Essences as ontological or epistemological

Metaphysics and Epistemology
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Alright. I adopted Objectivism some years ago as an all-around world view when I became interested in philosophy and metaphysics. Unfortunately, I never had to make use of this forum, but now I do need help.

I find that the Objectivist problem of essences to be quite substantial. The nature of the problem is this: Aristotle interpreted essences of objects (the property or properties an object must have if it is to be what it is) as merely a matter of language and definition. But Rand, perhaps mistakingly, interprets essences of objects as ontological, or existing in objective reality, independent of language. If Rand had no basis for this assessment and it is merely an assumption, the entire Objectivist philosophy could topple down with the support of its Axiom of Identity, which states that “a thing is what it is”, which must necessarily be ontological.

I tried to ignore this problem before but it has come up with a debate on Descartes’ Cogito. Someone made this assertion: “The essential feature of thought is not ontological, but _epistemo_logical: it is the only activity that can clearly deduce my existence.”

I need support to give a counterargument that this assessment is false, that essences are in fact ontological. I guess what I ask for is support for Rand’s interpretation of essences, which I can use to counter this claim and redeem my full belief in Objectivism.

Thanks in advance.

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A question about background: have you read “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”?

Why not work with an example here: let’s say the concept of a “ball”. What would it mean for this to be “epistemological but not ontological”? Would it mean that there is nothing in reality about various balls, whether their shape or their purpose or whatever, that leads us to classify them all as balls?

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Why not work with an example here: let’s say the concept of a “ball”. What would it mean for this to be “epistemological but not ontological”? Would it mean that there is nothing in reality about various balls, whether their shape or their purpose or whatever, that leads us to classify them all as balls?

I could say that the nominalists are right: classification of entities is epistemological; that is, properties are purely conceived by those that conceive them as a means of organizing reality into something that is comprehensible. There is no ontological difference between the objects of reality because if there were no minds, no distinction could be drawn, especially between immaterial objects (concepts) and material objects (existents). Classifying two things in the same category (the “ball” category) based on shared characteristics, according to the nominalist approach, is then an error.

My question then becomes, what keeps the nominalists from being correct?

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I find that the Objectivist problem of essences to be quite substantial. The nature of the problem is this: Aristotle interpreted essences of objects (the property or properties an object must have if it is to be what it is) as merely a matter of language and definition. But Rand, perhaps mistakingly, interprets essences of objects as ontological, or existing in objective reality, independent of language.

So far, okay, with the understanding that “essences” refers to “identity”. The identity of a knife is what it is, independent of any aspect of consciousness.

Someone made this assertion: “The essential feature of thought is not ontological, but _epistemo_logical: it is the only activity that can clearly deduce my existence.”

That doesn’t strike me as obviously meaningful (i.e. it’s a sentence with no referent in reality). It sounds like someone is playing on the term “essential”, which mean “most important; defining”. Obviously, a defining characteristic is some aspect of the identity of a number of existents. For a really clear case, the essential characteristic of a tripod is having 3 legs. If you consider just one tripod, its identity covers many facts, such as the three legs, being 6 ft. tall, made of metal, it’s painted yellow, and has rubber feet. Not all of that is true of tripods in general.

Recall that concepts are open-ended, which means that new existents subsumed under the concept can be created, so in a world where all previous tripods had been made with wooden legs, one could truthfully say that all tripods have three wooden legs. But “wooden” is non-essential, and when the first metal tripod was born, it too was a tripod. So: an essential property is an aspect of the identity (essence) of all units designated by a concept. And it’s not just some aspect, it is the most important, defining aspect, which we focus on in identifying the concept. I think this is why we don’t talk of “essences”, because it makes it too easy to migrate between “essences” and “essential”, without seeing that despite some similarity, they are different.

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I could say that the nominalists are right: classification of entities is epistemological; that is, properties are purely conceived by those that conceive them as a means of organizing reality into something that is comprehensible.

Hard to argue with that, as long as you stop there.

There is no ontological difference between the objects of reality because if there were no minds, no distinction could be drawn, especially between immaterial objects (concepts) and material objects (existents).

Argue there. There can’t be two things with the same identity – you can have one thing which has its identity, or two things that have similar identities. Perception of a distinction between two things does not create that difference in their identities; rather, the already-existing difference in their identities make it possible for a mind to make a distinction. (Possible but not mandatory)

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Aristotle interpreted essences of objects (the property or properties an object must have if it is to be what it is) as merely a matter of language and definition.

AFAIK this is not correct. I believe that Aristotle thought, taking his cue from Plato, that essences did indeed inhere in things in the real world.

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AFAIK this is not correct. I believe that Aristotle thought, taking his cue from Plato, that essences did indeed inhere in things in the real world.

Essences are properties ascribed to universals: qualities that describe entities which are consistent enough throughout the universe to be collected under a single title. Aristotle saw essences as semantical, or pertaining to meaning (I should have been more clear). Aristotle’s view of the essences, or universals, was largely that they come from abstraction. For example, say an alien comes to Earth to watch “the (intelligent) creatures of Earth”, but has never before seen one. He forms his concept of the universal of human being by abstracting many instances he observes in his experience, interacting with and living amongst “the creatures of Earth”. He comes to identity, or mentally extract, a shared feature by all human beings from each instance he comes across, one that need not be physically apparent, and probably necessarily so. He ignores the small differences between each example and recognizes the common essence they share: humanness. This characteristic is an essence because a human being can be so without being “human-like”.

“Human-like” is then a definition; a semantically significant bit of language, extracted by an abstraction. Ayn Rand, however, correlates “human-like” to some objectively existential feature, such as intelligence or reason, something ontologically existent, while Aristotle’s may be an abstract concept, derived from experience nonetheless.

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Essences are properties ascribed to universals: qualities that describe entities which are consistent enough throughout the universe to be collected under a single title. Aristotle saw essences as semantical, or pertaining to meaning (I should have been more clear). Aristotle’s view of the essences, or universals, was largely that they come from abstraction.

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Aristotle links the notion of essence to that of definition (horismos) — “a definition is an account (logos) that signifies an essence” (Topics 102a3) — and he links both of these notions to a certain kind of per se predication (kath’ hauto, literally, “in respect of itself”) — “what belongs to a thing in respect of itself belongs to it in its essence (en tôi ti esti)” for we refer to it “in the account that states the essence” (Posterior Analytics, 73a34-5). He reiterates these ideas in Ζ.4: “there is an essence of just those things whose logos is a definition” (1030a6), “the essence of a thing is what it is said to be in respect of itself” (1029b14) . It is important to remember that for Aristotle, one defines things, not words. The definition of tiger does not tell us the meaning of the word ‘tiger’; it tells us what it is to be a tiger, what a tiger is said to be in respect of itself (My quotes). Thus, the definition of tiger states the essence — the “what it is to be” of a tiger, what is predicated of the tiger per se.

I take this to mean that for Aristotle essences were not semantical, but ontological.

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I take this to mean that for Aristotle essences were not semantical, but ontological.

Did I mention that no two Aristotelian scholars agree… on anything? I don’t claim to be one, but I know a reputable peripatetic who agrees with the semantical interpretation. The view you presented from the philosophy encyclopedia may be the majority view; but as democracy teaches us, the majority view is not necessarily the correct one.

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Response to the Original Post:

Let us note, at this point, the radical difference between Aristotle’s view of concepts and the Objectivist view, particularly in regard to the issue of essential characteristics.

It is Aristotle who first formulated the principles of correct definition. It is Aristotle who identified the fact that only concretes exist. But Aristotle held that definitions refer to metaphysical essences, which exist in concretes as a special element or formative power, and he held that the process of concept-formation depends on a kind of direct intuition by which man’s mind grasps these essences and forms concepts accordingly.

Aristotle regarded “essence” as metaphysical; Objectivism regards it as epistemological.

Objectivism holds that 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 man’s knowledge. Thus the essence of a concept is determined contextually and may be altered with the growth of man’s knowledge. The metaphysical referent of man’s concepts is not a special, separate metaphysical essence, but the total of the facts of reality he has observed, and this total determines which characteristics of a given group of existents he designates as essential. An essential characteristic is factual, in the sense that it does exist, does determine other characteristics and does distinguish a group of existents from all others; it is epistemological in the sense that the classification of “essential characteristic” is a device of man’s method of cognition—a means of classifying, condensing and integrating an ever-growing body of knowledge.

Now refer to the four historical schools of thought on the issue of concepts, which I listed in the foreword to this work—and observe that the dichotomy of “intrinsic or subjective” has played havoc with this issue, as it has with every issue involving the relationship of consciousness to existence.

This is from “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.” Your interpretation of Rand is a bit mistaken.

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I could say that the nominalists are right: classification of entities is epistemological; that is, properties are purely conceived by those that conceive them as a means of organizing reality into something that is comprehensible. There is no ontological difference between the objects of reality because if there were no minds, no distinction could be drawn, especially between immaterial objects (concepts) and material objects (existents). Classifying two things in the same category (the “ball” category) based on shared characteristics, according to the nominalist approach, is then an error.

My question then becomes, what keeps the nominalists from being correct?

What keeps the nominalists from being correct is the fact that existence is independent of anyone’s consciousness. Things exist whether they are classified by a consciousness or not.

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I generally find it to be a mistake to engage a foundational question by accepting an entire package of historical philosophical errors. For example, nominalism in one interpretation attempts to solve the “problem of universals” by saying that “universals” only exist as names, or that they have no existence independent of human consciousness. All well and fine, except that it’s completely unclear what a “universal” is – is it a concept?. It appears to reduce to taking a word, adding “-ness” to it, then saying that a universal is the X-ness which exists in something. What makes two dogs be dogs (and not wolves) is that “dogness” exists inside the dogs. To the extent that nominalists deny that dogness exists inside of dogs and threeness exists inside three dogs or three pennies (and it does seem that nominalists deny that), the nominalists would be right. OTOH, if you (rightly) deny that such an infinity of abstract properties exist within things, you can easily lapse into the view that concepts like “three”, “dog” and “man” are completely arbitrary social constructs with no basis in reality. This is why I find it more productive to deal directly with unladen terms – to simply ignore terms like “nominalism”, “universal”, “essence” and all of the traditional philosophical baggage, and to try to re-frame the discussion in terms of something that exists, not something that someone said.

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I generally find it to be a mistake to engage a foundational question by accepting an entire package of historical philosophical errors.

Yes; having studied Buddhism my thinking re the meaning of terms like “essence” has been fraught with confusion. Miss Rand in IOE says that “the concept of ‘entity’ is an issue of the context in which you define your terms.” The same can be applied to the concept “essence”. As I understand her, she is uses the term “essence” as an application of the law of fundamentality in the context of definition.

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Essences are ontological/metaphysical in the sense that the characteristics that comprise an object’s identity do, in fact, exist, however, they are epistemological in formation and are, thus, objective. I liken the idea with a Honda and a Buick crashing into eachother and asking “where’s the crash?” It is not solely in the Honda, nor in the Buick; it exists in the interaction, but that does not change the fact that both cars exist and does not change the fact that they can only interact according to their individual natures, which comprise of both unique and universal characteristics.

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but that does not change the fact that both cars exist and does not change the fact that they can only interact according to their individual natures, which comprise of both unique and universal characteristics.

No. An entity is what it is, including everything that it is, and none of an entity is universal. Entities are only particular; it is man’s means of grasping entities conceptually that leads to what has been called the universal. Actually, it is the grasp of similarities (of two or more existents) united together into a concept by measurement omission. The measurement omission “makes a universal”, only that is not quite the way to put it, since a concept is a specific existent. So, taken literally, there are no universals.

Essence, as used by Objectivists, is objective because it is a specific relationship between that which exists and man’s mind; but there are no essences in existence aside from this relationship.

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No. An entity is what it is, including everything that it is, and none of an entity is universal. Entities are only particular; it is man’s means of grasping entities conceptually that leads to what has been called the universal. Actually, it is the grasp of similarities (of two or more existents) united together into a concept by measurement omission. The measurement omission “makes a universal”, only that is not quite the way to put it, since a concept is a specific existent. So, taken literally, there are no universals.

How do we “grasp” similarities of two or more existents? Rand writes "Similarity is grasped perceptually, in observing it, man is not and does not have to be aware of the fact that it involves a matter of measurement [iOE, pp.13,14; emphasis Rand’s]. By what sense organ is similarity “grasped”?

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By what sense organ is similarity “grasped”?

Perception is not performed by sense organs.

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How do we “grasp” similarities of two or more existents? Rand writes "Similarity is grasped perceptually, in observing it, man is not and does not have to be aware of the fact that it involves a matter of measurement [iOE, pp.13,14; emphasis Rand’s]. By what sense organ is similarity “grasped”?

Perception is not just a matter of having eyes, ears, finger, a tongue, etc. Theses are our means of being aware. The awareness is given as a first-hand grasp of existence and the nature of things that exist. For example, at the top of this screen, the objectivismonline.net logo is shades of blue. That is a given if one has color perception visually. The similarity between the blue coloring is something that you are directly aware of merely by looking at it. As another example, this and this and this are all similar, being just different fonts of a word.

Being grasped on the perceptual level means that you directly observe the similarity.

Frankly, I don’t really know why some people have a difficult time with this. I mean, it is obvious that all of the letters in this post are black. All you have to do is look at them.

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Perception is not just a matter of having eyes, ears, finger, a tongue, etc. Theses are our means of being aware. The awareness is given as a first-hand grasp of existence and the nature of things that exist. For example, at the top of this screen, the objectivismonline.net logo is shades of blue. That is a given if one has color perception visually. The similarity between the blue coloring is something that you are directly aware of merely by looking at it. As another example, this and this and this are all similar, being just different fonts of a word.

Being grasped on the perceptual level means that you directly observe the similarity.

Frankly, I don’t really know why some people have a difficult time with this. I mean, it is obvious that all of the letters in this post are black. All you have to do is look at them.

The blue of the objectivismonline.net logo indeed I perceive is blue. But if I see something else blue, I am directly aware that it is blue, not that its color is similar to the blue of the objectivistonline.net logo. It’s obvious that all the letters in this post are black, what’s not obvious is that I perceive that fact.

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It’s obvious that all the letters in this post are black, what’s not obvious is that I perceive that fact.

Actually, colors work somewhat like this: the light has different wavelengths. The human eye has some photo-receptors (or “cones”) that react to certain wavelengths of light. We call these wavelengths of light the “visible” spectrum. There are different types of cones that react to different ranges within this visible range. The response of these cones is transmitted to the brain via the optic nerve. Humans have even discovered some details of the processing that takes place there. This is the mechanics of perception, and it’s real.