At The American Conservative, Casey Chalk recounts
some of the public controversies I’ve been party to over the last few
years, and judges them a model of how academic debate ought to proceed. (David Bentley Hart drops by to comment in
the TAC combox.) Meanwhile, at The University Bookman, Chalk kindly
reviews Five
Proofs of the Existence of God. From
the review:
The book will satisfy a diversity of
readers… [A]n effective introduction to natural theology and many of its most
salient concepts…
After considering the clarity and
acuity of Five Proofs, one wonders how the New Atheists
would manage against a thinker with the training, wit, and rhetorical ability
of an Ed Feser. God willing, we may one
day find out.
While you have sometimes been testy with Hart and others, you have never been so nasty and uncharitable as Hart has been in the recent controversy over your book on the death penalty. His response was almost unbelievably meanspirited. Unfortunately, I would expect more of the same in the future, since you are both writing books about the soul, with the soul's ultimate destiny in heaven or hell a big part of that.
ReplyDelete(I'll repeat again what I have said on that latter topic: the question of whether anyone can be permanently lost rests to a large extent on the metaphysical conditions for change. Hart has convinced me that the Biblical text is far more ambiguous on hell than some would have it, but I am unconvinced that Hart has really thought through the metaphysical side of things.)
I've found some of what Hart has said to be interesting, he is undoubtedly a pompous, smug man. You can see him savoring every word that comes out of his mouth. It's like watching some autocannibalistic mockery of the last supper.
DeleteHart is more of a theologian than a philosopher. He shows a developed aesthetic and spiritual sense but intellectually is all too prone to parroting 'classical theist' tropes, without fully understanding the complexity behind them e.g. analogy and divine simplicity. Ed is better here as he is less bound in with the Radical Orthodoxy narrative.
DeleteOn the other hand if Thomist eschatology is bound up with the Real Distinction it will be difficult, to say the least, for a lot of people to swallow. It might be better for Thomists and their sympathizers to expend more energy on expanding existing systems of logical semantics to better accommodate the nuances of their ontology rather than waste further time trying to retool organon logic.
I like Hart; I've enjoyed his "The Experience to God" and I think he did a good job with the philosophical issues there.. I'm really looking forward to his book on the soul, but I don't know where to look for more details concerning that (release date, etc. Hart doesn't have a blog right?)
DeleteI just don't like it when he lets rhetoric get the best of him in confrontations; I think he has been unnecessarily nasty or exaggerated in the past. Other than that, I mostly enjoy his work.
OA Police:
DeleteI'm not sure that I'd agree that Hart is more theologian than philosopher, but I do agree that Hart doesn't always pay attention to the fundamentals of philosophy like he should. As I keep repeating, his case for universal salvation does not pay close enough attention to the metaphysical requirements for change. I simply don't see how purely immaterial beings can change, and if they can be lost forever, why not humans?
Hart has given a bunch of talks on philosophy of mind, the soul etc., which are now up on Youtube. He's still in the midst of writing his book on the subject and there has been no official announcement of when it will be published.
DeleteI am wondering if you might take the time to respond to Catholic blogger Bonald, who is having some trouble getting the classical philosophical tradition:
ReplyDeletehttps://bonald.wordpress.com/2018/01/28/the-plausibility-of-theism-notes-on-the-history-of-philosophy/
https://bonald.wordpress.com/2018/02/02/notes-to-self-possible-theories-of-substance/
https://bonald.wordpress.com/2018/03/14/aquinas-duns-scotus-and-their-followers-on-self-motion-and-the-generation-of-new-substantial-forms/
https://bonald.wordpress.com/2018/03/26/let-us-hope-that-the-optimal-christian-philosophy-is-yet-to-be-found/
https://bonald.wordpress.com/2018/04/03/arguments-for-hell-need-work/
There are a few errors in Bonald writings.
ReplyDeleteEG:
"According to the standard narrative, Aquinas figured everything out, and then his synthesis was immediately lost. It didn’t convince his near contemporaries, and it soon fell under a pall from the condemnations of 1277. [...]What’s more, the claims of Gilson et al that Aquinas was perfect but has always been misunderstood by those horrible commentators fail to give him the glory they intend. I question whether a universally misunderstood philosopher can really be said to be successful. "
Here he's mistaken.
First, no one claims Aquinas is divinely perfect and everything he says is right and correct. Even Thomists agree that Thomism does NOT stop with Aquinas' death but goes on in other scholastics and neo-thomists
Second, just because Aquinas is widely misunderstood it does not mean he was not successful. He's widely misunderstood by NON-SPECIALIZED philosophers.
One can compare it to Einstein or Schrodinger: 90% (Or 99%?) of the people in the world still don't understand correctly concepts like Special relativity or quantum mechanics... they read "pop-science", which often is misleading and base their ideas on that.
Of course physicists WILL know (in general) special relativity and quantum mechanics well enough.
So philosophers who actually take time to study Scholasticism will understand Aquinas properly (or closely enough)
---
"
"The truly great philosopher would be the one who finds the more compelling interpretation of Aquinas and succeeds in making it comprehensible, not Aquinas himself, who would be a mere inspiration."
But Aquinas is PERFECTLY comprehensible, for the one in the field.
You cannot understand - for example - quantum mechanics without knowing calculus, no matter how one simplifies it.
So you cannot really understand Thomism unless you understand at least SOME basics of Aristotelian and Scholastic metaphysics.
Often the trade off for "clarity" is confusion, ironically enough. The more you simplyfy something the more essential details you leave ouy.
I've just been having a look at Bonald's Website, and I have to say I'm impressed with his depth of thought. He has read widely, and I really don't think he needs anyone to "set him straight" regarding the the classical philosophical tradition. My two cents.
ReplyDeletehttps://fivebooks.com/best-books/jerry-coyne-incompatibility-religion-science/
ReplyDeleteHere is Coyne's list of 5 books. Anyone want to take a crack at it?
Let us begin:
Deletehttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Bearing-False-Witness-Debunking-Anti-Catholic/dp/1599474999
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gods-Philosophers-Medieval-Foundations-Science/dp/1848311508/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523089561&sr=8-1&keywords=god%27s+philosophers
Oh, for f**k's sake, does Coyne not realize that Rosenberg radically undermines the foundations of science?
DeleteIt just bloody staggers me that people think that eliminativism defends science? If I were a anti-science PoMo theorist I would have a field day with the likes of Quine, Dennett, Rosenberg and the Churchlands.
DeleteI suspect Coyne doesn't really understand the implications of Rosenberg's views. But then again, neither does Rosenberg.
DeleteAnd he's included Dickson White! Doesn't he know that Dickson White, (along with Draper, Gibbon, etc), are among the most discredited sources in the whole fields of history and philosophy of science?
Seems like an unintended parody.
@Daredevil
DeleteDon't forget Pierre Duhem's Le systeme du monde and Stanley Jaki's The Road to Science and the Ways to God.
Thursday, we have seen repeatedly that scientiests - full-fledged scientists with degrees, professorship, books, good standing and respect in their field - are sh*t-poor when they tackle stuff outside their specialty, and this goes DOUBLE for anything philosophical. They simply are not up to the challenge outside the narrow confines of their specialty. Lawrence Krauss and his universe from nothing was (perhaps) one of the most egregious examples (so bad that even atheist philosophers find it embarrassing and distance themselves from it), but it has a lot of company with others. Coyne is worse than most of them, of course, but somebody has to inhabit the bottom of the barrel.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the day, I’m curious how many materialists would categorize themselves as eliminativists. It’s seems the views they express are often foggy with terminology, but if we actually directly examine what they are practically saying, I’m not sure how you can hold such a view. I mean correct me if I’m wrong, but they are literally saying we have no thoughts or any mental activity whatsoever, right? Interestingly enough, it appears as though Rosenberg has recently published a novel back in 2015... and here I thought the humanities were bankrupt of anything meaningful
ReplyDeleteFor those who might be interested. I've just published 2 reviews of the book "The Myth of an Afterlife", a 5,000 word review, and a 13,000 word review. This is the 5,000 version:
ReplyDeletehttp://ian-wardell.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/a-review-of-myth-of-afterlife.html
Thanks for sharing.
DeleteI have been slowly making my way through 5 Proofs of the Existence of God and I was hoping that someone might be able to speak to an issue that I'm having in understanding. The Neo-Platonic proof brings us to the idea that God (or The One) is not composed of parts. My mind constantly wants to think that this means merely that God is not composed of multiple pieces somehow bonded together, but I seem to be missing something. My conception has left me thinking of God, for lack of a more lucid way of putting it, as a "single part", as something that is really one thing. The math of my misconception makes it seem like something could be added to God, but this is clearly incorrect. There must be a crucial element that is just sailing over my head. Does "not composed of parts" mean something more like "transcendent of arithmetic categorization" or "utterly innumerable?" Because it is distinctly different to say "God is not composed of parts" vs "God has no parts" vs "God is/has one part only."
ReplyDeleteI don't know if this elucidates or obfuscates where my misconceptions lie, but I would appreciate some help.
-Matt Hryniewicz
Matt, I don't know if this will help, but I'll try. I don't think the crucial concept has to do with arithmetical categorization or numerability, but more with transcendence. In order for God to be "not composed of parts" he has to be very unlike ALL of the substantial beings we are familiar with, including animals and plants, or even non-living things that exhibit substance wholeness, say, a free-floating water molecule. For all of these things have form and matter and thus are composite. In order for God to be unlike that, he can't be composed of form and matter of any sort. (I know that there is a further push - that God also cannot be a composite of essence and existence - but i think that came from Aquinas later and was not the Platonic approach). But not being "form and matter" implies something other than "one part", because (at least in our experience" something materially entirely simple (like just a proton) is STILL COMPOSED of form and matter: God has to not "have just one part", he has to transcend the categories of "things that are capable of parts" altogether. So he is also unlike a proton, which is capable of being combined AS a part of a larger whole: He is not capable of forming a part of a whole of any sort - he transcends all that.
DeleteI am reading Five Proofs and was pondering what it said in one part of the book, that God's essence and existence are identical, that his essence is pure being. Then by chance I was reading Exodus where Moses encountered God in the burning bush and when Moses asked God who he was, he said I AM WHO I AM. I think this is God saying that his essence, identity, is being or existence. To me this is an astounding revelation probably a thousand years before philosophy became a science. Last Superstition was a much easier read but I am enjoying Five Truths even if I occasionally run into some dry parts, likely the back filling of the concepts. Thanks Dr. Feser for your writings.
DeleteThanks Tony, that does help me to a degree. I’ll try to take a crack at putting it in my own words to see if I’m getting the gist of it.
DeleteWhen we speak of things being composed of parts, it is important to avoid thinking of this in terms of how many pieces they are assembled out of. Otherwise, we might end up saying that protons or angels are not so composed. What is crucial is that composite entities are made of something (e.g. matter), and bound/shaped by something (e.g. their form). But, matter is not tied to form by force of necessity, so something must account for how/why this unnecessary arrangement exists. What we see is that, to use Feser’s language, we have a hierarchical series of causes at work where the system of composite entities must finally come to rest on something non-composite. Since everything in our experience is composite, this leads us to the realization that whatever grounds the existence of the universe is radically different from anything we know. The main thrust has not been a claim about the number of parts which God is composed of, but rather that God does not belong to the same order of being as composite entities. While it is true to say that God does not have 5 or 3 or 10,000 parts, it is also misleading to say that God is 1 if we imply that God is some particular countable thing to which we could potentially add or subtract. To summarize, the claim that God is not composed of parts is best understood ontologically rather than numerically.
I’m sure that’s not really much of a revelation, but I’ll settle for baby steps. Would you mind letting me know if I’m getting closer and where I have misspoken.
Thanks!
-Matt
Prof. Feser, are you aware of this reply to your aristotelian argument? http://angramainyusblog.blogspot.com/2018/02/an-aristotelian-argument-reply-to.html.
ReplyDeleteIt would be good for sites like TAC to spend some time presenting these arguments. Whenever they write about religion, the comments sections are full of atheists making typical clueless, uninformed objections to belief in God.
ReplyDelete