I think that in another place I spoke to you about temporality in Husserl as a constituent of consciousness as self-affection. According to this view the present is determined by a difference with respect to the past and the future, implied by the absence that is given in them. The present is never identically present but always deferred and postponed (a la Derrida), that is, we cannot deny the absence and non-subjectivity that constitutes it.

That's why I have concerns about thinking of time as subjective or hyper-subjective if you will.

I quite like this one.



And I own one of these:


What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for table-ness? I say there aren't any. Unless you would stipulate some.

But would he agree that time is inseparable from lived experience? — Wayfarer

Don’t you and I both believe that everything is inseparable from lived experience?

Today is Sunday (in Argentina). — Arcane Sandwich

You're living in the past.

Nonsense — Arcane Sandwich

Fine. You can tell me why, later. :razz:

You don't see anything incompatible between your comments here and time not existing?

What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for table-ness? I say there aren't any. Unless you would stipulate some. — Banno

Yeah but it's like, you're making what can only be described as a dumb point.

It's pretty unclear why you think it dumb to claim time exists. Not at all sure what your point is.

My point was about your dumb point about tables.

Go on.


(Added: It's pretty much Kripke's point, rather than mine. But if you think he is mistaken, go ahead and explain why. )

But don’t you both believe that live is determinated by its relation to death?

↪Arcane Sandwich
Go on. — Banno

What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for table-ness? I say there aren't any. Unless you would stipulate some. — Banno

You're saying that tables don't have an essence. Unless we stipulate it so. But then they can have essences, in a modal sense. It's possible for them to have them (the essences, that is). Not merely in a linguistic sense (i.e., modal logic, as developed by Saul Kripke), but in a metaphysical, objective sense.

So why would you even say that there aren't any? Like, it's a super-trivial point, there's nothing of importance, merit, or worth, there.

Not quite. We might choose to use "table" only for things that have four legs at right angles to a flat top. Then the things I pictured do not count as tables. While that is not how we actually use the word "table", it seems to be what @Relativist had in mind.

If you think tables have an essence, tell us what it is.

I seem to have been asking that a lot lately. No one wants to say what an essence is. Puts me in mind of the suit belonging to a certain emperor.

So why would you even say that there aren't any? — Arcane Sandwich

Any what? Tables? Time? Essences?

If you think tables have an essence, tell us what it is. — Banno

Tableness. The essence of a table is its tableness.

I seem to have been asking that a lot lately. No one wants to say what an essence is. Puts me in mind of the suit belonging to a certain emperor. — Banno

See above.

So why would you even say that there aren't any? — Arcane Sandwich

Any what? Tables? Time? Essences? — Banno

Essences. There are essences, Banno, you just said so. There are no essences, unless we stipulate it so. It follows from that, that there are essences!

Regardless, I think that we can all agree that Time is the most perplexing philosophical problem of all. It is more perplexing than Reality, it is more perplexing than God, and it is more perplexing than Being.

It is even more perplexing than Nothingness.

Tableness. The essence of a table is its tableness. — Arcane Sandwich

That's just calling the essence by another name. You've said that the essence of table is that it is a table. Wow.

That's just calling the essence by another name. — Banno

No, because essence is a genus, and tableness is one of its species. There are other essences beside tableness. For example, chairness, treeness, dogness, humanness, Godness, etc.

You've said that the essence of table is that it is a table. — Banno

No, I didn't say that. I said that essence of a table is its tableness.

Wow. — Banno

Yeah, I have that effect on impressionable white Australians. I'm marvelous, as an intellectual. I'm majestic, you could say. You? You're more like the intellectual equivalent to Crocodile Dundee.

Are you guys slightly off topic?

↪Banno

Are you guys slightly off topic? — frank

was Heidegger off-topic in Being and Time?

I'm sorry, I find that risible...

There must be something that makes a table what it is, and this we will call tableness, and we will generalise this to other stuff, and say that what makes something what it is, is its essence.

Contrast that with the idea that it is useful to call some things tables, yet that there need be nothing they all have in common. What counts is that the word "table" is used.

We have made use of the notion of time in this thread. Therefore there is such a notion. There is time.

↪Arcane Sandwich
I'm sorry, I find that risible. — Banno

Humor is subjective.

There must be something that makes a table what it is, — Banno

Yes, its essence. Tableness, to be more precise.

and this we will call tableness, — Banno

:clap:

and we will generalise this to other stuff, — Banno

No, we don't. We discover (or invent, or stipulate, as you said so yourself) the essence of various sorts of things, both natural as well as artificial. It's a case-by-case approach, not a generalization from one case to the universe (of discourse, if, of anything).

and say that what makes something what it is is it's essence. — Banno

Exactly, tell it to the people that study the Spanish Essence in the context of Academia, for example.

Contrast that with the idea that we just choose to call some things tables, yet that there need be nothing they all have in common. What counts is that the word "table" is used. — Banno

But you said that they don't have essences, unless we stipulate it so. It follows from that, that if we do stipulate it, then they have essences. Is this what passes for Great Reasoning these days?

Don’t you and I both believe that everything is inseparable from lived experience? — T Clark

Taken out of context: the point being, what is objective is supposed to be real irrespective of experience. So that, time would exist in the same manner as that measured by h.sapiens, were there none of them. That sense of time existing independently of any observer (i.e. absolute time) is what I'm questioning - but it might be useful to peruse the prior entries particularly the one on Einstein and Bergson. So what I'm arguing is that while an observer is intrinsic to the nature of time, the observer is never a part of what is being measured. It's a specific instance of a larger argument.

According to this view the present is determined by a difference with respect to the past and the future, implied by the absence that is given in them. The present is never identically present but always deferred and postponed (a la Derrida), that is, we cannot deny the absence and non-subjectivity that constitutes it. — JuanZu

That becomes a bit abstact for me. I'm not well-versed in 20th century philosophy. My only point is to call into question the idea that time is real sans observers.

What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for table-ness? — Banno

Preferably a flat surface, for accomodating objects, a suitable height for the purpose (either standing or sitting) and generally a space underneath to place one's legs if one wishes to sit at it. One can use a packing crate or all manner of objects as a table but provided it fulfills the function of a table then will serve the purpose.

There must be something that makes a table what it is, and this we will call tableness, and we will generalise this to other stuff, and say that what makes something what it is is it's essence. — Banno

And that is, precisely, it's eidos, the 'idea of a table'. But it is not something that exists in the same sense that the table exists.

The above also applies to your article. I see a problem with trying to maintain the notion of 'existence' as being univocal with respect to both the parts and the whole, meaning that the whole then becomes a separate, countable entity in addition to the parts that comprise it - in line with the above. The forms don't exist in the same sense as constituents. Hence the saying, I believe originating with Aristotle (although I might be mistaken) that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

↪Arcane Sandwich
That also applies to your article. I see a problem with trying to maintain the notion of 'existence' as being univocal with respect to both the parts and the whole, meaning that the whole then becomes a separate, countable entity in addition to the parts that comprise it - in line with the above. The forms don't exist in the same sense as constituents. — Wayfarer

Thanks for the critique! No one had commented on that article yet, you're officially its First Critic. And I think that what you're saying has substance. Thank you very much. And no, I'm not being ironic now, I'm being sincere. I have a sense of Ethics. Perhaps not "sense" in the sense of the five senses, but in some other sense, a poetic one, if you will.

We have made use of the notion of time in this thread. Therefore there is such a notion. There is time. — Banno

Yea. But a famous physicist speculates that time has to do with the way our consciousness is configured. Thus the famous cosmologist publishes an article in Nature talking about how time might be an illusion.

So it's legit to say that time might be an illusion.

here

Yes, they may be stipulated.

Preferably a flat surface — Wayfarer

Not a table, then.

I will read it some more. Kudos for you for a very carefully-composed essay. But the overall problem with analytical philosophy is its assumption of a one-dimensional ontology - that everything exists in the same way.

Not a table, then. — Banno

A man (not a man)
Throws a stone (not a stone)...

etc.

Preferably a flat surface — Wayfarer

Not a table, then. — Banno

I think that's not what Wayfarer intended to say. And even if he did, why would you assume that it's also my idea? I don't define tables that way. I don't need to, since essences aren't modally necessary, they're modally contingent. You said so yourself.

The significance of family resemblance just never sunk in, did it.

↪Arcane Sandwich
I will read it some more. Kudos for you for a very carefully-composed essay. But the overall problem with analytical philosophy is its assumption of a one-dimensional ontology - that everything exists in the same way. — Wayfarer

That's a good point. Harman himself makes that point, he says that things exist in two ways: really, and sensually. And this occurs even in the inanimate world of rocks and crystals.

The significance of family resemblance just never sunk in, did it. — Banno

The Wittgensteinian notion of linguistic "family resemblance" is lumpen etymology.

Argument by name calling.