tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post3927537528115954161..comments2024-03-18T15:57:33.286-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: Steng operationEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger236125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-28539912347592097582012-12-11T13:29:29.169-08:002012-12-11T13:29:29.169-08:00This ignostic finds that without intent [Google:] ...<i>This ignostic finds that without intent [Google:] per the Coyne-Mayr-Lamberth teleonomic -mechanistic- argument,....</i><br /><br />To bad this argument, like most of Coyne's work is a straw man and faulty.<br /><br /><br />Perhaps you should read a few of Fesers posts on the matter (and on Coyne)!<br /><br />Really, it's SO HILARIOUS how atheists like you Carneades Hume this some dumb ass arguments 'defeat theism'... when they not even apply to theism at all, since they attack a straw man.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-62132797590756212012-12-11T13:19:38.226-08:002012-12-11T13:19:38.226-08:00That, in my opinion, is the way to go when evaluat...<i>That, in my opinion, is the way to go when evaluating claims. And if the claim is that god, etc. exists beyond the reach of empirical evidence, that would make said god unfalsifiable, and as far as I and many others are concerned, unfalsifiable claims cannot be distinguished from fantasy or delusion. <br /></i><br /><br />That would mean mathematics is fiction then, since mathematical truths can be proven logically, but not 'empirically'.<br /><br />Actually Mathematics itself is a huge stumbling block for naturalism. (see "Naturalism Reconsidered" by Stewart Shapiro in Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic)<br /><br />=====<br /><br /><i>yes, the naturalist empirical argument alone keel hauls theism1 Theists use misinterpretations of evidence for their arguments. No evidence exists for fine-tuning but the misinterpretation reflects the reduced animism of divine intent and begs the question of directed outcomes and has matters inverted as the parameters permit our evolving but no divine direction-intent for that but instead the interplay of natural selection and randomness-both aspects of Leucippus' necessity.<br />Theists then cannot defeat the Flew-Lamberth presumption of naturalism1 <br /></i><br /><br />Ehm... this is PURE NONSENSE.<br /><br />1- Not all theists appeal to 'fine tuning' as a base of theism. Actually Thomists and other classical theists DO NOT.<br /><br />2- The rest is hogwash and nonsense... t the Flew-Lamberth presumption basically defeats itself... even FLEW realized that!<br /><br />'The Flew-Lamberth the presumption of naturalism holds that all natural causes are themselves the efficient, primary cause, the necessary being and the sufficient reason.'... but that is not so, since it is blatantly ovious that natural causes are indeed NOT primary causes in themselves, nor do they entail reasonably necessity of being.<br /><br />That is more atheists wishful thinking and bad philosophy and Flew came to realize that, just like Ayer realized that Logical Positivism is incoherent and self-defeating.<br /><br />So... basically your arguments are a faulty series of statements supporting a fautly thesis. Sorry!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-65833210584262640092012-07-11T04:05:37.883-07:002012-07-11T04:05:37.883-07:00lightinlives, yes, the naturalist empirical argume...lightinlives, yes, the naturalist empirical argument alone keel hauls theism1 Theists use misinterpretations of evidence for their arguments. No evidence exists for fine-tuning but the misinterpretation reflects the reduced animism of divine intent and begs the question of directed outcomes and has matters inverted as the parameters permit our evolving but no divine direction-intent for that but instead the interplay of natural selection and randomness-both aspects of Leucippus' necessity.<br /> Theists then cannot defeat the Flew-Lamberth presumption of naturalism1Carneades Humehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300551978376011311noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-11792499049161621982012-07-10T10:44:03.366-07:002012-07-10T10:44:03.366-07:00lightinlives,indeed! This ignostic finds that with...lightinlives,indeed! This ignostic finds that without intent [Google:] per the Coyne-Mayr-Lamberth teleonomic -mechanistic- argument, God canot be HImself and thus without intent cannot be the Creator,Grand Miracle Monger and so forth and without those referents lacks existence and having incoherent, contradictory attributes, again He cannot exist!<br /> I call Carneades the first ignostic,as He notes that the Epicureans and the Stoics apply the term God in such a way that He cannot exist.<br /> http://ignosticmorgansblog.wordpress.comCarneades Humehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300551978376011311noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-50267339443914072382012-05-06T07:07:38.277-07:002012-05-06T07:07:38.277-07:00Baudrillard's brief sermon on nihilism is just...Baudrillard's brief sermon on nihilism is just that, as well as one unargued pronouncement after another. It's just a selective neo-rationalism grandstanding itself, in spite of its own assertions.<br /><br />But postmodernism in general makes it much easier when I'm lobbying rich alumni to close down those useless and meaningless wastes of money called philosophy departments---as an expression of <i><b>their</b></i> nihilism. Others can play the nihilism game too---with the money that's normally used to prop up people who insult the views of those funding them.machinephilosophyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07715878687266064548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-9985841034300364902012-05-05T23:34:39.651-07:002012-05-05T23:34:39.651-07:00Problem is with the vantage point and criteria fro...Problem is with the vantage point and criteria from which to arbitrate the real in the first place.<br /><br />Not sure who he's important to. He's generic postmodern from what I read in the wiki. Pick your favorite universally determining factors and away we go, spawning universal explanatory reductionisms, arbitrating the existence, nature, and status of what's real, etc.<br /><br />Oh, and I forgot: 4) postmodernism is great for rhetorically hoaxing one's way through a substantial number of school courses with writing requirements. Viva Joey Skaggs!machinephilosophyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07715878687266064548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-33251510938646392102012-05-05T22:55:53.725-07:002012-05-05T22:55:53.725-07:00Machinephilosophy,
Here's the link to Baudril...Machinephilosophy,<br /><br />Here's the link to Baudrillar's essay on nihilism. It's a quick read. I am curious to hear your thoughts!<br /><br />http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jean-baudrillard/articles/simulacra-and-simulations-xviii-on-nihilism/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-11215833027341865442012-05-05T22:14:07.000-07:002012-05-05T22:14:07.000-07:00I am not sure if he claims self-exemption but as w...I am not sure if he claims self-exemption but as with many post-modernists I don't think it makes much of a difference to them. He is often claimed to be one of the really important post-modernists.<br /><br />He is the one that came up with the whole simulation & simulacra idea (the article is called "simulation simulacra" if you want to read it) out of which sci-fi themes such as that of the matrix spawned out of. Basically his thing is that we simulate reality but somehow lose touch with the fact that we are engaging in simulation, which makes us believe that the simulation is reality instead. He often uses the term hyperreality as well.<br /><br />He has an essay called "on nihilism" if I am not mistaken where he expounds some of his general ideas as well. It's pretty short.<br /><br />I was just wondering if you had an opinion on the guy.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-32419394161159763542012-05-05T20:12:51.286-07:002012-05-05T20:12:51.286-07:00I don't dislike postmodernists. I analyzed a f...I don't dislike postmodernists. I analyzed a few statements by one person.<br /><br />Postmodern rhetoric is good for 1) logical analysis, 2) defense attorneys, 3) sociopaths and others into hoodwinking people in a number of senses.<br /><br />Not familiar with Baudrillard. Are his theories self-exempting?machinephilosophyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07715878687266064548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-12909554815439317932012-05-05T15:22:05.556-07:002012-05-05T15:22:05.556-07:00Machinephilosophy,
You don't like the post-mo...Machinephilosophy,<br /><br />You don't like the post-modernists that much do you?<br /><br />I'm curious to hear your opinion of Baudrillard and his whole simulacra idea where he claims that God is a simulacra of some sort. He is also a nihilist if I am not mistaken.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-92178049943062140332012-05-05T09:31:21.659-07:002012-05-05T09:31:21.659-07:00Anonymous,
Feyerabend's initial thesis from t...Anonymous,<br /><br />Feyerabend's initial thesis from the very first statement in the book (2002 reprint of the 1993 edition, "Introduction to the Chinese Edition" of the third English edition) is DOUBLY self-referentially inconsistent.<br /><br />First, there must already be a minimal structure of some kind "common to the events, procedures, and results that constitutes the sciences" in order to recognize that they allegedly, as Feyerabend maintains, "have no common structure". If he really wanted to live up to this, he should have rid himself of that nasty habit of universally quantifying the terms in his statements.<br /><br />Second, if as he says "there are no elements that occur in scientific investigation but are missing elsewhere", it's a wonder he was HIMSELF able to isolate the notion of scientific investigation in thought in order to make that statement itself.<br /><br />That's the whole thesis of the book, which he even admits he merely proposes, and then uses the rest of the entire book to "draw consequences" from it.<br /><br />But of course there's no problem with the structure of his own statements <i><b>about</b></i> science.<br /><br />Philosophers such as Feyerabend are bluffing cowards who necessarily and self-contradictorily ape the views they take such pains to so vehemently reject.<br /><br />The whole exposition proffered by Feyerabend undermines its own theoretic structure. A structure that he never mentions, of course.<br /><br />And then if you go to the introduction, it starts out with one self-referentially inconsistent and/or question-begging quote or statement after the other.<br /><br />If I had the time, I could write a script that would go through all the nouns in the dictionary and then generate self-referentially inconsistent statements about those subjects, publish it under some exotic-sounding name, and then watch the philosophers at the universities gush over it like schoolgirls fawning over manufactured boy bands.machinephilosophyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07715878687266064548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-48363161119446605002012-05-04T23:14:35.741-07:002012-05-04T23:14:35.741-07:00@Machinephilosophy
I am currently on my send book...@Machinephilosophy<br /><br />I am currently on my send book by Edward.. I've already finished the TLS and now currently 1/3 through Aquinas. <br /><br />Thanks for the recommendations on Kai's work but unfortunately I have such a backlog of books I want to read that I probably won't get to them until further down the road.<br /><br />I still want to finish the book I am currently reading on QM, Feyerabend's Against Method along with Rizzi's the Science Before Science. I am also about half way through Adler's How to Think About God and would also like to get started on Geisler's Christian Apologetics because of the approach he chooses in his Argumentations. Not to mention that I still need to read Adler's book on Aristotle as well as read both Aristotle's Metaphysics and Plato's Timaeus in Greek (which I speak fluently). In addition, I have also run into Hart's the Beauty of the Infinite, which sounds interesting, which also went on my reading list. I have been rather impressed with the classics since I run into Ed's work so as you can see I still have a lot of reading to do.<br /><br />Feel free to recommend any other books you'd think would be a good read. Currently though I am more interested in the Theistic side of things. The books don't necessarily have to be polemics or arguments per se. Nor does it have to be specific to a religion such as Christianity, or anything. I'm just looking for books that will inspire new forms of thought.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-57646440361468578512012-05-04T18:34:43.667-07:002012-05-04T18:34:43.667-07:00I suggest multiple readings of everything Ed has w...I suggest multiple readings of everything Ed has written. That's what I'm doing anyway. Hell, I'm still shoring up my notes on The Last Superstition, now pouring over the endnotes to make sure I didn't miss anything.<br /><br />Kai Nielsen is a radical Marxian atheist. Not a friend of religion, freedom, individualism, Harry Browne (author of the notorious How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World), or Ayn Rand. lol He's also an anti-foundationalist, which, as I've argued about Quine, means that he's a crypto-foundationalist in spite of himself, as Hugo Meynell pointed out a couple of decades ago.<br /><br />But he is a gentleman and one hell of a philosophical thinker, unlike most of the new atheists. <br /><br />Bottom line, however, is that his arguments about criteria imply the existence of God, although they are two steps removed the criterial argument for God that I developed from them.<br /><br />There is a link on his wiki page to a transcript of his debate with Craig in 1991. He's 86 now. I'm going to try to get an interview with him sometime next year, to see what he thinks about an argument for the existence of God based on his own epistemology.<br /><br />I recommend biting the bullet and getting his Ethics Without God (1973) and Atheism and Philosophy (2005) as first reads, the latter (which is a set of essays) representing a 40-year span of his thought. The reverse title, Philosophy and Atheism: In Defense of Atheism, he published in 1985.machinephilosophyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07715878687266064548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-29101236283885561782012-05-04T16:18:26.303-07:002012-05-04T16:18:26.303-07:00Machinephilosophy,
I have actually been looking f...Machinephilosophy,<br /><br />I have actually been looking for a really thorough-going book that presents both sides (albeit in a serious manner not in the gnu atheist babble) so I am quite interested in picking up a copy. I do wish that I wouldn't have to wait until 2014 to get my hands on it.<br /><br />I have been very interested in A-T since running into Edward's work and have found such metaphysic to be extremely interesting and illuminating which helped me liberate my mind from the materialistic assumptions I held for a long time.<br /><br />I have not read a lot of Kai Neilsen but I have run into a few passages of his here and there. Is he hostile to religion or is he an atheist who nonetheless is sympathetic to religion in the mold of Quentin Smith?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-91527190414559856092012-05-04T16:11:18.205-07:002012-05-04T16:11:18.205-07:00I would also add that the conclusion, "unfals...<i>I would also add that the conclusion, "unfalsifiable claims cannot be distinguished from fantasy or delusion," is not actually justified, as there is a hidden assumption that first much be accepted (making this an enthymeme): only empirically falsifiable claims are justifiable.</i><br /><br />Anonymous, thanks for that point.<br /><br />Also, both the conclusion and the hidden assumption are themselves unfalsifiable as well.machinephilosophyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07715878687266064548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-18972064255048740482012-05-04T14:14:31.020-07:002012-05-04T14:14:31.020-07:00Machinephilosophy,
I would also add that the conc...Machinephilosophy,<br /><br />I would also add that the conclusion, "unfalsifiable claims cannot be distinguished from fantasy or delusion," is not actually justified, as there is a hidden assumption that first much be accepted (making this an enthymeme): only empirically falsifiable claims are justifiable. This is, as you noted, impossible to actually substantiate--and if this premise is false, so is the conclusion. For his part, Thomas makes a distinction between knowing something as a cause or knowing something by its effects. He claims that the former is impossible in regard to God, but the latter is possible, hence the five ways. So, sure, God is empirically unfalsifiable because we cannot directly observe an infinite immaterial deity. But so what? If we aren't logical positivists--and none of us consistently can be--then this isn't a problem.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-28157566992691210672012-05-04T13:50:13.772-07:002012-05-04T13:50:13.772-07:00if the claim is that god, etc. exists beyond the r...<i>if the claim is that god, etc. exists beyond the reach of empirical evidence, that would make said god unfalsifiable, and as far as I and many others are concerned, unfalsifiable claims cannot be distinguished from fantasy or delusion.</i><br /><br />The problem with this is that, as is the case with logical empiricism, the verifiability of meaning, and so on, the empirical evidence criterion is <i><b>itself</b></i> beyond the reach of empirical evidence. Which is one reason why no one in the entire history of the philosophy of science has ever even <i><b>attempted</b></i> to provide such evidence.<br /><br />And logical empiricists (also called logical positivists) are <i>themselves</i> downplaying this in books on the subject. There's not even any <i><b>mention</b></i> of self-reference or self-contradiction---not even the phrase "the theory itself" or "the criterion itself"---in The Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism, a 448-page tome that is supposed to be somewhat definitive. And yet this self-referential issue is precisely what caused the entire logical empiricist movement to crash and burn.<br /><br />Today, what's left of logical empiricism is a little boys club for the intellectually paranoid, who go to great lengths to stay insulated from outside criticism, with most of their peers in the philosophy departments playing along with the unstated political "ignore the white elephant" policy.<br /><br />If I were to write a book on dominant trends in contemporary philosophy it would be called:<br /><br />Jury Manual for Aspiring Sociopathsmachinephilosophyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07715878687266064548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-81147535224406663262012-05-04T08:27:50.772-07:002012-05-04T08:27:50.772-07:00Anonymous of May 2, 2012 4:37 PM,
It's pretty...Anonymous of May 2, 2012 4:37 PM,<br /><br />It's pretty much explained in that post, and will be out in the Spring of 2014, possibly sooner. Toward the end of the book I'll be setting out the criterial argument I've developed from arguments by Kai Nielsen (the greatest atheist philosopher of all time, in my view), but the book will lay out the full sets of arguments and objections on all sides, something which has so far never been done.<br /><br />I'll also do something else that has never been done: give prominence to what I think is the strongest and most thorough argumentation for God synthesized from the efforts of Ed and similar Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophers.<br /><br />But it's pretty clear which views are going to go down in flames: Faith beyond reason (the most pernicious view on the planet), atheism, and their respective inbred relatives: anti-intellectualism, personalism, metaphysical presuppositionalism, materialism, nominalism, and scientism.<br /><br />Hopefully Ed will crank out several more books in the next couple of years, which will fill in any current gaps, resulting in an even more fully developed and defended Thomistic perspective vis-a-vis all the objections such as those raised on this blog.<br /><br />If Thomistic realism proves correct, it will revamp metaphysics across the board and quite possibly prove to be the only viable epistemic foundation for science. Those are just my suspicions at this point. But we'll see. The Catholics are definitely onto something in metaphysics.machinephilosophyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07715878687266064548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-66900677045127873732012-05-04T08:03:46.996-07:002012-05-04T08:03:46.996-07:00Machinephilosophy,
I think you missed by questio...Machinephilosophy,<br /><br /><br />I think you missed by question about your book. Here it is:<br /><br />I took a trip to your blog and run into your forthcoming book the black book of atheism. My understanding is that you're investigating some of the ultimate assumptions made by atheists. Is the book solely restricted to an investigation and a description of said principles/assumptions or does it make a case for/against atheism? In other words, does it provide a refutation or a justification or merely a narrative?<br /><br />Also, is it out yet? If so a link would be appreciatedAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-18177134749344815652012-05-03T22:17:42.667-07:002012-05-03T22:17:42.667-07:00"...every one of the endless series of "..."...every one of the endless series of "proofs" of the existence of God that has been proposed, from antiquity to the present day, is automatically a failure because, as I have mentioned, a logical deduction tells you nothing that is not already embedded in its premises."<br /><br />Consequently, the above deductive argument itself is automatically a failure.<br /><br />Thanks, Vic! Good to know!<br /><br />There's nothing quite like a really high-quality automatic transmission.machinephilosophyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07715878687266064548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-74938376323460400872012-05-03T21:33:26.707-07:002012-05-03T21:33:26.707-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.machinephilosophyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07715878687266064548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-50305259533795197022012-05-03T21:32:10.276-07:002012-05-03T21:32:10.276-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.machinephilosophyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07715878687266064548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-76017742141323927342012-05-03T11:09:56.782-07:002012-05-03T11:09:56.782-07:00"extraordinary claims require extraordinary e...<i>"extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."</i><br /><br />I was never that impressed by this pithy quote. Firstly, it seems unhelpfully question-begging to call something an "extraordinary claim". After all, if you're an atheist, something like the soul will seem "extraordinary", whereas if you're a Catholic it'll seem utterly ordinary. (That goes double for God.) Which things are "ordinary" or not is pretty much the whole question, isn't it?<br /><br />Secondly, "ordinaryness" hardly sounds like a real logical criterion to me. What does this "extraordinaryness" really consist of? We need to know if we're going to use it as an epistemelogical criterion. Also, what does "extraordinary evidence" mean? Extraordinary <i>quantities</i> of evidence, perhaps?<br /><br />Sagan's quote is very catchy, but I don't see much intellectual merit in it.Arthurnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-24458522595006739602012-05-03T10:58:33.424-07:002012-05-03T10:58:33.424-07:00"unfalsifiable claims cannot be distinguished...<i>"unfalsifiable claims cannot be distinguished from fantasy or delusion."</i><br /><br />Uh oh, I smell Scientism!<br /><br />Seriously though, lightninlives, you seem to think that all rational statements must be scientific. I assume that's why you think that "verifiable, repeatable, controlled, peer-reviewed (e.g. empirical) evidence" is "the way to go when evaluating claims."<br /><br />Just to get the ball rolling, the major problem with Scientism of this kind is that it's self-defeating, though there are plenty of other problems.Arthurnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-52372231902407153982012-05-02T16:37:48.605-07:002012-05-02T16:37:48.605-07:00@machine philosophy
I took a trip to your blog an...@machine philosophy<br /><br />I took a trip to your blog and run into your forthcoming book the black book of atheism. My understanding is that you're investigating some of the ultimate assumptions made by atheists. Is the book solely restricted to an investigation and a description of said principles/assumptions or does it make a case for/against atheism? In other words, does it provide a refutation or a justification or merely a narrative?<br /><br />Also, is it out yet? If so a link would be appreciated<br /><br />ThanksAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com