Saturday, January 11, 2020

Review of Swinburne


My review of Richard Swinburne’s recent book Are We Bodies or Souls? appears in the February 2020 issue of First Things.  You can read it online.
Posted by at

205 comments:

  1. CallumJanuary 11, 2020 at 2:12 PM

    You seem to have much respect for Swinburne. Perhaps the most of slkthe theistic personalists. Is that because his work has so much breadth and depth he's like a modern scholastic.

    Also, have you argued that denying the self exists over time is incoherent in any of your books. Intro to philosophy of mind perhaps?

    ReplyDelete
  2. DictatortotJanuary 11, 2020 at 2:34 PM

    Well, now I'm trying to imagine what Aquinas would've/could've made of the "putting half a brain into two separate bodies" example, and am having to commence drinking early.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Joshua McGillivrayJanuary 11, 2020 at 2:37 PM

      I wish Feser had gone into more detail on what he thought of these arguments.

      Delete
  3. Joshua McGillivrayJanuary 11, 2020 at 2:36 PM

    I enjoyed the book, but similarly found his treatment of Aquinas dissatisfying.

    The one critique I would have of your review is this: Swinburne establishes early on in the book that he aims for it to be readable for laymen and thus he presents many of the more complex philosophical points in footnotes. Thus it seems fair enough if he doesn't deal, for example, with all the potential positions that he could critique in his section on personal identity as an argument for the soul: I'm sure that he'll have responses, but he may have felt it best not to include all of them.

    I'm also slightly puzzled by your criticism of his formulation of Descartes' argument. You seem to be saying that he should look to the essence of the soul first and then proceed to investigate its very existence. True, he does do it the other way around, but his chapter, "We Know Who We Are", where he deals with the first question, could easily have been put before his chapter on Descartes' argument, without it's potency being removed.

    But I would reiterate your point at the end: Swinburne is always a philosopher from whom one learns much, no matter what one believes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. T NJanuary 12, 2020 at 8:30 AM

      @ James:

      Perhaps I don't understand what you're saying.

      Suppose I want to know if a dog could speak perfectly good French. Should I decide it is conceivable first, or should I examine a dog first? The order of operations isn't negligible; it makes all the difference in the world.

      Delete
    2. Joshua McGillivrayJanuary 12, 2020 at 8:48 AM

      You misunderstand me here: if you've read the book, you'll know that Swinburne first includes a chapter called "Descartes' Argument for the Soul" and then one called "We Know Who We Are", the former dealing with the question of whether the soul exists and the latter dealing with whether we know what the soul is.
      What I'm saying is that Feser could quite easily simply reverse the two chapters in his mind, as the order to me seems to have been purely Swinburne's own preference, and then used the argument without either chapter or any of the rest of the book losing any of its potency.
      I hope this clears this up.

      Delete
    3. T NJanuary 12, 2020 at 11:16 AM

      OK. Thanks for the clarification. I haven't read the book, but I agree Swinburne is an admirable scholar. From the review, it seems Feser is criticizing Swinburne's (and Decartes') argument for proceeding from conceivability (as a premise) to essence (as a conclusion). You seem to be saying the issue is something else.

      Perhaps I'll put the book on my list. Thanks!

      Delete
    4. Joshua McGillivrayJanuary 12, 2020 at 1:34 PM

      No, I think the argument's valid. What I'm saying is that it's easy to adapt to overcome Feser's criticism.

      Hope you enjoy the book!

      Delete
  4. Martin PonceJanuary 11, 2020 at 4:42 PM

    Are you coming to Thomas Aquinas College?

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousJanuary 11, 2020 at 11:51 PM

    The "I" that says "I do this" and "I want that" is the body-mind. What we read about in religion gives us the unexamined presumption that "I" is the spiritual entity, the soul, the conscious entity that exists independent of the body. But "I" is the whole and entire body-mind. And it can, at death, continue, as such. The bodily aspect becomes, temporarily, more subtle than the gross physical body, but the boy-mind, the ordinary psycho-physical entity, continues.

    The body-mind, the "I", the apparent individual that appears in the Realm of Nature, is a changing phenomenon. Ceaseless moment to moment change is what this Realm is all about. Thus, the born condition is a bewildered condition, a condition without understanding of the Real Condition of Existence.

    The soul is not like the body-mind that continues from life to life. What continues from life to life is the born entity , the psycho-physical being that is without the Intuition of its Real Condition and has not been Transformed into the very Existence of that Condition. The soul, the Radiant Conscious Being, precedes the psyche, precedes the mind, precedes the body, precedes all phenomenon, precedes all experience.

    The traditional view is that the soul is the psychic part of the born being. But the soul is not at all the psychic part of the born being. The soul is prior to the body-mind, prior to what is above and what is below, prior to Heaven and Earth, prior to the psyche, prior to the body, prior to all the sheaths or coverings of the soul - the physical the etheric, the astral which includes the lower mental and the higher or supramental, and the egoic which is the very knot of self, or the sense of separate consciousness. The soul is prior to all of that.

    The soul is the Radiant Reality behind the "I", behind the psycho-physical personality, behind the being that migrates from life to life. It is the Condition of "I". It is Radiant Consciousness. And, relative to bodily existence, it is associated with the right side of the heart region of the body.

    The soul is not the "I", the body-mind. The soul transcends the body-mind. And while the point of view of the body-mind still persists to some degree, the soul is felt to be atomic, smaller than smallness, infinitely small, and to be radiating from the position of the right side of the heart in the body. But when the soul fully Awakens it is Free in its Divine condition, the true Self, which is not within the body-mind. The body-mind does not enclose the Awakened or Free soul, Rather, the body-mind arises within the Free soul, which is without qualification. The soul is not even infinitely large. It is simply without qualification. It has nothing to do with time and space.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. T NJanuary 12, 2020 at 7:56 AM

      Uh huh. "Born being", "psycho-physical being", "body mind", "radiating from the position of the right side of the heart in the body".

      Yeah. Maybe you could mix it up on a forum for sovereign citizens. It's different subject matter, but they won't notice. They'll hang right with ya.

      Delete
  6. Vincent TorleyJanuary 12, 2020 at 6:07 AM

    Quote from the review:

    "The second general difficulty with Swinburne’s position is that he fails adequately to deal with the 'interaction problem' that notoriously faces Cartesian dualism."

    (1) According to Thomistic dualism, is there any sense in which the will moves the body? It would seem that Aquinas believed so, for he wrote that "the will as agent moves all the powers of the soul to their respective acts, except the natural powers of the vegetative part, which are not subject to our will." (S.T. I, q. 82, art. 4) and again, "by his free-will man moves himself to act" (S. T. I, q. 83, art. 1, ad. 3).

    (2) That being the case, doesn't Thomistic hylomorphism face the same problem as Cartesian dualism?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 12, 2020 at 9:12 AM

      2) No, it is the cartesian distinction that causes all the problems. Generally I agree that substance dualism is a very defensible position, but the cartesian version is what is the weakest. I´m not even sure that one could formulate the interaction problem against a rejector of the distinction without begging the question.

      Delete
    2. Vincent TorleyJanuary 12, 2020 at 11:42 PM

      Hi Dominik,

      But isn't it true that even for an Aristotelian-Thomist, non-bodily actions (acts of will) have to cause bodily ones (e.g. arm movements)? (And when I say "cause," I'm talking about efficient causality here. Aquinas evidently believed likewise - see my refs above.) After all, something makes my arm go up when I wave at someone. And if that "something" is purely sub-rational (e.g. neuronal firings), then there's no meaningful sense in which my arm movement can be described as voluntary. Cheers.

      Delete
    3. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 13, 2020 at 6:55 AM

      Hi Vincent,

      I don´t think that free actions can be made sense of without hylomorphism. As I understand it, forms lie on different ontological levels and they are required as a link between the material and the mental, which can´t be made identical. What we are left with is the mystery as to how to classify the form linking the two, but that is not surprising, since qualitatively different forms are hard to understand. The biggest mystery, to me, is how to understand the "I" that I´m adressing and I think a kind of dualism is the answer.
      I disagree vehemently though when it is applied that CD and A-T are in the same boat here, I think due to the use of formal causality and due to the rejection of the cartesian distinction, the A-T and similar positions are vastly ahead and the interaction problem is not so pressing, at least not any more than in any other theory of mind. Though I wouldn´t say that it is fatal to it, the interaction problem is worse for CD than for any other kind of dualism that I´m aware of.
      To give a short idea for your example, perhaps it could be said that the way from the mental to the material is fluid, so that the free will action, coming from the purely mental, affects the material, because the human form, being fluid between the mental and the material links them both within the same body. The form could count as an accidental property of the simple soul/mind.
      Don´t take me as embracing it, but I think it illustrates quite nicely the main problem, namely that this idea would solve the mind-body problem, but it doesn´t get us one inch closer to actually understanding the issue.

      Delete
    4. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 13, 2020 at 6:56 AM

      *I disagree vehemently though when it is implied...

      Delete
    5. AnonymousJanuary 13, 2020 at 9:26 AM

      Might not the problem lie in the way Descartes - and moderns generally - see this as a question only of efficient causation. That is, in not seeing efficient causes along with final causes, and inherently so.

      Delete
    6. T NJanuary 13, 2020 at 12:24 PM

      ". . .doesn't Thomistic hylomorphism face the same problem as Cartesian dualism?"

      I agree with Dominik's explanation, but the short answer is yes, **if** by "the same problem" you mean hylomorphism fails to give us a complete account of how mental moves matter. In the end, no philosophical account does that because we just don't know. Hylomorphism just subsumes the issue under the blanket of "substance".

      Delete
    7. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 14, 2020 at 2:52 AM

      "How the mental moves the matter" is a problem that I claim is impossible for us to solve, since we neither have a good idea of the nature of the mental, nor the matter. And I don´t believe that we will ever have. But it is hylomorphic dualism that, I claim, takes us the furthest and is thus probably correct. At the end of the day though, like with almost every problem in metaphysics, at some point we are forced to go mysterian, and that goes for every perspective. Our goal has to be to push this boundary as far away as possible while accounting for as much data as possible and provide ways for further investigation. I don´t believe that we will ever understand in this life.

      Delete
    8. T NJanuary 14, 2020 at 3:20 AM

      A materialist will be unable to explain how consciousness comes from matter, and a dualist will be unable to explain how consciousness moves matter. All the variations in between have the same problem.

      Delete
  7. AtnoJanuary 12, 2020 at 12:14 PM

    Considering the aristotelian-thomistic philosophy of mind which Feser favors, I just thought of something.

    Let's bracket the issue of the immateriality of the intellect. Aristotelians agree that qualia and personal identity cannot be reduced to physical properties - they instead claim that we need a more robust notion of matter that allows for formal causes. This way, personal identity might be grounded in hylemorphic substances, and qualia might be qualitative forms which are present in physical things.

    This is still non-reductionist, and as a result, wouldn't we have a fairly straightforward argument for the personhood of the First Cause in cosmological arguments?

    Given the PPC, the First Cause must have all the effects it produces in at least the same level of perfection, or even higher. If the First Cause is the cause of qualitative forms and the power to experience these qualitative forms, then it must have these perfections in itself, eminently. But then the First Cause is itself conscious (actually something even greater than conscious, at least how we think of it, but still in that category). And likewise if it is the cause of persons (as hylemorphic substances), it has personhood in a perfect way. So even if personhood and consciousness are "material" for an Aristotelian, this still has the far-reaching consequence that the First Cause in cosmological arguments has to be conscious or personal (or something even greater, but still, not an impersonal unconscious being). Since these are perfections which are not reducible to unconscious and impersonal matter.
    (The same also goes for life, which is not reducible to inorganic matter for the Aristotelian).

    This would make for a very simple and powerful argument for stage 2 of cosmological arguments, without even needing to establish immateriality of the intellect or to argue that the first cause has all effects in itself the way a mind has them, etc.

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousJanuary 12, 2020 at 1:54 PM

    I just read that Sir Roger Scruton is dead.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 12, 2020 at 3:39 PM

      May God rest the soul of the greatest political philosopher of the last few decades.

      Delete
    2. English CatholicJanuary 12, 2020 at 5:46 PM

      Very sad news. Along with C.S. Lewis, Chesterton and the host of this blog, he helped me on the way to traditional Catholicism. He also helped me see the difference between real conservatism and the classical liberalism that passes for it today. (I know he was a Kantian and a Burkean, and I'm an A-T reactionary today -- but it was still a massive step in the right direction away from libertarianism.)

      He was also humble. I went to a couple of conferences where he spoke, and he always made time to talk to everyone. He was interested in what you had to say, not just vice-versa.

      He spoke about half a dozen languages well, and knew a lot about everything (including aesthetics and musicology, two of the hardest subjects in the world IMO).

      Sad he never converted, but I bet he helped many people on the right way.

      Delete
  9. AnonymousJanuary 12, 2020 at 4:39 PM

    Informative and interesting review. Thank you.

    Re: "But this is a travesty of Aquinas’s position. If I eat and completely digest half of an apple, the remaining half is an incomplete substance, but it doesn’t follow that the half I ate is also an incomplete substance. Rather, it is altogether gone. Furthermore, even if it were not gone—suppose I cut the apple in half and placed the two halves side by side—it wouldn’t follow that there are two substances there, albeit incomplete ones. Rather, there would be two halves of one substance."


    I'm confused by this because I think you're equivocating "substance" in your example. An apple isn't strictly a substance, it it? An apple tree is a substance, the substance being the unified organism that has an "apple tree" soul as its informing principle. The apple, once separated from the tree, is no longer part of the apple tree, no longer alive, no longer being informed by a unifying principle; it's dead and slowly decomposing, basically a collection of different substances (organic molecules on their way to elements, and so on). So, the apple separated from the tree is not a substance and each half of an apple when an apple is cut in half is not an incomplete substance. So, the analogy doesn't seem to work or at least seriously limps. I'm not sure there's an analogy that does work.The separated soul is a mystery. It's an incomplete substance because of a relation it maintains to the person and the now decomposing body. It's sui generis, and, thus, difficult to conceptualize what it is exactly. We know it has to continue to exist. We know it's severely limited in what it can do apart from the matter it once formed. But I think we quickly come up empty with useful ways to understand exactly what and how it is.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. T NJanuary 13, 2020 at 4:15 AM

      "An apple isn't strictly a substance"

      Then what are you referring to when you say "apple"?

      Delete
    2. AnonymousJanuary 13, 2020 at 10:02 PM

      A substance results from a substantial form informing matter. An apple doesn't have a substantial form, a unifying principle, like the apple tree that produced it does. What I'm referring to when I say "apple" is a collection of substances that make up the apple. Substances like water molecules, minerals, carbohydrates, etc. It's an important distinction in the argument. A living human being is a substance that results from a substantial form (the human soul) informing matter. A human corpse is not a substance since there is not longer a substantial form informing the matter.

      Delete
    3. T NJanuary 14, 2020 at 3:35 AM

      You seem to be using the word "substance" in a more modern sense. "Apple" is a substantial form. You know an apple when you see one because you know it's shape, size, color, etc. In other words you know the things that make an apple and apple. When you seen an apple you don't mistake it for a Toyota because you recognize the substantial form of an apple.

      Delete
  10. AnonymousJanuary 12, 2020 at 9:29 PM

    Why there cannot be an infinite series of composites??? Don’t get neo platonic?? Thank u

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 13, 2020 at 3:51 AM

      Due to causality. For the sake of argument we can assume an infinite line of composite beings from past to future. But now raise your hand and put it back on the table. The whole movement took one second. From that we can derive two simple arguments against an infinite series of composites in a hierarchichal line: 1. It would require an infinite amount of actualizations within a finite time. Those actualizations cannot be wholly instantaneous/happening at the same time, since the movement takes a second instead of no time passing at all. 2. Within the causal line something at the bottom is required which possesses the causal power to cause the movement of the hand. In an infinite series every member possesses this power in a derivative as opposed to an inherent way. Aquinas' example is my hand using a stick to move the stone. The stick derives its causal power from the hand using it in an instrumental way. You see, the hand, having the causal power in an intrinsically way is always needed to move the stone, even if the stick were infinitely long.
      Now we have a necessary ground. But why can't it be composite? Take a weak PSR: “Everything has its existence either by its own necessity or contingently by being dependend on something else.“ Composite objects are dependend on their parts and hence contingent on them. If something is necessary it cannot fail to possess the attribute of existence. But since what is composite is contingent, what is necessary must be simple. It is “pure actuality“.

      Delete
    2. AtnoJanuary 13, 2020 at 3:09 PM

      The Neoplatonic proof is based on the principle that everything that is composite (has parts) has an external cause that explains why its parts are united in the first place. After all, why are its parts connected to one another? There must be something that combined those parts into a whole.

      There cannot be an infinite series of composite causes, however. Because each composite thing can only be real (and therefore cause or explain anything) if it exists in the first place. So if you explain one composite thing by saying it was caused by another composite thing, and then another composite thing, etc., you'll realize that it makes no sense. Without a first non-composite thing that is self-sufficient, the conditions required for the activity of the series of causes will never be met. It will forever be "postponed": B will cause A iff C causes B iff D causes C iff E causes D... and so on.

      Another problem with an infinite series of causes/composites is that it is in fact impossible. An infinite series of causes would lead to all sorts of paradoxes and problems. So the most plausible position is that there cannot be any infinitely long series of causes. See this article for example: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://alexanderpruss.com/papers/kalaam.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjQq5fS1oHnAhWmFLkGHdTvDRQQFjAAegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw0TJsihvTF9I00InnjD2yL3

      Finally, even if there could be an infinite series of composites, we could still ask why or how the entire series exists in the first place.

      Delete
  11. JohannesJanuary 13, 2020 at 2:33 PM

    Proof: there cannot be a never-ending series of composites for an existing composite

    1. U exist now as a composite
    2. Your existence CONTINUOUSLY depends on at least one series of composites which is a series of conditions that needs to be fulfilled in order for you to exist.
    3. U are existing now entails that that series of conditions have been fulfilled now.
    4. That means that series of conditions cannot be a never-ending series because it is impossible to fulfill a never-ending series of conditions.
    5. That means that series of conditions has an ending with a last entity.
    6. That means that series is not an infinite series.
    (extra step: 7. The last entity is either a composite or a non-composite. For the last entity to exist now, it cannot be composite because there is nothing after the last entity to hold its parts together to enable it to exist.)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Tony montanaJanuary 13, 2020 at 3:28 PM

    All of the above is true but even can be more simple. The argument is best made atemporally... You simply cannot have infinite composite things that are themselves composite without a first member. What are they composite of, then? Even atemporally. It doesn’t require someone to combine then or anything. It’s the most simple argument and need not even be muddled up with time.

    ReplyDelete
  13. AnonymousJanuary 13, 2020 at 3:53 PM

    Then how does this argument work with atoms and quarks and then other things that are subatomic and not composed of parts?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JohannesJanuary 13, 2020 at 6:30 PM

      Even the simplest subatomic entity would be composed of these two parts:

      1) Essence
      2) Existence

      Note that parts are not referring to only physical parts, but are essentially referring to metaphysical parts. Every metaphysical part can be physical or non-physical. This is elaborated in Feser’s book Five Proofs of the Existence of God.

      Delete
    2. JohannesJanuary 13, 2020 at 6:39 PM

      The only non-composite entity in the whole of existence/reality would be an entity whose essence is identical with existence. Feser’s Five Proofs and also his Scholastic Metaphysics have demonstrated that it is impossible to have more than one such non-composite entity.

      Delete
    3. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 14, 2020 at 9:41 AM

      Well, composition of essence and existence always strikes me as a bit odd.
      I mean, to say that there are essences that don't exist seems to amount to saying that there exist non-existing essences, which seems like a huge contradiction.

      Delete
    4. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 14, 2020 at 2:17 PM

      A peculiar complaint. The essence is the nature of an object that is necessary for that object, e.g. rationality for a human being and whatever is necessary for us as individuals to be said individuals. Existence is what is needed for those essences to be actual. When humans weren´t living, let´s say a billion years agod, it is only rational to say that those essences were non-existent in the sense that they weren´t actualized. And certainly it would be strange to say that the essence of Abraham Lincoln would still be existing, especially in your atheistic worldview. I know that you once said that for you the idea of things going in and out of existence is incoherent, but that view of course leads to absurdities very quickly.
      So what is with the essence of a unicorn? I´d say that they are non-actual, but conceptualized in the unmoved mover, which would account for the possibility of such creatures living in the future. I think your mistake here is that you´re equivocating on the meaning of "exist" here and that mistake can be resolved by clarification, so that the apparent contradiction you are identifying is just not there.

      Delete
    5. RedJanuary 14, 2020 at 2:22 PM

      How does it necessarily follow from composition of essence and existence that there are essences that don't exist?

      and even if that claim does follow it doesn't seem implausible to me. It doesn't commit to saying that there exist non-existing essences, simply that there are non-existing essences.

      Delete
    6. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 14, 2020 at 2:35 PM

      Red,
      I would limit non-existing essences in the strong sense to impossible essences, like a squared circle or human dog. Do you have an alternative?

      Delete
    7. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 14, 2020 at 10:12 PM

      Dominik

      We have had this discussion before. If unicorns exist as non-actual concepts in the unmoved mover, they are potentialities. But a pure actual being cannot have any potentialities.

      Red

      So you claim there are essences that don't exist? In what way are they?

      Delete
    8. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 15, 2020 at 12:13 AM

      Walter,
      that's a big misunderstanding, but it at least sheds some light on some of your rather strange positions when it comes to classical theism, e.g. when you said in the Feser vs. Oppy thread that the ground of being couldn't be pure actuality because that entails that reality would be unchanging. Of course this is wrong, but I now understand why you would reach such a conclusion.
      Short answer what you are describing can't be pure actuality for the simple reason that pure actuality is perfect by itself, by being existence itself. If the existence of unicorns would constitute a true potency in the divine then 1) what you are describing could not be PA, since PA is necessarily self-sufficient by it's own nature, 2) it would require a version of pantheism, since the unicorn would be divine in a very real sense, since on your view it is a part within the divine essence and 3) you must have shown that it is necessary for God to have created unicorns, since they would be part of his essence. It seems to me that on your view PA entails a pantheistic lewisian modal realism.
      Now you have done nothing yet to argue for 3). In fact I'd claim it is easy to show that 3) is false and that your concept of PA has nothing to do with the PA of classical theism. In CT PA is existence itself and thus self-sufficient and perfect. The essence is fully actualized and simple. The PAs knowledge of possible worlds is grounded within his essence which is his existence and this knowledge includes the essence of unicorns. Suppose there were facts about the essence of unicorns which the PA doesn't know. Then of course a potency is introduced within the divine essence, an imperfection which makes the essence's perfection dependend on something external to it. Thus the PA fails to be the PA.
      What you have done now is to have committed a non-sequitar. You conflated the potential existence (here: actualization) of the unicorns essence with a potency within the divine essence, the latter being concerned with the conceptualization of the unicorns essence (knowledge of every fact) within the divine mind. But since the PA is perfect by itself there us no potency that the actual existence of the unicorn would satisfy in the divine essence. The change would solely be on the side of the unicorn. Therefor there is nothing that necessitates the PA to actualize the unicorns existence in order for it to be the PA. Hence your assertion is false.

      Delete
    9. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 15, 2020 at 12:37 AM

      Walter,
      to what you wrote to Red:

      He certainly has more to add, but I will answer, too. Essences that don't exist could be for one logical impossibilities like a squared circle or alternatively the essence of a deceased person like Abraham Lincoln. Coincidentally Vallicella has written a new blog post that fits this discussion quite nicely; the composites within a human being are dependend on each other, Lincoln being a composite of Lincolns existence and Lincolns essence, both being necessary to make the individual Abraham Lincoln, who ceases to exist if one part misses, for there being no essence of Lincoln, no existence of Lincoln would be and vice versa.
      But again it seems that you are equivocating on the meaning of “exist“ and “to be“ here. If I say that there are essences that don't exist I'm not committed to those having a positive reality. The same goes for the essences of deceased individuals, since, although they remain as possibilities/concepts/abstractions within the PA, their non-actual existence as living individuals after death has to be accounted for.
      So I don't see how we reach the conclusion that the composition leads to a contradiction other than through equivocation.

      Delete
    10. RedJanuary 15, 2020 at 3:23 AM

      Walter,

      I didn't necessarily claim that, I only think that that might be acceptable.

      Delete
    11. RedJanuary 15, 2020 at 3:24 AM

      and I don't get the problem of specifying the way they are.

      Delete
    12. StardustyPsycheJanuary 15, 2020 at 6:57 AM

      Dominik,
      January 15, 2020 at 12:13 AM "pure actuality is perfect by itself, by being existence itself"

      "Existence itself" is an incoherent term. Thus, further arguments that use this term as a basis are unsound.

      Things exist.
      If there were no things at all then there would be no existence at all, which would mean there would be absolutely nothing at all in existence.

      What is existing in "existence itself" if there is no thing being refereed to as existing?

      If there is a thing being referred to in "existence itself" then the term "itself" is incorrect because there is also that thing, and thus the "actuality" is not "pure".

      If there is no thing being refereed to as existing then there is no existence at all, not "existence itself".

      Classical theism has many such incoherent terms. The technique derived centuries ago was to join words into incoherent terms and then claim that by joining disjoint words a logical problem has somehow been solved.

      In truth, by stating "existence itself" the classical theist has only succeeded in uttering an incoherent term.

      Delete
    13. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 15, 2020 at 8:13 AM

      Dominik

      I think you misunderstand my position. I am not describing Pure Actuality, my claim is that you are (implicitly) describing Pure Actuality as having certain potentialities, which is indeed a contradiction.
      I think your claim that "The change would solely be on the side of the unicorn" is telling, because if the essence of the unicorn is non-existent, there can be no change on the side of the unicorn. The point is, that logically prior to creation, unless there is an essence for a unicorn "somewhere", there cannot be anything on the side of the unicorn.

      Delete
    14. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 15, 2020 at 8:24 AM

      Dominik

      I have no idea what non-positive reality could possibly mean. Either something exists (is real) or it doesn't (isn't real). Saying that there is some kind of middle ground seems to be a violation of logic, and even if it weren't, it wouldn't help the Classical Theist's case.

      Delete
    15. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 15, 2020 at 8:30 AM

      In the Classical Theism, God, who is existence itself is a concrete entity. This refutes the gibberish you call an “objection“. That was easy.

      Delete
    16. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 15, 2020 at 11:46 AM

      Walter,

      I have no idea what non-positive reality could possibly mean.

      Certainly you have already heard of the idea that evil is a privation of the good and that it is only real as long as a natural object isn´t fully actualized. The classical theists here don´t deny the reality of evil, but because it is a privation of the good, it has a non-positive reality. It doesn´t describes something that is there, but something that is lacking.
      It isn´t too important for the issue you brought up, since I merely toyed with the idea without embracing it.

      Either something exists (is real) or it doesn't (isn't real). Saying that there is some kind of middle ground seems to be a violation of logic, and even if it weren't, it wouldn't help the Classical Theist's case.

      This apparent contradiction is only due to terminological confusion on you behalf. When you say "existing essences" and "non-existing existing essences" you are obviously refering to potentialities and actualities. And this little clarification resolves already every supposed contradiction you are assuming to be there. The individual Harry exists as a potentiality until contraception. Up until this point the essence of him is conceptualized within the PA. At the point of contraception the potentiality for the individual Harry to exist gets actualized, so although he didn´t came from "nothing" his ontological status changes until death, at which point he becomes an unactualized potentiality again. The essence underwent change during the course, but at no point could it be said that he was non-actualized and actualized in the same way at the same time, which would constitute a contradiction.
      But this apparent problem here just isn´t there.

      Delete
    17. StardustyPsycheJanuary 15, 2020 at 8:58 PM

      Dominik Kowalski January 15, 2020 at 8:30 AM

      "In the Classical Theism, God, who is existence itself is a concrete entity. This refutes the gibberish..."

      So, by your words,
      "existence itself"="concrete entity"

      Concrete is a thing that exists.
      A "concrete entity" is, therefore, and entity that exists.
      An entity that exists is not existence itself, just as an entity that is blue is not blue itself (there is no such thing as blue itself, just as there is no such thing as existence itself, "existence itself" merely being one of various incoherent terms uttered in classical theism).

      Dominik, you contradicted yourself in a single sentence, thus uttering, dare I say, "gibberish".

      Delete
    18. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 15, 2020 at 10:06 PM

      Dominik

      You claim the individual Harry exists as a potentiality within the Pure Actuality.
      That is not an apparent but a text book example of a contradiction.

      Delete
    19. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 16, 2020 at 4:08 AM

      Walter,

      no its not, since you keep on confusing terminology. If it is possible for Harry to be actualized in the future, his potential existence is built in within the foundation of creation. So when Harrys potential actual/physical existence gets actualized, as opposed to staying as an abstraction within the foundation of creation which is conceptualized within the divine mind, then the change is purely on the part of Harrys essence and it doesn´t affect the PA, since Harry isn´t a potency within the PA. Harry is the composite of Harrys essence and Harrys existence, none can exist without the other, both getting actualized at conception. But this is a change on Harrys part and not on the part of the PA, from which perspective such an actualization is gratuitous and not for an actualization of a potency on part of the PAs own essence. Reality is not pantheistic.
      I even tried to make that point even clearer by distinguishing between potency and potentiality.
      So, as before, the contradiction you are hinting at is just not there.

      Delete
    20. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 16, 2020 at 5:58 AM

      The term that causes the problem is "Harry exists within the pure actuality". This is false when taken on face value. An abstraction "exists" in a sense within the PA, since this grounding is required for there to be the actual individual Harry. The facts about him have their truthmaker within the divine mind. So written out the correct statement would be: Potentially Harrys individual existence gets actualized. In some sense the basic "existence" would be accounted for by the abstraction grounded within the foundation of creation. Hence one can say "Potentially Harry exists". What follows else and leads to the composition of essence and existence that leads to the individual we recognize as Harry is not a direct act of the PA anymore, since the PA has already provided the necessary and dependend ground that makes the whole scenario possible, but that isn´t identical to the essence of the PA. A further analysis would then lead us to see that Harry and his individual existence are related like a cambridge property to the PA. But that isn´t the topic here. The topic here was you claiming that there is somehow a contradiction when regarding essence and existence as a composite. I think we can now safely conclude this discussion by stating that there is no reason here to think that and you haven´t provided one, since the objections you offer can be dissolved quite clearly.
      Thanks.

      Delete
    21. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 16, 2020 at 6:02 AM

      Dominik

      I suppose by "the foundation of creation" you mean the Pure Actual Unmoved Mover.
      So, how exactly is a potentiality or a potential existence built in a Pure Actual Being?


      That's the contradiction I am hinting at.

      Delete
    22. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 16, 2020 at 6:37 AM

      Dominik

      No, I don't claim Harry exists within the PA, but your claim entails that Harry's essence exists within the PA.
      But that can't be true, because there can be no potentialities within the PA.
      And you need Harry's essence to exist as a potentiality because otherwise there can be no composition. Two non-existing things do not form a composition.

      Delete
    23. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 16, 2020 at 6:53 AM

      No, if "foundation of creation" were identical to the PA, it would be the PA. This is exactly what I was denying, since it doesn´t follow from any assumption. But I suppose due to my usage of abstraction within the divine mind and "abstraction within foundation of creation" I could have been clearer at what I was hinting at. The former transcends the latter and the following lines should make that clear. In future discussions I will reserve "abstraction/conceptualized" for the PA itself since those terms describe a mental item. For the "foundation of creation" I will use "virtually existent" to describe a non-actual existent object, like Harry before birth and after his death.
      Creation and the creator need to be distinct, a painter is also not identical to the painting. The comparison is faulty of course, since creation is more autonomous with free creatures, but the point should be understandable.
      The abstracted essence of Harry is conceptualized within the PA and hence he doesn´t have the actualized existence to him through which we recognize him as an individual. Nontheless some kind of existence is applied here, since through Harry being abstracted in the divine mind his potentially actualized existence is accounted for. Though the sentence makes it clear, I want to once again stress out that "existence" in the last sentence is not used in the same way especially if we look at the status of Harry himself. But his contingency must be accounted for.
      Suppose the PA creates two wrolds, Possible World 1 (PW1) which is our current world and PW2, which can only be inhabitated by chickens. Harrys actualized existence is only possible in PW1 and impossible in PW2. This possibility in a PW is what I described at "Foundation of Creation" since this is what differentiates the Possible Worlds.
      So the potentiality is not to be located in the PA, but in the foundation of those possible worlds. Of course those worlds are dependend on the PA, but that doesn´t change the point I´m making. This accounts for the possible, but non-actual existence of a non-logical contradictory essence, like those of unicorns, as well as the temporal contingency of individuals such as Harry.
      If Harry were a part of the PAs essence and his existence were a non-actualized potency, then your point would be correct. But that is a scenario that doesn´t apply to CT and isn´t entailed by the essence and existence distinction.

      Delete
    24. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 16, 2020 at 7:32 AM

      Walter,

      No, I don't claim Harry exists within the PA, but your claim entails that Harry's essence exists within the PA.
      No it does not. Read more closely what I wrote. Harrys essence cannot exist without Harrys individual existence, hence Harrys essence is in that way only actualized in the time between conception and death.
      What resides in the PA is an abstraction of that essence, what accounts for there potentially being a Harry at all. Harry thereby is only so much existent like your dead grandmother is when you think about your memories with her. I really try to make cautious distinctions between the kinds of existence hence I write "potentially actualized, existent essence", whereby the actualization would bring the essence out of that abstracted status into a physical or rather "real" status.
      But that can't be true, because there can be no potentialities within the PA.
      Correct, potencies in the PA means it is not the PA.
      And you need Harry's essence to exist as a potentiality because otherwise there can be no composition. Two non-existing things do not form a composition.
      I need it to exist as an abstraction. This is not problematic, but rather it is what accounts for him to be a temporally contingent essence. Analogically, like I said, Harry need not exist anymore than in a memory. But this memory is necessary for him to be actualizable at all. This is also what explains the necessary non-existence (in all ways) of impossible concepts like a squared circle.
      So we have Harrys abstracted essence, but this is not what helps us when we want the living individual. Existence needs to be added to it. We now have the composition and can go on to explain what is happening with the essence and the individual existence. I paraphrase Vallicella to some degree here; Harrys essence can only be actualized as long as existence is added to him. Hence the individual Harry exists in virtue of Harrys essence and Harrys existence (his participation in existence) being composite. Harry derives his existence from the PA by being a participant within a world in which his actualization was possible. When the actualization happens at conception those two ingredients get mixed together to form the individual. They actually exist by being composed within the individual. Both cease to exist at the point of death, Harrys essence goes back to be an abstraction and doesn´t participate within existence anymore. So one could describe the act of being the individual Harry as Harrys essence being a derivative participant in being (Harrys existence), which thus describes a contingently necessary (not an oxymoron, because terms are used in a different way) composition in which all parts needs each other, since Harrys essence cannot be with Harry existing and Harry existing needs Harrys essence to be meaninful. Analogically, to understand the idea, one could say that a large aggreggate of H2O is necessarily wet and if it is not wet, the aggreggate cannot be H2O.

      Delete
    25. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 16, 2020 at 7:41 AM

      Correction: / Harrys essence cannot be WITHOUT Harry existing...

      Delete
    26. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 16, 2020 at 8:05 AM

      Dominik

      What do you mean by "a world in which his actualization was possible?"
      Harry's actualization is possible in every possible world, so your claim that Harry's actualization is only possible in PW1 does not make any sense.

      Delete
    27. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 16, 2020 at 8:16 AM

      Of course it makes sense. If a Possible World would only consist of abstract objects or like in PW2 of chickens, Harrys actualization is impossible, since his potentiality is not built within the foundation of the PW virtually. In those PWs Harrys actualization is contingently impossible (because PWs are contingent), though, of course, not logically impossible (since his essence still exists as an abstract in the divine mind). He is not a part of that PW because the PA actualized a PW in which Harrys potentiality was not a part of the foundation.
      Analogically take the example of a machine that produces screws. Within this machine no potentiality of producing candy was built in, otherwise it wouldn´t be this machine anymore. This doesn´t exclude the possibility of creating a machine that produces candy, but it excludes the possiblity to actually produce candy with the machine that produces screws.

      Delete
    28. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 16, 2020 at 8:26 AM

      I don´t want to expand this discussion to other topics like "impossible to actualize potentialities" like if we take the idea that Harry could only exist because of two specific parents, but both died in a car accident before conception, so that HArry, although his potentialitiy is built virtually within the foundation, is now never actualizable. So I only apply the simplest ideas in my replies, since we need to limit the discussion for simplicity reasons.

      Delete
    29. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 16, 2020 at 9:12 AM

      Dominik


      Something that is possible is necessarily possible. That's standard logic. You seem to be confused about what a possible world is.

      Delete
    30. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 16, 2020 at 9:40 AM

      Walter,

      you are forgetting the topic of this discussion. I try to limit it for simplicity sake, since it was originally about your assumption that essence and existence distinctions leads to contradictions. If you want to discuss modal logic I´m fine with it, since you certainly have failed to make a positive case for that.
      Let´s assume your complaint is correct. Does it affect my position? No, of course not, your whole case was built upon false assumptions and terminological confusion as well as a lack of clearity. Also, although you have been on this kinds of blogs for several years you still make basic mistakes when it comes to classical theism. OF COURSE Harrys existence is necessarily possible. He is abstracted in Gods mind and God couldn´t "delete" him from there. That doesn´t entail though that Harry is thus actualizable in every possible world, much less that he is a potency in Gods essence. God grounds Possible Worlds, not the other way around.
      What that means is that in PWa which only inhabots abstract objects and in PW2 where only chickens can live, it is completely consistent to say that contingently (PWs are contingent) Harrys existence is impossible, while still being possible simpliciter. The existence of Protons is necessarily possible, but not actualizable within a PW full of electrons. We could thus go ahead and distinguish between actualizable and non-actualizable potentialities and regard e.g. PWx as ticking some of those boxes and PWy as ticking other.
      This resolves the issue and is completely consistent with Axiom S5.

      Delete
    31. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 16, 2020 at 10:20 AM

      Dominik

      You confuse a possible world with a world that is actualizable.
      For the rest, I maintain that the essence existence distinction is contradictory because even if an essence exists as an abstraction in God's mind, they are still potentialities that are (or are not) actualized. That you somehow add a step in which the potentiality for something virtually existing is within the PA, it is still a potentiality, no matter how many steps you add, won't change that.
      The only way out of this is a radically different view, on which, instead of compositions of essence and existence, there are different modes of existence.

      Delete
    32. RedJanuary 16, 2020 at 11:28 AM

      I maintain that the essence existence distinction is contradictory because even if an essence exists as an abstraction in God's mind, they are still potentialities that are (or are not) actualized. That you somehow add a step in which the potentiality for something virtually existing is within the PA, it is still a potentiality, no matter how many steps you add, won't change that.

      I don't see how that would show the distinction itself to be contradictory.

      Which is the claim that you haven't really defended since first few posts in this thread.

      Delete
    33. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 16, 2020 at 10:02 PM

      Red

      The contradiction is in the fact that every created being is said to be composed of two "elements", essence and existence.
      But either essence exist, in which case it makes no sense to say it needs to be combined with existence in order to exist, or essence doesn't exist, in which case you end up with a composition of two "things", one of which doesn't exist. That is not a composition.
      So, a composition of essence and existence is impossible.

      Delete
    34. RedJanuary 16, 2020 at 10:22 PM

      But this exact argument is what is engaged with earlier.
      But either essence exist, in which case it makes no sense to say it needs to be combined with existence in order to exist,

      But this does make sense. at least you haven't shown why it doesn't. Like I remarked earlier simply asserting that essence is not identical with existence doesn't seem to imply this conclusion.

      Delete
    35. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 17, 2020 at 2:47 AM

      Red

      It is textbook logic that something that exists doesn't need to be combined with something else in order to exist.
      I really don't know why I have to show that this doesn't make sense, or do you also want me to show why a square circle doesn't make sense?

      I honestly think we should agree to disagree here, because I don't see us making any porgress.

      Delete
    36. RedJanuary 17, 2020 at 5:14 AM

      Then I guess you have picked up the wrong text book. For any composite object that exists , it needs all its existing parts combined to exist.

      "I really don't know why I have to show that this doesn't make sense"

      Because like I said it doesn't follow from the fact that essence isn't identical to existence that essence itself must necessarily be combined with existence.

      Delete
    37. RedJanuary 17, 2020 at 5:16 AM

      "I honestly think we should agree to disagree here, because I don't see us making any porgress."

      Sure, but it is because you've made this claim multiple times without substantiating it much.

      Delete
    38. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 17, 2020 at 5:32 AM

      Red

      "For any composite object that exists , it needs all its existing parts combined to exist."

      That's obvious and that's precisely where the problem lies. Because this implies that there are existing objects that are non-composed.

      Delete
    39. RedJanuary 17, 2020 at 6:20 AM

      How?

      Delete
    40. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 17, 2020 at 6:34 AM

      Because obviously the parts composing the composite have to exist.
      So, in order for something that is composed of essence and existence to exist, both its essence and its exsitence need to exist.
      But if essence exists, it would have to be composed of existing proto-essence and existence. But if proto-essence exists, it would have to be composed of proto-prooto essence and exsistence etc.
      You end up with an infnite regress.

      Delete
    41. RedJanuary 17, 2020 at 6:46 AM

      Wait I don't know what this has to do with there being objects which are non composed.

      And why we need to posit that essence is itself a composite object? or an object at all.

      Delete
    42. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 17, 2020 at 3:20 PM

      You confuse a possible world with a world that is actualizable.

      Huh? Possile worlds are grounded in God, so they are actualizable by him. Possible Worlds describe how it could have been. Being actualizable is pretty much the only requirement for the possible world to be really possible. It seems like you are ascribing a kind of reality ot non-actualizable, hence IMpossible worlds. But what are impossible worlds any more than a contradiction and thus don´t have any reality? So it´s not me confusing anything here, but you having a bizarre view.

      For the rest, I maintain that the essence existence distinction is contradictory because even if an essence exists as an abstraction in God's mind, they are still potentialities that are (or are not) actualized. That you somehow add a step in which the potentiality for something virtually existing is within the PA, it is still a potentiality, no matter how many steps you add, won't change that.

      You can maintain a lot of things, but you have merely proven to still not having understood the idea, because I especially answered this objection. Worse still you misrepresent what I wrote. I reserved the term "virtual" for potentially existent ín the creation itself, so that the actualiozation of the essence there reserves the change to be exclusively on the part of the essence, so that we have distinguished between God and the created being, Harry. I have gone long ways to illustrate this and since you keep repeating in the following comments to Red exactly those objections I explicitly adressed in my comments, you show your inability to understand my answers and the whole doctrine.

      The only way out of this is a radically different view, on which, instead of compositions of essence and existence, there are different modes of existence.

      I also illustrated that in my comments.

      Because obviously the parts composing the composite have to exist.
      So, in order for something that is composed of essence and existence to exist, both its essence and its exsitence need to exist.
      But if essence exists, it would have to be composed of existing proto-essence and existence. But if proto-essence exists, it would have to be composed of proto-prooto essence and exsistence etc.
      You end up with an infnite regress.

      Non-sequitar. Harrys essence exists, because it is composed with Harrys existence into the individual Harry. Harrys existence is what enables Harrys essence to be dependend on existence. If Harrys essence ceases to exist, so does Harrys existence, because there is nothing to which the "Harry" in "Harrys existence" refers to. It enables nothing to be dependend on existence. And if Harrys existence ceases so does Harrys essence, since it stands in no relation to existence, so it cannot be actualized.
      Although necessarily composite when the individual Harry exists, it can be distinguished the same way the existence of an aggreggate of H2O can be distinguished from the property of wetness, although both are necessarily there and both cease if one ceases.
      The infinite regress you are describing also doesn´t turn up, since the essence, if not actualized doesn´t exist, it is abstracted like memories of other persons, but noone would claim that therefor the person needs to exist.

      But this is the third time we are at this point and I don´t have any hope, that you will understand it this time.

      Delete
    43. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 17, 2020 at 11:46 PM

      Red

      "And why we need to posit that essence is itself a composite object? or an object at all."

      Read my comment again, but more carefully and you might understand why, or maybe you still won't understand it, but I don't think there is anything more to say here.

      Dominik




      I have explained why your use of virtual existence doesn't remove the problem. If you don't understand that, there is nothing more I can say.


      Delete
    44. RedJanuary 18, 2020 at 12:52 AM

      Again I really don't see how your remarks show the problem. Maybe I am just not getting your point but that seems unlikely to me.

      Delete
    45. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 20, 2020 at 3:16 AM

      Red,
      I think I get what he is hinting at, but it is still demonstrably wrong. I think he wants to construe a situation in which the essence becomes infinitely divided. There are several problems though: 1. It seems absurd that a finite essence can be divided an infinite amount of time; a finite conjunction of those facts arise which just ARE the essence, so that adding existence to bring about the individual becomes unproblematic and the supposed contradiction is avoided. 2. Protoessences are property instances and they aren't cumulated to form the essence, but rather they are derived from it, similarily that Gods attributes are derived from his essence which is his existence. So an essence COULD be described as a simple instantiation within the individual, however, as I said several times, it is only as long existent as it is in a relationship with the individuals existence to form the individual. If one aspect here ceases,everything ceases. 3. Essences don't exist when not actualized. Memories don't bring any individual about on their own, but I described that at long in my comments. 4. Individual existence is able to form the individual when in comtact with the abstracted essence. Essence of the individual in the relevant sense thus doesn't exist prior to being composed.
      Same with the claim that there is an unactualized potency in God, I think that I have shown that it is safe to say that Walters arguments fail. That doesn't surprise me, as it is no argument I have ever heard being leveraged against this account of existence (the first comment doesn't really bring up the absurdity objection). The constant assertion in most comments without argument didn't help his case.

      Delete
    46. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 20, 2020 at 11:40 PM

      Dominik

      I don't want to start the whole discussion all over again, but you definitely don't get what I am hinting at. Your (1) and (2) are nowhere to be found in my argument, e.g., and I have already explained the problem with (3).

      Delete
    47. RedJanuary 21, 2020 at 3:36 AM

      Walter, can you please more directly point to the particular remarks of yours that you think contain your central points that you think haven't been addressed?

      Delete
    48. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 21, 2020 at 6:06 AM

      Lets try putting it in a syllogism:
      1. If an object is composed of essence and existence, all parts of the essence exists
      2. If the parts of the essence, the so called “protoessence“, it itself exists and is thus composed of essence and existence.
      3. An infinite regress arises, because this essence is in turn a composite of essence and existence.
      CONTRADICTION
      4. Therefor the object cannot be a composite of essence and existence.

      I'm pretty sure that this is the argument, at least this is how I read his comments. And it is this kind of argument my 1) and 2) are directed against, since it requires the infinite regress to be possible. If one denies that the essence can be divided into the property instances, the argument fails outright. Even if I agree that essences are built ouf of protoessences (property instances) e.g. being rational or being blue-eyed I don't see the problem in seeing the as composed of (proto-)essence and existence. It should be noted that this doesn't require a different mode of existence. Now I don't see the problem with accepting that while denying that the regress arises, since those instances cannot be further divided; their essence just IS this property instant. Thus a further divide would just result in identical results and hence the regress stops. We'd see the same if the properties weren't derived from the essence (like a simple essence, similarily to what we've seen a protoessence would become), but rather properties cumulate into an essence, then the essence would exist because the property instances were composed with existence (that is what accounts for the difference between a X and an existing X), then the argument would also be avoided, since we have a down-top picture of essences and the regress were automatically impossible.
      Further more I think the argument proves too much and wouldn't be only against the essence-existence distinction, but would also work against the whole idea of things having natures.

      Delete
    49. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 21, 2020 at 6:16 AM

      Red and Dominik

      With all due respect, but I don't want to start this discussion all over again, so I am going to bow out now.



      Delete
    50. RedJanuary 21, 2020 at 6:21 AM

      Ok thats fine, some other time maybe.

      Delete
    51. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 21, 2020 at 9:11 AM

      Ok, but could you at least say how your syllogism would go?

      Delete
  14. Tony montanaJanuary 13, 2020 at 8:27 PM

    Yup, or form and matter also. But you don’t even need to accept those metaphysical components... Ultimately, even a particle physicist will tell you that the smallest possible subatomic particle is itself a composite of something physical/material...

    ReplyDelete
  15. AnonymousJanuary 13, 2020 at 9:09 PM

    ok if i dont believe in form or matter and science finds a more fundamental subatomic particles than how are those not non composite

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 14, 2020 at 2:44 AM

      Even strings aren´t non-composite. Non-composite means necessary, which can´t be the case here, because 1) strings (if they exist) are vibrating and thus changing, something every material object does, even if it is something so little like a change in location, 2) they aren´t purely actual and thus by the argument I gave you in the comment above, cannot be the necessary ground. Further more, matter is treated as contingent, not only because science finds little reason to regard them as something else, but also because a material necessary ground leads to necessitarianism, which means fatalism. This can only be avoided if the necessary ground of being is an agent with intellect and will.
      There is very little that could be said in favor of ontological materialism.
      On another point, science couldn´t in principle find something that is more fundamental than form, since it is the material world that science is concerned with at all. And I´d argue that it is the form itself that makes the attributes of the material objects intelligible. This only becomes more apparent if we encounter irreducible properties, like wetness which appear after aggregating six H2O molecules, but which cannot be reduced to the single molecule, let alone to the atomes making them up. Other examples would be the inherent tendency of mass to attract each other, protons to attract electrons or, to take a higher example, the inherent tendency of the b-cells in your Pancreas to produce Insulin. Without those tendencies, regularities could not be made sense of. And this is what the formal cause can account for.

      Delete
    2. AtnoJanuary 14, 2020 at 10:23 AM

      Even fundamental particles will have some kind of composition. They'll have a structure, a form, and the matter that is properly structured by that form (hence why they are quarks instead of some other kind of fundamental particle). They are not completely without parts.
      Moreover, fundamental particles and such also have temporal parts.

      Something that is entirely without parts will have to be only One, since things are distinguished and multiplied by parts. A is different from B because A has some parts which B doesn't, and so on. For instance, again with fundamental particles, this quark is distinct from that quark because this one has some part (a particular parcel of matter) that the other one doesn't.
      If something has no parts whatsoever, and is just purely and completely unified, a complete unity, then it can be only one. Because there couldn't be two perfect unities, as they'll have no parts to be distiguished from one another and thus won't be different at all.
      That which is a perfect unity is therefore called the One. It cannot be anything material, since material things are always composite (even at the very least of a certain form/structure and a parcel of prime matter, or of an essence/what it is and an act of existence/that it is, they are also composed of temporal parts). Besides, material things can always be multiplied into different individuals, because of their parts. The One is only one thing. It is beyond space and time, its essence just is the same as its existence, its power, etc. It is the cause of every other thing, every composite thing.

      Read Ed's book if you're interested.

      The Neoplatonic proof is fascinating, but it can be a bit harder to understand at first if you're not familiar with metaphysics. Perhaps you should first try to grapple with, and understand, the Leibnizian argument (Feser calls it the rationalist proof in the book), which is about contingency.

      Delete
    3. AnonymousJanuary 14, 2020 at 10:50 AM

      ok. Making more sense now., so how about if the subatomic particle or smallest part doesn’t have differing features from another and it is exactly the same in every way as other ones?

      Delete
    4. AtnoJanuary 14, 2020 at 11:23 AM

      How could that fundamental particle be both exactly the same in every way as the others, and also be a distinct individual, NOT having any differentiating features? If there's nothing that differentiates it from others, then it's not a different individual.
      If A is exactly like B in every way, then A = B.
      If there are to be two individual fundamental particles, they'll have to differ in some way. In the case of particles and physical things, they will share the same form/structure (they are both quarks, say), but then they'll have different parcels of matter. One will be this matter structured into a quark, the other will be some other parcel of matter structured into a quark. In short, they will be composite. They'll be composites of a form/structure and matter. And so they won't be simple/non-composite at all.

      The non-composite One is perfectly unique, there can be only one. Every physical entity is always open to multiplicity; it is always a composite of a certain form and some particular parcel of matter; it is also always a composite of temporal parts. Physical things are composite, even fundamental particles.

      The One, which is the source of all unity, must be entirely unique, beyond time, beyond matter, etc.

      Delete
    5. AnonymousJanuary 14, 2020 at 8:13 PM

      What do you mean by different parcels of matter? Why can’t there just be many fundamental noncomposite parts that are literally all the same thing and all have the same features? Exact carbon copies of each other but no differences or parts between each other

      Delete
    6. AtnoJanuary 15, 2020 at 10:29 AM

      If they are literally all the same thing and have all the same features, exact carbon copies of each other and with no differences or parts between each other, how are they distinct individuals?

      Delete
    7. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 15, 2020 at 12:11 PM

      Anon,

      perhaps we should illustrate it in a different way. As Atno correctly pointed out, the idea of copies, which cannot be differentiated doesn´t work, since they would become one then.

      But I should try and show another reason why those material objects couldn´t be the foundation, at least not if we don´t want to commit ourselves to the most eccentric metaphysics.
      The Principle of Proportionate Causality (PPC) states that the effect must in some way be present in the cause (simplified). So when a billard ball causes the movement of another ball this is due to the already present movement within the first ball, which transfers the movement through the kinetic energy.
      This issue becomes a lot more interesting when we look a hierarchichal causation, where the man is made of organs is made of cells is made of molecules is made of atoms is made of Protons, Neutrons and Electrons is made of quarks is made of...strings.
      Now we have the interesting case where you seemingly, in order to avoid the following argument, must embrace some kind of strong reductionism and/or eliminativism. Everything has to be reducible to physics.
      But if what we find in psychology, sociology, biology and chemistry with all the newly introduced properties (wetness, physical intentionality, life, mind and consciousness) is not reducible to the fundamental particles, then we are faced with emergent properties. In order for those properties to be expressed, they rely on the matter making the object up. But if the matter cannot account for it, then those properties/attributes are on a different ontological level from which there is no direct and fluid way from the lowest particle to the highest mental act. Then the idea of the matter being the fundamental grounding of those properties becomes absurd, something else has to account for their expression and existence. This is also by the way a quick argument for accepting formal causality, since forms are able to integrate emergent phenomena within nature.

      Further more with the material non-composites you would once again face the problem of fatalism, since they would be necessary without the attribute of agency.

      Delete
    8. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 15, 2020 at 12:21 PM

      Also let´s be clear, non-composite material substances are impossible, since they would need to be simple. If they are simple they would have to be their own reason for their existence, since they are necessary. As non-composites they would have to lack the ability to change due to the lack of act/potency-composition. But now we completely left the realm of the material and returned to the unmoved mover

      Delete
    9. AnonymousJanuary 15, 2020 at 9:27 PM

      Can you guys further explain how the fact that multiple of something mean it’s not composite? That’s all that’s confusing.

      Delete
    10. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 16, 2020 at 3:55 AM

      how the fact that multiple of something mean it’s not composite?

      I don´t quite understand. Multiple of somethings are composite, since if there are multiples of them, they can be differentiated. If you add a simple substance to another simple substance you are adding what is identical to another, hence you don´t have 2 of the same kind at all. The point becomes clearer when we keep in mind, that a fully actual simple needs to be infinite, so that it also cannot be changed with regard to the spatiol location. At this point two identical infinities just are one infinite substance.

      Delete
    11. StardustyPsycheJanuary 16, 2020 at 6:08 AM

      Dominik KowalskiJanuary 16, 2020 at 3:55 AM
      "Multiple of somethings are composite, since if there are multiples of them, they can be differentiated."
      False, "they" cannot be differentiated.
      The collection of "them" can be differentiated.

      There is no need for a single simple. The universe can be comprised of, say, 10^100 simples, each one cannot itself be differentiated, but the universe is composite and therefore can be differentiated.

      "fully actual" is another incoherent term, like "existence itself" and "pure act". This "pure act" is asserted to not actualize X at t1, but to actualize X at t2. Thus, PA had the potential to actualize X at t1,, which means it is not "pure act".

      Delete
    12. AtnoJanuary 16, 2020 at 9:49 AM

      Anonymous,

      Multiples of something are composite. That's they differ from one another.

      If A is absolutely the same as B, in every aspect, then A = B. In other words, there would be no A and B, just a single substance, since A and B are not different after all.

      How are you different from a lion? There are some spatial and temporal differences, but your primary difference from a lion is your form; your body is structured as a human body, with human powers. The lion, obviously, has the form of a lion, its body/matter is structured as a lion, which is different from humans. So humans and lions have many parts, and the different parts is what distinguishes them - primarily and most obviously the forms. The lion has lion parts, you have human parts. The lion is matter structured into a specifically lion form, you are structured as a human.

      But what would distinguish two individual lions? Not their form/structure, since they're both structured into a lion. They have lion parts and lion powers. What distinguishes them is that lion A has *this* parcel of matter, and lion B has *that* other parcel of matter. Hence hylemorphism. Every physical and material object is a composite of form and matter. Prime matter cannot exist without some form (there is no sense to be made of a completely abstract matter, without any shape, structure, etc). Lion A and Lion B both are structured like lions, both share the form of Lion, but they're different because A is structured into this parcel of matter, and B into that other parcel of matter. They have different parts; they are made of different parcels of matter, which then leads to all sorts of other differences (spatial and temporal location differences, for example, some differences in shape, size, etc).

      Now, even the most fundamental physical thing is also a composite of form and matter. Which is what allows them to be differentiated from one another. This particle is a quark, that other one is an electron, primarily because the quark has the form/structure of quarkness. Its prime matter is structured as a quark. The election's stuff is structured as an electron.
      How are two quarks different from one another? By having different parcels of matter. Quark A is this stuff structured as a quark, Quark B is that other stuff structured as a quark. So they're different; and likewise they will have different spatial parts, different temporal parts, and so on. They are composite.

      Now, if a being is NOT composite in any way, but completely simple, then it cannot be a composition of form and matter. It must just be its form, just be what it is. It cannot be physical. And it cannot be multiplied, because it would have no parts and no possibility of having parts to distinguish it from another.
      Assuming A and B are in the same category, and have the same nature (that of being a simple being, let's say), how could they be different individuals? Only if A has some part which B lacks. So A would actually be SIMPLE BEING + X. But then A will be composite and not really simple.
      There is no way to have two perfectly simple beings, because they will have nothing to make them different from another, nothing to make them distinct individuals, since they can have no parts whatsoever.

      Delete
    13. AnonymousJanuary 16, 2020 at 12:20 PM

      I think this maybe is going over my head? If something is totally simple and noncomposite, using your example A, and A is exactly the same as B, but A and B are as Stardusts said just 10^1000 and everywhere in all beings, how is it composite?

      I’m failing to see how A being the same in every way as B means that by default then that A=B. Are you taking into account spatial location or something? What are “parcels of matter”?



      Also, if is the foundation for everything, isn’t the argument pantheism then instead of theism?

      Delete
    14. MinaJanuary 16, 2020 at 3:20 PM

      I’m interested to see replies from Atno and Dominik here. I’m a theist but I have trouble seeing exactly how the Neoplatonic proof or Argument from Composites doesn’t just turn into a thomistic argument dependent on essence and existence.

      Thanks in advance guys.

      Delete
    15. AtnoJanuary 16, 2020 at 3:23 PM

      Parcel of matter refers to primary matter, that which individuates forms and allows for different spatial location and whatnot in the first place.

      Notice how a thing's spatial location is purely accidental and contingent, it cannot be what distinguishes an individual from another. A cannot be different from B simply because of spatial location, since something can only have a spatial location once it first exists. So a difference between A and B must be due to some part which one has and the other one lacks. If both A and B have the same nature (so, the same form) how could they be different from one another? Only through some part which the other lacks.

      Again, how can one quark be different from another quark? If A is exactly the same as B in every respect, then A just is B, and they're not distinct individuals. So, assuming they are distinct individuals, what differentiates A from B? It can't just be spatial location, because 1) something can only have a specific spatial location if it exists, so it presupposes that A (or B) is an individual; 2) in that case we would still have to explain why they'd have different spatial locations, and that will presuppose a metaphysical principle like prime matter (or something else if you fancy, but then it will be something additional to the nature, and it will therefore be a composite of the nature + that difference)

      To sum it up again: if A is to be distinct from B, A has to have something (X) which B doesn't have. But this will make A a composite being; it will be its nature PLUS X.

      In the case of quarks or fundamental particles, they are composites of their form (that which structures matter into quark, quarkness, and is common to all quarks and different from the structure of an electron) and the matter (the metaphysical principle or stuff which is structured into different physical forms). Quarks are different from one another because their matter is different. It is this matter, that other matter, etc. But they share the same form (the structure of being a quark).

      A simple thing just is what it is. It has no parts. If A and B are both purely simple things, there is no way one could have some part the other one lacks, no way to differentiate them from one another.

      It's not pantheism because God or the One in this case is distinct from the universe. The point is precisely that physical things are composite, but the One is not. The One is that which combines every part, and is responsible for the existence of every composite thing.

      Delete
    16. AtnoJanuary 16, 2020 at 3:28 PM

      @Mina

      It could use essence and existence. But could also use form and matter. Or some more general understanding of parts - there must be an One which is purely simple and not composed of any physical or metaphysical parts, whatever these might be.

      It's general, so the compositeness can apply to many analyses (including essence and existence), kinda like act and potency, contingency, etc.

      Delete
    17. AnonymousJanuary 16, 2020 at 8:50 PM

      I’m just not getting it idk. How can there not just be an infinite or some other very large number of purely noncomposite things which lack no parts and do not differ from one another?

      I understand what you’re arguing metaphysically but I don’t understand how this argument works if you don’t subscribe to form/matter or essence/existence metaphysics.

      Just say for the sake of argument here we can get a microscope and look at a collection of a bunch of fermions which are not composed or anything. Say there is nothing in the universe smaller or more fundamental than them - it’s just 10^100 fermions like the ones under our microscope. How is it that fermion A is any different from fermion B under our microscope? They’re both noncomposite like the other 10^100 in the universe. The only difference is that they are two complete carbon copies of the same exact thing with zero differentiating factors. Why does that mean A=B and is therefore impossible? Why, without resorting to essence/existence, must A be composed of different parts than B?

      Thanks for sticking this out. I’m genuinely just lost by this argument.

      Delete
    18. JohannesJanuary 16, 2020 at 9:18 PM

      Hi Anonymous,

      What problem(s) do you have with the ideas of these composites
      1) Essence and Existence
      2) Potentiality and Actuality

      (form and matter are not as fundamental as the above two types of composites, because there can be composites who lack any matter)

      Delete
    19. JohannesJanuary 16, 2020 at 9:24 PM

      Amend on form and matter:

      (form and matter are not as fundamental as the above two types of composites because there can be different entities that are not composed of any matter, but there can be one and only one entity whose nature is purely actual without any potentiality, and one and only one entity whose essence is existence.)

      Delete
    20. JohannesJanuary 16, 2020 at 9:38 PM

      I should say it this way instead:

      (Form and matter are not as fundamental because there can be composite entities who has only pure form without matter, whereas an entity whose essence is pure existence is necessarily non-composite, and an entity who is pure actuality without potentiality that needed to be actualised is necessarily non-composite.

      Delete
    21. AtnoJanuary 16, 2020 at 9:41 PM

      "The only difference is that they are two complete carbon copies of the same exact thing with zero differentiating factors"

      But that's just complete nonsense. Now I'm the one who's lost here. Are you trying to say that A can be absolutely the same as B in every way, an exact carbon copy, with no differentiating factor whatsoever, and STILL be a different individual from B? But how is this possible?

      Let's make it simpler.

      If A is different from B, A must have something which B lacks. There must be some differentiating factor that makes A one thing and B another thing.

      Do you agree or disagree?

      If you agree, how do you think each individual fermion is distinct from another individual fermion? What do you think accounts for the fact that one is fermion A, and the other fermion B, instead of there just being one single substance (one fermion only)? They are both fermions, so they are both Fs. So, what individuates these two distinct Fs?

      Delete
    22. AnonymousJanuary 16, 2020 at 10:18 PM

      Ok Atno. It’s making a bit more sense now. I guess where I’m still struggling is that I can’t see how there can’t just be infinite copies of the same thing. What if the only differentiating factor between A and B is their spatial location at t1 or t2, (depending if you’re a or b theory subscriber, it doesn’t really matter here..) But they are otherwise completely and totally the same thing. They are different individuals insofar as simply they are performing different functions or are occupying different spatial locations, but otherwise are completely and totally the same subatomic, elementary particle. How must they be composite? As for whether I agree or disagree, I guess the only way I can say I agree is if you posit them existing at different spatial locations to be significant enough to say it’s composite. Thanks again for sticking along witn this. I’m not trying to be a troll and I’m not an atheist. I just genuinely don’t get this lol.

      @Johannes I’m not saying I have a problem with essence or existence or form matter concepts or that they don’t exist. I’m just trying to get it from the material side, because Feser holds that it is true for material things and of metaphysical ideas both.

      Delete
    23. AtnoJanuary 17, 2020 at 12:34 AM

      So your answer is that what differentiates the Fs is their spatial location. There are at least two problems with this answer, as I've pointed before:

      1) spatial location is something entirely contingent and accidental. I need sleep right now, and the point I'm trying to present here is an intuitive one that might be a bit difficult to express right now, but try to follow it: if A and B are to be real, existing different individuals, they must have differences that are intrinsic to themselves. A difference in spatial location is not something intrinsic to either of them. Something can only occupy a spatial location once it exists! But we're trying to find out IF A and B can even exist in the first place. To say they are different because of spatial location is like saying "okay, first, there are two distinct things, these two things can exist, and they're different because they occupy different spatial locations...". It doesn't work. Something can only occupy space if it can exist in the first place, but if B does not have a difference from A then it cannot exist (there will be only A), so this difference cannot be the spatial location. Two things must first be two things before they can ever occupy any different spatial locations. Did you get it? It's an intuitive idea that is a bit hard for me to describe right now. So spatial location doesn't cut it, it cannot be the reason why A and B are different: rather, it presupposes that they are different, so that each can then occupy a certain spatial location.

      2) we'd still need an explanation for why A occupies location 1 and B occuppies location 2. It cannot be the form, since they both share the same structure; they are both Fs, they are both fermions. What accounts for this difference in spatial location, then? The hylemorphist will argue that prime matter will be required to make sense of the difference in spatial locations. The nature Fness is compatble with both locations 1 and 2 and does not entail any location; the reason F A has location 1 is due to its having the parcel of matter located at 1, and F B having the parcel of matter located at 2. So, they are composites of form and matter in this case

      Delete
    24. AnonymousJanuary 17, 2020 at 7:35 AM

      Ok, I think I’m half way there now. Thanks again for sticking this out. So is it essentially that in order for two or more “units” of a material thing to exist, it has to be composed of different parcels of “source,” otherwise it would just be the same thing and not be 2? Does that kind of lead towards where you’re going with this?

      Is it also true that something is not truly noncomposite unless it doesn’t dependent on something else for it existing as its current composition? Feser uses temperature in his book as an example for something not melting.

      I guess you can say just logically that if there’s more than 1 of something it is somehow composite because otherwise it can’t be more than 1? If you had to play devil’s advocate what’s your best objection to that, and the theist’s response to it?

      Delete
    25. Dominik KowalskiJanuary 17, 2020 at 2:54 PM

      Mina,
      I´ll keept it short; at some point of course the arguments become identical, when it comes to the conclusion. The differences are how we arrive at that and here all arguments can be independend from another, such that if the aristotelian and the thomistic proof were wrong, the platonic proof wouldn´t be affected by the refutations. This is because all the arguments rely on different fundamental premises.

      Delete
    26. AtnoJanuary 17, 2020 at 2:55 PM

      Pretty much. Because there must be a difference between A and B. There must be a property that one has and the other one lacks, if A is going to be distinct from B. If A and B have exactly the same properties, absolutely all of them, then A is obviously the same thing as B. This is supposed to be obvious. It follows quite straightforwardly from the law of identity. If A and B are alike in every single way, they are the same entity. And if there were C, and C were exactly like B, then A would also be C since B = C and A = B so A = C.
      If two things are really gonna be two things, and not one, they will need some difference between them. A will have to have some property which B lacks, or vice-versa.

      A different spatial location wouldn't be an acceptable property to make a difference here, because two things can only have different spatial locations once they actually exist and can be located. Different spatial locations presupposes that there are two things already instead of one, so it cannot be the root of the distinction between A and B. (And besides, the difference in spatial location would itself require some explanation, which could then lead us to hylemorphism).

      So in order for two fermions to be distinct individuals, there must be some metaphysical principle or "stuff" which individuates them, something distinct from their form (since they share the same form or structure) and which doesn't follow from the form. This "stuff" or "source" would be prime matter for hylemorphists. (Which is also why for Aquinas matter is the principle of individuation).

      The two fermions, A and B, will have to be composed of different parcels of "source" so they can be distinct individuals. But then they will be composite: a composition of their form (Fness) + the parcel of "source" or "individuating matter". So they won't be simple.

      If something is dependent on something else for its existence, then it is composite, because to be dependent on something would entail having parts that are being combined (essence and existence, or form and matter, etc). A being that is entirely simple and non-composite just is what it is, just is its nature, and so must be completely independent. (At least for concrete beings, this is how it is. It might be different for abstract objects, like a number might be dependent on a mind but I don't know if that would involve parts. But abstract objects are of no use here, since we are concerned with the existence of concrete entities).

      If there is more than 1 of something there is composition involved, because composition is the only way of allowing for a difference among things that are of the same kind. If A and B are both Fs, how can they be distinct individuals? Only if A is F+X and B just is F, or F+Y. If they are both just F, then A = just F and B = just F, so A = B. There must be some composition of properties of whatever kind to allow for a multiplicity. F+X and F+Y, etc.

      Delete
    27. AtnoJanuary 17, 2020 at 2:55 PM


      I do not quite know how to play devil's advocate for this specific position. I guess I could try to say something like this:

      "There are actually many different simples, they just have completely different natures. So there are A and B, and they are really distinct because they are completely different natures. It's not like fermions, in which fermions share the same nature, Fness. Rather, A and B are completely different things, and non-composite. A just is the nature X, and B just is the nature Y."

      The theist could respond that the problem here is that this appears completely impossible. If A and B are both simple, it seems they would have to share some common nature (that of being One, or Simple. Or that of being a Necessarily Existing Thing). And it seems there is no way that "being One" or "necessary existence" could have completely different properties such as "being One1" and "being One2" to the point where there would be no common nature, no common property.
      To use necessary existence as an example, how could a nature of "NECESSARILY EXISTING AS AN X" be completely different from "NECESSARILY EXISTING AS AN Y"? It seems "necessarily existing" is the same property in both cases, just in different modes. The same would go for "BEING SIMPLE/ONE LIKE X" and "BEING SIMPLE/ONE LIKE Y". It appears "being simple/one" is a common property, so they cannot be completely different.

      An atheist could also try to make the One a material thing. By rejecting hylemorphism (but I think that is a big cost already), by accepting that it is somehow only one thing (which is another big cost, since material things seem always capable of multiplicity), with a weird conception of matter. Then you could have a "natural" first cause. But then there are all the different arguments for saying the first cause is God the atheist will have to deal with.

      Delete
    28. JohannesJanuary 17, 2020 at 3:45 PM

      Perhaps the atheist can ask: “What if one day we discover a one and only one field that is spread throughout the whole of space-time? It exists as one and only one, and so a distinction between two entities each constituted by different parcels of matter is not applicable. So if anonymous does not want to subscribe to form and matter, essence and existence, potentiality and actuality, then what can be said about this field in terms of it being composite?”

      Delete
    29. StardustyPsycheJanuary 17, 2020 at 4:24 PM

      Johannes,
      Perhaps not one, but rather multiple fields spread throughout space, perhaps one field for each particle and force in the standard model.

      For a lecture on the subject:

      Quantum Fields: The Real Building Blocks of the Universe - with David Tong
      youtube dot com/watch?v=zNVQfWC_evg

      There is no logical necessity for a single entity that is absolutely simple.

      There can be multiple entities that are minimally simple. There is no logical necessity that the universe cannot be comprised of a multitude of separate minimally simple entities.

      "Form" is not a composite aspect of material, rather, form is of material.

      "Essence" is not a composite aspect of material, rather, essence is of material.

      Terms such "existence itself", "pure actuality", and "the unchanged changer that has no potentialities that actualizes everything in the universe while existing outside of time and outside of space" are all incoherent.

      Delete
    30. AtnoJanuary 17, 2020 at 5:39 PM

      Johannes,

      But I think a field, as a whole, would have an extension in space, and that wouod involve parts. Moreover, it would bite the bullets I mentioned before: that the field somehow not a composite of form and matter; and that this field really is absolutely unique (which is bizarre, since it seems every physical thing could be multiplied).

      Besides, I don't think fields are good candidates at all. They appear to be mere abstractions, not real entities. And they cannot do the work a first cause has to; fields change, they go through excitations, and they themselves do not cause or explain those excitations.

      Delete
    31. AtnoJanuary 17, 2020 at 5:54 PM

      And if the atheist somehow insists on biting the bullet and saying the One is (somehow) a physical thing, we just move on to Stage 2 of cosmological arguments and argue why the One/First Cause is better understood as God.

      This would include the fact that the First Cause/One must be qualitatively infinite. It cannot have arbitrary limits or boundaries, since those limits would themselves call for an explanation, and would lower the probability of any hypothesis with complexity. See Rasmussen's work on the problem of arbitrary limits for details, as well as Swinburne's discussion of the superior simplicity of God against competing explanations.

      It would also include the issue with the Principle of Proportionate Causality, which Dominik has already mentioned. The One or First Cause must contain within itself the perfections/realities of all the effects in at least the same degree. Some perfections we observe are life, consciousness, intelligence, personhood, etc. So the One must be personal, intelligent and omnipotent.

      Then there are teleological arguments and the fact the One creates a universe that is fine-tuned for life, has minds, etc.

      Delete
    32. AnonymousJanuary 17, 2020 at 11:09 PM

      This all makes a lot more sense to me now. Thanks for bearing with me and explaining all of this.

      As for the idea of a “field,” I think such a field would be composite, would it not? Whether one field or multiple fields.

      Delete
    33. MinaJanuary 18, 2020 at 12:05 AM

      Wow very good points all here. Concerning field, or extend to string theory, are string composite?

      Delete
    34. AtnoJanuary 18, 2020 at 12:07 PM

      1- Yes, a field would be composite; surely would be for a hylemorphist, since it would be a composition of form and matter. And since fields can be multiplied, that would also imply compositeness. And they appear to be extended in space, as a whole, plus they cannot seem to do the work a first cause has to do.

      Strings would also be composite for a hylemorphist, as would be any physical entity (composite of form and matter). But even without hylemorphism, afaik string theory posits multiple strings, so they have to be distinguished through composition (one is S+A, the other is S+B) and so on.

      Plus, when we reach the conclusion of any cosmological argument, we also want an explanation for why the First Cause (the necessary being, or the purely actual actualizer, or the simple One, or any similar metaphysical concept) created an orderly reality with simple regularities and natural laws which allow for the development of life and complex structures. And also an explanation for how life and intelligence are among the things that exist. To answer these issues, we have to conclude the First Cause is personal. So fields, strings and the like are not adequate first causes even if they (somehow) could be simple or whatever.

      Delete
    35. AnonymousJanuary 18, 2020 at 11:06 PM

      Interesting makes sense. When you say they appear to be extended throughout space what do you mean by that? How does that entail their having parts?

      Delete
    36. mikeJanuary 19, 2020 at 1:21 PM

      Multiple fields wouldn’t qualify because they are many. I struggle to see how one field can’t be though if it’s noncomposite.

      Delete
    37. AtnoJanuary 19, 2020 at 1:50 PM

      If something is extended through space then it has spatial parts.

      Delete
    38. AnonymousJanuary 19, 2020 at 4:19 PM

      what do you mean extended through space and why does thAt entail having parts

      Delete
    39. AtnoJanuary 19, 2020 at 4:50 PM

      Pretty simple idea. Imagine getting a block of wood and putting it over your hand. One part of that block of wood will be on top of your finger. Another part will be on the your hand. And so on.

      Extended things have spatial parts. You can cut them up (even with your imagination) into smaller parts.

      It seems fields as a whole are extended throughout space, so that might be an extra problem for them.

      Delete
    40. AnonymousJanuary 19, 2020 at 6:00 PM

      Ah, so you mean that they sort of permeate or go through parts of already existing things?

      Delete
    41. AtnoJanuary 19, 2020 at 8:21 PM

      I mean that fields as a whole, if they really exist and are not just mathematical abstractions (I think they're just mathematical abstractions, really), would be extended throughout space, and so would have spatial parts. Someone who is convinced by the neoplatonist argument should therefore also expect a cause for the unity of the field's spatial parts, so it cannot be a first cause. And that is whether or not one accepts hylemorphism.

      But there are other problems with positing fields as first causes, as I've mentioned already.

      Delete
    42. AtnoJanuary 19, 2020 at 8:22 PM

      So, yes. They would have an extension.

      Delete
    43. JohannesJanuary 19, 2020 at 9:21 PM

      Hi Atno,

      An entity is said to be composite if its existence depends on a combination of two or more parts, where parts can refer to physical (eg two hydrogen atoms) and non-physical parts (eg potentiality and actuality). In other words, an entity is a composite if it comprises two or more parts IN SUCH A WAY that it would cease to exist once those parts are separated. (Other than God, every other entity at its most fundamental level is composed of essence and existence, or potentiality and actuality.)

      But I would like to take up what Anonymous had started by temporarily focus only on the matter itself (while temporarily ignoring the pair “form and matter”).

      In other words, my concern here is not about the existence of God, not about whether any matter-entity can be the First Cause, and not about whether any entity who is not God is composite, but narrowly focusing only on whether all entities that can be conceived in Physics are composite IF WE CONSIDER THEM ONLY IN THE PHYSICAL SENSE.

      1. If an entity (eg a field) exists in space, and its existence is dependent on, and is made of, only one simple matter, then no matter how you “cut it up physically or spatially”, it still exists. It does not cease to exist just because it has been cut into two. In contrast, a physically-composite entity ceases to exist if you separate its physical components. For example, water ceases to exist when you separate all the oxygen atoms from the hydrogen atoms. So as long as an entity can exist base on one simple matter alone, then even if it can be cut, it still continue to exist. If you cut up a field into two spatial regions, the field does not cease to exist; it exists in two spatial regions. So it seems that a physical entity, merely because it is extended in space, does not for that reason renders it to be a composite entity if we think only in terms of the physical sense (ie if we ignore the metaphysical part called Form). The essential element of whether or not an entity is composite is: whether it ceases to exist when we somehow divide it up. Whether an entity can be cut up does not seem to be the essence of what it means to be a composite. Being composite seems to have to do with whether or not an entity is composed of any two or more parts IN SUCH A WAY that when those parts are separated, that entity ceases to exist.

      2. Now it is conceivable to have a physical entity that is not only that it is made of one simple matter (its existence depends only on that one simple matter), but also that this physical entity cannot be “physically cut up”. We can conceive of some undiscovered field that has such a characteristics. If we can conceive it, then it seems it is metaphysically possible. We can also consider the physical entity called Space. Space itself is a physical entity which has been growing bigger and bigger in size since the Big Bang. Every physical entity that is used to “cut up” Space is itself contained in Space. So space seems unable to be physically cut up into two or more pieces. Even if we can do so, Space does not cease to exist just because it has been cut up into pieces. (BTW, I came across somewhere where a video suggested that Space is a field.) Such simple physical-entity will cease to exist when God separate the “essence-existence” composite from such physical entities. But physically or spatially cutting up such a simple-matter entity would not result in it ceasing existence.

      3. If what I said is sound, then we cannot avoid metaphysics (eg the metaphysics of essence and existence, or potentiality and actuality) to argue that everything else, other than The One, is composite.



      Delete
    44. Tony montanaJanuary 19, 2020 at 10:03 PM

      In for replies on this one. Super interesting.

      Delete
    45. AtnoJanuary 19, 2020 at 11:28 PM

      Something is composite if it's made up of parts. If it's made up of parts, then its existence is dependent on its parts being combined, so of course if its parts are separated then it ceases to exist.

      I don't think I agree with your suggestion that if the hypothetical field can be cut up into two spatial regions it would not cease to exist. Cutting up space like that is obviously a very abstract notion, but it seems that it at least makes sense to think that a field exists as a whole insofar as its spatial parts (cut up into any spatial regions) are unified. If it were "really" cut up in half, how would it remain as "one field in two different regions" instead of two fields extended throughout two different spatial regions?

      There would also be the issue of temporal parts (if someone accepts B theory).

      Robert Koons defends a Neo-Platonic argument from the Unity of the World (in his article on the existence of God). The very unity of space would stand in need of explanation. We can certainly ask what unifies the world's spatiotemporal structure. As Koons says, "the unity of space us constituted by an infinite number of precisely coordinated relational facts. For example, whenever A and B are separated by a distance of j meters and B and C are separated by a distance of k meters, then A and C must be no closer than (j - k) and no farther than (j + k) meters."

      Delete
    46. mike fazzakJanuary 20, 2020 at 1:29 AM

      If you cut the field in half it would exist as two fields in spatial regions, not one field. That’s like saying if you cut a full pizza pie into 8 slices, it becomes 8 separate full uncut pizza pies. It’s the composite “being” or “thing” itself that ceases to exist, not the parts. The field would simply become what it was prior to being cut but minus that part which was cut off.

      We’re all playing games we wouldn’t be playing with a pizza or a chair composite here in order to attack a very simple argument. Anything that is not purely simple and noncomposite has parts. Fields, strings, and the like are not purely simple because there are many of them, and they also have parts due to being extended throughout space. Even if you somehow tried to argue for a materially noncomposite ever permeating string or field, it wouldn’t fulfill the role of what a first cause has to fulfill.

      Delete
    47. JohannesJanuary 20, 2020 at 1:29 AM

      Think of this analogy:

      Say, there is one puddle of water on the ground.

      Say, a little boy comes along and separated that one puddle of water into two puddles.

      This “cutting up” or separating the water spatially into two locations does not result in the water ceasing to exist. The water simply continues existing in two spatial regions instead of the one single original spatial location.

      It should be metaphysically possible that certain fields can be divided spatially and still continue existing.

      We have to distinguish between
      (a) dividing an entity spatially (eg separating a puddle of water into two)
      and
      (b) dividing an entity by separating its ontological parts (eg separating all oxygen from all hydrogen in a puddle of water)

      The former does not always lead to an entity ceasing existence, while the latter always lead to an entity ceasing to exist if its existence continuously depend on a composite of those ontological parts.

      Delete
    48. minaJanuary 20, 2020 at 1:50 AM

      So the ultimate question is what are the parts of a string or a field

      Delete
    49. StardustyPsycheJanuary 20, 2020 at 7:21 AM

      JohannesJanuary 19, 2020 at 9:21 PM

      "... parts can refer to physical (eg two hydrogen atoms) and non-physical parts (eg potentiality and actuality)..."
      The term "non-physical part" is incoherent.

      "...In other words, an entity is a composite if it comprises two or more parts IN SUCH A WAY that it would cease to exist once those parts are separated..."
      Material cannot be separated from its properties, or essences if you prefer that archaic language.

      "...every other entity at its most fundamental level is composed of essence and existence, or potentiality and actuality.)"
      Essence is not a "part" of a "composite" that can somehow be separated from the material that has that essence. Nor can material gain or lose existence. Nor are potentiality and actuality somehow "parts" of a "composite".

      The soul (the subject of the OP) is not in evidence, and like god, the many properties attributed to the soul are in combination incoherent.

      Delete
    50. AtnoJanuary 20, 2020 at 8:38 AM

      Johannes

      You are composed of parts, some of which are more fundamental than others for your existence. Your arm can get cut off and in a sense you will still exist, but this doesn't mean you weren't composed by that arm. Your previous body would no longer exist as it did.

      The water doesn't cease to exist, but the puddle does. Cut a field in two and you no longer have that field, with that extension. Now you have two fields. The original field has ceased to be.

      For another mental exercise, imagine that half of the field is annihilated. The field was composed by that part, which now no longer exists. That field is over. And if the remaining half is annihilated, then nothing will remain of the original field. So the field is composed of its spatial parts. The field is composed of all the different spatial parts and their relational facts, composed into the extension of the field.

      Delete
    51. AnonymousJanuary 20, 2020 at 10:06 AM

      That makes so much more sense as to why it then has parts.

      So whats an example of a field that is somehow in some way NOT extended through space? Is that even possible

      Delete
    52. mike fazzakJanuary 20, 2020 at 11:16 AM

      A field or string under string theory has parts and is not fundamental and simple. Not only can you cut it when it extends throughout space, it’s dependent on various other factors for its existence. Even the most die hard string theorists (of which there are not many left in academia... should tell you about the validity of string theory) will admit that strings require various dependencies to vibrate etc. they are not purely simple even if we somehow articulate that they are not composed of traditionally assumed to be parts.

      That’s if they’re even real, by the way.. :O

      Delete
    53. mike fazzakJanuary 20, 2020 at 11:18 AM

      if something even depends on something else or some factor or process, it’s a composite under Neoplatonism. For example if you had ice which is frozen water the temperature being sufficient to make it frozen is a part of that composite.

      Neoplatonic concepts of the One are not a purely theistic thing. It makes it easier to argue for a God, yes, but in reality there are many, many serious Neoplatonic scholars and lay Neoplatonists who don’t believe in God and view the One differently.

      Delete
    54. El GerenteJanuary 20, 2020 at 2:29 PM

      This is all moot because strings in string theory have properties which are parts. For example, while not traditionally the same type of part as wood is to a desk, energy is a property of strings. The same would apply to fields. Plus, if there are many of them, they are not a simple being anyway.

      Positing vibrating strings or fields as the reason for existence is not a serious argument. It certainly isn't serious to posit it as the One in a neoplatonic sense.

      Delete
    55. MinaJanuary 20, 2020 at 9:01 PM

      Why should one believe that form and matter and essence and existence are real things

      Delete
    56. AtnoJanuary 20, 2020 at 10:32 PM

      Mina,

      Because they make the best sense of so many things. Essences and forms, for instance, make sense of how different things really do seem to share the very same common features and structures that makes them "kinds" of things; human beings with rational powers, dogs who bark, plants that take in nutrients and grow to their specific patterns, and so on. While matter makes sense of how these same essences can nevertheless be individuates into different parcels of "stuff"; how they can have specific spatial locations; etc. And the robust notion of "existence", of course, to make sense of the fact that some things exist while others don't, and that many things exist contingently so their essence is not the same as their existence, etc. There are lots of arguments for such categories. They're both intuitive and the best explanation for many phenomena.

      But you do not need such concepts to have a successful argument for God. They certainly help, but they're not completely required. My favorite argument is the rationalist/leibnizian which is simply based on contingency. Contingent things need causes for their existence. The totality of contingent things must have an explanation in a Necessary Being or Foundation which accounts for why they exist. This Necessary Being is God because of arguments already discussed here (it must have all perfections of all contingent effects, including intelligence, consciousness, etc; its being personal also better explains the order of contingent reality; etc).

      So these metaphysical concepts are not really required for theistic arguments, even if they can be helpful. I recommend you to read Feser's book Scholastic Metaphysics to find out more about form and matter, essence and existence, etc.

      Delete
    57. AnonymousJanuary 20, 2020 at 11:08 PM

      Hey Atno thanks for bearing with me and helping me with these arguments! If you would be so kind as to share a way to contact you if I have future questions as I navigate feser book that would be amazing, but don’t feel bad if you don’t want me annoying you!

      Delete
    58. AtnoJanuary 21, 2020 at 10:59 AM

      For now you can contact me (and others) here in Feser's blog. There's always open threads, links threads, and threads about God, the mind, metaphysics etc. If you have any questions you can always ask people here, including me.

      Feser's "Scholastic Metaphysics" is one of the best for understanding, well, scholastic metaphysics. It will make the notions clearer to you.

      If you're interested in God's existence, I strongly recommend Michael Augros's "who designed the designer?" and Joshua Rasmussen's "how reason can lead to God". Both are simple books that give a very good defense of theism. Augros is a more traditional thomist. Rasmussen is an expert analytic philosopher who combines many of the recent progresses in philosophy of religion with his contingency argument.

      Feser's "Philosophy of Mind" is also a great read, and it's relevant for theism, since intelligence, consciousness etc are some of the things a First Cause must be able to account for.

      Delete
    59. dentalDrillJanuary 24, 2020 at 10:19 AM

      so the Neoplatonic proof is about causation of composites or their existence in general

      Delete
    60. AnonymousJanuary 24, 2020 at 10:38 AM

      What about something that by its very nature becomes composite without it any cause?

      Delete
    61. Pot of goldJanuary 24, 2020 at 5:38 PM

      Is this argument that God is the one who began putting things together as composites or that all parts of a composite trace their existence to a non composite simple God

      Delete
    62. acryo638January 26, 2020 at 12:12 AM

      Why couldn’t all the infinite parts just have combined themselves into composites?

      Delete
  16. StardustyPsycheJanuary 13, 2020 at 9:51 PM

    "In the history of Western thought, two conceptions of the soul have competed for dominance..."
    False dichotomy.
    Third alternative: The soul is a figment of the human imagination and is not structurally realistic, it has no existential reality.

    "...For example, suppose a person’s brain is divided in half and each half is placed in some new body, ..."
    Jokes about "with half my brain tied behind my back" not withstanding, this is a rather deadly hypothetical thought experiment, but let's continue.

    "...with each of the resulting persons having bodily traits, personality traits, and memories that are continuous with the original person... "
    This shows a fundamental oversimplification of how the brain is organized. The self is not duplicated in each half, nor is the self localized in any easily identifiable region of the brain. Rather, the brain is a network of networks, broadly distributed over the whole brain and intermingled with each other, which is why one could not ever simply cut a brain in half for a transplant, even in such a naive thought experiment such as described by the reviewer.

    "...In this case, the two new persons cannot both be identical with the original person, because then they would have to be identical with each other, which they are not. Hence there must be more to the continuity of the self over time than merely the continuity of certain bodily or psychological traits."
    Non-sequitur.
    Strawman.

    The nominal continuity of the self is due to the nominal continuity of brain structure. In fact, the self is continually changing. What comprises each of us is not static, rather, we all, each of us, gain and lose aspects of the self every day, even every second.

    That nominal self is the concatenation of highly complex and dynamically changing networks of cellular interconnections.

    It simply makes no sense to suggest one could sever these networks and draw from that some conclusion that the continuity of the self cannot be accounted for by the structure of the unsevered networks.

    Of course the self does not continue when the brain is cut in half any more than a land line telephone conversation can continue if the line is cut in half. If the network is cut in half then it is no longer the same network and the two halves can no longer do the same things they could do when they were connected.

    In the case of the telephones you could have the telephones on each end but no communication would be possible between them.

    In the case of the brain halves perhaps there is some example of a person who unfortunately suffered some injury in accident or war such that half the brain was in fact removed. I doubt such a case would lead to a living person thereafter at all, and certainly not a person with half functionality such that two such people could somehow be combined into one whole person.

    Summarizing, the soul is a figment of the human imagination. Brain function is sufficient to account for the nominal continuity of the self. The split brain argument is poorly constructed and of no rational value.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Don't feed the trollJanuary 14, 2020 at 3:19 AM

      Remember, SP is a banned and noxious troll. Please don't feed.

      Delete
    2. StardustyPsycheJanuary 14, 2020 at 7:31 PM

      Gosh (blank), I was hoping this season of good will would have a more positive and lasting effect. Christmas is actually my favorite time of year, you know, god and sinners reconciled, peace on Earth good will toward men, it is better to give than to receive, it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness...

      Did you read the review Dr. Feser linked?
      Can you explain to me why my third option does not provide a viable third option to the asserted dichotomy?
      Is there something about the nominal continuity of self that the physical brain is not sufficient to account for?

      Can you provide any arguments at all for the structural reality of the human soul?

      Delete
  17. JohannesJanuary 16, 2020 at 9:15 PM

    Hi Anonymous,

    What problem(s) do you gave with the ideas of these composites
    1) Essence and Existence
    2) Potentiality and Actuality

    (form and matter are not as fundamental as the above two types of composites, because there can be composites who lack any matter)

    ReplyDelete
  18. StardustyPsycheJanuary 17, 2020 at 7:26 AM

    Johannes,
    "there can be composites who lack any matter"
    Can you provide an example? By "matter" I assume my mean the word in its most general sense of "material", correct?

    I have never observed a composite that lacks material, have you? Can you describe this immaterial composite?

    ReplyDelete
  19. TalmidJanuary 19, 2020 at 5:26 AM

    @Atno

    Why does the First Cause needs to have all the perfections that exist in the same degree that they exist in the creation?

    It seems intuitive to me, but i struggle to defend that one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AtnoJanuary 19, 2020 at 5:04 PM

      That's just the Principle of Proportionate Causality. The effect cannot be greater than the cause; the cause has at least the reality of the effect.

      I take it to be a self-evident or intuitive principle, in no need of positive arguments for its defense. Something cannot give what it does not have. A cause can give less than what it has, but not more.

      People sometimes bring up purported counter-examples, but they do not really work. A match isn't literally fire, but it does have properties which, when combined with other properties (friction, etc), is fire. Ed does a great job explaining and defending the principle in his books "Five Proofs" and "Scholastic Metaphysics", so I suggest you read him. Also Michael Augros and his book "Who designed the designer?".

      One way to bring out the intuitive clarity behind the principle is to understand what a counter-example would involve. If an effect could have a perfection that is not in any way present in its causes, then it's like the perfection comes from nothing. There's a surplus, an extra perfection, which is magically coming into being from nothing, and that's absurd. So the principle actually follows from PSR and the intuitions behind most principles of causality. So, someone who takes PSR etc to be intuitive should also find PPC to be true upon closer inspection. In addition, arguments for PSR and PC will also be arguments for PPC.

      I suppose one could also give specific empirical arguments for PPC which would be very similar to those given for PSR. For example, we never observe a normal match producing ice, or acid bubbles. A kid might pick up a stick and pretend it's a wand, but the stick never actually produces lightning or fire or anything else like that. You might try to squeeze a turnip, but blood won't come out of it.

      The simplest explanation for all that is that something can only give what it first has; the cause must have at least the reality of the effect. An effect cannot have more perfections than its cause(s).

      Delete
  20. TalmidJanuary 19, 2020 at 6:43 PM

    @Atno

    My problem was exactly something like the match you cited, i was thinking the atheist could reply that maybe perfections like inteligence(for example) could be in The One only in the sense He could produce they. But He IS existence itself unlimited, meaning there is no way He could be inferior to creation in something, so this objection seems to make no sense.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AtnoJanuary 19, 2020 at 8:18 PM

      I've thought of that before. But it doesn't work because if X has the power to cause Y, then X really has to have Y in its full perfection, otherwise the surplus would be coming from nothing. So if X can create the power of intelligence, X must itself have the power of intelligence.

      The same is true for the match as well; all the powers of fire must be present in the causes. But the match is not the only cause of fire. It is actually the match plus a bunch of other conditions and things (friction, oxygen, etc) which, when combined, are fire.

      But intelligence (and other perfections such as consciousness and life) cannot meaningfully be broken down into parts, as if some cause could produce 1/2 intelligence and another produce the remaining half.

      (And in any case, since there is only one first cause, it itself will have all perfections anyway).

      Delete
    2. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 20, 2020 at 11:46 PM

      Atno

      The point is that the atheist would say that there is no 'surplus'.
      The atheist's 'first cause' does not consciously create anything, it is simply capable of changing. The current universe with consciousness etc. is simply one of many possible states the first cause could eventually become.
      Talking about 'surplus' or 'perfection' only makes sense in the case of teleology, which is what most atheists would deny.

      Delete
    3. AtnoJanuary 21, 2020 at 10:23 AM

      Walter, of course there is a surplus. Putting aside your claim that the first cause changes, which most would find false, perfection or surplus here does not require teleology. By perfection, I mean a metaphysical concept which should be accepted by any sensible person - something like a positive property that does not inherently involve a limitation. If an effect E has a perfection P, that perfection must ultimately be found in its cause(s). If P is not present in the cause(s), then there would be no explanation for P and it would be like a surplus that just magically comes into being from nothing.

      Intelligence and consciousness are perfections, unless you wanna reduce them to mere arrangements of matter. But that would, of course, face all the familiar problems of qualia, intentionality, reason, the grasp of universals, determinate meaning, free will, and so on. Since the First, Necessary Cause is the source of contingent reality, it must also have all its perfections and powers in at least the same degree (or greater). The First Cause must therefore be intelligent, conscious, etc.

      You can't get blood from a turnip. You also can't magically get intelligence or consciousness from something that lacks it. The First Cause must have all perfections. In fact, it must have all possible perfections. And this does not require teleology.

      Delete
    4. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 21, 2020 at 10:50 AM

      Atno

      "A positive property that does not inherently involve a limitation" is a subjective description. Every property is positive, but "limitation" is subjective.
      Because we human beings are conscious, we tend to regard the absence of consciousness in a jellyfish as a limitation, but that's because we compare the jellyfish to ourselves.
      But a human being is not better or more perfect than a jellyfish, or, to use your terminology, saying that a human being has a "surplus" is a teleological statement. Objectively, the only thing that makes sense is that the jellyfish is "different" from a human being. Perhaps a human being is more complex than a jellyfish.
      Of course, given atheism, there is no explanation for P, that is, there is no explanation for why P ended up the way it is. But that shouldn't bother us.

      As a side note, it is not true that most would find that the first cause cannot change. The idea that the first cause is immutable is in fact a tiny minority position, even among theists. But that's another discussion.

      Delete
    5. AtnoJanuary 21, 2020 at 11:59 AM

      It's not subjective. It's very objective that the absence of consciousness is a limitation; it is, after all, an absence. Consciousness is something more that has to be added, and which is not reducible to a mere arrangement.

      It seems you are hung up on the word "perfection" and thinking that it has some axiological content. Normally, it does have some axiological content. Positivity and perfection are commonly thought of as good, better, etc. But this is not required here. What I mean by "perfection" is something intuitive, the idea of a property or thing that is real and not reducible to something else. For instance, "being a human" might count as a perfection, but "being 3 humans" (if you find a group of friends) does not. We might say that a cup of water has the perfection of water, but it does not have a perfection of "not having lava", because "not having lava" is not really a perfection; it is not a real thing.

      Intelligence, consciousness, reason, intentionality, etc. are perfections in at least this sense. There is something real about the power of thinking. It is a real power. To be able to somehow grasp and think about your cat, to have your cat in your mind somehow, and to make an abductive judgment that your cat was probably the cause of the poop you found in a litterbox this morning.

      This is real, it is a real power that we have but that rocks don't. It's a perfection. There must be some explanation for why P exists.

      You might try to reduce intelligence and what I described to a mere rearrangement of matter with nothing more to it. But, as I said, this will face the familiar problems of intentionality, qualia, reason, universals, determinate semantics, free will, personal identity, and more.

      If intelligence, consciousness, etc. are perfections (or, if you dislike the name, maybe call it something like "real powers" or "pure properties"), their ultimate cause must also have them in at least the same degree.

      To simply say P has no explanation merely begs the question against PSR, on top of arbitrarily refusing to look for an explanation and just settling down with a brute fact, which is irrational. There are many reasons for accepting PSR and related principles, and even then a rational person should at least defeasibly look for explanations and seek to eliminate brute facts as much as possible.

      Intelligence cannot magically come into being from nothing. P having no explanation should, in fact, bother you. And if it doesn't bother you, it nevertheless would bother many atheists.

      Delete
    6. StardustyPsycheJanuary 21, 2020 at 8:09 PM

      AtnoJanuary 21, 2020 at 10:23 AM
      "Intelligence and consciousness are perfections, unless you wanna reduce them to mere arrangements of matter. But that would, of course, face all the familiar problems of qualia, intentionality, reason, the grasp of universals, determinate meaning, free will, and so on."
      Free will is an illusion.
      Meaning is relative.
      Reasoning is easily accounted for mechanistically.
      Apparent universals are are simply mechanistically derived inductively reasoned assertions.
      Intentionality is mechanistic.

      "it must also have all its perfections and powers in at least the same degree (or greater). The First Cause must therefore be intelligent, conscious, etc."
      I can build a machine that flies, but I do not have the power to fly.
      I can build a device that vaporizes a city, but I have no such power.

      "You also can't magically get intelligence or consciousness from something that lacks it."
      Right, no magic required, just material in motion. Intelligence is the product of biological evolution, a long series of chemical reactions.

      Delete
    7. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 21, 2020 at 10:13 PM

      Atno

      I am not going to discuss this for eternity. Just a few remarks.
      Consciousness, IMO is not something more that has to be added. For starters, the very idea that something has to be added is subjective. Nothing 'has to be' added. Human beings are much more complex than rocks, and that difference accounts for the power to think.
      P does have an "explanation". it is "explained" by the fact that reality is able to (eventually) "produce" P. There, as far as we know, is no explanation for why reality did not produce Q instead, but then, there is no explanation for why God chose to create P instead of Q either.
      The familiar problems of intentionality, qualia, reason, universals, determinate semantics, free will, personal identity, and more are indeed, problems. They are problems for your view too. Once you have completely solved them, we should have to have this conversation again.

      Delete
    8. AtnoJanuary 21, 2020 at 10:39 PM

      They are not problems for dualism. They're problems for materialism since they resist reductionistic analysis to matter. Dualism might face a different problem, that of interaction, but it can at least account for sui generis intentionality, consciousness, reason, mental causation, the grasp of abstract, universal and determinate ideas, and so on.

      The question isn't why we have P rather than Q. It is how P can be real, how P can exist at all. If the effect has P, P must be present in the cause(s). In other words, the First Cause must also have intelligence, consciousness, and so on.

      We're not asking why God created this possible world instead of some other. We're noticing that contingent reality includes perfections such as intelligence and consciousness, and that therefore the First Cause must also have these perfections, since it produced them.

      If you think that humans merely being "more complex" than a rock accounts for the power to think, I think you haven't reflected enough on the problems for reducing consciousness and intelligence to complex arrangements of matter. That somehow getting lots and lots of salts and electricity together would give us qualitative experiences, or rational thinking about number theory or Cantorian mathematics, really?

      In any case, the point simply is that contingent reality includes intelligence, consciousness, intentionality, etc. The cause must therefore also have intelligence, consciousness, intentionality, etc., otherwise these powers would be magically coming into existence out of nothing.

      Delete
    9. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 22, 2020 at 6:29 AM

      Atno

      As I said, I am not planning to discuss this for eternity. So, just a few closing remarks.
      You are correct that dualism faces the interaction problem, which is a huge problem, but it is the least of your problems.
      The main problem is that, unlike me, you cannot account for sui generis intentionality, consciousness, reason, mental causation, the grasp of abstract, universal and determinate ideas, in fact, you cannot account for even a single contingency. Unless you have them coming into existence magically out of nothing.
      My view doesn't face these problems, because nothing ever "comes into existence". Reality simply changes and is "omnipotent" in the sense that its initial conditions have the potentiality to get to everything we see around us. It's not a matter of materialism. It may very well be that "matter" cannot account for some things. But all that means is that reality consists of matter and other things that are not "material" in this sense.

      Now, you can have the last word if you like, but I am going to bow out.

      Delete
    10. RedJanuary 22, 2020 at 7:48 AM

      My view doesn't face these problems, because nothing ever "comes into existence". Reality simply changes

      But such change only makes sense if something comes into or goes out of existence.

      I have noticed that you hold to some very bizarre and esoteric sort of views.

      Delete
    11. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 22, 2020 at 7:50 AM

      Red

      Not nearly as bizarre as the view that an unmoving locomotive can pull a train.

      Delete
    12. RedJanuary 22, 2020 at 7:56 AM

      idk that might be supernatural but isn't bizarre or contradictory. at least that how it seems to me. I could be wrong.

      Delete
    13. Walter Van den AckerJanuary 22, 2020 at 8:14 AM

      Red

      Well, once you understand my view, you will realize there is nothing bizarre about it. It's not even supernatural.

      Delete
    14. RedJanuary 22, 2020 at 10:50 AM

      How can there be change without something coming into or going out of existence?

      and isn't it rather obvious that things come into existence? We observe them all the time.

      Delete
    15. StardustyPsycheJanuary 22, 2020 at 7:01 PM

      Red January 22, 2020 at 10:50 AM

      "How can there be change without something coming into or going out of existence?"
      Material never changes in its existential respect. Material does not come into existence. Material does not pass out of existence.

      Material interacts with other material, changing form, but never its existence.

      Since material does not change in its existential respect there is no call for a changer to keep material in existence.

      Indeed, if material were to spontaneously change from existing to not existing in the absences of some other sustainer of its existence then material would change itself from existing to not existing.

      The assertion of a first sustainer of the existence of material is a statement that to account for an observation of no change we must invoke a changer to counteract an unobserved speculation that material would change itself out of existence but for the sustaining action of this first sustainer. A convoluted and unevidenced speculation in the extreme, but such is Thomism.

      Delete
    16. AtnoJanuary 22, 2020 at 7:25 PM

      Yeah, Walter, you hold some very bizarre views.

      You might not like to recognize that your view involves things magically coming into existence from nothing, but merely redescribing what happens won't change reality - otherwise we can do the same with theism. At the end of the day, however creation plays out, the Necessary Foundation of existing things must have intelligence, consciousness, etc., and that's one of the huge flaws of your atheistic first cause. We're supposed to believe that this ever-changing thing sometimes changes salts and electricity into thoughts about Cantorian mathematics and number theory. I can't buy that, and I do consider that bizarre - almost as bizarre as thinking that no thing ever comes into existence.

      If you follow PSR and PPC, or at least a defeasible principle of seeking for explanations and minimizing brute facts as much as possible, you will soon find that the Necessary Foundation must have intelligence. No coincidence that rationalists leaned so heavily towards theism.

      Delete
    17. RedJanuary 23, 2020 at 3:17 AM

      @ StardustyPsyche

      What do you mean by "material"?

      Delete
    18. StardustyPsycheJanuary 23, 2020 at 8:03 PM

      Red,
      Material is that from which the term "materialist" is derived.

      Colloquially it is stuff, a thing, something that exists.

      Modern physics describes material in terms of the standard model, particles, fields, space-time.

      Special relativity describes the equivalence between two forms of material, matter and energy, with the famous equation E=mc^2.

      Notice that in E=mc^2 there is no poof term, nothing gets in or out, the net amount of material is conserved, never created or destroyed.

      Thus, material never changes in its existential respect. An aspect of material is that it exists, as opposed to absolutely nothing at all. Material is never observed to come into existence out nothing, nor is material ever observed to pass out of existence into nothing.

      A very simple argument for the eternity of material thus very obviously arises.
      Material cannot be created.
      Material cannot be destroyed.
      Material exists.
      Therefore the present amount of material has always existed and will always exist.

      Unfortunately, as powerfully evidenced as that argument is there are logical difficulties with an actual infinite. Thus, the origins of existence of material remains an unsolved riddle.

      No sound solution to this riddle exists in general published circulation. All claims to have solved this riddle inevitably contain some sort of error, such as false premise or invalid logic.

      By today's standards Thomistic arguments are patently absurd and riddled with glaring errors, but Aquinas can be credited with an admirable attempt in historical context.

      Delete
    19. RedJanuary 24, 2020 at 12:07 AM

      Colloquially it is stuff, a thing, something that exists.

      So material as you've defined is just a trivial term for whatever exists? Its what philosophers call a dummy sortal.
      I don't know what use is that term.

      By this definition even a soul is material.

      and most importantly by this definition its just obvious that material goes in and out of existence as we observe it all the time. and like I was telling Walter, there would be no change without it.



      Delete
    20. StardustyPsycheJanuary 24, 2020 at 7:48 AM

      Red,
      "material goes in and out of existence as we observe it all the time. "
      No, material has never been observed to come into or go out of existence.

      Material re-arranges all the time. What we call an object will come into existence at one time and cease to exist at another time. The material of that object never changes in its existential respect.

      Say, an "empty" cup. Then fill it with water, then let the water evaporate. Did material cease to exist when the water evaporated? No, of course not, those same water molecules that were in the cup formed as a collection of water molecules in liquid phase are later still existing, but as individual molecules in a gaseous solution we call water vapor or atmospheric humidity.

      Material changes form and arrangement during observed changes. The net amount of material never changes.

      This is known in science as the principle of conservation of matter/energy. No violation of it has ever been scientifically observed.

      Delete
    21. RedJanuary 24, 2020 at 12:49 PM

      again without a sensible and coherent definition of "material" as you use the term here I can't make any sense of your story.

      Say, an "empty" cup. Then fill it with water, then let the water evaporate. Did material cease to exist when the water evaporated?

      Well Yes, I guess, if water is a material then when water ceases to exist then a material ceases to exist.

      Delete
    22. StardustyPsycheJanuary 24, 2020 at 1:23 PM

      Red,
      "again without a sensible and coherent definition of "material" "
      Are you familiar with the standard model, particles, fields, space-time, matter/energy equivalence? I'm not asking if you have an advanced education in all the maths of modern physics, only if you have some understanding of these terms?

      "if water is a material then when water ceases to exist then a material ceases to exist."
      A collection of liquid water in, say, a cup, is a composite collection of material.

      Are you familiar with the water molecule, H2O? A cup of liquid water is a collection of H2O molecules in a liquid phase that takes on, approximately, the shape of the inside of the cup. When the water evaporates all those water molecules fly off into solution in the air where they still exist.

      If there were 10^25 H2O molecules existing in the cup in the liquid phase then after evaporation there are still those same 10^25 H2O molecules existing in gaseous solution in the air.

      No material blinked out of existence by the evaporation of the cup of water, the material simply moved its location.

      Are you familiar with the conservation of matter/energy and it's expression of equivalence in the equation E=mc^2?

      Material never changes in its existential respect, therefore the argument for a first changer to account for no change is specious.

      Delete
    23. RedJanuary 24, 2020 at 1:46 PM

      Well Yes, I am familiar with them but I don't understand what you mean by material and how your point makes sense.

      Delete
    24. StardustyPsycheJanuary 24, 2020 at 2:39 PM

      Red,
      If you are familiar with the standard model, particles, fields, space-time, and matter/energy equivalence then you are familiar with the most accurate theories presently available to describe material.

      By those descriptions of material then material is conserved, no more new material as described above comes into existence, no existing material as described above passes out of existence.

      Therefore the aspect of such material that it exists never changes. Modern physics gives a highly accurate description of how material changes form, but such descriptions come in the format of equations, wherein the LHS equals the RHS on the basis that the total amount of material does not change.

      Since the amount of material does not change there is no call for a first sustainer of material's existence.

      Delete
    25. RedJanuary 24, 2020 at 3:33 PM

      But none of those seem to have anything to do with "material". That is why I keep asking just what do you think it is?

      Delete
    26. StardustyPsycheJanuary 24, 2020 at 5:00 PM

      Red,
      Asked and answered multiple times.

      If you don't understand that the standard model, particles, fields, space-time, and matter/energy equivalence all describe material then all I can suggest is that you research and learn the meanings of the terminology.

      Once you learn the basics of how modern science describes material you will become familiar with the conservation of material, and thus understand that there is no call for a first changer to account for no change.

      Delete
    27. RedJanuary 24, 2020 at 11:50 PM

      Dude, stop wasting my time repeating same point again and again, just define your terms . Like I said, none of those ever talk about material.

      Once you learn the basics of how modern science describes material you will become familiar with the conservation of material, and thus understand that there is no call for a first changer to account for no change.

      I don't think you understand what is actually being discussed here.
      Now unless you give a sensible definition, I won't reply further. I don't see your point here.

      Delete
    28. StardustyPsycheJanuary 25, 2020 at 12:14 AM

      Red,
      "Dude, stop wasting my time repeating same point again and again, just define your terms . Like I said, none of those ever talk about material. "
      If you don't understand that the standard model is a description of material then you need a fundamental education. I can't help you with that. You will have to do your own self-education or perhaps enroll at your local university.

      Delete
    29. RedJanuary 25, 2020 at 4:43 AM

      LOL, you're the one who seem to be having extreme difficulty even providing mere sensible definition of a crucial term in his argument. Though now I am pretty sure this would not have been the case if one existed in the first place.

      Delete
    30. big mikeJanuary 25, 2020 at 10:51 AM

      Lol if the law of conversation of matter invalidated this argument I wonder why there are dozens of scientists that defend and support these arguments. One of whom Feser posted a dialogue with literally two weeks ago.

      Delete
    31. StardustyPsycheJanuary 25, 2020 at 11:21 AM

      Red January 25, 2020 at 4:43 AM
      "LOL, you're the one who seem to be having extreme difficulty even providing mere sensible definition of a crucial term in his argument."

      Asked and answered many posts ago. That's how I started out on StardustyPsyche January 23, 2020 at 8:03 PM

      That's pretty clear:
      "Material is that from which the term "materialist" is derived.

      Colloquially it is stuff, a thing, something that exists.

      Modern physics describes material in terms of the standard model, particles, fields, space-time.

      Special relativity describes the equivalence between two forms of material, matter and energy, with the famous equation E=mc^2."

      Later I point out that these are simply the most accurate descriptions of material presently available. In other words, it very well may turn out that all the descriptions of modern physics we presently have are only describing aggregate behaviors of material, with even more fundamental properties yet to be discovered.

      But whatever level you wish to call it, colloquially simply "stuff", or "matter/energy" or by using the whole of modern physics, material is conserved. We never observe new material coming into existence or passing out of existence.

      When apparent objects seem to disappear we find scientifically that in truth the material the objects were composed of was conserved and only changed form.

      Thus, there is no call for a first sustainer of existence. The Thomistic notion of a first sustainer is convoluted and irrational.

      Delete
    32. StardustyPsycheJanuary 25, 2020 at 11:37 AM

      big mike January 25, 2020 at 10:51 AM
      "Lol if the law of conversation of matter invalidated this argument I wonder why there are dozens of scientists that defend and support these arguments."
      The argument for a Thomistic first sustainer for the existence of the material universe? Supported by scientists? Who?

      No, I have never heard a scientist argue for a god that sustains the existence of material moment to moment.


      "One of whom Feser posted a dialogue with literally two weeks ago."
      Sorry, I missed that. Would you please post the title and date of that dialog, or a link?

      Suppose you had $100 in your wallet in the evening, and in the morning you rise, look in your wallet, and that $100 is still there. Do you think "hmm, I'll bet a thief took that $100 in the middle of the night, but then returned it"? Or "hmm, I'll bet Santa Clause put another $200 into my wallet, but then came back and took it back out again"?

      Now, if the $100 you had in the evening was now $50 or $0 then you would go looking for a thief. Or if the $100 had turned to $300 then you would wonder who your benefactor was.

      But $100 remaining $100 is just what is expected, and you do not invent convoluted stories about thieves or benefactors to account for your money having been conserved.

      If material were to blink out of existence then that would be a change calling for a changer. The fact that material is observed to be conserved then simply does not call for a first sustainer.

      Thomism invokes a changer to account for no change, which is truly absurd.

      Delete
    33. RedJanuary 25, 2020 at 1:10 PM

      Colloquially it is stuff, a thing, something that exists.

      Like I explained earlier that makes no sense.

      Delete
    34. RedJanuary 25, 2020 at 1:14 PM

      and its pretty obvious that material comes to be and ceases to be given this definition.

      Here is an uncontroversial example: You exist, therefor you are material ,given your definition, You came to be at your conception and you will cease to be at your deand its pretty obvious that material comes to be and ceases to be given this definition.

      Here is an uncontroversial example: You exist, therefor you are material ,given your definition, You came to be at your conception and you will cease to be at your death.

      Delete
    35. StardustyPsycheJanuary 25, 2020 at 2:06 PM

      Red,
      I am an identifiable arrangement of material that exists.

      When I die that arrangement of material will change, but the material will persist.

      There is no independent existence of me. There is no fundamental existent thing called me.

      I am an arrangement of a collection of existent material that is nominally within a set for a period of time, my lifetime, and then that material re-arranges elsewhere when I die.

      Not controversial? You don't seem to be familiar with modern materialism.

      That is why I put "a thing that exists" in a list of colloquial characterizations of material, not a rigorous statement, just a loose common reference.

      Modern physics provides the most accurate available description of material, all of which makes eminent sense to those who understand the terms.

      Delete
    36. RedJanuary 25, 2020 at 2:34 PM

      I am an arrangement of a collection of existent material that is nominally within a set for a period of time, my lifetime, and then that material re-arranges elsewhere when I die.

      Right but then the arrangement itself is a material given your definition of the
      term. So when the arrangement ceases to exist a material ceases to exist.

      Delete
    37. StardustyPsycheJanuary 25, 2020 at 2:58 PM

      Red,
      "Right but then the arrangement itself is a material given your definition of the
      term."
      No, not even colloquially, because an arrangement is not "a thing", nor is an arrangement "stuff".

      An arrangement is not a thing that exists, it is a relationship between things that exist.

      Delete
    38. Mr GreenJanuary 25, 2020 at 4:03 PM

      Red: Dude, stop wasting my time repeating same point again and again

      You're the one who keeps replying to a banned nutcase. What is wrong with you?

      Delete
    39. StardustyPsycheJanuary 25, 2020 at 5:52 PM

      Say there Mr Green, maybe you can help me out then, I mean, I know I am just a nutcase and all, but I learned in school that matter/energy are conserved, so the amount of matter/energy in existence never changes.

      Why then would one call for a first changer to account for no change?

      In the case of no change which is the nutcase position?
      1.No change calls for no changer.
      2.A changer is required to account for no change.

      Delete
    40. RedJanuary 25, 2020 at 10:17 PM

      An arrangement is not a thing that exists, it is a relationship between things that exist.

      Ok, but then given your view when change happens then only thing that comes to be and pass out of existence is arrangement. So if arrangement doesn't exist then nothing ever changes. But obviously change does occur so your view is false.

      Delete
    41. RedJanuary 25, 2020 at 10:20 PM

      and of course even given your bizarre view there is still something or other here that exists.

      it is a relationship between things that exist.

      Go figure.



      Delete
    42. Tony montanaJanuary 25, 2020 at 11:23 PM

      Stardust,

      I think the person being referred to was Dr. Cundy, the Cambridge quantum physicist who Feser debated time Theories with several weeks prior.

      www.quantum-thomist.co.uk

      Delete
  21. grateful to GodJanuary 19, 2020 at 7:01 PM

    Hi all,

    I quickly read Ed's article.

    I am confused...is Ed saying that the Will and Intellect are EXACTLY the same substance as the rest of the body?

    If I understand correctly Ed is saying that Aquinas's understanding is that the Will and the Intellect is not a separate substance but that it survives the death of the body.

    If everything other than the Will and Intellect dies, then does not by logic entail that the Will and the Intellect is something that is not the same thing as the rest of the body.

    So even if one says the Will and the Intellect is the same substance, is it not entail that there is still a differentiation further on in the body that separates the Will and Intellect from the rest.

    Since there is no doctrine of human simplicity, does it not mean that the Intellect and Will are separate entities from the rest of the body.

    And if our Intellect and Will can exist separately, then is it not true that the human substance is not the same through and through but can be broken down into separate parts.

    All countries are part of the world...we are all of the substance of the world but someone in the US is separate from someone in Japan.

    Saying we are all Earthly beings does not mean there is no difference between us.

    So I am confused ....if the Intellect and Will is EXACTLY the same substance as everything else in the body, then is it not weird, for only the Intellect and Will to be abstracted out and still survive on death?

    If the Intellect and Will survive, does not denote that they are uniquely different from the rest and thus not the same exact substance?

    Omer

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)