Essentialism and Gender

Рет қаралды 17,101

Күн бұрын

my website: www.jordanbcoop...
Patreon: / justandsinner
In this video, I discuss philosophical essentialism and modern gender theory. I explain realism and its differentiation from both nominalism and conceptualism.

Пікірлер: 62

@bananewane1402 4 жыл бұрын

Some things certainly belong in real categories, eg. there is something innate in a hydrogen atom, a scandium atom and a tungsten atom that make them all atoms, all part of the same category. However, other categories are arbitrary and are only “real” to the observer. Colour is a spectrum. Where does “red” end and “orange” begin? Really the only universally understood way to classify colour is by light wavelength. Understood by these parameters, all colours of light can be grouped into the very real category of “electromagnetic wave” as all wavelengths of light are inherently electromagnetic waves. Another example of a nominal category is “food”. What is considered food depends on the organism and even among humans the definition of food is different. I was shocked to find that my boyfriend didn’t consider chocolate to be a real food as it didn’t provide real sustenance. I argued that as it was consumable and our bodies could use it for energy, it was food. Both of us were right; we just had different definitions of the word food.

@Gregorycrafter 7 ай бұрын

So, first off, that example of the category of "food" is only like that because how you are using the term is too vague. What is food is that which edible by a living creature (as in the creature would not die or be seriously harmed by consuming it). Of course, then it is divided to various categories like "human food", "dog food", "food that is healthy for humans", "food that provides energy for human" etc. Where you and your boyfriend differed, is not in having a different definition of what is "food", but rather, you and him were talking about two different concepts that are sub-sets of the larger concept of "food". Of course, obviously, there can still be debate on how to define those sets, but that is simply because, what we see and experience is, as to reference Plato's cave, a mere shadow of the form and not the form itself; what we speak of from our observations is an abstraction from the external world and thus an abstraction of an abstraction of the reality. A perfect example of this, is actually in the idea you brought up in regard to the colour spectrum. Firstly, so how we refer to colour is merely a shorthand so that we don't have to say "that object reflects light of a wavelength of exactly 700 nanometres," as the colour we experience is technically infinite and thus an abstraction from the reality is necessary in order to conceptualize and speak of the reality. Secondly, the debate on where "red" ends and "orange" begin, is not a debate on what is "red" and "orange", but rather it is a debate on, given the reality that is "red" and the reality that is "orange", how much of the essence of either colour is necessary to be considered that colour. What I am saying, is that the reality is objective (or in other words, universals exists beyond our perception), but because our observation is an abstraction of an abstraction of the reality, our experience alone is incapable of fully grasping the reality--this is actually what the role of philosophy is, as to use wisdom and reason to better parse together a fuller grasp of reality than what individual experience is capable of. Lastly, in this debate, there is also a debate on whether objects are merely the sum of their parts, and on that I'll say that table salt is not sodium and chloride, but rather it is sodium chloride--the interaction between sodium and chloride make it more than just the sum of those two parts, and in most things there are such interactions that make it more than the sum of its parts.

@BenShimon5731 2 ай бұрын

Great point, but a little bit long winded.

@xenoblad 4 жыл бұрын

Eh... nomanalism doesn’t deny that we observe real things, but how we choose to slice and dice up the world IS up to us. I could make a category of humans called “flurgles” and humans in this category have an odd number of moles on their body. People who are not “flurgles” are “fliggles”. The creation of the categories of “flurgles” and “fliggles” doesn’t add anything real to the world. The particulars in that category ARE real.

@Anrgystudio Жыл бұрын

Thank you for explaining, my university professor taught us this concept in the most mindboggling way possible. I couldn't get it until you explained it in 8 minutes

@sageseraph5035 5 жыл бұрын

This is so essential to understand the third way of Aquinas.

@meyer2911 5 жыл бұрын

Thank you for the video. I agree but i will play devils advocate. If there is such a thing as femaleness and maleness howcome the roles vary a little bit from each culture. Usually the males were the hunters in some primal cultures but also a few where the women were.

@tymytymy 5 жыл бұрын

From what I understood about essentialism and gender is that it does not matter what you do, what you think or what roles the society assign for you. We share the same essentialist idea of the femaleness and maleness around the world. That is, a male is a male just like the color red is red. If you want to think otherwise then you have anti-essentialism views, for example a male growing long hair a wearing ladies clothes and putting make up on calling "himself" a woman.

@meyer2911 3 жыл бұрын

@Kevin Cobb thank you. That is a good explanation

@apple2023 3 жыл бұрын

@@meyer2911 There can be a difference in roles but not a difference in being. That's essentially what essentialism argues. You can apply the example this guy uses in the video, of cutting a dog's hair. Gender in essentialism is similar to the dog's hair (and subsequent appearance as a cat) having nothing to do with it's being. It is essentially still a dog, no matter how it acts or looks.Therefore a man is still a man, even if he may let his hair grow or act like a woman (when you apply essentialist principles). Hope that helps

@wildfire9280 Жыл бұрын

@@tymytymy And what is an intersex person?

@DeadEndFrog Ай бұрын

There is a reason why essentialism became less popular with the advent of evolution, and Pragmatism aswell as scientific falsification. But to make a Long point short - whole exercise here is to find exceptions to the rule, and then the "essentialist" frame work falls short (as opposite to philosophy, science attempts to falsify) So for each example one puts up as essential one finds a corrisponding counter example, inorder to test the idea, such as with colour, where blind people, colour blind people, and subjective experiences of colour being counter to an overrarching This is Even a good exercise for essentialism in general, as a way to find what is truely essential

@mers3481 2 ай бұрын

I'm quite interested in this subject and I wish the video would've gone longer into your explanation. My question is: the Form or the Essence is what identifies the species, and both male and female are of the same species, which means (and it makes sense) that they have the same type of Form. (Species is one of the predicables of Porphyry to arrive at the identification of the Form/Essence, which is what Carolus Linnaeus used for Biology). If male/female are the same form, then what makes them different? My first thought is that sex is a "proprium", which is an inherent property of a Form but which is not essential. How this plays out I'm not yet sure.

@truthisbeautiful7492 3 жыл бұрын

What is the relationship between sex essentialism and those who speak of 'race essentialism'?

@basic_chain Ай бұрын

It's interesting that the category of "dog" is used as an example but not "male" and "female" dog. "Maleness" and "femaleness" describe the ranges of sexual dimorphism of a species, female having the larger gamedes and male the smaller. So why draw a line of distinction there? Could it be cultural conceptions of male and female?

@WilliamWordsworthWrites 4 ай бұрын

I think this is a very important discussion and it's crucial to not conflate the words "gender" and "sex"; specificity matters. Where the majority of male and female sex categories have shared and stable essential characteristics, the gender categories are subjective and unstable. The gender categories we create are generalizations or shortcuts, but with each person we meet their "gender" is specific to them and will inevitably defy the generalizations in one way or another (ex. meeting a male person who wears makeup). Whereas for the vast majority of people their sex will meet the generalizations of the categories (of course a small percentage of people's sex will not, because there are always outliers in any stable category).

@Joseph2day 16 күн бұрын

The true characteristic of all entities in the universe are those characteristic that exist without an intelligent being considering how that might be categorized. In this I would say that no intelligent being has influence over the true nature of the entities within the Universe. Intelligent beings can then choose to categorize these entities any any way that is useful for the given intelligent being, but it makes no change to the entity itself. A dog is exactly the same thing regardless how I categorize it. There is a limit to this in a sense. This is the fact that if in the universe their would only exist one item I believe that one item would actually not exist because it would interact with nothing, and with no interaction there is no evidence of existence unless that entity interacted with itself. By interaction, I do not believe an intelligent being needs to witness the object, and 2 particles interacting would be sufficient to give evidence of the other existing. I reject any philosophy that requires any form of intelligence to aid in the categorization of an entity in the Universe. Categories are created by intelligent beings only for the intelligent being to create a simplified model of the Universe. This simplified model is always wrong in the sense that it is an over simplification. Now, as for gender in the human species, xy chromosome is a male, xx is a female. (over simplification I know again all models are wrong) Now all that said, I kept talking about intelligent beings being able to categorize anything in anyway that is useful. If in my home I find a very useful reason to call a fork a spoon and a spoon a fork, and it serves me well in life, I would like to see you try to force me to not call my silverware what I want to call my silverware, and if I have a reason that a very large number of people find useful then I may even gain traction in the world to make this change a wide reaching change in our vocabulary because it is useful, but not because the object changed, but because there is a large number of people who find my vocabulary more beneficial. Obviously all of this is just opinions created in my mind. They are not correct. In my way of thinking no intelligent creature can create a truth or a correct answer to any question. There is uncertainty in every measurement and any belief comes from the model inside my own brain, and since I believe all models are wrong, then any model of the universe that I or anyone else conceives of is wrong. Therefore what I say here is wrong, but so is everyone else's opinion on every opinion held by any intelligent being.

@mybeautifulchaos6670 4 жыл бұрын

This video is brilliant but to be honest now that I've watched it I realized that I'm a nominalist

@reallydoe2052 2 жыл бұрын

Are you justified in that belief tho

@drkmwinters Жыл бұрын

Words are social constructs

@standwithhim7603 Жыл бұрын

This was SO helpful, thank you!!!

@prof.evilpictures8696 Жыл бұрын

Yes people are male and female. But gender is not the same as sex.

@wetfart420 8 ай бұрын

Indeed. Sex exists while gender does not.

@Smilomaniac 6 ай бұрын

So roughly a "general truth" claim based on pattern recognition that we can observe, intuit and interact with, but does not necessarily fit into other philosophies. In other words, because the sum of the parts can't be deconstructed into fitting into other realities or methods of analysis, people will call it "-essentialism" and dismiss it on that basis. Note that I'm coming at this from a practical standpoint of understanding what people on the internet say when they claim something is essentialism. It's like someone pointing to a penguin and saying you can't call things birds, because these can't fly, so "what is a bird really" and then without irony pointing at a reptile and calling that a bird. Hilarious.

@loudpacifist Жыл бұрын

This was more about essentialism and sex, not gender.

@jamessorrel 9 ай бұрын

Does homosexuality have an essence?

@PA_hunter 2 жыл бұрын

Have you explored Islam?

@85bbenjaminfan 4 жыл бұрын

The concept of realism can be applied to the Trinity, that there are three distinct persons, but they're God in essence. Thank you for that, you inadvertently gave me a better concept to understand it

@DisabledPsychedelica 5 жыл бұрын

I hope this doesn’t make me cringe. UPDATE: I lowkey did.

@DrJordanBCooper 5 жыл бұрын

What is mistaken in the presentation? Do you have a critique of realism?

@DisabledPsychedelica 5 жыл бұрын

Jordan Cooper You’re argument is accurate, but as a person how is affected by the our fallen creation in the aspects of gender and sexuality... I think it doesn’t address the real issues of our modern understanding of gender. IMO this is more towards the flat earther or creationist radicals side of gender theory.

@DisabledPsychedelica 5 жыл бұрын

Jordan Cooper Also the gender/sex chart is like the flat earthers new doughnut 🍩 shaped earth representation but for gender/sex.

@DrJordanBCooper 5 жыл бұрын

@@DisabledPsychedelica Yeah, I understand that. I am certainly dealing with the more radical views regarding gender, but I think the radical perspective is more common than you may acknowledge.

@DisabledPsychedelica 5 жыл бұрын

Jordan Cooper It is a view several groups hold, but for the most part it’s extremely radical. It’s tolerated and given space, but most people consider it too radical.