by habit, but these acts are still intentional.
Intention is defined by purpose, and I see that living things in general, act with purpose. Purpose (intention, final cause) is inherent within living things, it is essential to life, and we don't need to assume that these things have a conscious mind to understand that, only that living beings act with purpose, intention. Conscious decision making is a highly developed form of intention.
Non-living things, such as a ball at the top of an incline, do not have intentions or act with purpose; yet they have final causes, such as coming to rest at the bottom of the incline.
I would not say that a ball which roles down a hill is caused to do this by a final cause. The religious way of thinking might assign this activity to the Will of God, but I would not, I would deny that there is any final cause here. The ball does not move down the hill because it wants to get to the bottom, it does so because of gravity. And if it did act from final cause, the bottom of the hill would not be "the end", because gravity "wants" the ball to move to the centre of the earth. But the ball is impeded from this end by other things which make up the composition of the earth itself. So if we look at gravity from the perspective of final cause, gravity wants many things to be in the same place at the same time, but this is impossible. Unless we can see some purpose to this, it doesn't really make sense to say that gravity "wants" this, so it doesn't make sense to say that this is a final cause. But that's why Aristotle identified different types of causation, it is probably more appropriate to speak of gravity in the sense of material cause.
I would, and so would others. Per Wikipedia, citing Edward Feser's book on Aquinas: "Finality thus understood is not purpose but that end towards which a thing is ordered. When a match is rubbed against the side of a matchbox, the effect is not the appearance of an elephant or the sounding of a drum, but fire. The effect is not arbitrary because the match is ordered towards the end of fire which is realized through efficient causes."
But the Thomistic tradition, which is what Feser refers to, assigns this final cause to the Will of God. When something like the ball on the hill is ordered towards an end, it is God who is doing this ordering. There is no such thing as "the ball being ordered to the bottom of the hill", except by the Will of God. If we remove the Will of God here, as you desire, there is no more final cause here. The claim of final cause is supported by the assumed Will of God.
In the case of the match, it is an artificial thing, created by human beings, so we can say that "the match is ordered towards the end of fire", by the will of the human being who struck the match. And the will of the human being who produced the match ensured that this would be the case. Again, without the will of the human being here, there is no final cause here.
The laws of nature are what order it toward that end. God is one explanation of those laws, but obviously not the only one. The final cause would still be there, even if it turned out that there is no God; belief in final causes does not entail theism. Final causation has to do with regularities in the universe, not just the intentions of intelligent agents.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, the match is ordered towards the end of fire by its chemical composition and the phenomenon of friction. After all, it is conceivable (though unlikely) that a match could be struck without any human involvement at all. Alternatively, think of a lightning strike in a dry forest - it is also ordered towards the end of fire by the laws of nature. With that in mind, are you prepared to say that the will of God is the final cause of all natural disasters?
Those who understand it as God ordering it to an end see it as final cause. Those who see it as the laws of nature, see it as efficient cause. There is no end to the laws of nature, efficient causation continues onward indefinitely. The hand strikes the match, the fire lights the cigarette, the man smokes the cigarette. The man dies from cancer. The body rots into the ground. None of these are ends.
Quoting aletheist But fire is no longer "the end". When you remove the intention you no longer have an end. The fire of the match lights something else, and so on. Sure you can say that the match is ordered toward the "end" of fire, but you are just imposing that judgement. It is not a description of what is really happening unless you allow that there is intention ordering the chemicals to an end. It is intention which produces the chemical composition, and intention lights the match. With that intention we have final cause. There is nothing about the chemical composition of the match which gives it an inherent "end" of fire, it could just as well get rained on and rot into the ground. "End" refers to the intended purpose.
If the same chemicals happened to come together to produce a match stick, without being produced by human intention, this would just be a case of efficient causation. There would be no final cause unless we said God did it. And if a match happens to catch fire by something other than being struck by a hand, this is just efficient causation in action. There is no final cause unless we say God did it. Final cause directs specific efficient causes toward ends. But without intention there is no such "directing", and no final cause.
I see it as the laws of nature, and I see it as final cause. If there were no final causes, then there could be no laws of nature - no predictable regularities in the universe. "Final causation without efficient causation is helpless; mere calling for parts is what a Hotspur, or any man, may do; but they will not come without efficient causation. Efficient causation without final causation, however, is worse than helpless, by far; it is mere chaos; and chaos is not even so much as chaos, without final causation; it is blank nothing." (Peirce)
On one level If the world is what appears, then its appearance is prior to being. The objects of our experience must be differentiated one from another and we are only able to do this cognitively after the in-fact of our experience of what is apparent. The separation of what is from what appears is a formal/mental/rational/essential distinction not a substantive distinction, the formal-essential distinction presupposes but does not have to conform to appearance.
The question would then be if the existence can be without its essense. My answer is no.
Quoting schopenhauer1
What do you mean by this? Do you imply that essense of a human being is a language?
Quoting schopenhauer1
I disagree with the example used here. A table is not alive, is not living. Therefore I don't see a reason to use it as an example.
An essense of a human being is what makes us human. This essense is individual. We could say that a person is a person when he/she is alive. We cannot say the same about a dead corpse, that is no longer a living person. Person's essense is no longer present and therefore it is just a dead corpse.
Doesn't this simply affirm that the object in question must exist before any sentient being could identify its essence?
How does this refute the statement that existence precedes essence?
I think the problem of transformation could be avoided if we simply say that an object which has undergone some form of transformation is no longer the same object but a different one.
In your example, a railroad spike has an essence of being spiky, while its molten form would simply be a different object whose essence is its liquidity or whatever.
That's an interesting question.
Quoting Cavacava
I'd say a railroad spike is merely an object occupying some portion of space at some point in time having the property of "spikiness'' which we call its "essence".
I don't see why the story of how this essence came about is necessary for identifying the essence itself. But yeah, if you go about trying to explain how the essence of the spike came to be, then you would find that the essence of a hammer or some similar essence must precede it in terms of time.
I think this is an important point. As much as I love some of the old masters, they could not have foreseen the 21st century that I walk, live, and breath in. Presumably the famous old masters became distinct, noteworthy philosophers precisely by absorbing and transcending what preceded them, which would of course require irreverence. If they broke new paths altogether, then this too required irreverence or perhaps even ignorance of what came before. Life is our primary object of study. Books, no matter how valuable, come second.
Thanks.
Problems related to this arise with a "citation/precedence" culture, too. Although folks will overtly say they know this is a fallacy, there's a tendency in practice to believe that something is better-supported and more plausible just because someone else--especially someone famous, noteworthy, well-respected or influential--said it before.
That's not to suggest that citations have no use, of course, but the mere fact that someone said something that we agree with or that our view is (historically) popular is not at all a support of any view.