Hi David --
Ham to Marsha:
A true metaphysics, in my opinion, is a cogent concept that
explains the origin and purpose of existence as it relates to
ultimate Reality.
In essence then you are taking on the internationally renown
uber-reductionist scientist Richard Dawkins who in his magum
opus: "The Ancestor's Tale- A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of
Evolution," we read:
"Ernst Mayr, distinguished elder statesman of twentieth-century
evolution, has blamed the delusion of discontinuity-under its
philosophical name of Essentialism-as the main reason why
evolutionary understanding came so late in human history.
Plato, whose philosophy can be seen as an inspiration for
Essentialism, believed that actual things are imperfect versions
of an ideal archtype of their kind......."
He concludes this background info with a this single sentence paragraph:
"There is no such thing as essence." ...
Good luck with that one Ham.
Why should I have to contend with Dawkins, a biologist who (like many here)
is obsessed with the notion that Creationism somehow has a stranglehold on
scientific investigation? Of what metaphysical significance is the fact
that Dawkins took four pages of his postmodern Pilgrim's Progress to argue
that "there is no essence"? Better that he had used that space to explain
why there is no nothingness. Or, how it is that we are free to believe in a
primary source or not.
I am neither a creationist nor a platonist. Plato believed that "essence"
was the ideal form or cause of a thing, apart from its being. His protégé
Aristotle suggested that the ideal is to be found in the thing's being
itself, which led to the plurality of "essences".
The Essence of my philosophy is the uncreated Absolute Source from which
relational existence is experientially derived. So Essentialism has very
little in common with these ontologies.
At least Robert Pirsig demonstrated that experienced Value is the
metaphysical ground of existence.
On that we both agree.
Best regards,
Ham
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