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Come again?
Is it possible to say what you mean?

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Come again?

Baudin
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Posted 04/22/08 - 04:35 AM: Subject: Come again?	#1
Let me begin by giving an example. A painter paints a scene, sun is setting over a still lake in the middle of a forest. This painter is good. When people talk about him they say things like "he captured the essence". Now too language. Is it possible to say something undualistically? Can I string a finite number of words together so that I accurately describe something? In other words, can I "capture the essence" of an entity by using only words?

Techeth
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Posted 04/22/08 - 06:06 AM:	#2
I imagine yes, in exactly the same way. With the painting there are going to be people who don't feel that way (the essence has been captured) as there are with any sentence. When you read something or hear something and can "picture" it then you usually fully understand. I imagine when reading something if the picture perceived by the reader matches their own perception then I'm sure they would claim the essence has been captured in much the same way. The poem "If" by Kipling comes to mind for me, nothing more need be said.
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Baudin
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Posted 04/22/08 - 11:48 PM:	#3
What you are saying is that when you hear/read/see something you can complete the incomplete picture in your head and complete the "image". But this assumes that my picture is the same as the picture of the other. Is this a valid assumption? Maybe it would be better to ask the question differently. Imagine a horse. Now imagine someone who has never seen a four legged creature. Might we be able (with words alone) to give him the mental picture of a horse?

Techeth
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Posted 04/23/08 - 06:09 AM:	#4
Baudin wrote: What you are saying is that when you hear/read/see something you can complete the incomplete picture in your head and complete the "image". But this assumes that my picture is the same as the picture of the other. Is this a valid assumption? Well like I said only if the perceived picture matches that of the artist is the essence captured. Show me a picture of the sunrising over a forest, and I only know what is meant by it if I'm told, it could mean anything. But if I assume it because I can see it the essence has been captured. In literature I don't mean so much complete the incomplete although this is necessary but to visualise the complete as well. Baudin wrote: Maybe it would be better to ask the question differently. Imagine a horse. Now imagine someone who has never seen a four legged creature. Might we be able (with words alone) to give him the mental picture of a horse? I think so but only to those that can imagine or have imagined it. The painting has a similar problem I can see it but there is a lot you still don't know, smell, movement, sound. These can be described with words, but you still have to imagine what it looks like smells and moves like given the descrition. This is difficult but I imagine possible.
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Posted 04/23/08 - 07:52 PM:	#5
Its possible, like the movie "The Mirical Worker" where a blind deaf girl is taught sign and use her hands as her eyes, it takes a long time and a lot of hard work but she gets the concept in the end... and if anything we can draw pictures that go along with words, hence pictographs.
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Posted 04/26/08 - 09:05 AM:	#6
It depends on what it is that a speaker means, and I think it depends on what you mean by 'say.' If your question is whether or not you can get another person to hold in mind the exact same thing as you, I think the answer is clearly 'no'.(At the very least, this is not a question about which anything very meaningful can be said.) The best we can do is negotiate back forth until we achieve contextual determinacy. If the audience's behavior indicates that you've miscommunicated, you jointly repair the speech act by renegotiating the statement. BTW, I don't know if its useful to assume that words are symbols which call images/pictures to mind. A great deal of early twentieth century philosophy was founded on that idea, and it turns out to have been an unhelpful (misleading) way of thinking about what we do when we use words.

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Posted 04/26/08 - 10:26 AM:	#7
I'm not entirley sure what you mean. If someone is describing the essence of something, when considered, at some point I will imagine what is being said, if it exists.
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Posted 04/26/08 - 05:07 PM:	#8
When someone says that someone else has "captured the essence" of something whether in words or in any other art form, this typically means that the particular aspects that were captured (out of a virtual infinity of possible aspects) somehow resonate with that particular observer. There is no essence of a sunset, there are only virtually infinite aspects. A given painting or poem or dance or symphonic movement ... that might resonate deeply for one person will be considered a sentimental cliche by another person. Any given painting or language or dance etc. is a selection of certain aspects and an ignoring of a zillion other aspects. Cheers. jd
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Cuthbert
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Posted 04/28/08 - 12:55 AM:	#9
Baudin wrote: In other words, can I "capture the essence" of an entity by using only words? It depends partly on what 'capturing the essence' is taken to mean. If I say that an actor has captured the essence of a character, and some other critic disagrees, how would we settle the question, whether the essence has been captured or not? It's certain that I've given higher praise to the actor's performance than the other critic. But I've only said something vague and commendatory. Can I string a finite number of words together so that I accurately describe something? Yes. But your description, however accurate, will be to some extent incomplete. That is, there will always be something true of the thing you are describing that is missing from your finite list of descriptions. That's because an infinite number of sentences are true of any given thing. I have a marvellous demonstration of that last sentence, but the exiguity of this thread would scarce contain it.

quickly
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Posted 04/28/08 - 01:13 AM:	#10
Cuthbert: It depends partly on what 'capturing the essence' is taken to mean. If I say that an actor has captured the essence of a character, and some other critic disagrees, how would we settle the question, whether the essence has been captured or not? It's certain that I've given higher praise to the actor's performance than the other critic. But I've only said something vague and commendatory. (I agree?). The character is performing a set of directions which underlie his actions; he gives himself over to a script which exists always beneath his performance. The assumption is being made that a shared "essence" of the character pre-exists the actor who performs the part outside of the intentional placement of words in the script. If you are discussing the "essence" of the script, it would seem it falls victim to a regress of "essences": the script contains a string of words which are capturing something else, or re-presenting something; but this re-presentation is essentially of itself, it doesn't refer back to something in reality apart from the experiences necessary for its composure (in fiction); and if it does (in non-fiction), it creates less a re-presentation of the person as a persona or image of him or her, a presentation as a series of words which are significant in relationship to a set of assumptions and images and experiences related to this person. Baudin: Now too language. Is it possible to say something undualistically? Can I string a finite number of words together so that I accurately describe something? In other words, can I "capture the essence" of an entity by using only words? But, it seems as though the regress to "essences" and that inner (metaphysical) core of the thing is mistaken. Language is a structure composed of grammars and words which is used to communicate something. So accurate description is possible, for example if I say "this picture is a picture of a sunset." But the accurate description doesn't seem to communicate this inner quality of the painting, partly because the painting is of another medium, and partly because you're constituting something outside of the originary experience, which is always a composite of past experience, which is always an experience of the subject – and if a finite number of subjects view the same sunset, they are bound to have analogous or overlapping “essence”-structures, but never the same “essence,” because they have individual composites of experiences underlying the picture. Edited by quickly on 04/28/08 - 12:36 PM
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Posted 04/28/08 - 02:45 AM:	#11
Thanks, quickly. Interesting post. I think 'capturing the essence' of a character or a sunset is just a commendatory manner of speaking about art. I don't think it commits us to a metaphysics of essences. But you raise an interesting point: if we did decide to commit to such a metaphysic, would it make sense? In what way can an essence (if there are essences) be 'captured' or expressed in words? If things have essences, then perhaps words also do, since words are perhaps a kind of thing. And since we are supposing that the words express the essence of the thing, then are further words needed to express the essence of the words - and so ad infinitum? I think that's your train of thought. In that case, I'd suggest splitting the question into several, because each one is rather big! e.g. Do things have essences? If things have essences, can we say what they are? Is 'capturing the essence' of something in art anything to do with the essence of things? (Or is it just a manner of speaking?) Do words or concepts have essences? **** If two people agree that a painting captures the essence of the sunset, but they each refer to a different essence (because of their different experiences that determine their subjective aesthetic responses), then I'm not sure we can talk about 'the' essence of the sunset. Then I'm not sure we are talking about the sunset's essence at all, if it can have as many essences as it can have viewers. Then I'm not really sure we are talking much sense about essence.... I think that jdrw's point above. So I tend to go back to my view that it's just a manner of speaking, and a fairly vague one. (If you read a review of a performance and it talks about 'capturing the essence' of a character, you get the idea that it was a good performance, but it doesn't tell you anything about the kind of performance it was...) Edited by Cuthbert on 04/28/08 - 02:50 AM

quickly
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Posted 04/28/08 - 03:10 AM:	#12
I'm not sure anyone wants to commit to an aesthetic metaphysic. But maybe a quasi-metaphysical essence, or something which retains this notion of a core, or a inner portion, something beyond some membrane, which is accessed and presented in the piece. Because it seems that if "essences" (as in the critic's phrase) is merely laudatory language, it has to refer to something which is accessible to the reader. The reader and the critic have a shared assumption regarding this essence, and generally it has to do with the presentation the artist gives of some aspect of living, of life, of an experience. Now, I have no idea what this is, or how it functions, but I think discarding "essence" as nonsense is preemptory, because surely we don't have to revert to Medieval metaphysics or "clear and distinct ideas" to examine what people mean when they talk about essences of aesthetic objects. I tend to think of "essence," like the meaning of words, as a short of shared set of assumptions regarding thought between peoples. Both are social phenomena, because language must be shared (I believe Derrida refers to this as the "promise" between peoples in speech, like the "promise" of representation in mercantile economics). If things have essences, then perhaps words also do, since words are perhaps a kind of thing. And since we are supposing that the words express the essence of the thing, then are further words needed to express the essence of the words - and so ad infinitum? I think that's your train of thought. Yes, but I think discarding useful notions such as "essences" from art because we've taken language as an interminable object is slightly ridiculous. If you're talking about the "essence" of a painting of a sunset, then you're talking about some accordance with the recollections of memories of sunsets and the paintings ability to trigger these memories. You could probably even say "essence" is a word describing a biological phenomena. But then again, can we talk about "the" essence of an aesthetic object (for now, only art), as you said. So for a trivial answer, yes, because it's a shared assumption that things have essences in a particular way. But what if you defined "essence" as the ability to miraculate a common set of experiences with little degree of variation between them in a large set of viewers? And then allowed this to be a function of time, culture, and society? It would be a sort of qualitative "truth" to the character or object, like the ability of Shakespeare's character Othello to provoke a common set of experiences to a large group, and offshoots to other groups (for instance, the postcolonial critics). Is this an essence? Or is it merely the purpose of the character? Anyways, I haven't really gotten anywhere, but I think discarding essence is naive if the conditions of its banishment from critical vocabulary is that it must be a metaphysical, or quasi-metaphysical, concept inhering in the object. Why not call it a "horizontal transcendental," for instance. Does this phrase have an essence? I have a vague notion of how it could mean in certain circumstances, and a precise notion of its meaning in others. But it certainly has the ability to communicate here because it shares in a common vocabulary which produces a locus of meaning. Like a painting, like an essence. Perhaps I've strayed so far away from the definition of essence it's no longer an essence, however.
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Posted 04/30/08 - 11:13 PM:	#13
i'm sure you cant, as no one could interpret it correctly.
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Techeth
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Posted 05/01/08 - 04:27 AM:	#14
I think the essence of something, is basically a representation of the whole through a fundamental element or elements. For example the essence of being human is often described as, the ability to think, or have a heart, or our soul. Although these are insufficient and incomplete representations of what it is to be human, they capture a fundamental part of humanity that represents the whole. I think a painting can be said to capture the essence of something as long as it captures an aspect of that which it represents, that I consider (as the viewer) to be fundamental or the most fundamental to the reality of the subject matter. In this sense essence it’s self is subjective, therefore two people could claim the essence has been captured for different reasons and be right. I also think this does not require the concurrence of the artist. As long as the aim of the painter is to capture the essence of the subject, even if someone feels the essence has been captured for completely different reasons then the artist has still succeeded. For example say a painter wishes to capture the essence of happiness, and draws a picture of a child smiling in their grandfather’s arms. Now let’s say the painter wishes to represent happiness as having more than you feel you deserve. In this sense the grandparent having the child, illustrated by the look on his face as he sees his smiling grandchild. Now if I the viewer, see the painting and decide the essence has been captured because to me the essence of happiness is a child’s smile, the uncomplicated, pure feeling of well being, that happiness is being in touch with our inner child, then I can also say the essence has been captured even if that was not the essence the painter intended to capture. Obviously this is dependent on agreeing that essence is as described. I agree it is a very vague description and actually explains nothing but implies a level of understanding and insight in to the subject.
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Posted 05/01/08 - 05:46 AM:	#15
Techeth wrote: For example the essence of being human is often described as, the ability to think, or have a heart, or our soul. Although these are insufficient and incomplete representations of what it is to be human, they capture a fundamental part of humanity that represents the whole. What nonsense. Things don't have "essences", that's nothing more than superstition. The heart is a pump for blood. The soul is a metaphor.
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Posted 05/01/08 - 07:25 AM:	#16
Then you wouldn't say the essence of the heart is that it's a pump for blood? Suppose someone had a heart that digested food insead of pumping blood. Then it wouldn't be a real heart, would it? That's because pumping blood rather than digestion is an essential function of the heart. That is, it's a function without which the heart would just not be a heart. Pumping blood is part of the essence of the heart and what it means for something to be a heart. That's one view of essences. You might be right that the soul is a metaphor. What's it a metaphor for?

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Posted 05/01/08 - 10:21 AM:	#17
A part of the difficulty with this question - as illustrated by the confusion and vagueness of 'essences' - is the idea of 'sameness'. The real question is "can ANY representation (words, paint, music, mime, acting, etc) be 'the same' as what it represents?" And the answer must be (as jdrw indicated) - it cannot, but it can accurately represent an aspect - though it may be difficult to explain just what this itself means. We just move to another vague notion of 'similarity'. Anyone who can give a principled account of how we can measure or otherwise compare degrees of similarity gets a gold star!
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Techeth
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Posted 05/01/08 - 12:34 PM:	#18
The Escapist wrote: What nonsense. Things don't have "essences", that's nothing more than superstition. The heart is a pump for blood. The soul is a metaphor. I didn't mean literally having a heart, as in the organ. I meant in the more poetic sense as in love and caring etc.
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jeffmcmahan
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Posted 05/03/08 - 10:29 AM:	#19
I didn't mean literally having a heart, as in the organ. I meant in the more poetic sense as in love and caring etc. That makes no difference. Attempting to set up a philosophical argument on the basis of 'essences' is a pretty shoddy project (sorry to all of you neo-Platonists out there). There simply are not absolute identity conditions for any subsistent object; such identity conditions are the stuff of your 'essences.' We do talk as if there were such conditions in ordinary discourse, but this is a matter of mereological eligibility. For instance, the object denoted by the phrase, 'My mug and my book' is not the sort of object for which we use a single word name (generally). Given that a mug is physically continuous and given that is serves the particular purpose of holding my coffee (though it might serve other purposes, like telling people that I'm the #1 Dad), makes it particularly mereologically eligible for a single-word taxonomic artifact (like 'mug'). My book is the same story. But since the object, 'My mug and my book' doesn't serve a well-defined, quasi-universal purpose, and because they're spatially discontinuous, this object is ineligible for a single-word taxonomic artifact (like, 'mook' or something). This is because it would not be a particularly useful division of the world. Because of these purely pragmatic* divisions of the world (for our linguistic purposes), you're favoring certain objects as ontologically basic (hearts, in this case), and suggesting that they are basic because they serve certain purposes. This is pure confusion. Mereology is the study of the relation of the whole to the part. The notion of mereological eligibility for use by speakers is presented by David Lewis in "Languages and Language" (1975, Language, Mind & Knowledge*). Edited by jeffmcmahan on 05/03/08 - 11:09 AM

Techeth
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Posted 05/03/08 - 03:56 PM:	#20
I think you may have confused my position or I was unclear, I was not arguing that having a heart, or soul etc are the essence of a human being only that it is something people say. As I said we must agree on what we mean by essence I was offering my opinion on that and how it could possibly be captured for the sake of another. I think either all things have an essence or they do not. Does what you’re saying not just mean that 'the heart' as an answer to the question of essence, is wrong or insufficient? I have no problem with that I'm simply saying I think there are words that can be used to describe the essence of something but first I think we need to understand what we mean by essence.
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quickly
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Posted 05/04/08 - 03:38 AM:	#21
Techeth: I think the essence of something, is basically a representation of the whole through a fundamental element or elements. For example the essence of being human is often described as, the ability to think, or have a heart, or our soul. Although these are insufficient and incomplete representations of what it is to be human, they capture a fundamental part of humanity that represents the whole. So essence is synecdoche? I think the problem is that by the use of the word "fundamental" (essence, primary, priority), you've reduced the notion of "essence" to mere representation of unique properties - in other words, designation. This doesn't capture the range of experience(s) which the word "essence" could designate; nor does it contain the aesthetic, emotional response which artistic works represent. Especially because in equating essence with synecdoche, you've established the aesthetic experience in relationship to a cognitive, logical, operation. So in a sense, you've equated the use of "essence" as irreducibility, and essence as an aspect of aesthetic experience. think a painting can be said to capture the essence of something as long as it captures an aspect of that which it represents, that I consider (as the viewer) to be fundamental or the most fundamental to the reality of the subject matter. It's the word "consider." Can painting be reduced to a pure, logical operation? Is a brushstroke something which captures properties? What of non-representational paintings? Why the moral rhetoric of "success?" What of a painting which had nothing to do with sunsets, but which was called "Sunset," and recalled some emotion of a sunset the viewer has? Cuthbert: Then you wouldn't say the essence of the heart is that it's a pump for blood? Suppose someone had a heart that digested food instead of pumping blood. Then it wouldn't be a real heart, would it? That's because pumping blood rather than digestion is an essential function of the heart. That is, it's a function without which the heart would just not be a heart. Pumping blood is part of the essence of the heart and what it means for something to be a heart. Definition shift!. Two different notions of essence being used; on the one hand, the "essential function." On the other, the artistic "essence" it is being used as a metaphor for (or described as similar to). What it means for something to have a heart isn't just "a function without which the heart would just not be a heart." Meaning shifts beyond a scientific designation, especially if we're talking about aesthetics. I can use the phrase "has a heart" without any reference to a "heart as that thing which pumps blood."
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Techeth
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Posted 05/04/08 - 05:34 PM:	#22
quickly wrote: So essence is synecdoche? I think the problem is that by the use of the word "fundamental" (essence, primary, priority), you've reduced the notion of "essence" to mere representation of unique properties - in other words, designation. This doesn't capture the range of experience(s) which the word "essence" could designate; nor does it contain the aesthetic, emotional response which artistic works represent. Especially because in equating essence with synecdoche, you've established the aesthetic experience in relationship to a cognitive, logical, operation. So in a sense, you've equated the use of "essence" as irreducibility, and essence as an aspect of aesthetic experience. I guess so, in a sense. I would say synecdoche is how we describe essence, but essence it what it is, a fundamental aspect of the whole or the most fundamental as the individual understands it. I agree the word essence can have broad parameters, which is why I think it can be relative, but I think "the aesthetic, emotional response which artistic works represent" actually captures the essence of the purpose of art. I view essence as an aspect of all experience as everything has an essence, and on whatever level we witness the essence of things. quickly wrote: It's the word "consider." Can painting be reduced to a pure, logical operation? Is a brushstroke something which captures properties? What of non-representational paintings? Why the moral rhetoric of "success?" What of a painting which had nothing to do with sunsets, but which was called "Sunset," and recalled some emotion of a sunset the viewer has? The issue with the painting was that it was described as capturing the essence of something, if the painting is seen to then it is seen to, if it's purpose is otherwise then it can't be critised for not. Whether or not the essence has been captured by the painting need only be a purely, logical operation. I don't see a brush stroke as any different than a letter, if the aim is to capture essence I imagine with either art or literature more is needed. It all depends on what is being painted.
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essence
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Posted 05/08/08 - 02:54 AM:	#23
Words can never truly capture the essence of a thing. Neither can pictures. They can only point towards that essence. Some communicators are skilled in imbuing a phrase or a picture with essence so that it stands out, yet sill can't actually capture all of what is there. Is it possible to say what you mean? It is impossible not to say what you mean. All human beings everywhere are always saying what they mean even when they are silent. We will not identify what people mean, however, if we only look at the words and the language and the dictionay. We have to feel the essence. (Of course believing that there is an essence to be felt is always a good start!) For me the question is not whether it is impossible to say what I mean, but is it possible for me to realize exactly what I am saying and is it possible for anyone to hear me! I believe it is possible on both counts. Edited by essence on 05/08/08 - 03:03 AM

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Posted 05/08/08 - 03:43 AM:	#24
I think it depends on what you mean, the words can never be the essence nor the picture, the essence is not captured in that sense. Someone can only know the essence of something they know of, that is to say I cannot know the essence of bullfighting because I have no experience of it. When someone tries to capture that essence in words or pictures I think you can say the essence has been captured in the sense that it presents a meaningful understanding of the subject in the eyes of the beholder. This may be a case of capturing the essence of the essence. I think with either a painting or literature someone can find meaning in what we do that we didn't intend, so to that extent I am not sure we always realise what we are saying.
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0 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 05/11/08 - 07:48 AM:	#25
To the original question: Yes, I just did.

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