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Essential vs. Fundamental

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What exactly is the difference between the two concepts? I've looked in ITOE and OPAR and am still confused.

 

From ITOE:

 

Metaphysically, a fundamental characteristic is that distinctive characteristic which makes the greatest number of others possible; epistemologically, it is the one that explains the greatest number of others.

 

Directly after is this explanation:

 

For instance, one could observe that man is the only animal who speaks English, wears wristwatches, flies airplanes, manufactures lipstick, studies geometry, reads newspapers, writes poems, darns socks, etc. None of these is an essential characteristic: none of them explains the others; none of them applies to all men; omit any or all of them, assume a man who has never done any of these things, and he will still be a man. But observe that all these activities (and innumerable others) require a conceptual grasp of reality, that an animal would not be able to understand them, that they are the expressions and consequences of man’s rational faculty, that an organism without that faculty would not be a man—and you will know why man’s rational faculty is his essential distinguishing and defining characteristic.

 

So is man's conceptual faculty metaphysically fundamental (because it makes those other characteristics possible) or epistemologically fundamental (because it explains those other characteristics) or is it both?

 

Can anyone think of a characteristic that is metaphysically fundamental but not epistemologically (or vice versa)? I'm having a hard time coming up with examples to concretize her point.

 

And where does the concept 'essential' fit into all of this?

 

From ITOE:

 

the essence of a concept is that fundamental characteristic(s) of its units on which the greatest number of other characteristics depend, and which distinguishes these units from all other existents within the field of a man’s knowledge.

 

So something is only essential when it is both fundamental and distinguishing? What could be an example of a characteristic that is fundamental but non-distinguishing?

 

:confused:

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I do not know why you use terms like "metaphysically fundamental" and "epistemologically fundamental".  The quote simply says (and you may need to imagine replacing man with some other thing) that you can observe a random number of characteristics of a kind of thing which characteristics are themselves not fundamental or distinguishing but which are a result of other fundamental and distinguishing characteristics of the kind of thing.

 

 

This is consistent with your last quote: the essence of a concept consists of the characteristics of the unit which are both fundamental and distinguishing.

 

Something the units of a concept possesses are characteristics some of which are fundamental some are not, some of which are distinguishing, some of which are not.  The essence of the concept (here anyway) is defined as the collection of those characteristics which are both fundamental to the units and distinguish the units.

 

 

In some ways Man being a living thing is fundamental... the choice to live or die is important to what a Man is... but such a characteristic is not distinguishing as against other living things, so the essence of man does not really include that he is alive and can die.  Which is why in the particular example re. the concept Man, Rand chooses "rational faculty" as the essence.

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I do not know why you use terms like "metaphysically fundamental" and "epistemologically fundamental".  The quote simply says (and you may need to imagine replacing man with some other thing) that you can observe a random number of characteristics of a kind of thing which characteristics are themselves not fundamental or distinguishing but which are a result of other fundamental and distinguishing characteristics of the kind of thing.

 

 

This is consistent with your last quote: the essence of a concept consists of the characteristics of the unit which are both fundamental and distinguishing.

 

Something the units of a concept possesses are characteristics some of which are fundamental some are not, some of which are distinguishing, some of which are not.  The essence of the concept (here anyway) is defined as the collection of those characteristics which are both fundamental to the units and distinguish the units.

 

 

In some ways Man being a living thing is fundamental... the choice to live or die is important to what a Man is... but such a characteristic is not distinguishing as against other living things, so the essence of man does not really include that he is alive and can die.  Which is why in the particular example re. the concept Man, Rand chooses "rational faculty" as the essence.

 

OK this was very helpful, thank you. Particularly the example of life/death being fundamental but not essential to the concept man. It seems like I often become confused on an issue that I had no problem with previously. Does it sound right to say that 'fundamentality' denotes a hierarchical connection between two or more attributes and 'essentiality' references only a specific fundamental characteristic which is defined contextually (by the need to distinguish from other existents)?

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Often times, Rand explained her philosophical terms on the assumption that the reader understood how the terms were/are used by other philosophers.  To understand her position on "essence" it's helpful if you understand how other philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Hume, etc.) used the same/similar term.

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Often times, Rand explained her philosophical terms on the assumption that the reader understood how the terms were/are used by other philosophers.  To understand her position on "essence" it's helpful if you understand how other philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Hume, etc.) used the same/similar term.

 

Yes, I agree that would be helpful. It's not so much her use of it that was confusing me but rather that the two words were basically synonymous in my mind.

 

 

The reason for formulating and distinguishing the fundamental characteristic from essential characteristics is that the fundamental characteristic is the one used in the definition of the concept.  

 

I think that's right but switched! The essential characteristic is the distinguishing fundamental characteristic and the one used as the differentia in a definition.

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In some ways Man being a living thing is fundamental... the choice to live or die is important to what a Man is... but such a characteristic is not distinguishing as against other living things, so the essence of man does not really include that he is alive and can die.  Which is why in the particular example re. the concept Man, Rand chooses "rational faculty" as the essence.

This makes sense, but the quote says "distinctive characteristic which makes the greatest number of others possible". So the choice to live doesn't explain the greatest number of others - it's not fundamental. I think Rand uses "essence" and "fundamental" as synonyms, but there may be small differences in usage.

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  • 2 weeks later...

  • " The old, scholastic type is induction by ―simple enumeration.‖

    16 It is not a 

    useful method because the resulting notion has no applicability beyond the observed 

    instances. The notion refers only to the particulars that went into its construction. The 

    problem, Bacon says, is that this method does not identify the underlying form. "

  •  
    "What does Bacon mean by form? He uses the word in two senses ... the limitation by which something is a species of a higher-level genus"
  •  
    "The second sense is more like "cause.‘ He calls it a law20 and describes it as something‘s ―causative nature or the source 

    of its coming-to-be.‖

  •  
    "But Bacon does not mean us to understand form as two distinct concepts. For him, form is both essence and cause"
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