Phenomenology

To all my Metaphysical Friends: 
(For those who don't know, "Universal" = quality/adjective
As I delve into my reading alongside my Logic Exercises, I found myself writing this passage:

“The Problem with the book’s example of, “F: Fred is short” I that its universal is referential. Height is based on the measurement of one object compared to another. As such, it is not objective nor is it innate. If nothing in the world existed except for a singular object, say Fred, then he would be neither short not tall, for there is nothing to compare him to, but he would also be both short and tall, for there is nothing to otherwise disprove either of these claims, creating a paradox where one object exemplifies/represents two contradicting universals.”

As I read, I also began wondering if any universal can be truly innate.

For example, the concept of beauty is a funny one. For an object to exemplify beauty it must be experienced as beautiful by another person. Now, defining this exemplification is difficult for there are few valid ways to ultimately say what is evident of a person experiencing an object as beautiful. I believe we could make claims that they find themselves in awe of the object, or they are able to appreciate it for its qualities, or even that there is some biological process that occurs when the person experiences something beautiful that does not happen for any other scenario but that. These could very well be proper parameters to use in order to include beauty in an ontology of the world. However, this bears in mind the idea that objects are defined by those that experience them, and how the objects, in turn, experience the people, cyclically. This Phenomenological approach would then reveal that objects have no innate properties, for if there was no one to experience the object, then the object would have no one to assign it qualities. Without any qualities, the object ceases to be describable, definable, and meaningful. As such, it becomes meaningless. Without any meaning or definition, the object would cease to exist as it would have no qualities, and existence would be among those qualities, both in a material sense and a conceptual sense. This is due to there being no entity to actualize this object in either physical form or mental conception. The object also ceases to have relevancy to the ontology since, with no qualities and meaning it bears no use to the discussion and becomes meaningless, thus expunging it from discussion. 

Now, if this state of mind was continued, one could simply eliminate all humanity and animals (i.e. all conscious beings) and the world would cease to exist. With no one to actualize the world, the world ceases to exist. Now, if an object has innate universals, then it would exemplify a universal without the need for a conscious being to experience it. However, this is paradoxical, for if a quality needs an conscious mind to experience and actualize the object, then the object that exemplifies an innate universal would thereby have to experience itself. The object, being self-aware, would actualize itself, experience itself, then experience this actualization, and continue in an infinite regress of self-awareness, indefinitely realizing itself. 

Now, with this in mind, it can be reasoned that no inanimate object has a conscious mind. Therefore, only an animate object, having a conscious mind, has the ability to experience and actualize an object and the qualities associated with it. Now, if an innate universal must have the ability to actualize itself with itself, then there are only a few possibilities for naming the only things with innate qualities.

The first one, following this run of thought, would be the conscious mind. The conscious mind, on its own merits, has the ability to experience itself and actualize itself, giving itself qualities and proving its existence. 

A second proposition would be the human, which has a conscious mind. This human has the ability to experience itself using its mind and actualize itself. Thus, the human is able to exist on its own. 

A third proposition would be God, for God, like the human, has a mind to experience himself, and so on.

As such, the three innate universals would be:
1) Mindfulness
2) Humanness
3) Godliness

If this quality is lost, then the object itself ceases to exist for it ceases to have the ability to define itself. However, so long as the object exist, it has the ability to actualize its own existence. 

Now, this argument presents the idea that experience precedes existence. It is disproved by the argument that existence precedes experience, whereby the object exists and the entity experiences that object. Along this thought, the object exemplifies all of its own qualities on its own, independent of the interpretive mind. With this state of mind, it is the object that gives the entity something to experience. As such, Existence precedes Experience.