[Serious] Thomism: Then & Now

[Belacqua]

OK, so let's say that these properties, characteristics, attributes etc. = essence.  Essence, therefore is the sum of the descriptors... information.

There's the thing (existing) and there's the information about the thing (essence).

OK, I'll have to ponder this some more. 

At the moment, I think you're talking about a description of the essence, but not the essence itself.

For example, it is a part of Socrates' essence that he can learn languages. (This is sort of a classic example.) So this ability is a part of his essence. But an ability is not information. It can not be transferred down a wire or communicated through smoke signals. Socrates' essence includes rationality. But rationality is not information, I think. 

I can describe a very large set of things which are essential to Socrates, but this description is not the essence itself. 

But I welcome additional input on the problem.

[DLJ]

...
At the moment, I think you're talking about a description of the essence, but not the essence itself.

For example, it is a part of Socrates' essence that he can learn languages. (This is sort of a classic example.) So this ability is a part of his essence. But an ability is not information. It can not be transferred down a wire or communicated through smoke signals. Socrates' essence includes rationality. But rationality is not information, I think. 

I can describe a very large set of things which are essential to Socrates, but this description is not the essence itself. 

But I welcome additional input on the problem.

Are there any of this "very large set of things which are essential to Socrates" that are unique to Socrates?

Other people can be language-learners and rational, other platypodes/platypuses have beaks and tails, so do birds.

Maybe I'm being overly-pedantic-semantic regarding the word 'properties'.

[Belacqua]

Are there any of this "very large set of things which are essential to Socrates" that are unique to Socrates?

Other people can be language-learners and rational, other platypodes/platypuses have beaks and tails, so do birds.

Interesting question...

I'm guessing that most of what is unique to a given person (including Socrates) will be accident rather than essence. So his location at a given moment, or his list of lovers, or his eccentric tattoo, would be unique but not part of his essence.

What's unique about his essence would be the exact combination of non-unique features. But I think that human beings all share a kind of essence, which is what makes us things of the same type. And maybe, come to think of it, mammals also share mammal-essence, etc. 

I recently had a run-in with someone else about the communicability of essence, by the way. There's a Japanese professor of the philosophy of art who claims that the purpose of art is to depict the essence of the thing depicted. So Van Gogh's sunflowers are great (he says) because they communicate the essence of sunflower-ness. 

I argued against him, saying that it may appear this way, just because Van Gogh's depiction is so powerful and persuasive that we believe it is a true and essential depiction. But that in fact, what he's showing us is not the essence of the thing seen but a record of his own impression. We are seeing a sort of dialectic of the material paint and Van Gogh's inner phenomenal reception of the sunflowers. So I argued that if Gauguin were standing next to him painting the same flowers, the paintings would both be wonderful but would also look quite different, and that this means one of them would have to be incorrect about what the essence is. I don't think the essence of anything can be boiled down in this way, to something showable or transmittable.

[vulcanlogician]

You must have missed the chair thread.

[Angrboda]

I'm sympathetic to DLJ's point. If properties and the essence of a thing were in the thing itself, then a hundred thalers and a non-existent hundred thalers would have different properties. The non-existent hundred thalers would have no properties, as something that doesn't exist has no properties. But can we say that a nonexistent hundred thalers has no properties?

[DLJ]

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I don't think the essence of anything can be boiled down in this way, to something showable or transmittable.

How about to something receivable?

Art is in the eye of the beholder, perhaps?

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

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I don't think the essence of anything can be boiled down in this way, to something showable or transmittable.

How about to something receivable?

Art is in the eye of the beholder, perhaps?

 Are we REALLY gonna talk about what makes art and what makes good art?

During the renaissance, artists used The Golden Mean .(1.61803399) This ratio was thought to be most pleasing to the eye.

Recently a bloke was given a $5000 art grant. He submitted a blank canvas entitled " Take the money and run". Art? Yeah, I think so. I like Banksy too. Good draughtsman, may have done a course in commercial art, but what do I know..

I've seen the Mona Lisa in the Louvre:  bleh.

Also The Sistine chapel, being allowed to lie on the floor looking at it for half an hour. (this was only a few months after it had been cleaned) Wonderful.  Also Michelangelo's  Pieta and Medici tombs in St Peter's. Also David.  All sublime.

Also an original Sunflowers by Van Gogh. Love it. Love pretty much all of the major French impressionist, and even the odd minor one.  Really like some modern fauvist art. Wonderful use of colour.

Blue Poles  Knocked my socks off.  Great abstract painting is bloody hard, I've tried it. Best I've done so far is not terrible. 

Have been reduced to tears only once by a work of art:  A sculpture of Mary Magdalene in wood by Donatello.   It's in Florence, I forget exactly where.

I really dislike moist performance and installation art. And most modern sculpture which has used wire and or a blow torch.

 I don't have the arrogance to say what makes art or what makes good art.   But, following the  notion that objects have no intrinsic value, I don't agree that any work of art is work even hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

The most I've ever paid for a work of art is $70. It's a nineteenth century Japanese woodblock print. Cost that much again to have it properly framed. Almost all the paintings on my walls are my own. Yes, they're art in my opinion. As for good art, not so much

[vulcanlogician]

I appreciate Belacqua's thoughts on art.

Here is a thread he created a while back wherin he defends the position that objective valuations can be made of art.

Some clear thinking is done in this thread. I felt out of my league, so I just lurked. It's a bit off the topic for this thread, though. Isn't it interesting to see how discussions about metaphysics can drift into discussions of valuation (and vice versa)?

For those unaware, Belacqua is a an artist. He did an awesome picture of Diotima pointing up in the air like Plato which I love. I saved it to my computer and enjoy looking it over from time to time.

[Belacqua]

...
I don't think the essence of anything can be boiled down in this way, to something showable or transmittable.

How about to something receivable?

I can see what I have to work on now! I'll have to do more reading on essence, and what exactly is meant to be happening in the Second Way. 

It's tempting to think that essence is information, because that would be graspable by us moderns. And we are accustomed to the idea of information (e.g. a blueprint or code) manifesting itself and getting changed into something concrete. At the same time, I'm wary of translations like this -- ancient concepts that slot too easily into modern grooves. 

Partly I want to make sure we don't conflate essence with form. In the Aristotelian system, form is a kind of information, I think. So that when we perceive something, we get the form of the thing mentally without its material substance (which wouldn't fit in our skulls). But form would only be part of the essence, I'm pretty sure. But I confess I'm working on the fly here, and need to study up.

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It's a nineteenth century Japanese woodblock print. 

Ukiyo-e is wonderful! And about the only genre left where non-zillionaires can still get top-quality stuff. I'll bet you got a good one!

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Here is a thread he created a while back wherin he defends the position that objective valuations can be made of art.

This thread was really useful for me. Looking back, its conclusions seem sort of self-evident, but it took a lot of work to get there. It's nice to think that discussions here can help so much.

Diotima pointing up in the air like Plato which I love. I saved it to my computer and enjoy looking it over from time to time.

It's kind of you to remember my Diotima picture. Every time I have a show I decide I'm not ready to part with her, and put on a ridiculously high price tag, so she's still with me here. 

By the way, I'm pretty sure that Neo is a painter, also. And from the glimpse of his work that I saw apparently a really good one. 

Maybe doing art all day disposes one to metaphysics?

[vulcanlogician]

How about to something receivable?

I can see what I have to work on now! I'll have to do more reading on essence, and what exactly is meant to be happening in the Second Way. 

It's tempting to think that essence is information, because that would be graspable by us moderns. And we are accustomed to the idea of information (e.g. a blueprint or code) manifesting itself and getting changed into something concrete. At the same time, I'm wary of translations like this -- ancient concepts that slot too easily into modern grooves.

I don't think I can resist the temptation to think like a moderner. I want to have a clear understanding of what Aquinas meant, of course. I don't want to conflate his ideas with modern notions.

But at the same time, modern science and ancient/medieval philosophers are involved in the same project: understanding reality. One must admit, on some fronts, modern science has advanced our understanding in ways that exceed medieval understanding. That's not to say Aquinas can't be relevant. Plato and Seneca had an understanding of things that holds up today.

I think the question on my mind is: does the Aristotelian understanding of motion/change conflict with modern science's understanding of those phenomena? If it doesn't, fine. Aquinas is speaking of something deeper. If it does conflict, then I want to say Aquinas's ideas need to be reworked to conform with science... or dismissed as error... whichever is most appropriate.