Musical chairs brains minds

Comics, like science fiction, can be a great source for philosophical thought experiments.  Recently I’ve been re-reading one of the classic Marvel storylines from the 1970s, the “Headmen saga” from The Defenders, by Steve Gerber and Sal Buscema.  Gerber, who was among the best writers ever to have worked in comics, famously specialized in absurdist satire, and this storyline is a prime example.  More to the present point, it contains an interesting twist on a scenario familiar from discussions of the philosophical problem of personal identity.

The Church permits criticism of popes under certain circumstances

Fathers have the authority to teach and discipline their children, but this authority is not absolute.  They may not teach their children to do evil, and they may not discipline them with unjust harshness.  Everyone knows this, though everyone also knows that there are fathers who do in fact abuse their children or teach them to do evil.  Everyone also knows that it is right for children under these unhappy circumstances to disobey and reprove their fathers, while still acknowledging their fathers’ authority in general and submitting to his lawful instructions.

Aquinas on the human soul

My article “Aquinas on the Human Soul” appears in the anthology The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism, edited by Jonathan Loose, Angus Menuge, and J. P. Moreland and just published by Wiley-Blackwell.  Lots of interesting stuff in this volume.  The table of contents and other information are available here.

Aquinas on the meaning of life

My article “Aquinas and the meaning of life” appears in the anthology The Meaning of Life and the Great Philosophers, edited by Stephen Leach and James Tartaglia and just published by Routledge.  Lots of interesting stuff in this volume.  The table of contents and other information are available here.

Capital punishment at Church Militant

Recently, I did a Skype interview with Michael Voris of Church Militant on the subject of By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed.  It’s available at the CM website, though it looks like you have to be a subscriber to watch the full interview.

NCR on Five Proofs

At National Catholic Register, Clare Walker kindly reviews my book Five Proofs of the Existence of God.  From the review:

Professor Edward Feser has a rare gift: the ability to make esoteric philosophical arguments accessible to lay readers. With charm and wit, Feser summarizes five arguments for the existence of God, based on Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas and Leibniz.

Gödel and the unreality of time

In 1949, in a festschrift devoted to Einstein, Kurt Gödel published a very short but profound paper titled “A Remark About the Relationship Between Relativity Theory and Idealistic Philosophy.”  It has since become well-known as a defense of the possibility in principle of time travel in a relativistic universe.  But in fact that is not exactly what Gödel was trying to show.  He was trying to show instead that time is illusory.  He was using Einstein to revive the timeless conception of reality defended historically by thinkers like Parmenides and McTaggart.

Claremont Center

The recent exchange between Bishop Robert Barron and William Lane Craig was sponsored by the Claremont Center for Reason, Religion, and Public Affairs, with which I am associated.  The Center’s website has just gone live, and will give you more information about the Center and its associated scholars and activities.