Saturday, March 18, 2023
How to define “wokeness”
A common talking
point among the woke is the claim that “woke” is just a term of abuse that has
no clear meaning. Whether many of them really
believe this or are just obfuscating is not clear, but in any event it isn’t
true. I would suggest that what critics
of wokeness have in mind is pretty obviously captured in the following definition:
Wokeness
is a paranoid delusional
hyper-egalitarian mindset that tends to see oppression and injustice where they
do not exist or greatly to exaggerate them where they do exist.
Friday, March 10, 2023
This month at First Things
My review of
Thomas Ward’s superb new book Ordered
by Love: An Introduction to John Duns Scotus appears in the current
issue of First Things. I was recently
interviewed by Mark Bauerlein for the First
Things podcast about my book All
One in Christ: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theory.
Friday, March 3, 2023
Naturalism versus Katz’s Platonism
Naturalism
holds that there is nothing more to reality than the world of concrete entities
causally related to one another within space and time. Since this is the realm studied by the natural
sciences (such as physics, chemistry, and biology), naturalism can also be characterized
as the view that the subject matter of natural science is all that there is. Naturalism thus denies the existence of God,
of angelic intellects, of immaterial souls (whether conceived of along the
lines of Descartes’ res cogitans or
in some other way), and of Platonic Forms and other abstract objects.
Sunday, February 26, 2023
Open thread combox
Here’s the latest open thread, by popular demand. Actually, it was one guy, but I’ll bet there at least twice as many as that who are interested. From quantum logic to Quantumania, MacArthur at Inchon to Thomas Pynchon, Muay Thai to Jamiroquai, everything’s on topic. Just keep it civil and classy. Earlier open threads archived here.
Friday, February 24, 2023
Catholicism, CRT, and the spirit of the age
Recently I
was interviewed by the Catholic Herald’s
Katherine Bennett about Critical Race Theory and the need for Catholics not to
let themselves be intimidated by the progressive spirit of the age. You can watch the interview at YouTube.
Saturday, February 18, 2023
Pope Francis contra life imprisonment
The white
supremacist Buffalo shooter who murdered ten people has
been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of
parole. According to scripture, natural
law theory, and traditional Catholic moral theology alike, he is worthy of
death. It follows that this lesser
penalty can hardly be unjust. However,
it seems that Pope Francis would disapprove of it. For he has on many occasions condemned this sort
of punishment as on a par with the death penalty, which he has also famously
condemned. I discussed this neglected
but problematic aspect of the pope’s teaching in a
Catholic World Report article
originally published in 2019, and he has since then made further statements
along the same lines. Current events make
the topic worth revisiting.
Friday, February 10, 2023
The Faith Once for All Delivered
Coming soon,
the important new anthology The
Faith Once for All Delivered: Doctrinal Authority in Catholic Theology,
edited by Fr. Kevin Flannery.
Contributors include Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke (Foreword and
Introduction), C. C. Pecknold, Christopher J. Malloy, Thomas Heinrich Stark,
Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist., John M. Rist, Edward Feser, Eduardo Echeverria,
Kevin L. Flannery, SJ, Robert Dodaro, OSA, John Finnis, Guy Mansini, OSB, and Robert
Cardinal Sarah (Afterword). My essay for
the volume is on the topic “Magisterium: The Teaching Authority of the Church.”
Talking about All One in Christ
The latest
on my book All
One in Christ: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theory: Recently I was interviewed for the EDIFY
Podcast on the topic “The Truth about Critical Race Theory.” You can listen to the interview here. I was also interviewed about the book by Deal
Hudson for the Church and Culture
radio show. You can listen to the
episode here. Other reviews of and interviews about All
One in Christ can be found here, here, here, here,
and here.
Tuesday, February 7, 2023
An anonymous saint?
When we
think of saints, we often associate them with mighty spiritual feats – dramatic
martyrdoms, the production of works of great theological learning or spiritual
insight, the founding of religious orders or vast charitable enterprises, and
so on. But saintliness, like the still
small voice heard by Elijah, can manifest itself in subtler ways. An illustration is provided by the life of Fr.
Ed Dowling, SJ, the subject of Dawn Eden Goldstein’s fine new book Father
Ed: The Story of Bill W.’s Spiritual Sponsor.
Thursday, February 2, 2023
Avicenna on non-contradiction
We’ve been talking about the law of non-contradiction (LNC), which says that the statements p and not-p cannot both be true. (In symbolic notation: ~ (p • ~p) ) We briefly noted Aristotle’s view that skepticism about LNC cannot be made a coherent position. Let’s now consider a famous remark on the subject by the Islamic philosopher Avicenna or Ibn Sina (c. 970-1037). In The Metaphysics of the Healing, he says of such a skeptic:
As for the obstinate, he must be plunged into fire, since fire and non-fire are identical. Let him be beaten, since suffering and not suffering are the same. Let him be deprived of food and drink, since eating and drinking are identical to abstaining. (Quoted in the SEP article “Contradiction”)
Friday, January 27, 2023
Quantum mechanics and the laws of thought
It isn’t
news that much pop philosophy nonsense is peddled in the name of quantum
mechanics. Perhaps the best-known
example is the claim that quantum mechanics refutes one or more of the
traditional “laws of thought.” The
arguments are fallacious, but stubbornly persistent.
The laws of
thought are three:
1. The law
of non-contradiction (LNC), which states that the statements p and not-p cannot both be true. In
symbolic notation: ~ (p • ~p)
2. The law
of identity, which says that everything is identical with itself. In symbolic notation, a = a
3. The law of excluded middle (LEM), which states that either p or not-p is true. In symbolic notation: p V ~p
Friday, January 20, 2023
Cartwright on theory and experiment in science
Nancy
Cartwright’s A
Philosopher Looks at Science is a new treatment of some of the
longstanding themes of her work. It is
written in her characteristically agreeable style and full of insights. The book is devoted to criticizing three
widespread but erroneous assumptions about science: that science is essentially
just theory plus experiment; that in some sense everything science tells us is
reducible to physics; and that science reveals that everything that happens,
including human action, is determined by the laws of physics. In this post I’ll discuss what she says about
the first of these claims, which is the subject of the first and longest
chapter in the book. I may devote a
later post to the other claims.
Saturday, January 14, 2023
Benedict XVI, Cardinal Pell, and criticism of Pope Francis
In the wake of the deaths of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Cardinal George Pell, it has emerged that each of them raised serious criticisms of aspects of Pope Francis’s teaching and governance of the Church. How might the pope respond to these criticisms? As I have explained elsewhere, the Church explicitly teaches that even popes can under certain circumstances respectfully be criticized by the faithful. Moreover, Pope Francis himself has explicitly said on several occasions that he welcomes criticism. It seems clear that the criticisms raised by Benedict and Pell are precisely the kind that the pope should take the most seriously, given the teaching of the Church and his own views about the value of criticism.
Saturday, January 7, 2023
More about All One in Christ
The latest
on my book All
One in Christ: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theory: I
was interviewed about the book by Carl Olson on
the Ignatius Press Podcast. I was
interviewed by Cy Kellett on
Catholic Answers Focus. I was
interviewed by Ken Huck on
the Meet the Author radio program. Reviewing
the book at
Catholic World Report, Gregory
Sullivan writes: “Among its many virtues, All
One in Christ is a work of genuine argumentation. Meticulous and temperate in stating the case
he is critiquing, Feser dismantles CRT with his characteristic rigor.” The
Spectator included the book on its
list of the best books of 2022. The
book is available in
German translation, and was reviewed favorably by Sebastian Ostritsch in
Die Tagespost. Other reviews of and interviews about All
One in Christ can be found here, here, here,
and here.
Monday, January 2, 2023
Koons on Aristotle and quantum mechanics
My review of
Robert Koons’s excellent new book Is
St. Thomas’s Aristotelian Philosophy of Nature Obsolete? appears at Public Discourse.
Sunday, January 1, 2023
The wages of gin
My review of Jane Peyton’s The Philosophy of Gin appears in the Christmas 2022 issue of The Lamp magazine.
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