11
votes
Is the dichotomy between natural and unnatural defensible?
Natural is one of those words that fit the description of what John Austin called trouser-words in his book Sense and Sensibilia. Sometimes you can only understand a word by reference to what it is ...
- 22.9k
8
votes
Accepted
What is put on what (the mayo or the eggs) and why?
Narrowly construed the OP question is easy to answer and is not really philosophical, it concerns the colloquial semantics of "put X on Y". According to which, whatever goes on top or on the surface ...
- 42.5k
7
votes
Accepted
Do stories contain "Meta-truth"? Jordan Peterson
Peterson holds a specific (minority) theory of Jungianism, and how and why it works, defended in Maps of Meaning. But his POV includes basic Jungian principles. The point for most Jungians about ...
- 1,098
6
votes
How can Marx be a materialist yet still speak of a human "essence" in his theory of alienation?
One should keep in mind two points. First, historical materialism in its traditional form is later Marx, taking final shape in Das Kapital, the theory of alienation is young Hegelian Marx of 1844 ...
- 42.5k
6
votes
Is the hard problem of consciousness really a problem?
Yes, it's a problem because we don't have a satisfactory explanation for how consciousness arises from the physical events in our brains. Saying that consciousness is essential for the Universe comes ...
- 13.5k
5
votes
Is the dichotomy between natural and unnatural defensible?
This transparently is a philosophical question, because of the appeal-to-nature fallacy. Also the state of nature plays a key role in social contract theory, as pictured contrastingly by Hobbes & ...
- 20.5k
5
votes
What does the "essence of time" mean for Merleau-Ponty?
Merleau-Ponty is a phenomenologist so his received view is "essence" in a Husserlian sense, as the ideal core of an intentional object, see What does Husserl mean by essences? However, he is also an ...
- 42.5k
5
votes
Are there secular philosophers who argue for predetermined and given meaning/value in life and essentialism?
Yes, there are such thinkers. I will mention four of them.
One is Rene Guenon. He was a French philosopher from the 20th century, and he went against the grain of moderns thought as such. He thought ...
- 1,265
5
votes
Is the “essence” of a category in philosophy vacuous?
The esse or ousia (?) of things allows distinctions to be made between x and not x. So if the essence of a chair is something to sit on then a nail with its business end pointed upward is not a chair. ...
- 3,206
4
votes
Sartre on essence
According to Sartre, humans are the only beings that don't have an
essence
It is an imprecise, maybe wrong statement, Sartre never said that. For Sartre, humans are devoid of (contact with) Being, ...
- 420
4
votes
Accepted
Sartre on essence
To understand how Sartre could ever say something like this, we need to look at an important pair of German philosophers and one Dane (actually we could probably find many more important people in ...
- 24.6k
4
votes
Accepted
Does Spinoza's God have an essence?
See Spinoza's Theory of Attributes and Spinoza's Modal Metaphysics.
Spinoza defines the term “attribute” thus: “By attribute I understand what the intellect perceives of substance as constituting its ...
- 36.2k
4
votes
Is the dichotomy between natural and unnatural defensible?
Short Answer
Instead of addressing your specific question, let's generalize, so that you might understand the larger picture. Is any dichotomy in language defensible? Yes and no. Sometimes. Maybe. ...
- 22.9k
4
votes
Is an equal outcome necessary to differentiate between equity and equality?
Your question supposes that equity and equality have precise meanings, which is not true. Words mean what people take them to mean, so you might take the word equality to mean something subtly ...
- 13.5k
3
votes
Is the dichotomy between natural and unnatural defensible?
Historically, most people considered that humans occupied a special place in the world. Western religions taught that humans were created in God's image and were endowed with unique traits. Prior to ...
- 1,148
3
votes
What is the anti-thesis of Existentialism?
On a historical level, the answer to your question will depend on the existentialist you are looking at.
We often credit Kierkegaard as being the first existentialist, in which case the answer to your ...
2
votes
Accepted
Origins of the reflection of knowledge, lately known as Epistemology
Epistemology, as systematic reflection on knowledge, is traced back to Aristotle who was the first to discourse explicitly about logic, e.g. how some true propositions are obtained from others and ...
- 3,684
2
votes
What is put on what (the mayo or the eggs) and why?
It depends on how you did it. If you had eggs on your plate and then dumped usage of some mayo on top of them then it's "you put mayo on your eggs". If you had some mayo on your plate and dropped the ...
- 392
2
votes
Does Spinoza think essence and eternity are the same thing?
No, except if you are willing to apply some twists to his writings. From late antiquity scholastics adopted a distinction between "perpetuity" and "eternity"; much has been ...
- 3,684
2
votes
Is the dichotomy between natural and unnatural defensible?
The most fundamental opposition between natural and unnatural is purely logical. Once you have a notion of natural, you have a notion of not natural, i.e., unnatural.
The question, then, is whether ...
- 6,241
2
votes
How does Spinoza deduce substance must cause itself?
Implicit in Spinoza's argument is that stuff actually exists. This was proven by Descartes when he said "I think therefore I am". At the very least, I exist, so stuff actually exists.
If ...
- 261
2
votes
Accepted
Does Phenomenology Reject The Existence of Mediating Concepts?
Your two questions are similar in nature and the your intuition seems more or less correct that most modern phenomenologists hold the position of some types of direct realism (naive, enactivism, ...
- 3,843
2
votes
What is the anti-thesis of Existentialism?
Philosophies generally don't have Hegelian antitheses -- they are too diverse and particualr.
But the closest to the existentialist focus on a) experienced life, b) human agency, and c) an open future,...
- 10.6k
1
vote
Is the dichotomy between natural and unnatural defensible?
In one sense, something manufactured since it is possible (evidently) and was made using natural things, isn't itself also natural? This is a point made.
Something that cannot even exist because of ...
- 2,143
1
vote
Accepted
How did the existence-essence distinction help Aquinas explain finite being?
Thesis 3 of the 24 Thomistic Theses:
Wherefore, in the exclusive domain of existence itself God alone subsists, He alone is the most simple. Everything else, which participates in existence, has a ...
- 7,817
1
vote
Essentialism as Philosophical Substrate of Realpolitik?
You're right, it's not very clear, and "essentialism" is a pretty broad term. It is basically the idea that things have essential properties that define and determine them, in addition to &...
- 13.3k
1
vote
Do stories contain "Meta-truth"? Jordan Peterson
The term “Meta-truth” has entered into our world of semantics and is here to stay.
The reason? It meets Judge Learned Hand’s standard of discovering “simplicity on the far side of complexity.” When ...
- 11
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