Thursday, June 25, 2020

ACPQ symposium on Aristotle’s Revenge


The American Catholic Philosophical Association meeting in Minneapolis last November hosted an Author Meets Critics session on my book Aristotle’s Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science.  The proceedings have now been published in the Summer 2020 issue of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly.  In the first essay I provide a précis of the book.  In the second essay, philosopher Robert Koons addresses what I say in the book about the A-theory and B-theory of time, and argues that the latter is easier to reconcile with an Aristotelian philosophy of nature than I suggest.  In the third essay, physicist Stephen Barr puts forward some criticisms of my views about method, space, and substantial form.  In the final essay, I respond to Koons and Barr.

33 comments:

  1. I bought the Koons Essay as I used to be a fan of B Theory. Let's see if he can win me back as I am a convinced Thomist.

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    1. I think the entire issue can be purchased for just a slightly higher cost than individual articles can be.

      In my reply, I explain why I don't think Rob's attempted reconciliation succeeds.

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    2. I wish I knew that before I dropped $20 buck.:D

      The Air Conditioner on my car needs repair and my heater is gone so when winter does come I am gonna freeze.

      Plus the economy isn't gonna be that great if Trump isn't re-elected and Communism takes over. So I am somewhat strapped for cash.

      Cheers Dr. Feser,

      You Da Man.

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  2. I've been looking forward to this since you suggested the possibility the essays would be published!

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  3. Btw, I just clicked on the link to your final essay, that first paragraph reminded me of one of the reasons I'm just a fan - you are *fun* to read

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  4. Dr Feser, Have you seen Dr John Skalko's critiques of your Perverted Faculty Argument in his 'Disordered Actions'?, a book I just finished. Are his critiques fair or is he mistaken?

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  5. **off topic**

    When are you going to write explicitely on sexual morality? Im totally convinced of the rationality of the Catholic Church's take on it, however, i cannot get to wrap my mind around it in practice. For example, how am i supposed to intentionally make love to my wife during infertile days of the month while still have my mind set in 'open to life' mode when all im focusing on at that moment is the sexual attractiveness of my wife (again at that moment during infertile days of the month)?

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    1. Dr. Feser has written on sexual morality numerous times on this blog. Try a google search, something like: "sexual morality site:edwardfeser.blogspot.com"

      I do so and get links to articles like, "Foundations of Sexual Morality", "Love and Sex Roundup" and "What's the Deal with Sex?".

      You should also be able to turn up several video lectures he's given on the topic.

      I think you misunderstand: you don't have to explicitly have "open to life" in mind or intention during sex. You simply must not do anything intentional to foreclose the possibility.

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    2. I would bring this up at the next open forum. A quick point, though. If sex during immoral periods is immoral, then over 90% of the time it would be immoral to have sex with your wife (and for stretches of over 15 months if you include pregnancy and postpartum period).

      But if that is the case, then St. Paul’s advice in 1 Corinthians 7:9 is foolish, and marriage is certainly not a remedy for concupiscence.

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    3. Sorry sex during infertile*** periods

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    4. Anonymous,

      Are you serious? I have no idea if you're being real or trolling. Just Google Christopher West or Jason Evert. You'll find all the Catholic sexual morality Q and A you need.

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  6. RE CJ

    "I think you misunderstand: you don't have to explicitly have "open to life" in mind or intention during sex. You simply must not do anything intentional to foreclose the possibility"

    That nuance clarified much. Thanks. But shouldnt i also be concerened that in this way i am not positively intending the 'openness to life'?




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    1. Not at all. All actions are means nested in a whole host of ends.

      To take an example by Daniel de haan; when I crossed the road this morning, why did I do that? To get to the cash machine. Why did I want to go to the cash machine? To withdraw cash for a taxi. Why did I want to get a taxi? To drive to the airport. Why did I want to drive to the airport? To get a plane to New York. Why did I want to go to New York? To present a lecture on thomist philosophy of action.

      Go back to the first step taken to cross the road. It has an immediate end - to withdraw cash. But that act of walking is for the sake of a whole host of ends, each being a means to another.

      Now, when our hypothetical person was crossing the road, did he positively intend those other ends? I imagine by positively intend here you mean consciously entertain. Of course not. He was probably looking for traffic. But this doesnt undermine the fact his action was teleologically ordered to a host of ends.

      Similarly, not consciously reminding yourself during sex to be 'open to life' doesnt undermine the fact your actions are still ordered as such.

      A-T philosophy is a lot more common sense that you think.

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    2. In fact you are positively intending to be open to life, even if not consciously. Rightly ordered sex without any impediments just as it is has the intentional end of being open to life. You don't have to be conscious of that end for it to exist. If I were a dolt who didn't understand the outcome of sex, I would still be open to life. The intention is built in to the action

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    3. Clear. But lets say im making love to my wife during a 100 percent infertile period which is right after her ovulation. I am finding it difficult to think that in such a case finishing the act with my sexual organ inside hers is considered rightly ordered towards procreation. You say im not obliged to think it up during the act if i be ending it it inside her anyways, but i find it very difficult not to think it up when my sexual drive at that moment urges me to not end it as such. I end up with conflicting thoughts

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    4. A "100% infertile period" isn't always 100% infertile - there are mistakes and oddities and signs that are imperfect signs of her condition. As long as you don't act in such a way as to defeat fertility with regard to the act it is open to life in principle, and if God wants it to happen, a baby will be conceived.

      But this is really off topic and we shouldn't be stealing this thread for something else.

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  7. Dr. Feser,

    In both your book Aristotle's Revenge, and on this blog, you give a great deal of attention to the A Theory and B Theory of time. However, John Rickaby, in his General Metaphysics, proposes an alternative theory of time: that it is a being of reason with a foundation in reality. Change - the objective fact that things come into and pass out of being - is real, but time... well, it's complicated. In his own words, "Time, like Space, is neither a simple reality nor a simple fiction of the mind; it is an idea founded in reality, but not exactly answering to it."

    How does this sort of view - the view of time as an "ens rationis fundamentum in res" - stack up against the A-theory and the B-theory? In my view, it introduces an element of subjectivity to the notion of "now" that could ease the integration of Scholastic philosophy with the theory of Relativity, whereas A-Theory Presentism at least puts the two in tension (though, for reasons you explicate in your own book, not outright conflict).

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    1. It might be better if the theory by Rickaby is not an entirely negative hypothesis. We already have it from Aristotle that time (like place) is not in the category of "substance", so it is dependent on substance so that it can "be" at all. Not sure how Rickaby adds any information to that other than "but I don't mean A-theory either." Is there something positive asserted that helps us put up some content to the negation of A-theory?

      In a similar vein: the category of "relation" has being that is, first, dependent on substance, and is clearly of the sort that is knowable according to reason in a way that is hard (for us know-ers) to describe distinct from the mind's apprehension. But in itself a relation don't need our minds to exist: a colt is the offspring of its sire whether or not any human person ever is aware of it. The relation is there in any case. One apple is larger than another apple regardless of whether any person or animal ever regards the two. One event is after a predecessor event regardless of whether any person or animal observes them.

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    2. Rickaby was actually writing in 1898, and stood firmly in the Scholastic tradition. I think his work preceded the A-theory/B-theory distinction, and he seemed particularly intent on interacting with Kant. The book is free online.

      https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/gm.htm

      Rickaby positively asserts the reality of change, but, as stated, denies that time has a wholly objective existence outside of the mind. It is the mind that "numbers" motion according to before and after. Outside of it, the change is real, and provides the basis for the "numbering," but the "numbers" themselves are a product of the mind interacting with a changing world.

      Likewise, it is the succession and actualization of states in reality that are mind-independent. One is after another without the input of the human mind. And yet, without the "numbering" action of the mind, time proper is not an objective feature of extra-mental reality.

      This opens the door to the idea that "now" might be observer dependent - a local rather than a global designation. Certainly, Rickaby would not have taken the view in that direction - but then, he had no empirical or philosophical reason to. With the advent of Relativity, we do have such a reason. The Scholastic notion of time as "ens rationis fundamentum in res" places limits on how far we can push Relativity theory - insofar as it rules out a static block universe with no objective actualization of potential - but it also opens the way to a "middle ground" in which what counts as "the present" is at least partially observer-dependent - which strict presentism does not.

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    3. I see. Thanks for the details. It makes sense to me that the "numbering" part of the Aristotelian definition "time is the measure of motion with respect to before and after" is from the mind. But (so it seems to me, anyway) this is no more or less true than it is with respect to the numbering we apply to other measurements of magnitudes, such as length: a tree is extended whether anyone ever measures it. That it is "39" instead of "10" depends on the whether the measurer is using feet or meters, which surely is observer-dependent.

      But whether THIS tree is greater (in height) than THAT tree, is NOT dependent on the observer. At least, not without something squirrelly going on, such as one observer observing at an angle that skews perspectives.

      With respect to time, it is one thing to suggest that the measured quantity of time from event A to event B is observer-dependent, and quite another thing to suggest that for one observer A occurs before B, whereas for another observer B occurs before A. While I sympathize with the hope of being able to say, with those who want to sidle up to Relativity, that the "now" might be observer-dependent, I fear that saying so necessarily makes it possible for two observers to disagree on whether A happens before B or after. Which is a real problem for cause and effect.

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    4. Tony,
      But whether THIS tree is greater (in height) than THAT tree, is NOT dependent on the observer. At least, not without something squirrelly going on, such as one observer observing at an angle that skews perspectives.

      Being in different inertial framworks is one of the things than can skew the details.

      With respect to time, it is one thing to suggest that the measured quantity of time from event A to event B is observer-dependent, and quite another thing to suggest that for one observer A occurs before B, whereas for another observer B occurs before A. While I sympathize with the hope of being able to say, with those who want to sidle up to Relativity, that the "now" might be observer-dependent, I fear that saying so necessarily makes it possible for two observers to disagree on whether A happens before B or after. Which is a real problem for cause and effect.

      There are no cause-and-effect chains that move faster than the speed of light. Thus, for any two events A and B where one observer has A happening before B, and another observer has B happening before A, the events are separated by so much space and so little time that there is no possible cause-and-effect relationship between them. This is part of what is meant by a spacelike separation.

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    5. Being in different inertial framworks is one of the things than can skew the details.

      Uninteresting. I assumed the reader would apply the simple constraint that the two trees were in the same inertial frame of reference with each other.

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    6. Even if the two trees are in the same inertial frame, these sorts of issues can show up. All it takes is for an observer of the trees to be moving at relativistic velocity with respect to one of the trees.

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  8. Have just read The Remnant, edition May 15. An appalling article by Toni McCarthy that is so anti-Pope Francis that the traditional doctrine surrounding the See of Peter is questioned. How about this for a Lutheran-American traditionalist synthesis?: It's claimed that Peter is not the Rock on which the Church is built, just the faith he happened to profess, and that we are all equally "rocks", and that the rock referred to in the gospel is Christ. Luther couldn't have put it better.

    Aren't emotions worked up by the Pope's more dubious actions leading people away from their religion now? I know that nothing the Pope has said equals the outright affront to doctrine in this edition of The Remnant.

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    1. Actually, the idea that it was the Faith professed by St Peter that constituted the Rock to which Christ referred is perhaps the commonest Patristic interpretation, though the other (Peter is that Rock) is easily found as well. St Augustine moved from the latter to the former option exegetically. That Christ is referred to as the Rock or Cornerstone in the Gospels and Epistles is simply a fact. Christians are called living stones as well, by St Peter from memory. Google the passages, they are easy enough to find.

      However, if it is St Peter's confession that is the Rock, that is still perfectly compatible with the idea that Papal teaching expressed verbally is a Rock for the Church. And his name in Greek being "petros", whereas the Rock is "petra" in the Matthean passage, still allows for his identity to be ambassadorial with respect to the Rock Himself. Almost as if he was his Vicar.

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    2. To put it simply Father. The ancients didn't make a radical distinction between the person of Peter & His faith. If I have a Gazebo on my land and during a snow fall you build a snowman in my Gazebo by definition you build it on my land.
      If the you build on the Rock of Peter's faith you also build it on Peter since His faith by definition can't exist without him.

      To deny this would be as absurd as Christ dying to save the Human Race without bothering to create Adam.

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    3. Well, some Fathers did make the distinction, specifically in exegeting the text in question, and favoured the Confession/Gospel = Rock interpretation, including the older St Augustine.

      And there is a sense in which the causality or groundedness can be considered to go the other way. That is, it is the Gospel faith that makes St Peter who he is, and his position as original explicit confessor that constitutes him as protos among Christians. From memory, this view of him is patristic too. But I don't have the relevant literature to hand.

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    4. Do you guys happen to have on hand some patristic interpretations of the discussed sacret text where St. Peter is identified as the Rock?

      I remember reading a orthodox claiming that this interpretation was not defended before the Schism, but i did not looked it up after.

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    5. Hi Talmid,

      Try these links:

      https://www.catholicbridge.com/catholic/pope-peter-rock.php

      http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/apologetics/PeterRockKeysPrimacyRome.htm

      http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/apologetics/a87.htm

      Cheers.

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    6. @Vicent

      Thanks! This is pretty good stuff.

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  9. As in the article in question, your comment unfortunately does not go beyond an interpretation of the Fathers and scriptures. What I found impossible to accept in McCarthy's article was its Lutheran refusal to take into consideration the development of Catholic doctrine since primitive times.

    The article refused to mention the first Vatican Council, or accept the attitudes which are essential to the Church and inseparable from it since the Council of Trent. St. Peter and his successors are The rock to which Christ was referring in the famous phrase; it is a personal guarantee. This does not mean of course, that Christ is not the rock upon which our faith is built, or that we can also be rocks in our own way. But there is a personal guarantee to the Bishop of Rome which no other person has.

    The article openly states that we need to change the traditional approach to this question. The context, denying the traditional acceptance of these terms which we all know, ignoring doctrinal explicitation and taking upon our own shoulders the interpretation of primitive texts, is worthy of Protestantism. This is not traditional Catholic doctrine. It makes Pope Francis look like Mount Everest.

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  10. Hello Dr Feser (and everybody else)

    *Heavy breathing*

    Sorry to talk about something that has nothing to do with the current topic, it shan't be long (I promise).
    I just wanted to know whether you were planning on writing your thoughts on Marian Apparitions anytime soon because I think many of us here are (or could be) interested and because although I'm a long time reader of yours, I don't recall having read anything from you on that particular matter.
    I live in France, a country reputed for its many alleged Marian Apparitions (La Salette is near my home and we also have Lourdes, Laus, Pellevoisin, Pontmain, L'Île-Bouchard...) so that's one of the reasons why I'm interested.
    Though I'm pretty skeptical, I must admit that a number of alleged apparitions, most notably L'Île-Bouchard, Tre Fontane, Kibeho, Akita and Finca Betania are absolutely fascinating.
    Any thoughts?

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  11. Can anyone please see the following 6 minute video about the exponential increase of surplus wealth and its attendant power being stolen from the public at large and funnelled into the ultra rich in the current racket called capitalism and just answer one question: Is this worse for justice and for the family or BLM?
    https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=wealth+inequality+in+america+explained+youtube&docid=608028504071998352&mid=39E250B964CD7EF9E14F39E250B964CD7EF9E14F&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

    ReplyDelete