PSYA02H3 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: We Exist, Nuclear Fission, Existence Precedes Essence
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PSYA02H3 Full Course Notes
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Summary of key ideas in a11 thus far. Essence, understood as the soul or the spirit, was presumed to precede existence. Existence, then, was presumed to be the process of accessing and expressing this essence in some way, appealing to it for guidance, taking care not to ignore or dishonour it. But this was only possible because this essence was presumed to be incorruptible and infallible (sometimes configured as the soul ). When we found ourselves in the wrong, it was not our essence that was at fault, but are failure to adhere to its guidance. This led to a crisis in meaning because it was now seen that meaning was imposed from without and not the uncovering of something essential already within. Nothing means anything until it is made meaningful through discourse, but this discourse could be self-serving, manipulative and/or destructive. And so we have lucky spouting transitional scientific research phrases, with no central meaning.
