Talk:Hexis

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I appreciate the "unclear" header, but for me, the article was exactly on point. Anyone who uses this article will want to know about the alternative possible translations of Hexis and the article really does a good job of that.

I've read the article 3 times, and I still don't know what Hexis means. Can you use it in a sentence? It says it means possession. So your head is a hexis because it belongs to you? Then it says disposition. So if your head were chopped off by the headman's axe, then the hexis of your head would be in a basket? Then it talks about something being a hexis if it has a stable arrangement of parts. Well a face is fairly stable, so that is another context in which a head is a hexis? What was the word usually used to describe? Okay, now I've read the article 5 times, and I still don't get it. Initially I thought the tag should be removed, because I loath tags that aren't explained, but in this case I fully empathize with whoever placed the tag, because the article is incomprehensible in its entirety, as it fails to clearly describe what a hexis is. I don't have a bloody clue. I feel like I've just played a game of 20 questions and lost! The Transhumanist 10:11, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

@Transhumanist: this isn't a dictionary definition; it's the explication of a philosophical term. You don't "use it in a sentence". I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to stuff like this, but I understood the article without any problem.

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I think that if this article is to exist it has to cover the difficult ground which is this word. In Ancient Greek everyday words were being twisted into new meanings which had never had words for them before. No one should expect a simple translation from Ancient Greek to English for such words.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:44, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

thanks[edit]

i think the article is great; it helped me define "body hexis," which came up in a Bourdieu reading of mine. he's using it in a way to describe the way you use your body (your disposition) that you have learned since birth from others. a good example would be personal space. people learn to be around others with different amounts of it. i need more room than your average new yorker, for instance. hope it helps? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sean56a (talk • contribs) 03:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

hexis as cohesion[edit]

Here is a slight amplification of the notion of 'hexis'. I quote from:

Concepts of Space: The History of Theories of Space in Physics By Max Jammer (3rd ed. p24):

"Criticizing this doctrine, the Peripatetics raised the following question: If the material world is really surrounded by an infinite void, why does it not become dissipated and lost in the course of time? The answer is now clear: the different parts of the material world are connected, not, as Aristotle thought, by an exterior continent, an upper sphere which forces the parts to stay together, like samples in a box, but by an internal cohesion (hexis), which is only another aspect of the tension mentioned before. It is this binding force that holds the world together, and the void without force of its own can do nothing to loosen it. ..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jbuddenh (talk • contribs) 19:59, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]