In a message dated 1/19/2016 6:46:40 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx writes:
Well, I don't know an essence from an odor.
Neither did the Romans. They numbered them, though. As in Chanel No. 5. It
was the first essence, the second essence, the third essence, the fourth
essence and the quintessence.
Chanel, who had learned Latin in the monastery, translated as "numero
cinq."
And it is allegedly the only essence M. M. would wear while in bed.
Geary goes on:
"And I don't know the essence of an odour or the odour of an essence. I
don't even know the essence of essence. Is there such?"
Yes, philosophers call them 'meta-essence' and symbolise it as
i. □ □ p.
Thus, if p is "Man's essence is rationality", then it is necessary that
man's essence is rationality. Rationality is man's meta-essence.
Geary:
"If so, I'll bet it stinks, though I'll admit I don't know."
Wittgenstein famously asked his friend F. P. Ramsey, "Try to describe
Chanel 5."
The quotation is supposed to be apocryphal, seeing that Chanel concocted
her quintessence well after Ramsey had passed (implicature: away).
But had Ramsey lived to smell it he would perhaps in his Cantabrigian tone
would have exclaimed, "It does stink a bit, doesn't it?"
Geary:
"But this I do know, this: that language seems (actually "is" is the word I
want to use instead of 'seems,' but I'm a humble person, no arrogant young
Turk am I, nor not even a fancy-dancy English schoolboy either, not even
an Egyptian am I, though I live in Memphis, -- the city that says "Egypt"
and neither am I "I" except that I say "I".Ergo, I am and just so, I am as I
say. So ergo language must be a sine qua non of humankindity. No speaka
a language, no bea a human. Until I've distilled these thoughts into a
divine wine you'll just have to take my word for it. Next time then. Michael
of Memphis essencing away. Hey diddle diddle the cat ate a riddle and now
know one nose his name. Amen. Awomen."
Well, if language is the essence of man, and rationality is the essence of
Socrates, then language is the essence of Socrates.
In Greek, "anthropos zoon logikon" can be translated, boringly, as by
Cicero as:
"Only man is rational."
Or "Man is the talking beast."
I.e. 'logikon' means that 'zoon' has the power to speak. Why Cicero
thought of 'rationalis' instead of a more colloquial way to refer to 'talk'
escapes me -- and it did escape Gibbons (in his "Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire").
Cheers,
Speranza
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