Corrupting the Calvinist youth [UPDATED]

Some guy named “Steve” who contributes to the group apologetics blog Triablogue informs us that “Feser seems to have a following among some young, philosophically-minded Calvinists.”  (Who knew?)  “Steve” is awfully perturbed by this, as he has “considerable reservations” about me, warning that I am not “a very promising role model for aspiring Reformed philosophers.” And why is that?  Not, evidently, because of the quality of my philosophical arguments, as he does not address a single argument I have ever put forward.  Indeed, he admits that he has made only an “admittedly cursory sampling” of my work -- and, it seems, has read only some blog posts of mine, at that -- and acknowledges that “this may mean I'm not qualified to offer an informed opinion of Feser.”  So he offers an uninformed opinion instead, making some amazingly sweeping remarks on the basis of his “admittedly cursory” reading.  (Why that is the sort of example “aspiring Reformed philosophers” should emulate, I have no idea.)

Normally I ignore this sort of drive-by blogging, but since Triablogue seems to have a significant readership among people interested in apologetics, I suppose I should say something lest “Steve” corrupt the Calvinist youth by his rash example.

 
“Intelligent Design” theory

So, what’s “Steve’s” beef?  The first of his by-his-own-admission-uninformed objections to my work is this:

[Feser]'s a vociferous critic of intelligent-design theory. Now, ID-theory is fair game. However, it's philosophically unenlightening when philosophers like Feser (and Francis Beckwith) criticize ID-theory because it isn't Thomism. Unless you grant that Thomist epistemology and metaphysics should be the standard of comparison, that objection is uninteresting. 

Now, he’s right that I’m a critic of ID theory.  But his philosophy-by-power-browsing method has failed him badly if he thinks that my criticisms boil down to: “Well, it isn’t Thomism, ergo…”  First of all, as I have emphasized many times, I have two main problems with ID theory.  First, I hold that it presupposes, even if just for methodological purposes, a seriously problematic philosophy of nature.  Second, I hold that it tends to lead to a dangerously anthropomorphic conception of God that is incompatible with classical theism.  (See the posts linked to above for detailed exposition of these lines of criticism.)

Now, to take the second point first, lots of classical theists are not Thomists.  And I imagine there are lots of people who might find it worthwhile inquiring whether classical theism and ID theory are compatible whether or not they are classical theists, or Thomists, or ID theorists for that matter.  For knowing how various ideas cohere or fail to cohere with one another is part of the philosophical task.  So, surely it can be “philosophically enlightening” to consider the arguments of those who hold that classical theism and ID theory are incompatible, no? 

To come to my other line of criticism of ID, it is true that my reasons for rejecting the philosophy of nature that underlies ID theory are Aristotelian reasons, and Thomists are Aristotelians.  However, this in no way entails that these reasons should be regarded as “philosophically unenlightening” to those who happen not to be Thomists.  For one thing, you don’t need to be a Thomist to find it of interest whether ID theory is compatible with Aristotelianism.  Not all Aristotelians are Thomists -- for example, many contemporary neo-Aristotelian metaphysicians and philosophers of science are not Thomists -- so that if ID theory is incompatible with Aristotelianism, it isn’t just Thomists who will reject ID’s underlying philosophy of nature.  And as with the relationship between classical theism and ID theory, the relationship between Thomism and ID theory should be of philosophical interest in itself.  (For example, if it turns out that Thomism and ID theory really are incompatible, surely this can be “philosophically enlightening” for those who are drawn to Thomism but don’t know what to make of ID theory, or who are drawn to ID theory but don’t know what to make of Thomism.)

Finally, I have, of course, given arguments -- at length, in depth, and in various books and articles -- for the various aspects of the Aristotelian philosophy of nature.  I don’t say: “If you just happen by arbitrary preference to be a Thomist like me, then you should reject ID theory.”  I say:  “Here are the arguments for why you should accept the Aristotelian position vis-à-vis act and potency, substantial form, final causality, etc.; and since ID theory is incompatible with all that, you should reject ID theory.” 

“Steve,” despite his touching concern for the sound formation of “aspiring Reformed philosophers,” does not answer, or indeed even seem to be aware of, any of these philosophical arguments.  But when a Thomist [or a Leibnizian, or a naturalist, or whatever] offers arguments for a position, it is no good for an “aspiring philosopher” to say: “Well, I’m not a Thomist [or a Leibnizian, or a naturalist, or whatever], so I don’t find all that ‘philosophically enlightening.’”  An “aspiring philosopher” should respond to the damn arguments.  Awful luck for those who would prefer to limit their philosophical investigations to the “admittedly cursory” kind, but there it is. 

I absolutely love this addendum by “Steve,” by the way:

[T]he problem is compounded by the fact that Feser's understanding of Paley and ID-theory have both been challenged. Consider the running debates between his blog and Uncommon Descent.

That’s it.  That’s all he says about the matter.  Do you hear that, “aspiring Reformed philosophers”?  Feser’s views have been challenged!  That never happens to serious philosophers.

“Doctrinaire” Thomism

“Steve’s” second by-his-own-admission-uninformed objection to me is that my Thomism is “doctrinaire,” “purist,” etc.  We shouldn’t be concerned with “expounding or repristinating Aquinas, but in advancing the argument,” sniffs “Steve.”  For “ultimately, philosophy is about ideas.  It doesn't matter where you get your ideas.”  (Unless they’re from Feser, naturally.) 

The funny thing is that “Steve” never actually cites a case where I claim that something is true merely because Aquinas or some prominent Thomist like Cajetan said it, or where I have rejected a claim merely because it deviates from Aquinas or from the Thomist tradition -- which he couldn’t have done even if he’d bothered to give my work more than an “admittedly cursory” reading, because I have never said such a thing.

“Steve” piously avers, as if he were saying something I would disagree with:

From an intellectual standpoint, a misinterpretation can be more useful than a correct interpretation. Suppose you improve on Aquinas by unintentionally imputing to him a better theory than he held. That's bad exegesis, but good philosophy.

Yet compare this passage from my book Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction:

No great philosopher, no matter how brilliant and systematic, ever uncovers all the implications of his position, foresees every possible objection, or imagines what rival systems might come into being centuries in the future.  His work is never finished, and if it is worth finishing, others will come along to do the job.  Since their work is, naturally, never finished either, a tradition of thought develops, committed to working out the implications of the founder’s system, applying it to new circumstances and challenges, and so forth.  Thus Plato had Plotinus, Aristotle had Aquinas, and Aquinas had Cajetan – to name just three famous representatives of Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Thomism, respectively.  And thus you cannot fully understand Plato unless you understand Platonism, you cannot fully understand Aristotle unless you understand Aristotelianism, you cannot fully understand Thomas unless you understand Thomism, and so on.  True, writers in the traditions in question often disagree with one another and sometimes simply get things wrong.  But that is all the more reason to study them if one wants to understand the founders of these traditions; for the tensions and unanswered questions in a tradition reflect the richness of the system of thought originated by its founder.  (pp. 7-8, emphasis added)

But to be fair, “Steve” can’t have been expected to see passages like that, since it would require actually bothering to read someone’s work before criticizing it; and that, it seems, is not an approach to research he would commend to “aspiring Reformed philosophers.”  Apparently, it is Jerry Coyne to whom young Calvinists should be looking for methodological guidance.

“Steve” compares me unfavorably to other Catholic philosophers.  After all, “Geach… did groundbreaking work on Frege” and “Pruss doesn't hesitate to synthesize Aristotelian and Leibnizian insights.”  Since I don’t try to assimilate Aquinas to Frege, that simply must be because my method is to stick my fingers in my ears and chant: “If Aquinas himself didn’t say it, it isn’t true!”  It can’t be because I have actual philosophical reasons for thinking that there is more to the notion of existence than is captured by Frege (see Aquinas, pp. 55-59 and Scholastic Metaphysics, pp. 250-55).  And if I am critical of the Leibnizian approach to possible worlds, that must be because I couldn’t find it in the index to the Summa.  It definitely isn’t because I think the Aristotelian conception of modality is actually superior on the philosophical merits (Scholastic Metaphysics, pp. 235-41).

Then there’s all that non-existent work of mine synthesizing Aristotelian and Kripkean insights; synthesizing Aristotelian insights and insights drawn from Karl Popper; defending the principle of sufficient reason, despite its origins in Leibnizian-Wolffian rationalism, against Gilsonian Thomists who reject it as a foreign import (Scholastic Metaphysics pp. 138-40); defending the classification of Aquinas as a kind of dualist despite the fact that many Thomists strenuously disavow that label; and bringing Scholastic thought and analytic philosophy into dialogue (see Scholastic Metaphysics, Aquinas, and indeed most of what I’ve written for the past ten years).  Again, none of that exists.  Or, to be more precise, none of it showed up on “Steve’s” iPhone when he was doing research for his blog post on the subway to work Monday morning.

“Isn't Feser basically a popularizer?” asks “Steve.”  And it’s a reasonable enough question for him to ask, given that he hasn’t actually read any of my academic stuff but only a couple of blog posts, and thus doesn’t know that the answer is: “No, he isn’t.  Haven’t you read any of his academic stuff?  What did you do, just read a couple of blog posts?” 

Not being a mere popularizer, it seems, involves tossing off half-baked blog posts of your own putting forward sweeping judgments based on what you acknowledge to be a cursory knowledge of the facts.  Ecce blogger, aspiring young Reformed philosophers!  

UPDATE 4/30:  Some readers are wondering why I put quotation marks around “Steve’s” name.  The reason is that “Steve” is evidently not a real person but a spambot, and not a very sophisticated one.  That was obvious enough from “Steve’s” original post, and in a follow-up post and in various spambot-generated combox remarks beneath it, the telltale signs are all there -- oddly robotic repetition of statements that have already been refuted, failure to address what an interlocutor actually said, non sequiturs, etc.  (Triablogue guys, get some better AI software, huh?)