tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post4391359143037797172..comments2024-03-28T13:39:03.094-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: A further reply to Glenn EllmersEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-78023394743235733962019-11-12T14:48:30.584-08:002019-11-12T14:48:30.584-08:00I think Glenn makes a good point. I would have li...I think Glenn makes a good point. I would have liked to see Feser interpret Aristotle in response. If someone consistently referenced a vague "Thomism" while advocating central ideas that Thomas opposed, Feser would take issue just as Glenn did. I will look forward to Glenn's elaboration.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-43095611778416337482019-09-27T16:08:08.307-07:002019-09-27T16:08:08.307-07:00"Take any claim of the form 'A is the eff..."Take any claim of the form 'A is the efficient cause of B.' Some Aristotelians, such as Thomists, hold that the only way to account for why A generates B, specifically (rather than C or D or no effect at all) is to hold that A is inherently directed toward the generation of B. This entails a kind of necessary connection between A and B."<br /><br />Yet using the language commonly used here, a tautology also "entails a kind of necessary connection between A and B." So stating the "necessity" that A causes B does not mean the statement is not a tautology.<br /><br />Ellmers is correct on this point. I've made a similar argument myself. If a jury is looking for a motive, and the prosecutor says, "The explanation for this crime is simple and logical: The defendant was 'directed toward' committing this crime." No serious jury would accept this as an explanation.<br /><br />Teleology merely restates what we already strongly suspect. It describes but it does not explain. It's empty of any meaning beyond something like identity. IOW, it's the most trivial of meanings. <br /><br />Don Jindrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05550378223563435764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-76478472912866153012019-09-22T12:42:57.741-07:002019-09-22T12:42:57.741-07:00This is existentialism challenge to Thomist. And I...This is existentialism challenge to Thomist. And I don't see how it can fail. A possessed good would be like a baby's innocence. Someone who has only done good is greater than that, and greater thus than the Thomistic God. Thomism is about an idol, a Platonic form personalized, nature preceding personhood. You will never find that God in the next world. No one ever sees the "beatific vision". It's a fantasy about one's rationalityAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-65866980456752522322019-09-22T12:08:45.148-07:002019-09-22T12:08:45.148-07:00Thomist say that God is forever in happiness, so h...Thomist say that God is forever in happiness, so he never earned being God. He never strove or worked like we humans do. So he can't be greater. It's beyond easy to be God. That's simple logic and should be obvious. GregAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-56332645714290174082019-09-22T11:49:10.595-07:002019-09-22T11:49:10.595-07:00Bill,
I reject your premise that I've ever tr...Bill,<br /><br />I reject your premise that I've ever trolled here at any time. I've been consistently respectful in the midst of frequent obnoxiousness directed toward me as an interested, secular outsider.<br /><br />I understand that most here are religious and that religion is hard to talk about in mixed company, but Anonymous, for example, not only didn't discourage the Russian person's gay bashing rhetoric, he encouraged it, telling him to engage in it. By contrast, I've never returned evil for evil. I have expressed my opinions out of interest, my opinions are sincerely held, and Feser has never blocked a post of mine, ever. <br /><br />I assume this is because he believes strongly, as I do, in free, argumentative speech--and that the flaws in my arguments will out, regardless. He may also regard me as an eccentric. But calling someone like me a troll is really just a way of setting up artificial boundaries for natural human dissent. <br /><br />Please recall that Feser has addressed at least one of his books directly at atheists/agnostics like me--so naturally he expects his readers to find him online and to perhaps argue contrary viewpoints at his blog. It goes with the territory of the books he writes.<br /><br />Religion is inherently controversial. Philosophy is inherently controversial. Politics is inherently controversial. Religion's relation to philosophy and politics is inherently controversial. Naturally, people are going to contend basic premises and boundaries for what's reasonably in and out.<br /><br />Our otherness in relation to each other can be seen as a stimulant to thought and an introduction to people's otherness, not something to be shunned. And it's not a zero sum game, in any event. People who don't like my occasional comments at this blog can gingerly move on after seeing my name. I do that with various others here all the time--the Russian fellow, for example. I don't try to run him off as a troll. I leave him alone to have his say--and for anyone who interacts with him to have their say. It would never occur to me to thought police other people's conversations.<br /> Santihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18158850887371068289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-71371496261312370692019-09-22T08:57:29.903-07:002019-09-22T08:57:29.903-07:00@Santi
The parameters are set by the site adminis...@Santi<br /><br />The parameters are set by the site administrator (Ed Feser). The topic is Ellmers' horrible review of Feser's book. You abide by your host's wishes. You're a guest in his "house," so you should do what you can to abide by his rules. If you don't like the rules, don't post.<br /><br />As to other posters, Feser has asked us not to reply to them when they make troll-like statements. The only reason I'm stepping in now is to help you understand why increasing numbers of us feel that is what you're doing. If you really want to step away from your troll past, you need to try a little harder.<br /><br />As to asking questions: You should ask <i>on-topic</i> questions, or you ask them when Ed posts an open thread. You don't ask irrelevant questions when the topic doesn't suit you.<br /><br />I'll reply in the future if you stay on-topic. If not, consider this my last reply.Billhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08001130202947985336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-7681660822115625662019-09-22T08:49:42.163-07:002019-09-22T08:49:42.163-07:00@Gregory
What you describe has nothing to do with...@Gregory<br /><br />What you describe has nothing to do with Thomism. In fact, you're so far off, I suspect you were trying to get at something else. Care to try again?Billhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08001130202947985336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-38521829769635501672019-09-22T08:09:42.001-07:002019-09-22T08:09:42.001-07:00Bill,
You said to me a couple of threads back to ...Bill,<br /><br />You said to me a couple of threads back to ask questions. I asked the ecology question of you, and you said you had no interest in the subject. So I asked another person above in a single sentence--I didn't make a big deal of it--his take, since he seemed willing to talk, and it was pertinent in the context of what he had said to me previously. <br /><br />You then interfered with my question to somebody else, telling me to stop raising ecology until Feser--who may never do this--explicitly brings it up. <br /><br />I then explained to you--since you jumped in--why I'm raising the issue--it generates a different frame or wider circle for thinking about Thomistic essence--and why I think it's pertinent--and yet you will have nothing to do with the substance of my response because it is now (supposedly) "off topic."<br /><br />It's simply not fair to thought to set such parameters. Thought doesn't function by setting up categories of acceptable and unacceptable frames or circles for thought.<br /><br />Think of Emerson's great essay, "Circles." (If you've never read it, it's short.) Zooming out and framing issues in ways larger than the way someone has already framed them often casts light on the previous framing. It is part of the process of thought. It makes no sense to constrain to thinking the rule: "Only apply x in the context of y frame--and only accept the first speaker's framing of a thing."<br /><br />And conversation is organic. Of course issues will come out of conversation that drift from the first thought. How could they not?<br /><br />As for the Russian guy, I note that you did not say that he was wrong for his behavior. I would like to see Christians in this thread not go silent when someone gets explicitly, verbally gay bashed. It's not right. Red said it wasn't right. No one else said a word. Santihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18158850887371068289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-13734996813586382282019-09-20T17:49:31.230-07:002019-09-20T17:49:31.230-07:00We know that when we try hard for something good, ...We know that when we try hard for something good, we have acted good. This shows the impossibility of the Thomistic God who merely possesses the good, without effort or trying. For how can God be effort or trying in it's essence without having ever to try? A God who is always at ease is nothing like us, for we would be greater. A God who earned his right to be God might exist. It would be interesting if he did..Gregoryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08869775626772705058noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-85418879514322344692019-09-19T14:01:52.422-07:002019-09-19T14:01:52.422-07:00@Santi
And there you go again. Bring up ecology w...@Santi<br /><br />And there you go again. Bring up ecology when Feser talks about it. That's not the topic, so it only "rankles" me when off-topic matters are raised again and again and again.<br /><br />Asking questions and making certain one understands a topic are prerequisites to hole probing or criticism. If you would do more of the former and less of the latter you will find it necessary to take your foot out of your mouth less often.<br /><br />And again, my apologies for the assumption about your orientation. I figured Ya'Kov was referencing a previous conversation with you.Billhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08001130202947985336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-20799154629190278422019-09-19T13:30:22.214-07:002019-09-19T13:30:22.214-07:00Hi Bill,
I'm a married, heterosexual person, ...Hi Bill,<br /><br />I'm a married, heterosexual person, just for the record. The "gay" hazing from the Russian guy has no basis in fact.<br /><br />As for Thomism, part of deciding on one's relation to Thomism--or anything else--is to probe it for "holes." That's usually evidence of serious, as opposed to therapeutic, intent.<br /><br />I'm sorry to rankle you in raising ecology. I bring up evolution and ecology because these seem to be alternative ways of looking at essences--and I'm trying to understand how Thomists respond to these hard cases. <br /><br />Feser's treatment of evolution in his book elided a lot. And no one in these threads with practice in using Thomistic language appears to have a response to the simple question of what an Aristotelian/Thomistic relation to the planet implies. <br /><br />If you can't degrade the womb, mouth, or anus on natural law grounds, can you nevertheless drive a Humvee through a fast food drive-thru, participating in the degradation of ecosystems?<br /><br />It can't possibly be "trolling" to ask such a question. It's a serious issue. <br /><br />As for the word ecology, I could replace it with "systems thinking" if you find that preferable--but the problem is the same: what is being bracketed when you extract a part from the whole--and when does what is bracketed get brought back in again? <br /><br />The laws of physics--for example--if they are bracketed as a background given to any object in the world--nevertheless must be, in their particulars, returned to the object at some point--and doesn't that then confound the location of the part's essence? <br /><br />You can call that an ecological insight, or a dynamic systems insight, but the physicist Carlo Rovelli prefers to speak of things as "events in relation"--and I'm trying to understand, from a Thomistic perspective, what's wrong with that. What is accomplished by locating essences/powers/ends in the thing itself and not in the larger structure/system of relations?<br /><br />Why are Thomists (for example) so intent on locating color in the piece of fruit? <br /><br />By way of contrast, read the first precept of the Tao te Ching. What's a Thomistic critique of that? <br /><br />Or perhaps such holism is actually consistent with Thomism? Santihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18158850887371068289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-27315131725005019802019-09-19T11:11:18.461-07:002019-09-19T11:11:18.461-07:00A sentence in my second-to-last paragraph should r...A sentence in my second-to-last paragraph should read:<br /><br /><i>...by attacking any ideology which poses a "threat" to the notion that their lifestyle is <b>normal</b>.</i>Billhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08001130202947985336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-21742036480874501642019-09-19T11:08:26.809-07:002019-09-19T11:08:26.809-07:00@Santi
You know, I've defended you on more th...@Santi<br /><br />You know, I've defended you on more than one occasion on these boards due to your stated desire to move away from your previous trolling. And, contrary to the incessant protestations of "Anonymous," several of your posts were no more off-topic than the comments of the other regulars here, so they didn't bother me. But your persistent effort to weave in "ecology" is getting a bit tiresome. The more you do that, the more you validate the claim that you're a troll in sheep's clothing. You would garner a lot more respect if you try to stay on-topic.<br /><br />Now, if you've read Feser's works, then you know that "possible worlds" is, for the most part, a non-starter. We can imagine worlds where things pop into existence uncaused, but that's not the world we live in, and the fact that something doesn't square with our imagination has nothing to do with the way things ARE. I can also imagine a world without language so what you're saying makes no sense and can therefore be dismissed. If "context" is the key, then the context in Thomism is what's real, not what's imaginable.<br /><br />I'm not getting any sense from your posts that you're really trying to learn Thomism; you appear to be on a mission to poke as many holes in it as you can in order to justify your social/political biases. The very thing you thank Ryan for is one of the most fundamental aspects teleology, yet that apparently swept right by you.<br /><br />Ordinarily, your sexual orientation should be of no relevance to any on-topic discussion we're having, but in my experience, some "non-conventional" persons feel the need to justify their existence by attacking any ideology which poses a "threat" to the notion that their lifestyle is aberrant. If that's not what you're doing, then I offer my apologies, but that certainly <i>appears</i> to be the case by my lights.<br /><br />I gently urge you to stay on-topic and ask questions if there's something about Thomism that you don't understand. And if at the end of the day you're simply not convinced that our conclusions are rightly drawn, you're not going to change minds by appealing to possible worlds or ecology.Billhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08001130202947985336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-62488606874337096532019-09-19T08:49:53.906-07:002019-09-19T08:49:53.906-07:00Tim,
Sorry I wasn't clear. I was referring to...Tim,<br /><br />Sorry I wasn't clear. I was referring to Feser's self-described political views in terms of his relation to Locke. Feser is explicit that he is a postliberal, politically. He uses that term for himself.<br /><br />The link between Susan Neiman's new book and David Bentley Hart's concerns memory (how we remember the dead; who we memorialize on earth, etc.--Neiman's subject--can be likened to who we remember in heaven--Hart's subject). For example, do God and the saints in heaven remember Noah or the victims of the deluge? Who is rendered invisible? On earth as it is in heaven? Santihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18158850887371068289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-67365466580864611782019-09-19T08:40:30.116-07:002019-09-19T08:40:30.116-07:00Good points, Ryan, and it clarifies the issue for ...Good points, Ryan, and it clarifies the issue for me. Thank you.<br /><br />Not to be perverse or unnecessarily argumentative, but I do wonder if the environment around any structure is being a bit too bracketed or suppressed in Thomism, and that we could indeed imagine worlds with different laws of physics in which the action of what looks to be fire in our world actually slows down rather than speeds up the actions of molecules (thereby generating a cooler as opposed to a hotter condition). Would we still call this fire? Or would our definition be context dependent on the premise that our laws of physics in this world must be at work?<br /><br />How could the "constancy of the tendency" ever be established absent a consideration of this context?<br /><br />No fire or drop of water is an island--no, nor man either. One can seem to pare away a thing to its essence in all possible worlds, to what remains, but it still seems like the background staging can never be wholly divorced from it entirely--and if that's the case, where does one locate the thing power but in its relation? How does one ever escape the whole consideration completely? ("The truth is the whole.")<br /><br />I also wonder whether surrealist painters are onto something for Thomists to think about in the sense that a train coming out of a fireplace (as Magritte once painted and wrote about) reignites in us the mystery of trains and fireplaces, shaking us out of a habitual understanding of what they are capable of producing (at least in us).<br /><br />I also wonder if Thomists are under the spell of naming, thereby splitting off pieces of the world from their participation in wholeness ("The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao,..." etc.).<br /><br />This is why I'd be very curious to hear Feser's opinion (or yours) on ecology in relation to Aristotle. Santihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18158850887371068289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-55400045799959603422019-09-19T07:54:31.688-07:002019-09-19T07:54:31.688-07:00It is in the nature of this structure in relation ...It is in the nature of this structure in relation to the structures around it that it is most likely to end in the generation of heat?Santihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18158850887371068289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-17937496160880325762019-09-19T07:37:04.853-07:002019-09-19T07:37:04.853-07:00"Over and over he gilds his arguments with th..."Over and over he gilds his arguments with the adjective 'Aristotelian' which apparently means whatever Feser happens to think." Not really. One can hardly be considered a genuine Aristotelian if one doesn't have a nuanced understanding of the famous Aristotelian doctrine of the four causes, and the reviewer doesn't supply any evidence of possessing anything better than a superficial grasp of this key Aristotelian doctrine, in which the final cause is of central importance.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-77085600844044255382019-09-17T12:53:01.073-07:002019-09-17T12:53:01.073-07:00It does seem like there's a genuine philosophi...It does seem like there's a genuine philosophical question here.<br /><br />Does saying heating is the "final cause" of fire say anything more than to say that a fire heats because it is its nature to heat, or is it just the same thing using different language? <br /><br />If it means something else, then is final cause an accident? And if so, how can a teleology be accidental?<br /><br />The Lonely Professornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-82077359075069002392019-09-17T06:57:19.931-07:002019-09-17T06:57:19.931-07:00I wouldn't got that far. Exegesis is in itself...I wouldn't got that far. Exegesis is in itself valuable. Hell, I believe all knowledge is valuable in itself. <br /><br />But it does tend toward pure argument from authority. So Aquinas is wrong because his version of Aristotle isn't quite pure Aristotle. The last is worth pointing out, if that's how you read it. But if successful, it proves nothing beyond that.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-47344401238847668282019-09-17T06:34:31.917-07:002019-09-17T06:34:31.917-07:00I had some Straussian training, such as it is. The...I had some Straussian training, such as it is. There is a systematic temptation in even the best people flowing out of that stream- Rosen, Lampert, and even Mansfield come to mind -to get lost in exegesis. I understand this approach and even the thematizing of reading in the case of eg the scriptures because these are the words of the living God but at the end of the day even after all these years and some exegetical scholarship of my own I don't really get the point for a figure like Nietzsche except as a kind of propaedeutic. It is good, I suppose, to see a master of texts at work reading the texts, and there is some art to be passed on, but at the end of the day one has to say 'What is being said?' and 'Is it true?'<br /><br />These are at the end of the day the only real grounds for the Master's authority. If the master *merely* spends a great deal of effort to show you in great detail how to know falsehood, especially if it's not obvious that he's showing you falsehood for some important purpose, then I daresay he's a mere obscurantist or sophist.iwpoehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17751879308012191778noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-21023869248418442502019-09-16T20:09:18.015-07:002019-09-16T20:09:18.015-07:00I guess that "Ian" schtik wasn't so ...I guess that "Ian" schtik wasn't so cute after all.<br />Funny how people become punctillious in ther manners when they don't have any response after being taken to the woodshed.Aristotlenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-1802503667264136342019-09-16T12:31:23.066-07:002019-09-16T12:31:23.066-07:00There is a guy over at Strange Notions who has a s...There is a guy over at Strange Notions who has a similar problem as Ellmers'(thought the man is very congenial & I suspect a PhD in his own right he can read Aristotle in the original Greek).<br /><br />He sometimes argues against Thomism by exegeting the texts of Aristotle and coming up with different interpretations other then what Aquinas came up with. That is interesting but it has nothing to do with philosophy or how the broader philosophical tradition developed or what the School as a whole is saying today. <br /><br />What if we did that with other philosophers?<br />Let us take Democretus. He was an Atheist "the gods do not exist and all is Atoms in the void" & he was an atomist and materialist. Is materialism or Atomism (as concieved by Democretus which has nothing to do with "Atoms" as we understand them today) false or true because Democretus was a flat Earther? No that has nothing to do with it? Can I dismiss a modern materialist philosopher's arguments by interpreting Democretus other then how he does? No we cannot.<br /><br />It isn't relavant. Why does Elmer not get this because I believe after enough brow beating by moi the guy over at Strange Notions does get that? I hope....Son of Ya'Kovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-26773240728612834652019-09-16T10:29:07.794-07:002019-09-16T10:29:07.794-07:00This seems like Homer Simpson's complaint that...This seems like Homer Simpson's complaint that To Kill a Mockingbird taught him nothing about killing mockingbirds. Jonathan Lewishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16544588222060966241noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-90220052454557173002019-09-16T10:24:30.575-07:002019-09-16T10:24:30.575-07:00It would be just as unfair to claim that Neo-Plato...It would be just as unfair to claim that Neo-Platonists weren't really Platonic because they believed some stuff that Plato wouldn't have agreed with. Obviously the Neo-Platonists expanded Plato's ideas in new directions. <br />PJonathan Lewishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16544588222060966241noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-64181630835557997162019-09-16T07:32:36.354-07:002019-09-16T07:32:36.354-07:00"Hence he keeps trying to bring the discussio..."Hence he keeps trying to bring the discussion around to that, like the guest you get stuck sitting next to at a dinner party who won’t shut up about some pet topic he is obsessed with."<br /><br />I keep trying to explain to people why The Beatles' <i>Rubber Soul</i> fails as a Bebop jazz album, but they just look at me like I'm crazy.Scott W.https://www.blogger.com/profile/00068345077529012543noreply@blogger.com