Talk:Essence/Archives/2016

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Grammar: shouldn't the word 'contingency' in the fourth line be an adverb – 'contingently'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.147.242.105 (talk) 02:56, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

I changed "refuted" to "repudiated" as Sartre assumes free will is true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.59.8 (talk) 10:20, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

In the first couple paragraphs, the origin of the word "essentia" is mentioned twice. recommend fixing the redundancy.

("his phrase presented such difficulties for his Latin translators that they coined the word essentia to represent the whole expression" and "The English word "essence" comes from the Latin essentia, which was coined (from the Latin esse, "to be") by ancient Roman scholars in order to translate the Ancient Greek phrase to ti ēn einai (literally, "what it is for a thing to be"), coined by Aristotle to denote a thing's essence.") —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.161.14.110 (talk) 03:20, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Why is the "gold" example superior to my plant/leaves example? Frankly, I think its quite dubious. So far as I can tell gold, in Aristotelean terms, wouldn't be a substance at all. The whole of the planet is a substance, and the various minerals to be found therein are its properties. The only substances proper that are smaller than a planet are living organisms, because organisms have mechanisms for self-preservation. Rocks don't.--Christofurio 15:17, Jun 24, 2004 (UTC)

Hi--thanks for the criticism on my shifting of examples. The main reason I shifted the example was simply to pick one out for consistency with accident (philosophy) (which I dashed off before I read essence). But it wasn't quite just a matter of making a Buridan's ass of myself. There are some specific

In particular: "having roots" is *not* an essential property of plants as such--there are plants (unicellular plants, bryophytes) with no roots--and insofar as it is essential property of particular species of plants, it's essential in a rather peculiar sense. You can certainly get individual plants to survive qua plants, for a while at least, even without any roots--just cut off the roots and stick the stem in a cup of water, and add the appropriate nutrients as necessary. The mutilated plant would survive for a while, and while it survived, it wouldn't have ceased to be a plant--much less ceased to be. I think it's right to say that there's a teleological sense--one which Aristotle would find quite congenial--in which you can say that having roots is an essential property of certain species of plants (just as having four legs is part of the teleological essence of rabbits, even though Mrs. Muff over there may have tragically lost one of her legs without ceasing to be a rabbit). But in that case the counterexample of leaves is inadmissible, since by that standard leaves are no less part of the teleological essence of these particular species of plants than roots are. In any case, relying on such teleological necessities plunges us into much deeper and stormier philosophical waters than we may want for the purposes of a quick example.

As for the question of whether gold counts as an Aristotelian substance or not, I don't know why it wouldn't. "Gold" isn't primary substance of course, because primary substances are particulars and "gold" is a natural kind, not a particular. But as I understand Aristotle there is no trouble in speaking of gold as a kind (form) of substance, just as "man", "frog", "grass", etc. are, such that you can (e.g.) say "This gold is metallic" (indicating an ingot on the table), and succeed in having predicated an (essential) property of a substance. I'm not sure at all how the presence or absence of mechanisms for self-preservation is salient. (Of course, I may very well be mistaken, and if so look forward to being corrected.)

Hope this helps. Let me know if this has helped to clarify, or only to muddify. Radgeek 21:06, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Is this article sufficiently long that it no longer merits a stub notice? --Christofurio 00:32, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)