Questions tagged [essence]
The essence tag has no usage guidance.
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Did Aristotle think that essence and existence are the same thing or that they are different things?
What did Aristotle think about this distinction?
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Could, "If X is red, X has a coloration," possibly be not true like, "Cucumbers are vegetables," is not strictly true?
I just watched this video, I thought it was a joke video at first, but it turned out to be an explanation as to why the metaphysical concept of "vegetables" is not scientifically stable, and ...
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Aquinas on the relation between essence, being, and existence
In Summa Contra Gentiles 2.9.4, Aquinas writes
Just as active power is something acting, so is its essence something
being [Sicut potentia activa est aliquid agens, ita essentia eius est aliquid ens]....
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Can obligations be substances/objects?
Background idea: H. A. Prichard's following thesis:
Prichard’s second argument is equally idiosyncratic. We can have an obligation to do an action long before the action is done. If so, the ...
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Is the hard problem of consciousness really a problem? [closed]
If consciousness is essential to the universe then there is no problem.
Integrated information theory posits that consciousness and its causal properties are identical. Leibniz's principle of ...
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Are natural rights embedded in essentialism?
Natural rights are the idea in which human beings are owners of certain rights by nature, by the fact that they are born humans. That being said, one should be able to determine whether something is ...
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Is the “essence” of a category in philosophy vacuous?
Some philosophers, to my agreement, argue that the concept of a rock for example is merely an abstraction that strips away the difference between particulars belonging to the category “rock”. In ...
user62907
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Essentialism and concepts
I've been reading an old logic text (Deductive Logic. George Stock. 1888) and he describes something very like Aristotle's notion of a definition, but in his description, it is clearly a matter of ...
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Philosophers who explore the importance of history/culture giving us meaning in life?
Take the example of the concept of 'femininity':
An existentialist thinker might suggest the meaning of femininity is completely subjective and one must decide the meaning of femininity for themselves ...
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What is the anti-thesis of Existentialism?
Existentialism represents a turning away from systematic philosophy (with its emphasis on metaphysical absolutes and principles of rational certainty) and toward an emphasis on the concrete existence ...
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Are there secular philosophers who argue for predetermined and given meaning/value in life and essentialism?
In continental philosophy particularly existentialism, thinkers reject the idea that there are any predetermined or given meanings/values in life, and stresses that we must take up our freedom and ...
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Is an equal outcome necessary to differentiate between equity and equality?
Based on the answer provided here, it seems to me that when the word "equity" is used in relation to "equality," an equal outcome is necessary in order to differentiate between ...
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The necessity of shine in Hegel's Logic
In the Doctrine of Essence Hegel begins with shine [schein] as
"all that remains of the sphere of being" (WL, p.342).
He further qualifies it as a
"nothingness or a lack of essence......
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Buckets of twater
I was reading through the SEP article on the epistemology of modality, which prompted my initial question:
Is, "Water is H2O," currently falsifiable?
Or are we now in a position where, if ...
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No change can be responsible for an essence ceasing to exist?
Essences - assuming there are no bare essences - of things that exist, exist forever.
I think so, and I even have my own most argument for it below. Which philosophers agree or disagree? It may have ...
user57725