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The "thing in itself" isn't properly a real metaphysical pose, but a grammatical one. We can think about and describe the thing in itself (absolute), or the thing in relation (relative). We think about and can describe all things in these ways.Does anything exist in-itself?
It can mean that. The instance is the freeze-frame, a snap-shot of a pose. The instance in itself can still be put in relation, though.Is the instance of a thing equivalent to the essence of the thing in-itself?
That's a beautiful image. I think they can and do, but what emerges has its own essence apart from anything else.Can instances integrate in such a way that an essence emerges?
Instants are significant to astrology--specifically, to significance. The "coming together" you described of instances to pose essence is the image painted in the symbols of each astrological chart, made starkly obvious in the hoarary (the chart of this moment).In what other ways could the relation between an instance and an essence be understood?
The "thing in itself" isn't properly a real metaphysical pose, but a grammatical one. We can think about and describe the thing in itself (absolute), or the thing in relation (relative). We think about and can describe all things in these ways.
It can mean that. The instance is the freeze-frame, a snap-shot of a pose. The instance in itself can still be put in relation, though.
That's a beautiful image. I think they can and do, but what emerges has its own essence apart from anything else.
None, but that doesn't prevent it from being what we mean with our words when we de-scribe. We pose it with words, like a sculptor's stick man. We pose instance, we pose essence. We scuplt 'the world' out of base existence, and then step into the script.What evidence is there of an emerging essence beyond what we think and describe?
Aristotle, who brought us the identity, specified his rules as those of thought, word and meaning. Metaphysics since then has been altered by men with words.Assuming an essential reality or identity seems to be an anthropocentric illusion.
I think there's an important lacking component in the accounts of Kant and others who rightly noted that a separation or distinction between the a word or construction used to refer to a thing-in-itself and it's "absolute or essential reality" (alternatively, the distinction and divorce between language and the objective reality we describe with it). Namely, words/terms/etc. are imperfect representation of their referents, but they are also imperfect expressions of concepts. We might even think of subjective experience as a kind of network of some sort in which exists the subjective sense of self (the first-person perspective; the "I/me" or "mind"), the concepts that we have about the world, the language we use to express these concepts, and the reality we relate via our imperfect expressions of our approximate/imperfect concepts to as mediated by our sense of self/first-person ("I/me") perspective.We may describe a thing-in-itself using absolute terms, but the terms themselves do not reveal an absolute or essential reality.
None, but that doesn't prevent it from being what we mean with our words when we de-scribe. We pose it with words, like a sculptor's stick man. We pose instance, we pose essence. We scuplt 'the world' out of base existence, and then step into the script.
What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions, and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously. A convention is a social convenience, as, for example, money ... but it is absurd to take money too seriously, to confuse it with real wealth ... In somewhat the same way, thoughts, ideas and words are "coins" for real things. ~Alan Watts
Aristotle, who brought us the identity, specified his rules as those of thought, word and meaning. Metaphysics since then has been altered by men with words.
If I did the same thing with botany, my conceptions of "weeds", "flowers", etc., would likewise change as I began to associate to instances of the concepts more and more particulars and divide them by and according to increasingly "finer" and numerous concepts and the corresponding lexical expressions of these.
In other words, the ways in which language, concepts, and the sense of self/first-person ("I/me") perspective interact are quite intricate, but all of them share a separation from objective reality. So on the one hand we have this complex set of relations and mediations through which we organize and conceptualize our experiences and perceptions, and on the other a strict division between the entirety of these interacting components and "the-things-themselves".
There is no essence.Does anything exist in-itself?
Is the instance of a thing equivalent to the essence of the thing in-itself?
Can instances integrate in such a way that an essence emerges?
In what other ways could the relation between an instance and an essence be understood?
There is no essence.
I observed closely, and found no such thing.
There is only experience, which can be divided into meaningful and meaningless. Everything is basically meaningless, and we apply description/meaning on top of it. This is simple common sense.Can you deduce any useful principles from your observation ?
Does anything exist in-itself?
Is the instance of a thing equivalent to the essence of the thing in-itself?
Can instances integrate in such a way that an essence emerges?
In what other ways could the relation between an instance and an essence be understood?
To me, an instance and it essence are two different things. For example: and single individual is an instance of a human being. Essence is that individual's characteristics plus the way in which he interacts with others.. Otherwise, did I miss something about the purpose of this question?