In a message dated 7/29/12 11:48:57 AM, [email protected] writes:
> To me , the essence of the human form is one that has > been recognized on first glance from time immemorial. > Tall / fat / thin / > short / all / Races / old / young / even as > a skeleton. And yet no two are alike, > like snow flakes. > Realize, Mando, that others might dispute this. For one thing, it's unclear how your notion of "form" differs from your notion of "essence". For another they might say your notion of form is different from theirs -- e.g. they might say their idea of the form of that 700 pound lady who waq in the news last week "differs essentially" from the form of Nicole Kidman or the form of Mahatma Ghandi. There may be underlying skeletal similarities, but the "form" they are struck by, that commands their eye, is much more a result of flesh than bone. My own position is that such things as "essences" and "forms" are solely mental inventions. You're entitled to your personal notion of "THE essence" of something, but it does not "correspond to" some entity -- the thing you call 'essence -- in the mind-independent world. When Saul says "I do not think there is any essential difference between one human and another," my mind shouts that it feels there is something very "essentially" different between Ted Bundy and Mother Teresa, or between Adolf Hitler and Martin Luther King. I'm aware the response might come that they're all human beings, but I reply that it's an arbitrary fiat, a mental figment, to declare that being of the same species is more "essential" than whether or not one is a mass murderer. When I consider a radical Muslim who wants to kill my wife and children solely because they are infidels, that difference from me "feels" (and that's all we're talking about here) more essential than that the radical and I are both humans. Again: The alleged "essences" are totally mental concoctions; so, though you're entitled to your own personal evaluations/preferences/focuses, it's an error to talk of one thing's being objectively, "really", more "essential" than another.
