Greetings, Platt --
Been awhile since I asked about your philosophy. I know you've missed my questions. :-)
No, I just assumed you had all the answers. :-)
Can Essence be known (realized) without a sensible agent?
Known, knowing, and knowledge are words I reserve for subjective awareness. "Realization" is perhaps a better term for the awareness of value, but it is still dichotomous in that it requires an 'other' as the referent. I gave this lots of thought while developing my ontology, and concluded that "esthesis" best expressed the absolute, undifferentiated sensibility of Essence. (Runes defines esthesis as "a state of pure feeling characterized by the absence of conceptual and interpretational elements.") But, since esthesis is not a word used in common parlance, I settled for Sensibility in my thesis -- hence, the sensibility/otherness dichotomy.
I don't believe the finite mind is capable of comprehending "absoluteness" or describing the nature of its sensibility. However, I am convinced that Essence incorporates absolute sensibility, whatever that may suggest in finite understanding.
What motivated Essence to create us agents of itself?
Again, motivation is a causal term that I'm not comfortable applying to the potentiality of Essence. What Essence IS is manifested in what it actualizes (in existence). Also, I believe the individual self is an agent of Value (a manifested other), not Essence per se. Since Essence is indivisible, nothing that is manifested in existence can be "essential", and that includes selfness. Value comes closest to being an "attributive quality" of Essence, but we can only sense it differentially and experience it objectively.
If what you're really asking is, Why are value agents created?, it is my theory that only an agent that stands apart from Essence can realize its value as an other. This independent realization, in what I surmise may be a "cosmic principle", completes or "perfects" Essence. Each of us turns value into a reality that is our universe, incrementally reclaiming this value for ourselves. Inasmuch as we are essentially value-sensibility, whatever survives biological life can only relate to the value of Essence.
Hint: Page 79 of my book (particularly the last paragraph) addresses value in this context somewhat more comprehensively. I think you might benefit by reading it.
Always happy to answer your questions on Essentialism, Platt -- even those that stretch my metaphysical competence.
Warmest regards, Ham Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
