In honor of
David Letterman’s final show tonight, let’s look at a variation on his famous
“Stupid pet tricks” routine. It involves
people rather animals, but lots of Pavlovian frenzied salivating. I speak of David Bentley Hart’s latest
contribution, in
the June/July issue of First Things,
to our dispute about whether there will be animals in Heaven. The article consists of Hart (a) flinging
epithets like “manualist Thomism” and “Baroque neoscholasticism” so as to rile
up whatever readers there are who might be riled up by such epithets, while (b)
ignoring the substance of my arguments.
Pretty sad. I reply at Public Discourse.
Previous installments of my various exchanges with Hart can be found here.
To clarify:
ReplyDeleteYou wouldn't set about correcting me because you were indignant at my arrogance; rather, I'm guessing, it would be because of the significance, import, of the truthfulness of Aquinas' construal of the relationship between act and potency, as well as metaphysical implications of such.
The floor is yours.
Hi all,
ReplyDeleteJust thought I'd weigh in on the discussion concerning reason and emotion. I have long thought that reason can at least sometimes operate completely independently of emotion (as in solving some maths problem), and for this reason, that it ought to do so. Can anyone tell me why this is wrong? I do tend to think reason is as such higher than emotion, because it is precisely in virtue of being rational animals that we are not merely different from other animals but in fact greater than them, as we can know Truth Itself, and relate to Him. An more important reason I believe this is because emotions qua emotions have no connection to the truth, but reason does (eg truth is nothing other than the unity of the mind and external reality, and this is only possible through reason.)
but if I am incorrect, I'd be happy to be disillusioned.
Hey John,
ReplyDeleteI had to backtrack and re-think things because my own position is inchoate and I'm still working on the capacity to express myself with the clarity of a philosopher. (My BA was in philosophy, but my master's is in theology and I'm doing my PhD in theology as well; as such, for the past several years, I've been reading more people like Hart than Feser. Also, I have three kids, teach full-time, and have three kids; thus, many distractions. I'm trying to regain my capacity for clarity and conceptual rigor; in that light, I thank you--both for helping me, and for bearing with me.)
I'm not terribly familiar with Scotus, but my response would be "no." I tried to address this in my post to Scott.
By the way, a wonderful Thomistic resource on emotion is to be found in Nicholas Lombardo's _The Logic of Desire: Aquinas on Emotion_. My own position goes beyond the one presented therein in certain respects, but, that said, it was a very illuminating read, and I believe it to be true in large part.
Best in Christ
Should have been, "have three kids, teach full-time, and am working on my dissertation."
ReplyDelete@Skyliner:
ReplyDeleteMy claim is that affect is ingredient to reason--part of it (reason) when it is understood in its fullest sense as the organon by which we apprehend and engage the fullness of being. Not the whole of it, not the charioteer, but neither is it something that is to be set over against it. [Emphases mine.]
Okay, but that's pretty tame compared to your earlier claims:
*[E]very single time* a person consciously and deliberately goes about "engag[ing] in reasoning" about anything whatsoever, they do so on the basis of an emotional provocation.…It is specifically *emotion* which sets logic in motion[.]…I stand by my claim that affect/emotion is that which sets the deliberate exercise of reason in motion.
I take it John West is right that you're backing off from or easing up on those claims, then.
Good night.
DeusPrimusEst,
ReplyDeleteI'm not willing to spend any more time on this thread (not because the subject matter and such questions as your own are uninteresting or unimportant, but because I have other obligations), but, if you really want to dig into this subject, I think a good place to start would be Mark R. Wynn's _Emotional Experience and Religious Understanding: Integrating Perception, Conception, and Feeling_. To your concerns, see especially chs. 4 and 7.
Best
hope that none of this has come off as confrontational, by the way.
ReplyDeleteOh, and don't worry about possibly coming off as confrontational. If people here were too worried about seeming confrontational, there wouldn't be so much free argument. That type of atmosphere would cripple it. I doubt any regular here would ultimately hold it against you (though may reply in kind).
Skyliner,
ReplyDeleteThank you kindly for the recommendation; I'll gladly look into it.
Would either John West or Scott be willing to take me up on this point? Or has the topic by now gone on ad nauseam?
DeusPrimusEst,
ReplyDeleteI have long thought that reason can at least sometimes operate completely independently of emotion (as in solving some maths problem), and for this reason, that it ought to do so. Can anyone tell me why this is wrong?
The ought operator in your conditional (“If reason can operate independently from emotion, reason ought to operate independently from emotion.”) makes this into a philosophy of ethics question, and I'm not really the best person to answer that. But it seems fine to me.
Edit: The ought operator in the [implied] conditional (“If reason can operate independently from emotion, reason ought to operate independently from emotion.”) makes this into a philosophy of ethics question, and I'm not really the best person to answer that. But it seems fine to me.
ReplyDeleteThe speech marks are mine, and simply for marking off the implied statement, not (just to be clear) actually quoting.
Skyliner,
ReplyDeleteOut of curiosity, would you happen to know the latin word which was translated as "emotion" in your first bullet point (in the parentheses)?
I do not, no.
Also, as an aside, I just recalled that, in the same gospel in which Christ claims that "truth" will set us free, he also identified himself as "the truth." Just something to think about.
"Just something to think about": That He said He is "the truth" in the same gospel in which He says the truth will set us free? Or, more specifically, that He said He is the way, the truth and the life? If the latter, then what's with the concern re the role of emotion in the operation of reason?
Bekhterev was familiar with Pavlov’s work and had multiple criticisms. According to Bekhterev, one of Pavlov’s major research flaws included using a saliva method. He found fault with this method because it could not be easily used on humans. In contrast, Bekhterev's method of studying this association (conditioned) reflex using mild electrical stimulation to examine motor reflexes was able to demonstrate the existence of this reflex in humans. Bekhterev also questioned using acid to encourage saliva from the animals. He felt that this practice may contaminate the results of the experiment. (Ibid, Wiki)
ReplyDeletePerhaps dogs go to heaven because they are associated with humans in some schools
The appeal to emotion as well-noted in the past few articles of Dr. Feser is interesting, as the employment of such usage is frequently noticed in formats of Obedience to Authority.
Being away from my hard copy of the Bekhterev's book, Reflexology the essence of his methodology goes further, quoting:
[...] with "collective reflexology," Vladimir Bekhterev sought a scientific, would-be objective method of studying and improving human behavior, but also the actions of the collective, of social life (including mob behavior and military conflicts), could be explained as a series of "associated motor reflexes." Reflexology did away with the old dichotomy of body and soul by getting rid of the soul altogether; in this view, everything in the emotional life of a human being can be explained by the body's responses to stimuli. Bekhterev continues the tradition of regarding the human body as inseparable from natural forces: "The nervous current must be regarded as a manifestation of one kind of universal energy." [...]
And no, I could not press the button to subscribe to read the Bentley-Hart article in full, since beginning to feel and grasp what tortuously descriptive text can make others do - as to steer one off course; imply that others need to provide a burden of proof; as well as fill in for lack of debate. This also has the consequence of making others 'fill in' their own argument to overcome confusion that may assail them... which can seem counter-intellectual if not interrogatory. This digresses from the rich dialogue that one reads here.
--Maureen
Hey Glenn,
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, this is a loose connection, but see Jn. 17:3; Mk. 12:29f. (cf. Eph. 3:18f.). The implication would be that loving the Truth in question is ingredient to knowing it (Aquinas seems to say something similar in ST 1, q. 12, a. 6.). Also, since the Truth in question is a personal reality and not an abstract concept, it would seem that knowing it (rather than simply knowing that it exists) would require something more than the application of the laws of logic to true affirmative propositions.
Again, as I said, a loose connection. I give you the last word.
Skyliner,
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, this is a loose connection, but see Jn. 17:3; Mk. 12:29f. (cf. Eph. 3:18f.). The implication would be that loving the Truth in question is ingredient to knowing it (Aquinas seems to say something similar in ST 1, q. 12, a. 6.). Also, since the Truth in question is a personal reality and not an abstract concept, it would seem that knowing it (rather than simply knowing that it exists) would require something more than the application of the laws of logic to true affirmative propositions.
1. You (writing): "I would confess indirectly to taking aim at a rather desiccated notion of reason--a notion wherein reason consists quite exclusively of propositionality and inference, and is understood *as such* to be rather superior to affectivity *and that which is apprehended via* affectivity."
2. John West (writing): "Sorry. Could you give an example of someone who actually holds this view?"
3. You (writing): "[I]t heartens me that you seem to see that construal of 'reason' as problematic; if I may probe further, why?"
4. Me (thinking): "Whoa. Now there's a leap. Hm, I wonder what might happen if I equivocate..."
5. Thus the third and fourth of my six suggestions above, to which there was, apparently, a delayed double-take -- "...as an aside, I just recalled that... Just something to think about." I had posed the question I did because I wasn't sure if you had consciously picked up on the equivocation and in turn meant to attempt subtly move my affection, or if you had subtly picked on the equivocation and that in turn had moved your affection.
6. I know, complicated; so, forget about it.
(cont)
As to the Truth in question being a personal reality, it is a personal reality for Christ Himself. I am not Christ, and, I presume, you are not either. That being so, the closet my or your personal reality can come to Christ's personal reality of being the Truth, is for us to be recipients of it or to be participants in it. Which may be just another way of saying that the experience of the Truth in question is a personal reality. But I don't think it quite right to say that the Truth in question itself is this, that or the other human's personal reality. One may experience it, but one is not himself it. Not even, appearances and subjective experiences to the contrary, in mystical union.
ReplyDeleteAs for 'knowing', I would agree that, yes, there are different kinds of 'knowing'. But it makes little sense to criticize one way of 'knowing' on the grounds that it is not another way of 'knowing'. Not unless, that is, the one doing the criticizing holds that even if there are different kinds of 'knowing', only one of them is the best kind, and all the other kinds are to put down regardless of the uses for which or the ends to which they may be in service.
As for knowing the Truth, and in the way you seem to mean, I am not aware of anyone here subscribing to the notion that "application of the laws of logic to true affirmative propositions" is a means, let alone the means, to that manner of knowing.
I am, however, aware that there are people who do subscribe to the very different notion that there are some important truths made known to us via Revelation which also may be arrived at via reason. And unless everyone is equally capable of experientially knowing the Truth, in the same way and on the same time schedule, i.e., unless everyone has equal, timely and unfettered access to Revelation (as it is in and of itself, and not merely as written or talked about), it would seem that things being such that there are some important truths made known via Revelation which also may be arrived at via reason, i.e., that there is a backup route (so to speak), is a good thing.
To better appreciate why some might people hold to the notion just mentioned, it may be helpful to hear to what St. Thomas had to say regarding what it means to reason. Since St. Thomas drew on Dionysius in saying what he said about what it means to reason, let's hear what each has to say:
St. Thomas: [T]o understand is simply to apprehend intelligible truth: and to reason is to advance from one thing understood to another, so as to know an intelligible truth. And therefore angels, who according to their nature, possess perfect knowledge of intelligible truth, have no need to advance from one thing to another; but apprehend the truth simply and without mental discussion, as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. vii). -- Third sentence following "I answer that" here.
Dionysius: Angelic Minds [do not collect] their knowledge of God in partial fragments or from partial activities of Sensation or of discursive Reason... but rather...they perceive the spiritual truths of Divine things in a single immaterial and spiritual intuition... [On the other hand,] human souls possess Reason, whereby they turn with a discursive motion round about the Truth of thing[.] -- Chapter VII, #2 here.
I haven't any more time now, so I'll leave it to you to work out the implications of what Dionysius and St. Thomas has to say (about what it means for human souls to reason).
(s/b "...all the other kinds are to be put down..." And by 'put down', I don't mean 'criticize', but to extinguish or rule out.)
ReplyDelete@Daniel:
ReplyDelete"Now is the answer that the next person in the series provides an explanation really an explanation?"
Not a complete explanation, no (although we could get, at each stage, an explanation of the creation process at that stage). But as far as I can see, it is equally unanswered by the alternative, as I've said above.
If we ask "Why is there something (a God, and thus a universe), rather than nothing at all?" then classical theology answers, "Because." "Because there is." "Because there must be, otherwise we wouldn't exist." All well and good, except that it begs the question instead of answering it. If God doesn't need a prior cause to exist - if He just is - then have we not abandoned the Principle of Sufficient Reason that was being cited earlier? If God is an exception to that principle, then why is there an exception? How can it be the case that there is an entity without cause, when in every other situation we call that an impossibility?
I'm content to accept that we don't have a complete answer to the question, "Why is there something instead of nothing?" Within that context, a First Cause or an infinite regression of causes both seem like rational explanations for our existence now. For me, the infinite regression has several conceptual advantages. However, it has been judged absurd by the blog's author, various commenters here, and centuries of philosophers, so unless someone sees it as non-absurd, there's no point going into them.
It's not that there is no explanation, or a brute fact. It's that the explanation lay in the nature of God Himself. From my reply to your asserting exactly the same thing as in your first paragraph days ago:
ReplyDeleteBlogger John West said...
[H]ow does the principle of sufficient reason lead you to conclude that there can be no reason for God's existence
That's not the conclusion though. The conclusion is that a world of contingent things could not exist unless there were a necessary being, that has of itself its own necessity. The explanation lay in the necessity of God's own nature.
It would, for example, be incoherent to say that Existence Itself doesn't exist (alternatively, that Being Itself doesn't be).
May 21, 2015 at 8:44 PM
I'm not sure why the distinction between a brute fact and a necessary existent seems to puzzle you so much.
[H]ow does the principle of sufficient reason lead you to conclude that there can be no reason for God's existence
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why it puzzles you so much, but I ask that you don't just keep baldly asserting the same thing when you've been answered such that, even if you don't fully understand, you ought to at least know that's not what's being claimed here. "That's not the conclusion though" seemed pretty clear to me.
@Carl:
ReplyDeleteIf God doesn't need a prior cause to exist - if He just is - then have we not abandoned the Principle of Sufficient Reason that was being cited earlier?
Of course not, and like John West just above, I'm having a hard time seeing what's so puzzling about this.
A necessary being is one that exists by virtue of its own nature and thus constitutes its own explanation; it's the very opposite of a brute fact, and it's also not "caused." Aquinas is quite explicit that God is self-explanatory but is not "self-caused" (which is simply contradictory on his and your understanding of "cause," although it's possible to stretch the meaning of the word so as to include "explanation").
Why you think this explanation of God's existence amounts to "answer[ing] 'Because'" or "beg[ging] the question" is beyond me.
@Carl
ReplyDeleteI want to supplement some of what was written here. Sorry if I repeat something already written: the latter posts I only skimmed through. I wish to consider the theological, non "Greek philosophy" side of things.
Orthodox Jewish tradition holds God to be immaterial. This is a defining feature to all Abrahamic religions: Maimonides even went so far as to make it one of the 13 principles of the Jewish faith. Muhammad actually criticizes Christianity on this bases: Jesus can't be the Son of God, as God cannot have a Son, for having a Son would indicate that God has a body like us.
"God is a spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24)." I think this statement alone either refutes the idea that the Bible itself teaches that the Divine Nature is corporal, or else the atheists are right, and the Bible is contradictory.
The idea of translating such corporal analogies in the Old Testament as literal is very foreign to Jewish thought, because we "Greek" moderns tend to read things like our 21st century modern literalist literature, rather than as the the Jews would have in their time. Some, if not much, of the Old Testament is literal events recorded in symbolic and theological language (and some books aren't history at all: the Song of Solomon or Ecclesiastes, for example). This is just how Jews tell their experiences with their encounter with God: even up to the first century, Jews such as Jesus and Paul also taught in lesson teaching stories ("parables") and hyperboles (if your hand offends thee, cut it off!" Do you think Jesus literally meant this?). I actually think that the term parable used in the New Testament is to remind the more literalistic Greeks coverts that Jesus isn't talking about literal events!
The key is to remember that the most important of the stories is first and foremost the lessons about God taught by them, which have an importance here and now, with the literal history being secondary. This is why Catholics and Orthodox have no problems saying that the "Adam event," the Fall, happened in the literal sense that the First Human rejected God, but that the recording of it in Genesis uses symbolic and theological language. This is also why we can say that the flood was not a global flood, but a local one told with the literary sense of hyperbole to describe it (a literary technique Moses knew very well). I'm not denying that all these events are non-historical, far from it! I believe such events happened as they are described, but that the descriptions are sometimes figurative. It's a hard concept for us moderns to understand.
To be continued...
A good example of this understanding of non-literal senses of Scripture just within the Old Testament itself is the Book of Judith, where Nebuchadnezzar is described as "king of Assyria", which is definitely not a historical fact: and the Jews at that time KNEW that this wasn't a historical fact, as they knew Nebuchadnezzer and Assyria quite well. This passage is to be read today, as it would have been then, as a figurative combination of great enemies of the people of Israel in order to discuss general opposition to the People of God.
ReplyDeleteThe key is that "figurative" or "symbolic" doesn't mean false, but rather that words are used in a different representation than the literalist one, which is similar to metaphors and similes in English today. The thing is that Jews didn't always use the same style of "figurative" as we do today; they tended to be a bit more fluid with their symbols, which is, again, very confusing to the modern western literalist. I'm trying to reeducate Christians to better understand Traditional Biblical interpretation, and how crude literalism is a relatively recent idea, which is reflective of our own cultural biases rather than falsity in Scripture.
However, such corporal language about God isn't accidental to Scripture: everything in Scripture has at least one sense, explaining the thoughts of God to us in some way. And everything in Scripture points to Jesus. However, the Bible also has human authors, who were describing Revelation in the way their culture would understand it. So, the Genesis line "[God] walked in the garden in the cool of the afternoon" is in one sense an archaic expression of a crude desert tribe, but it also expresses a deep longing for the Beloved Israel to be close to God, and what better way to express such longings, as well as explaining the immanence of God, but by describing God in intimate and immanent terms like a human body, which they could touch and feel? I think you have to be poet to understand this. No one accuses St. John of the Cross of believing God to be crudely physical when reading his "Dark Night of the Soul."
The most profound insight I've received regarding bodily analogies and God is that they are ALL implicit hints to the Incarnation of God: the prophets talk about the mouth, or the eyes, or the wounds of God, because they saw that such figurative language would eventually be literal facts! Emanuel, "God with us," is a literal truth! God having eyes, and a mouth, eventually became known to Israel, not figuratively, but literally. With Jesus being both fully God and fully Man, although it may be figurative that God walked in the garden to find Adam (Genesis 3), it is literal that God walked in the garden to find Mary Magdalene (John 20).
Christi pax.
A very minor point, that when Aquinas speaks of literal, he doesn't mean it in our sense:
ReplyDelete"Reply to Objection 2. These three — history, etiology, analogy — are grouped under the literal sense. For it is called history, as Augustine expounds (Epis. 48), whenever anything is simply related; it is called etiology when its cause is assigned, as when Our Lord gave the reason why Moses allowed the putting away of wives — namely, on account of the hardness of men's hearts; it is called analogy whenever the truth of one text of Scripture is shown not to contradict the truth of another. Of these four, allegory alone stands for the three spiritual senses. Thus Hugh of St. Victor (Sacram. iv, 4 Prolog.) includes the anagogical under the allegorical sense, laying down three senses only — the historical, the allegorical, and the tropological.
Reply to Objection 3. The parabolical sense is contained in the literal, for by words things are signified properly and figuratively. Nor is the figure itself, but that which is figured, the literal sense. When Scripture speaks of God's arm, the literal sense is not that God has such a member, but only what is signified by this member, namely operative power. Hence it is plain that nothing false can ever underlie the literal sense of Holy Writ.
I don't think any regulars here would make this mistake, but it may help a visitor.