Seizing the Essence: A Value Cosmology for the Modernist

By Hamilton Priday

SEIZING THE ESSENCE is about the dynamics of Value that form mans concept of reality. Human beings dont just passively experience the things and events that represent this journey through life, they construct them intellectually from the sense of value that is intrinsic to all cognizant individuals.We dont simply enjoy the finer things in life, we aspire to them; and when awed by the experience of great beauty or magnificence, we want to identify with its source.As the created agents of this source, we intellectualize its value by experiencing it as differentiated reality. Making value aware as representational objects in a relational world affirms the absolute value of our uncreated Essence.

The author believes that one of the tragedies of our materialistic age is that we have mistaken our differentiated, amoral existence for ultimate reality, with the result that we have lost much of our value-sensibility.With the possible exception of artists and musicians, the mindset of most people today has been shaped by objectivists who insist that man is totally a product of biological and cultural evolution. Although fueled by Darwins Origin of the Species, in truth this ideology is the outcome of a 2000-year battle between Aristotelian empiricism and Platonic idealism that scientists claim to have won only in the last century. In their zeal to renounce religion and spirituality, the objectivists have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Selfness is today regarded as a myth of dubious origin, and material reality is believed to be primary to ones awareness of it.

In SEIZING THE ESSENCE, the author makes the case that the mind/matter duality of Descartes and Kant has not been overcome by Science, that all knowledge is proprietary to the self, and that physical reality is an intellectual construct of Value which is the individuals perspective of Essence. Since traditional logic is relational by fiat, the author bases his cosmology on a principle first postulated by the 15th century logician Nicholas of Cusa which deals with a "not-other" that is the coincidence of all otherness. Instead of trying to describe the ineffable, Cusas theory affords the philosopher a dialectic handle by which to relate finite experience to the Oneness of Essence. This leads logically to a cosmology in which physical existence is a virtual reality created largely by man, who is the cognizant agent of his estranged Essence.

Contrary to previous theories of "natures essences", there is but one Essence, and it is the uncreated source of differentiated experience. Starting with the fundamental premise that Essence is absolute and immutable, the book unfolds an ontology whereby value can be understood as the essential link between the autonomous self and its uncreated source. The central message of this book is that, although values drive mankind, it is mans free choices that determine the course of history.

Essentialism is a new and original philosophy that embraces the spirituality of Judeo-Christianity and Eastern mysticism, yet is grounded in a metaphysical cosmology that is non-dogmatic, logically plausible, and far more vital to contemporary man. In addition to chapters describing our real world mentality, mans historical search for the stuff of reality, a Cosmology of Essence, and the autonomous self, the author offers "A Modernists Guide to Values" complete with a strategy for achieving an authentic society. Included in the Appendix is an extended glossary of names and special terms that are relevant to the Philosophy of Essence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 20, 2007
• ISBN: 9781462827824

Hamilton Priday

Hamilton (“Ham”) Priday received his baccalaureate in biology/chemistry from Ursinus College in 1953, taking courses in logic and philosophy as electives. On completing his military obligation to the Korean War, he studied music theory and arranging at the Philadelphia Conservatory before launching a 30-year career in technical writing and industrial advertising. In 2002 he opted for retirement to pursue a life-long interest in philosophy. This has culminated in a metaphysical thesis that lays the groundwork for a valuistic philosophy which he believes can foster an “authentic society”.

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Copyright © 2008 by Hamilton Priday.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 08/25/2015

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CONTENTS

Author’s Introduction

1. Our Real World Mentality

Morality as a collective system

Discrimination is a four-letter word

Sorting people by their values

Empires also die

2. In Search of Essence

The Spectre of a Rose

Just what is Essentialism?

3. Getting Beyond Otherness

Experience makes the Difference

The eye of the beholder

4. The Stuff of Reality

Actuality as Probability?

How real is Finitude?

The Value of Nothingness

5. Value: Our Taste of Essence

The myth of unrealized value

Value is relative like everything else

The Existential Dichotomy

Two thinkers who illuminated the darkness

6. The Essential Cosmology

Making Being out of Nothing

A Creation hypothesis

An epistemology of Value

7. Freedom and the Autonomous Self

Why we live in an amoral universe

The concept of Freedom

How would God design a free agent?

Man as Choicemaker

8. A Modernist’s Guide to Values

Man for Real

Toward an Authentic Society

Savoring the life experience

Epilogue

Bibliography

Glossary of Terms and Names

About the Author

AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION

Why, you may be wondering, would anyone bother to publish yet another theory of reality in an age when everything is explained by the laws of physics and biogenetics?

Reality theories have been advanced ad nauseam for at least 2,500 years, most notably by the ancient Greek idealists, the Renaissance humanists, the Cartesian dualists, the Kantian rationalists, the dialectical materialists, and the postmodern relativists.  Yet, for all the scholarly analysis, criticism and vindication these theories have evoked, and notwithstanding the belief systems of religion and science, confusion remains as to exactly what reality consists of and what meaning or purpose it holds for the individual participating in it.  Clearly we are all seeking something more edifying than factual knowledge.  Man has an insatiable thirst for philosophical understanding, and since ultimate truth is not revealed in the physical world, only an intuitively-reasoned metaphysical theory offers hope for enlightenment.

If you are like most modernists, you probably concluded some time ago that the physical world is a substantive reality from which you and your consciousness emerged.  The intractable mindset of our modern age is that man is totally a product of biological and cultural evolution.  For the mainstream of educated people today, selfness is a myth of religious or supernatural origin, and material reality is primary to one’s awareness of it.  Ask a trusted friend if he thinks reality is anything more than physical, and he’ll probably say no.  Ask him if his conscious awareness is physical and he’s likely to respond again in the negative but, depending on his sophistication, may qualify his answer with a statement to the effect that "while consciousness isn’t physical, it is a phenomenon of what is physical."

As a consequence of this new ideology not only has human consciousness been devalued by materialism but the once-revered values of proprietary cognizance, individual freedom, subjective judgment, and personal initiative have depreciated to the extent that the ‘individualism’ of our ancestors is passé in modern culture.  Thus it is that the most idealistically free, most powerful, most technologically-advanced culture in the history of mankind has spawned an age of cynicism toward belief in anything spiritual.

Nihilism isn’t just the denial of a Creator, for a benevolent God can be a lucky charm for the religiously pious.  Rather, it’s the rationalist’s repudiation of idealism.  It’s the view that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is meaningless.  "From dust thou didst come and to dust thou shall return… . All is Vanity," says the book of Ecclesiastes.  The Internet encyclopedia Encarta defines nihilism as a designation applied to various radical philosophies, usually by their opponents, the implication being that adherents of these philosophies reject all positive values and believe in nothing.  As the logical conclusion of postmodern humanism, it has become much more typical than radical in the development of philosophy.

Consider the evidence…

Today we live by proxy on the fringe of a man-made reality, deluding ourselves in the notion that our mission in life is to measure up to its standards.  But what are they?  Religious institutions preach platitudes while their leaders debate whether a 2000-year-old doctrine is still relevant in a deterministic world.  Parents, educators, and business executives pay lip service to an ethic they no longer believe in, can not replace, and are reluctant to defend.  Where we were once guided by spiritual precepts and moral traditions, we’ve become caught up in a technological revolution that by itself offers neither wisdom nor direction for mankind.

The legacy of secularism has fostered a generation of morally bankrupt dependents who worship at the altar of Celebrity, submitting only to an ethic of political correctness, as if existence had no other purpose.  In September of 2001 we woke up to find our free nation terrorized by a horde of suicidal fanatics bent on destroying Western Civilization in the name of a deity that shows no regard for the value of human life.  Those entrusted with the security of our land look to public polls for the decisions that will determine its future.  To a society that has forfeited the joys and challenges of romantic courtship for recreational sex as a youthful pastime, the idea that life can be enriched by exposure to the history, philosophy, and art of human culture no longer seems meaningful.  It is ironic that by disavowing the source of Freedom we are losing our passion for life as well as our authenticity as a free people.

Regrettably, our society has progressed to the point at which idealism is denounced as unscientific and impractical, and our preoccupation with technology has made it extremely unlikely that we shall see a re-emergence of spiritual values in our lifetime.  Philosophy has been left hanging on the coat-tails of scientific objectivism and is therefore compelled to explain intellect as a coincidental byproduct of an evolving biological world.  As a consequence, Sartre’s existential hole in the heart of Being has been transplanted in the heart of man’s culture—the nihilism that pervades intellectual discourse as we enter the twenty-first century.  So long as we insist in believing that there is no reality apart from the physical world, that man is nothing more than a biped mammal with evolved adaptive skills, that there is no primary cause or ultimate purpose in life, we are doomed to fulfill Nietzsche’s vision of a culture without belief.

History teaches us that those cultures which have managed to survive and flourish in the world community are invariably founded on belief in a purpose that transcends finite existence.  Yet, in the free world today, an individual who has the temerity to argue for a return to spiritual values is looked upon as either a holdout for theism or a grandstander of questionable intellectual depth.  The polemics of our culture were well characterized recently by radio talk-show host Dennis Prager when he said, "Those who believe in nothing are very, very jealous and angry at those who believe in something."  Why should that be?  How is it possible that one who is comfortable with a personal belief system is a pariah scorned by a public that has relegated its beliefs to the Dark Ages, yet is envious of the believer?

Having been raised in a nominally Christian household, I was a believer of sorts, albeit the substance of my belief was due more to fascination with the supernatural than to feeling bound by religious doctrine.  After obtaining a science degree from a liberal college in 1953 and completing my military obligations to the Korean campaign, I realized that philosophy and music held more interest for me than a lucrative career or a life of material extravagance.  Although I didn’t know it at the time, these two interests were connected in a valuistic way.  I had enjoyed classical music ever since hearing it on the radio as a child but, aside from taking a few piano lessons, I had never studied it as an art form.  So I elected to parlay my G.I. benefit package into an abbreviated curriculum at a local conservatory as a student of music theory and arranging.  My knowledge of the classical repertoire got me a weekend announcing job at a local FM music station which helped to defray pocket expenses.

The conservatory experience was exhilarating; I learned the basics of what made music tick and how to read scores, got a chance to try my hand at composition, and added a B.M. to my science degree.  But there was one significant drawback: lack of talent.  Instead of pursuing a career in music, I was resigned to expending my creative juices in the field of industrial advertising, which at least enabled me to take out a mortgage on a modest home for my bride and our new son—equipped of course with a decent hi-fi system for my music listening.

As for my primary interest, I explored Buddhist mysticism and New Age philosophy, Sartre and the existentialists, Kant and his Critique of Pure Reason, Schopenhauer and his Will to Live, James and his Varieties of Religious Experience, Chardin and his Phenomenon of Man, Maslow and his Psychology of Being, Watts and his Joyous Cosmology.  Somehow, the classical philosophers’ dualistic reality didn’t add up to a meaningful whole, while the ‘New Agers’ were hell-bent on destroying all that had gone before and reducing man to a neuro-physical anomaly.  But I was also working out another idea—a metaphysical cosmology that acknowledges both the subjective self and its objective reality as the finite appearance of an absolute source.

I discovered the key to this original thesis in my own esthetic appreciation for music and the arts.  In what amounted to an evolving epiphany, I began to realize that there was an element of reality that the traditional schools of philosophy had overlooked.  I called it Value.  Human beings don’t just experience things and events passing them by in this journey through life, they sense the intrinsic value of these phenomena.  We don’t simply enjoy the finer things in life; we aspire to them.  Beginning with our cognizance of a physical universe apart from our thoughts, we capture its value and convert it to the objects of our reality.  Although I hadn’t worked out all the details, I knew there was something transcendent about Value that was not going to go away.  Gradually the dynamics of this cosmology began to dawn on me, and additional research on the Internet produced support for my theory from a variety of sources.  This led to a second critical decision as a communicator: I would write my own philosophy.

By 1995 I had the draft of a philosophical thesis in manuscript form.  But, alas, after submitting it to several tradebook publishers and receiving a few sympathetic letters from the review editors, I was informed that the subject matter was unclassifiable, which was their polite aphorism for unmarketable. Although they didn’t mention it, I suspect that a curriculum vitae might have helped the author’s cause.  I also began to realize that if the message of Essentialism was ever to reach the general public, it would have to be reworked in simpler and more cogent language. In the next decade Internet technology became ‘user-friendly’, and living in retirement gave me more time to think; so I joined a host of other failed authors who were designing website versions of their works.  Fortunately for me, the new technology also afforded an opportunity to self-publish at a fraction of the usual cost, which is how this book got into your hands.

Little that you will read here has not already been said in some form by philosophers and thinkers, most of whom have expressed themselves far more eloquently than this author.  I see my mission as synthesizing those concepts that are germinal to my reality perspective, rather than exploring new frontiers of knowledge.  By expositing Essentialism in book form, I hope to revive two major ideas that have fallen into disrepute in our modern era.  The first is what I shall call, for want of a better word, the psychic spirituality of man.  The second is a clarification of Freedom as the autonomous function of the human species.

The rise of scientific objectivism over the last two centuries has been accompanied by paranoia toward any belief system tainted by religiosity.  In their zeal to trash divinity along with supernaturalism, atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have thrown the babe out with the bathwater.  Knowledge alone has practical value in the real world, they say, and since all knowledge is objective, we cannot learn truth from intuitive insight or metaphysical hypotheses that hearken back to the Dark Ages.  If there is a philosophy attached to this new enlightenment, it is that man’s future is inextricably tied to his past and that only the expansion of consensual knowledge will lead to new paradigms of reality that can optimize his possibilities.  In other words, the path to understanding is to be found in the physical world of facts, forces, and numbers.  If human beings should have any spiritual urge that would detract from this goal, they had best put it behind them.

Some objectivists have interpreted Darwin’s theory of evolution as a random mechanism for change in nature, believing it has vindicated the notion that man’s history is pre-determined by the laws of probability as opposed to being self-directed.  Thus, the biophysicists tell us that we cannot escape our genetic heritage, although they are working fervidly to correct the DNA structure.  Historians tell us that because history repeats itself the individual is a pawn in the flow of events.  Sociologists insist that man cannot rise above his cultural environment, which is to say that poverty and ignorance are ineradicable facts of human culture.  Freedom is held to be the great myth of idealists, novelists, and the intellectually naive.

Throughout history, the single, most significant shortcoming of mankind has been the failure to recognize his innate freedom—the unique ability to make choices based, not on preemptive mandates of a church, state, or collective morality, but on his own values.  Over the course of 6000 years human beings have been subject to the rule of tribal chieftains, patriarchal monarchs, feudal warlords, divine right sovereigns, autocratic dictators, theocratic statehoods, and military juntas, man’s experience with representative democracy having been limited to little more than two centuries.  In the absence of a plausible belief system that would, once and for all, release the individual from bondage to external authority and the need to appease an anthropomorphic Being, man is by and large still ignorant of the fact that he alone is responsible for his actions and for his relationships with others.  As a consequence, arrogance and superstition continue to be the driving forces in the conduct of global affairs—a fatalistic agenda that, fueled by runaway technology and international arms dealing, has pushed our civilized world to the brink of total annihilation.

If we are to set a new course for mankind, it must encompass a radically different understanding of the human position in the cosmos—especially with regard to the cultivation and enrichment of value sensibility—and it must be based upon philosophical insight that is both credible and vital to the individual.  That is what I have aimed for in writing this book.  On the pages that follow, I offer a set of axiomatic principles that conceivably could become the watershed for a value-based philosophy of Essence.  Drawn from intuitive reflection and the profound insights of philosophers and visionaries throughout the ages, they invite a valuistic perspective of reality from which may spring a credo worthy of our troubled new millennium.

—HP

1

Our Real World Mentality

To understand the struggles which go on within economic enterprise, to interpret the quarrels of international diplomacy, or to deal with the daily interplay between individuals, we must know what it is that people want, how these wants arise and change, and how people will act in the effort to satisfy them.

—E. R. Hilgard: Theories of Learning

It seems to be axiomatic that as the basic needs of a society are satisfied, people turn from ultimate questions to the superfluous, that where the necessities of life are taken for granted, so is life itself.  Life in the technological age is all about racing the clock to get in all we can in the limited time available and to get noticed along the way.  We rush to get our kids from school to ballet lessons or karate class and back in time to squeeze in supper and the homework session.  We drive in the fast lane, honking at motorists who insist on obeying the speed limit, or blasting our boom boxes at window-rattling levels as if to say, "Look at me—I’m important! We demand the latest model cell-phone, digital camera, or TV set, not that it’s a source of value but to keep up appearances.  We expect cradle-to-grave health care, not that we’ve earned it but because we believe it’s our right as citizens of a free and prosperous country.  We’re guided by the political opinions of rock singers and screen stars, not that these celebrities are better informed or more responsible but because what they have to say is more entertaining than what we might learn from our own research on global issues.  Instant gratification and deference to mainstream values enable us to seize