Tuesday, October 1, 2024
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"One of the best contemporary writers on philosophy" National Review
"A terrific writer" Damian Thompson, Daily Telegraph
"Feser... has the rare and enviable gift of making philosophical argument compulsively readable" Sir Anthony Kenny, Times Literary Supplement
Selected for the First Things list of the 50 Best Blogs of 2010 (November 19, 2010)
Danke. Vergessen Deutsch
ReplyDeleteEd, Your writings are getting wide readership. The only German Thomistic philosopher I know is Joseph Pieper, who books are in English.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of German, one day there will be a book, a "Festschrift," essays in honor of Prof. Feser.
ReplyDeleteMeine Frau ist vielleicht interessiert. Sie hat schon Five Proofs in deutsch gelesen. Aber mein deutsch ist jetzt nicht gut genug.
ReplyDeleteDanke sehr.
I need to look that one up, before I search for a translation of the author's work. Neo-scholastic Metaphysics is unfamiliar.
ReplyDeleteI guess I might have known Davidson was important here. However, I am not a Davidson scholar. So many philosophers---so little time. Thanks, Dr.
ReplyDeleteSo, why is the treatise in German? What is the motive?
ReplyDeleteThere is a blog, published in a Scandinavian language. My sense of that is also:why? Vinco does not sound German. If the work were in French, I might make sense of it. Spanish? Lo mismo, o, un poco--a veces. But not German, nien, or is that, nein, vous comprenez?
Paul,
ReplyDeleteProf. Roberto Vinco is on the faculty of the University of Heidelberg in Germany. He is fluent in English, Italian, French and German.
Vinco is Italian, but he has been teaching in Germany for years. He is now at Heidelberg. So his publications are mostly in German, and this paper is published in one of many German academic journals.
ReplyDeleteIt is not uncommon for European scholars to know multiple languages. That is less true in the USA, but many know at least two besides their native English. Prof. Don Prudlo of the Catholic Studies Center at the University of Tulsa and author of the best biography of St Thomas Aquinas in the English language, is proficient in French, German, Italian Greek and Latin.
ReplyDeleteThe Christian philosopher and theologian William Lane Craig is proficient in French, German, Latin and Greek.
Hi Prof
ReplyDeleteI can't shake the feeling that I might have irked you, given our political exchange.
Anyways I thought I would switch it up a bit.
I was wondering if you ever came across this article by Stephen Mumford called "Relations All The Way Down". I always thought it would be nice if you could discuss it someway.
In it he responds to one particular objection to the question of there being Relations Without Relata.
The objection was one you mentioned in Aristotle's Revenge as well,namely thinking of concrete objects themselves in terms of relations.
Here Mumford mentions that OSR theorists will say ,concrete objects themselves can only be individuated in terms of relations. They give the example of the leaf, they posit that we can only individuate the leaf by contrasting it against some background, trees grass et. And this contrast is in effect a relation.
Mumford quite sleekly retorts that even in that case we can only make sense of "leaf" and "background" of trees flower grass etc if there was some undivided whole (a landscape) to abstract these concepts from.
This quite reminded me of the way you have also resisted reductionist attempts by Hume in regards to the book example (white expanse etc), The Whole is more fundamental then it's parts.
Anyways what do you make of Mumford's reply? Do you think that it's a good reply?
I can't shake the feeling that I might have irked you, given our political exchange.
DeleteNot at all, Norm! No worries.
I haven't read that Mumford article, but I'll look for it.
That's Kind of You Prof!
DeleteCan't wait for your thoughts on the article, one day ;)
Cheers
Hi Prof
DeleteJust one last question on the subject of Ontic Structural Realism if it's not too much trouble.
Another argument which I find effective while rebutting OSR and all other theories that posit "Everything is mathematical"
is just by pointing out that qualitative features (qualia) aren't susceptible to mathematical description. And they are also the foundation of empirical science.
So in effect, at the very least, the human being would have both qualitative and mathematical aspects.
It would be a composite of mathematical and qualitative parts none of which entail each other.
That would introduce contingency and ultimately God.
There couldn't be an Aristotelian escape by distinguishing material amd formal cause, because being material requires change ,atleast in principle, on the Aristotelian picture. But mathematical structures are intrinsically changeless.
So you are again stuck a contingently related composite of qualitative and mathematical form that would entail God
One could go the panpsychist route of saying the mathematical structure is the structure of qualitative forms but that would bring with it all the problems of panpsychism.
Would you consider it as a legitimate way of rebutting those kind of theories ?
Ofcourse you can go even further by showing how change can't be denied, naive color realism etc.
But just as a way of Getting to God, Is it sound ?
Prof :)
Delete