Thread by @EveKeneinan

Even things that don't have natures have natures. It is the nature of artifacts, artificial things, that they do not form natural kinds.

Chairs do not form a natural kind in the way bears do, or as gold does.

Yet all chairs are artifacts, and "to be an artifact" is something.

TO BE is TO BE SOMETHING.

TO BE SOMETHING (which is required TO BE AT ALL) entails ESSENCE.

ESSENCE is a fundamental as EXISTENCE. BEING bifurcates.

This is why denying Platonism is denying reality. To deny ESSENCE is as nonsensical as Gorgias' attempt to deny EXISTENCE:

Of course, Gorgias is not in earnest about what he is saying.

He is enchanted by the power of LANGUAGE to say even the most absurd and impossible things — so he chooses to say THE most impossible things.

And it is true that speech has no NECESSARY connection to SAYING TRUTH.

It is possible that Being trifurcates, into τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι, τόδε τι, and ἐνέργειᾰ.

That is, into Whatness (essence; quiddity), Thisness (haecceity), and the Act of To Be (actualitas).

Although this trifurcation would need to be qualified.

As Aquinas would say, in angelic powers, the whatness and the thisness are the same, such that angels are compounds of essence/haecceity and the act of to be.

In the case of God, all three are one.

Despite Aristotle clearing away some of the darkness, it was Thisness or haecceity (better known to us as particularity or individuality) that remained and remains a stumbling block to the Greeks.

Yes, and to the moderns too.

What they can never get past is that God isn't a mere universal, but is in particular THIS ONE, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And that God is THIS MAN, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.

Nevermind that all they know is particular — it still appears a defect to them.