09.20.09
Essentialism and the self
The Idea of Species and the False Story about Essentialism
I would be awfully careful of thinking in terms of any essentialism on the species question, but in general the assumptions about essentialism, with respect to the human ‘self’, provided by Darwinists are awfully shaky, and in fact as a student of Kant and (often non-theistic) religion the issue of the ‘essential self’, something larger than the space-time framework looms in the background as a theory destroyer for Darwinists, whose theory must assume the reach of natural selection on all aspects of the self, what then if the ‘self’ is not exactly within space-time?
nemo said,
September 21, 2009 at 11:16 am
To be more accurate, there is a phenomenal and a noumenal aspect of the self.
My statement is a variant of Kantian thinking: the categories of perception involve those of space and time, which are therefore in part constructions of the mind. Therefore, if that is the case, the ‘self’ ought to be in some fashion, in part, as to its noumenal aspect, over and above space and time. The exact situation is beyond knowledge
nemo said,
September 21, 2009 at 11:46 am
Mr. Arnhardt, you are a qualified philosopher and academic, and should be familiar with the critiques of Kant.
Your manner of expressing surprise here is a bit strange.
I think that this issue, as you fear, is subject to seeming contradictions, but so are all other positions.
Kant’s approach (which never explicitly declares the self beyond space and time!) is perhaps the only one known that can make sense of a confusing set of dillemmas about self, materialism, and supernaturalism.