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”)

Is this merely an expression of frustration with the skeptic?  Or is there an argument here?  Not quite either, I think.  The use of “must” and “since” indicates that Avicenna does suppose that inflicting such pain on the skeptic should convince him of the error of his ways even if nothing else does.  Hence there is more here than just a desire to punish the obstinate skeptic.  Avicenna seems to think the pain should correct him.  But it can’t be that Avicenna supposes that his remark amounts to a further argument for LNC.  That the defender of LNC holds that fire is not the same as non-fire, suffering not the same as not suffering, etc. is something the skeptic already knows.  These examples by themselves don’t add anything argumentation-wise to less harrowing examples that will no doubt already have been presented to the skeptic (e.g. that something can’t be both a cat and a non-cat, can’t both be a carrot and not be a carrot, and so on).

Obviously there is something about the unpleasant nature of the specific examples Avicenna uses that is supposed to be doing the work – and in particular, something about actually inflicting this unpleasantness on the skeptic that would do the work, rather than merely having him tranquilly contemplate the thesis that fire is not non-fire. 

What is going on, I suggest, is that Avicenna takes the defect in the skeptic to lie in the will, not in the intellect.  It is not that the skeptic’s intellect needs further argumentation in order for him to see that his position is mistaken.  All the necessary argumentation is already present; in particular, all a properly functioning intellect should need to know is that denying LNC is simply incoherent.  Rather, the skeptic is being willful – pretending, as it were, that there is really some serious doubt about LNC when in fact there is none.  And his will accomplishes this by not allowing the intellect to dwell on the incoherence, thereby facilitating its focusing instead on the fact that we can say things like “Perhaps LNC is not true,” as if this expressed a real possibility rather than mere verbiage. 

Literally thrusting the skeptic into the fire, Avicenna is (I suggest) saying, would nullify the will’s distraction of the intellect, and force the intellect to see reality.  Under intense pain it could no longer maintain the pretense that the fire it feels might at that same moment and in the same sense be non-fire. 

Another way to put it is that what the skeptic needs is not rational argumentation, since his delusional position of its very nature makes him incapable, while he is entertaining it, of listening to reason.  Rather, what the skeptic needs is a kind of treatment or therapy – indeed, something like shock therapy to bring him back to reality and cease clinging to his foolish and merely verbal quibbles. 

205 comments:

  1. indeed. however, Avicenna would take the defect to lie in the estimation (wahm), not the will.

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  2. This is a pretty common rhetorical tactic, and it has nothing to do with desiring to see anyone punished. The purpose of it is to flush out the interlocutor’s actual position, as opposed to the position he pretends to hold for the sake of argument. It can be used in other contexts:

    A: No one should ever use force to defend their property, because no amount of property is as valuable as a human life.
    B: All right, then, I’m taking your wallet. I assume you’re not going to defend it, because it’s just property.
    A (guarding his wallet): Hey, wait a minute!

    This shows by direct experience that A does not sincerely hold his stated belief, and any claim he makes that arises from it is insincere.

    You can reduce the form of the argument to a syllogism:

    Let X be a truth-claim, and Y be an action that is licit if and only if X is true.
    P. If A were sincere in claiming X, he would not object to Y. (Follows from definitions given)
    P’. A objects to Y. (Demonstrated by actions)
    C. A is not sincere in claiming X. His claim of X can therefore be disregarded.

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    2. Tom
      You can legally use force to kept your wallet from being stolen, but you cannot use deadly force unless your own life is in danger. I can't shoot a wallet snatcher or beat him to death just for stealing my wallet.
      .

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    3. I almost wish I knew where these guys who object to private property live? Almost... I could take their wallets because well I could use the money in this Marxist economy. :D

      Kidding. I cannae steal even from silly people. It is not right. Of course, it would be entertaining to watch them complain.

      You lot are lucky I believe in Hell.:D

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    5. Now that. comment is vintage Son of Y.

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    6. Och aye the noo Jimmy!

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    7. Private property is not a part of nature.

      On the contrary, Leo XIII said it is natural.

      Adam and Eve did not have private property in the Garden of Eden

      The natural necessity of property only becomes manifest when there are many people, too many for you to easily communicate with concerning all of your (and their) aspirations about objects that might have uses, and too many to come to explicit mutual agreements about all the variants of possible good uses.

      and some historians would argue that private property as we know it did not come into existence until around the time of the Protestant Reformation and the Treaty of Westphalia.

      Some historians are idiots. I believe that all recorded societies knew something about excluding some people from using X assets. The modern methods of delineating property are, obviously, modern, but most of them are merely extrapolations of older methods. The Romans had tons of explicit laws in pursuit of private property. As did the ancient Hebrews, the Phoenicians, the Babylonians...

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    8. "Strange how you would wish a human being, whom Christ died for, to endless suffering, because he would not stick up for the rights of inanimate objects, whom Christ did not die for."

      Was that what Son of Yakov was doing? Property rights as the "rights of inanimate objects"?

      Right.

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    10. I don't want to live in a universe where I don't have rights but inanimate objects do.

      Infinite: "property rights" aren't rights OF property, they are rights OF human beings about property.

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    12. @Tom Simon

      Your sillogism fails at P. Intellectually speaking it is true that if i agree that something is permissible i should not object to it being done, but things do not work like that normally. The imaginary pacifist could just be inconsistent.

      Even our saints did pratice in life things inconsistent with their beliefs, sinning and all that. Why could not the pacifist hold that he has no right to get his wallet by force but do it anyway thanks to his weakness or some excuse he is making up to himself to permit his action?

      @Infinite_Growth

      I deplore the american conservative* as much as you,but you got quite some reading to do.

      This will be your start: https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3066.htm

      *and these creatures exist here as well!

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  3. Duns Scotus prescribed something similar to those denying the contingency of things, no doubt inpired by Avicenna.

    The Indian Nyaya's also broadly used 'pragmatic contradiction' (Where actions contradicted one's supposed beliefs) as a form of argumentation.

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    1. This form of argumentation is also used a lot by pressupositionalists and hoppeans.

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  4. When Avicenna was alive, there were only two examples of logical systems that he knew of:

    1. Euclidean Geometry
    2. The propositional logic and restricted first-order logic of Aristotle

    Both of these systems are simple enough to be complete and adhere to the strict law of non-contradiction. But the kinds of logical systems we encounter today are so complex that adhering to the strict law of non-contradiction means incompleteness (Goedel), which means being ignorant.

    It is better for your soul to relax the law of non-contradiction than to choose to be ignorant, because Socrates said that ignorance was the root of all evil.

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    1. You seem to be having some trouble understanding Gödel. Euclidean geometry and propositional logic both are incomplete. Throwing away the LNC does not make them complete; it makes them gibberish.

      If you relax the law of non-contradiction, you do not relieve your ignorance; you merely banish the possibility of knowledge.

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    2. @Tom Simon How do you solve the problem of Goedel's Incompleteness theorem? The solution of logicians is to embrace ignorance: admit that no matter how good you are at logic you will always be ignorant, because ignorance is a fundamental feature of logic. That's not a viable option for someone seeking salvation.

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    3. How do you solve the problem of Goedel's Incompleteness theorem?

      Solve what problem? All it says is that there are some propositions that cannot be proven. This does not pose problems with reason or LNC.

      The solution of mathematicians is to accept the incompleteness of systems. This was undoubtedly a grievous blow to a guy like Bertrand Russell, but I figure he has sorted it out by now.

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    4. Godel merely proves what Aristotle already told us: that no science proves its own premises.

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    5. @Tony

      Solve what problem? All it says is that there are some propositions that cannot be proven. This does not pose problems with reason or LNC.

      You can't prove every proposition = you must be ignorant no matter how much you think. Note that I do not mean that there will always be more to learn. Of course, nobody will ever exhaust knowing all things. But Goedel's theorem isn't saying that "there will always be more to learn" but rather "ignorance is an inherent feature of all knowledge systems". Because the human brain is a formal system, Goedel's theorem would imply that every person must be ignorant no matter how much he studies.

      You do know that ignorant belongs to the same archetype as liar, right? And liars can't go to Heaven. "No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house; no one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence." (Psalm 101:7)

      One of the rewards of salvation, if not the principle reward, for the Christian, is omniscience. "Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." (1 Corinthians 13:12b) Any Christian eith the theological virtue of hope needs to solve the problem posed by Goedel.

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    6. "The solution of logicians is to embrace ignorance: admit that no matter how good you are at logic you will always be ignorant, because ignorance is a fundamental feature of logic."

      Rubbish; neither do logicians embrace ignorance (what would that even be like?), neither is ignorance "a fundamental feature of logic". What Goedel's theorem talks about is provability in formal systems. If some sentence is not provable in some base, foundational system, the solution is to extend the base system with principles that can decide the sentence. For an actual example of this, see the large body of work on large cardinals.

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    7. @Infinite Growth

      You seem to be confusing ontology with epistemology. Gödel proved there was a limit to what we could prove (epistemological issue) it says nothing about basic ontological features of reality such as the laws of thought are operating on.

      If a given proposition cannot be proven true or false, it does not imply that that proposition is neither true nor false, or both at the same time. So it's not clear to me why Gödel is relevant here.

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    8. @Infinite Growth

      You seem to be confusing ontology with epistemology. Gödel proved there was a limit to what we could prove (epistemological issue) it says nothing about basic ontological features of reality such as the laws of thought are operating on.

      If a given proposition cannot be proven true or false, it does not imply that that proposition is neither true nor false, or both at the same time. So it's not clear to me why Gödel is relevant here.

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    9. You can't prove every proposition = you must be ignorant no matter how much you think.

      Infinite: As suggested above, it was obvious even to Aristotle that it is impossible to PROVE all truths. That's why he showed us how some basic principles could be known without proof. Provability refers to only ONE method of knowing truths.

      It is only a "problem" if you insist that all truths can only be known by proof...which is an unnecessary premise to hold.

      But Goedel's theorem isn't saying that "there will always be more to learn" but rather "ignorance is an inherent feature of all knowledge systems".

      It does not capture the limits of knowledge that is held by other means than proof.

      You do know that ignorant belongs to the same archetype as liar, right? And liars can't go to Heaven.

      No, I don't know that. Nor do you, since the theory of archetypes is just that: a theory, not knowledge. Further, some characterize more archetypes, and put "the ignorant" into a different category than that of "the Trickster". Rather obviously, the Trickster needs someone else act upon than himself or his own type.

      Your posing of ignorance as a "problem" for going to heaven is answered immediately when you proffer knowledge as a reward in heaven: It's not a prerequisite to GET INTO heaven. Christ never said "blessed are those who know everything, for heaven will be theirs." And we will know everything through knowing God intimately, as He is in Himself, which does not require PROOF of everything known.

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    10. @Tony There are only three ways of knowing:

      1. Logical deduction from previous principles aka proof.
      2. Lived experience aka. empirical evidence
      3. What other people told us. Divine revelation falls under here.

      Ways of knowing #2 and #3 have #1 as a foundation, and Goedel by undermining way of knowing #1 also undermines ways of knowing #2 and #3 and thus all subsequent knowledge.

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    11. @Tony,

      "No, I don't know that."

      Good luck with this disjointed exchange. Me no touch with ten foot barge pole!

      😏

      Tom Cohoe

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    12. @ Infinite Growth, why do ways of knowing #2 & #3 have #1 as a foundation?

      And Goedel just says that certain axiomatic systems, satisfying various conditions, aren't complete, which means that certain statements can neither be proved nor disproved by those systems. That's a long way from undermining logic, and to *argue* that logic is undermined is an instance of the stolen concept fallacy.

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    13. @Infinite_Growth

      @Tony There are only three ways of knowing:

      "1. Logical deduction from previous principles aka proof.
      2. Lived experience aka. empirical evidence
      3. What other people told us. Divine revelation falls under here."

      Why does 2 depends on 1? When i step outside and think "man, i'am feeling hot as hell" i do not really need to stop and make a sillogism before knowing that i'am feeling a lot of heat, i just know it with no mediation.

      Before 1 can have material for sillogisms to start one needs experiences that do supply the material of the deductions. If there were no experiences, there were never be what to use to deduce anything and so you would deduce as much as a stone does.

      That is why rationalism is bankrupt, bro, let that epistemology on the past. A famous thinker from my country did argue that a form of intuition has to be true precisely because if all knowledge depended on mediation of a sillogism even recognizing that a deduction is true would need a deduction before and the circle would continue forever. Nah, there is knowledge that comes before your 1.

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    14. @Talmid

      Why does 2 depends on 1? When i step outside and think "man, i'am feeling hot as hell" i do not really need to stop and make a sillogism before knowing that i'am feeling a lot of heat, i just know it with no mediation.

      The problem that's created when you have #2 not founded on #1 is that you introduce "shock". What that means is that no faith is possible, because no matter how certain you are in your worldview, a killer piece of empirical evidence can come in and turn your worldview upside down. You're a firm Christian? Well you don't know this, but tomorrow the Orthodox Jewish messiah will come and show you the bones of Jesus of Nazareth. You're a firm traditional, orthodox Christian who believes in the Bible as interpreted by the Church Fathers? Well you don't know this, but tomorrow some autodidactic expert from Florida will show you his own reconstruction of the Christianity of the New Testament and disprove your entire worldview. Empiricism not founded on deductive reason is faithless.

      Before 1 can have material for sillogisms to start one needs experiences that do supply the material of the deductions. If there were no experiences, there were never be what to use to deduce anything and so you would deduce as much as a stone does.

      This is an unsolved problem in philosophy. It's called "the problem of the criterion" of the Stoics.

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    15. "It is only a "problem" if you insist that all truths can only be known by proof...which is an unnecessary premise to hold."

      Both uneccessary and absurd. If nothing is self evident, nothing can be demonstrated. As demonstration is possible, so the recognition of principles is also possible (e.g. PNC).

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    16. if nothing is self evident...

      Nothing is self-evident. Everything needs to be proven on the basis of first principles, and the first principles need to be communicated to the individual soul via the Logos.

      "In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God." (John 1:1)

      A world with self-evident truths is a world with brute facts. No life is possible in such a universe.

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    17. "We hold these truths to be self-evident"

      ^
      1. The Truth is singular, never plural, and always takes a definite article.

      2. The Founding Fathers were all Freemasons and came from Hades. Pray that the Lord through the Immaculate Heart of Mary deliver us from their terrible grip.

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    18. @Infinite_Growth

      "The problem that's created when you have #2 not founded on #1 is that you introduce "shock". What that means is that no faith is possible, because no matter how certain you are in your worldview, a killer piece of empirical evidence can come in and turn your worldview upside down."

      Also possible of #1 is the basis, for there is aways the possibility that you commited a error in logic or accepted a untrue premisse. Spinoza based all his reasoning on deduction, but he was pretty much wrong on every sillogism.

      As long as you are not omniscient it is completely possible that you are wrong. It is a part of life, my friend.

      "This is an unsolved problem in philosophy. It's called "the problem of the criterion" of the Stoics."

      Did i not mention a possible solution? Our experience of the world give us access to some truths that come on a more intuitive way, with no mediation at all. It is like the knowledge of what you are feeling, this does not need a deduction.

      If we have a feel truths before deduction starts them we solved the issue.

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    19. @Infinite Growth

      "Nothing is self-evident."

      On what basis do you make this statement. According to your own principles, this statement needs to be argued for, so where is the argument?

      After we all get through the awkward silence (and hopefully avoid awkward efforts to skirt this obvious problem), we can move on to sanely recognize that *first principles are themselves self evident*. That is what makes them *first principles*. The Law of non contradiction is self evident. So is the principle of identity. Again that is what makes them first principles.

      "A world with self-evident truths is a world with brute facts. No life is possible in such a universe."

      Brute facts pertain to particular, material reality. It has nothing to do with immaterial and universal principles of being like the PNC or PI.

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  5. Avicenna's argument aligns with Aristotelian philosophy: the more we know about something, the more we love it and the more we love it, the more we want to know about it.
    There is no demonstration that is self-convincing. "Convinced" comes from the Latin word "defeated," which is an act of will that submits to the truth expressed by the demonstration.
    I recall when I was a young student in mathematics and physics that, sometimes, I rejected mathematical demonstrations that I was developing or reading simply because they were not elegant or fascinating enough for my will to accept them..
    Axioms are self-evident, but what does that mean? The statement "p and -p cannot be true under the same circumstances" is an axiom and is not a matter of demonstration, but a truth that must be accepted by the intelligence AND the will.
    When Avicenna argues that one must expose to a burning fire the people who affirm the opposite of what is evident to all honestly-minded people, he is not trying to demonstrate anything intellectually, but rather, probing the sick will of those who assert the opposite: it is not anymore a question about the supposed intellectual quality of the demonstration but of the weakness of the opponent's will not capable to submit to the truth.
    Often, the real question is not about developing new intellectual argumentations but about how to educate the will to accept defeat by the truth and accept it lovingly as such. This requires education in virtues, with justice being the preeminent one, but others such as courage are important too, as accepting a truth often requires a change in oneself.
    Like Avicenna, when I read people who fight like Donquichotte against the windmills which is the obvious truth, demonstrated or axiomatic, I always think they simply deeply lack virtues and are too twisted to love and submit to the truth and that it is not useful for me to argue with them: the work, instead, is about educating them to be much more virtuous.

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    1. Im Klartext: "People who do not share my worldview are evil."

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  6. Thank you for this post and the text from Avicenna. Avicenna shows duplicity on the part of the skeptic. The skeptic says that he doubts the LNC and yet his actions attest that he does not doubt it. So the incoherence is between what he says he thinks or believes and what he actually does. The life or death scenario presses the point with the utmost clarity putting the skeptics feet to the fire which he must recognize is not non-fire while his skin melts away. The incoherence of the skeptic is an incoherence between his act (the will as Dr. Feser points out) and his word. It is duplicity or hypocrisy because the skeptic does not and cannot live out what he says.

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  7. Does Nagarjuna's "Two Truths" doctrine violate the law of non-contradiction?

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    1. No. Otherwise his two-truth doctrine is the same as two-falsehood doctrine.

      - johannes y k hui

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    2. It depends on the interpretation. But i think that his view was simply that our rigid language of substances or things, good and bad etc was useful on certain contexts but did not describe reality(who for him just did not have substances, acidents etc).

      His view to me does not works out in the end, but on logic alone he seems to hold out.

      @Johannes

      True XD

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  8. Professor Feser, any interest in engaging the comments from Infinite_Growth in this post and the previous one?

    Pat

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    1. Getting recognition from the doctor himself? That would be quite the honor.

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  9. Avicenna's statement would be an argument against those who say that LEM is never true.

    But I would suppose that most of those who deny LEM say that it is true sometimes and sometimes not true.

    But then, the LEM can be applied to itself. Is it only true or false, or are there things for which the LEM is partially true but not fully true?

    I suppose the LEM could be conceived of as being false in situations where there are intermediate cases and vagueness, where it is not easy to see place the intermediate cases in one camp or the other.

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    1. Rereading the post, I see that I misunderstood what was written. Avicenna's statement is against LNC, not LEM.

      I still find LEM interesting in the fact that it can be applied to itself by those who deny it.

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  10. Avicenna's argument would seem to imply that a denial of the LNC (for all p, not (p and not-p) is equivalent to an affirmation of the Law of Universal Contradiction (for all p, p and not-p). But it seems clear that LNC and LUC are not equivalent.

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  11. [I meant: denial of LNC and affirmation of LUC are not equivalent.]

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  12. Yes, I think that you are correct that the point was that the issue lay in the will, rather than in the intellect.

    The particular example may of course give certain sensitive and emotional souls the vapors, but that does not indicate that it is not instructive.

    As a class, these kinds of shock illustrations are useful, inasmuch as while they may not convince all, a great deal is revealed about those who reject them root and branch.

    I guess some people have no sense of either irony or humor; and would also object to the joke that if you admnistered a baseball bat beating to a solipsist, he'd have only himself to blame.

    Similar set-ups can be configured to apply to nominalists, moral nihilists and relativists and those who proclaim that subjective evaluation trumps objective reality, but who nonethless prattle on in categorical morality tinged terms when it comes to matters of threats of supposed harm to them , or their physical safety. Quite funny, really.

    Only a few, like Rorty, will go all in and admit that by his own standards his personal claim to having any right to respect, safety or even life, is in the final reduction, just so much morally relative, free floating and will-driven rhetoric he is emitting.

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    1. Like people who suggest LNC might not hold: most nominalists are nominalists in name only!

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    2. "most nominalists are nominalists in name only!"

      Hahahaha. Now Ed has two "old Seinfeld style" jokes he can use in class.

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  13. DNW,

    I guess some people have no sense of either irony or humor; and would also object to the joke that if you admnistered a baseball bat beating to a solipsist, he'd have only himself to blame.

    LOL. I so want to tell that joke to someone, but almost everyone I know would give me a blank stare.

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    1. bmiller

      That's because you don't really exist. I am the only existing being.
      But why am I telling this? Nobody can hear it except me.

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    2. But why am I telling this? Nobody can hear it except me.

      I guess solipsists are representative of the company they keep.

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  14. " Strange how you would wish a human being, whom Christ died for, to endless suffering, because he would not stick up for the rights of inanimate objects, whom Christ did not die for. "

    Now that, is comical. Funny, too.
    When a man puts the quietus on a thief who is robbing him of his possessions, he is not sticking up for the rights of the "inanimate objects". He is maintaining his own rights: the natural right to personal integrity and to be free of molestation; the natural right to keep the produce of his own labor; and the right not be robbed only of the property in question , but of the life effort that went into earning that property.

    That said, I do understand how many modern liberals have a problem grasping this; as so many of them are institution dwelling sinecure collectors who have done nothing much to independently earn what wealth they have.

    Reminds me of someone whose check is issued by the government, and who then grandly announces that they don't mind paying taxes ... as if they were doing more than handing back some of that which was handed to them.


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  15. Another thing that occurs to me regarding the practical plane and willful dissemblers, is something that Ed Feser has probably mentioned. But if not, something that was almost certainly covered by Kneale and Kneale in their monumental text, "The Development of Logic". Or, maybe by your classical philosophy professor in school.

    It concerns the forensic origins of a considerable portion of the impulse to formalize various rules of inference.

    Whatever Leibnitz might or might not have thought he could do with logic, it is pretty plain that part of the earliest and classical impulse was much more modest and practical: It was driven by the desire to clarify a system of rules by which one could more deliberately strain out sophistries passed off by rhetorizing BS artists as sound or valid entailments.

    It's still a useful program to this day.

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  16. Indeed.

    God cannot be wholly outside of space while \ being omnipresent and acting throughout space.

    God cannot be wholly outside of time while acting throughout time.

    Thus, god cannot exist wholly outside of space and time while also being omnipresent and acting throughout space and time.

    Or is god allowed to violate the LNC?

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    1. Define your terms or your questions are simply not understandable.
      What is space? What is time? Are they substances, or just a numbering system, or anything else? What is God? What is LNC? How does LNC relate to space, to time and to God?
      Moreover, tell us, instead, about your vices and virtues, it will probably help you more having us knowing about that than answering to your questions without heads or tails.

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    2. @StardustyPsyche,

      That must be a violation of LNC - because you say so. There is no other reason. You intone "LNC" and the Catholic Church falls.

      Funny stuff, your bootstrap argumentation, with no room in your head for your vaunted "marketplace of ideas" - unlike the very wide discussion that takes place inside the Catholic Church (for example. Professor Feser, a good Catholic, owns this weblog where such discussion takes place).

      Tom Cohoe

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    3. @Gaetan (apologies, I don't know how to type a diairesis into this line):
      Your demand that Stardusty tell us about his vices and virtues is way out of line. I am shocked. No one has appointed you as censor over the lives of others who post on Feser's blog.

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    4. Gaëtan
      OP:"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."

      Must you have these words defined for you before you understand the point that is being made? What precisely is fire, suffering, food, and all the rest?

      Have you no concepts of space and time?

      The OP goes on at length about the LNC, yet you require a definition of it?

      The Thomistic god is defined with many asserted properties, among them, being outside of space and time. Perhaps you should refer to works by Feser to find out what the Thomist means by those terms.

      That Thomistic god is also defined as omnipresent as well as acting upon all existing objects throughout space and time to sustain them in their existence.

      Thus, on the LNC, the Thomistic god is incoherent. Do you need me to define that term for you as well? It means that the multiple asserted properties of the Thomistic god are mutually exclusive of each other, that is, they contradict each other, thus violating the LNC (see the OP if you are still unclear as to the meaning of that term, LNC).

      Just as one cannot be both in the fire and out of the fire simultaneously without violating the LNC, not even god can be both in space and time and out of space and time simultaneously without violating the LNC.

      Now, you might point out that one can have one foot in the fire and one foot out of the fire and in that sense be both in and out of the fire at the same time. But that requires a being that has parts, and the Thomistic god is asserted to be perfectly simple, which again violates the LNC, rendering the Thomistic god incoherent in that case.

      Which god, indeed. It is logically possible to coherently speculate the existence of some sort of limited god, a deistic god, or other formulation of god absent the multitude of properties attributed to the Christian or Thomistic god.

      But some assertions of god violate the LNC and are thus logically incoherent, that is to say, logically impossible, on the necessity of the LNC.

      The incoherence of the Christian-Thomistic god arises from the vast number of omni properties and other properties attributed to that formulation of god, which taken together, violate the LNC.

      Delete
    5. @ficino4ml,

      I, a censor? But when was that? A censor is defined as "a person authorized to examine books, films, or other material and remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable."

      While on this blog, we are indeed authorized to examine books, films, or other materials, as that is the purpose of the blog itself, I don't think asking Stardusty about his vices and virtues is removing or suppressing anything. On the contrary, I am asking him to add elements that are important for us to understand why his will does not accept an obvious axiomatic truth like LNC.

      For example, to illustrate the reason behind my question, which is in line with the Avicenna topic brought up by Professor Feser, let's assume that a gentleman named "Planetstoned" has the vices of being a liar and maintaining a double life. This makes it clearer where his issue with understanding LNC lies, not in the intellectual grasp of the obvious axiomatic concept, but in a life that shows a will not regulated by truth.

      I hope this helps clarify my position.

      Delete
    6. @Stardustypsyche
      I am sorry to certainly shock you but (1) if you would really use the concept of God as defined by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, (2) if you would really use the concepts of Space and Time used by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, (3) if you would really use the concept of LNC used by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, then (4) you would not have asked your question because absolutely non-sensical in the context of (1), (2) and (3).
      Thank you for your comment

      Delete
    7. @ StardustyPsyche,

      "[...] which taken together, violate the LNC"

      What a load of codswallop. You think you can just define a term, cite it, and then God ceases to exist. You are lucky that things don't actually work this way or you would have ceased to exist yourself long ago.

      God created logic that it could be discovered and used properly for useful purposes, not for mistakenly placing the mind above God and then falsely concluding assumptions already held.

      Is this comedy your own or do you have a writer?

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    8. Gaëtan
      "(2) if you would really use the concepts of Space and Time used by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas,"
      Indeed I am not, since both made serious errors in their notions of physics, including space.

      "(3) if you would really use the concept of LNC used by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas,"
      I am using the concept of LNC as described in the OP

      "then (4) you would not have asked your question because absolutely non-sensical in the context of (1), (2) and (3)."

      Since two of the antecedents are false it is reasonable that the consequent is false.

      The asserted set of properties for the A-T formulation of god, taken together in light of modern understandings of physics and logic, is incoherent, that is, they violate the LNC as described in the OP.

      God is asserted to be outside space, that is, to lack spatial extent, yet also asserted to be acting in the present moment on all objects throughout the universe, thus acting in spatial extent, a clear violation of the LNC.

      God is asserted to be outside of time, yet god is also asserted to do different things at different times clearly acting over time, a clear violation of the LNC.

      You're welcome.

      Delete
    9. Tom
      "God created logic"

      I confess that is not the assertion I expected to read from our good posters here.

      That rather destroys a very great deal, starting with most of what the author of the OP has written above.
      "what the skeptic needs is not rational argumentation, since his delusional position of its very nature makes him incapable, while he is entertaining it, of listening to reason. "

      I actually agree with Dr. Feser that denial of the LNC is incoherent and self defeating, in a manner similar to denying cogito ergo sum, because the process of denial entails the very thing being denied.

      But Tom, you have really thrown a major monkey wrench into the works here.

      If god created logic, then presumably god is not bound by logic as we know it, and may choose to violate the LNC, or any other logical axiom (good thing after all, Tom, that we reserved logical axioms as not actually proved, since by your assertion god can nullify them as he chooses!)

      Thus the skeptic is perfectly justified in stating “Perhaps LNC is not true,”(OP), rendering Dr. Feser and I quite wrong on your assertion, Tom. After all, god can just rule the LNC a dead letter. Perhaps god has already created other worlds where the LNC is known to be rubbish, and thus the skeptic, on your assertion Tom, is quite justified in his skepticism.

      And thanks to you, we can just forget about the 5 Ways of Aquinas, the 5 Proofs by Feser, or any other logical argument for god, because god created logic, and thus god can nullify logical axioms at will, making the seeking of god through logical argument pure folly.

      Yes, Tom, you have really upset the applecart with that one.

      Are you quite sure god created logic?

      Delete
    10. @ StardustPhyche,

      Thank you for responding. This clarifies the errors in your reasoning and why your comment about God is nonsensical.

      One of the mistakes you make is due to your use of an outdated concept of space-time. The concept used by Aristotle is much closer to the models used in quantum mechanics and relativity, where space-time is not seen as an absolute independent quantity like in Newtonian physics, but rather as a measurement of a change in the states of the observed object.

      Additionally, your belief that space and time have an "in" and an "out" is intellectually immature.
      Allow me to provide some examples as food for your thought: (a) From the perspective of a photon, its existence lasts precisely zero seconds, even though from our reference frame it may have taken 13.6 billion years to reach us. Is the photon "in" or "out" of space-time? (b) One of the factors contributing to your existence is your great-grandfather, whom you do not see, but whose effects are still present. Is he alive somewhere in space and time, and how can you prove it? (c) What makes that chair a chair, this dog a dog, and you yourself you? Is there something in space and time that defines these things? How do you even know that it's a chair, a dog, and you? (d) Is the spin wave function of a quantum object a property in or out the space-time, or is it a property of the measurement tool to measure it?

      Delete
    11. Stardusty,
      You claim that God being outside time contradicts God causing effects inside time. There is no contradiction. Despite being outside The Brothers Kharamazov, Dostoyevsky caused effects within it.

      Delete
    12. @ StardustyPsyche,

      "Are you quite sure god created logic?"

      Your mockery, while funny, does not inspire confidence that you would understand how God created logic, since you seem to be pretty sure that you, not God, are the master of it. With this assumption, plus a second assumption that Professor Feser is your ally, an unwarranted assumption indeed, in your words, "since two of [your] antecedents are false it is reasonable that [your] consequent (that God did not create logic) is false". So much for your superior mastery of logic.

      I have fairly completely explained elsewhere how God, divinely simple, can be modelled in image as an unbiased random sequence. In the image, it follows that logic is not "out there" (in nothing) just "waiting" for God to discover it and obey, but that God created logic along with everything else. I wouldn't mind explaining it to you, except that:

      1 - while the image is unbiased, you are not, and,

      2 - I am feeling too lazy at this time to make the effort to explain something to someone who has already premissed the rejection of Aristotle, Aquinas, the Catholic Church, and God Himself as his starting point, and who uses mockery as his tool.

      Also, I suggest that you say less if you have nothing worthwhile to say.

      😏

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    13. Gaëtan,
      "Additionally, your belief that space and time have an "in" and an "out" is intellectually immature."
      It seems you are not familiar with the Christian view that god is outside of space and time. That is not my contention, rather, it is the common contention of Christians. I agree that such notions are intellectually immature.

      For some reason you continue to misread my comments and confuse my criticism of an incoherent position as if I somehow hold the very position I am pointing to as incoherent.

      "your comment about God is nonsensical."
      If by that you mean my citing of the prevailing Christian apologist notion that god is outside of space and time and we are inside space and time while god acts throughout space and time, yet has no spatial extent and is itself timeless...well, yes, in that case, i agree with you that such assertions are nonsensical.

      Perhaps you could assist our Thomistic friends in reconciling these assertions:
      God is outside of space.
      God is outside of time.
      God acts upon all objects throughout space to continuously sustain them in existence, lest they should spontaneously blink out of existence absent god's continuous existentially sustaining intervention.
      God is perfectly simple, meaning god has no parts and lacks any spatial extent.
      God never changes in any aspect whatsoever.
      God has been acting upon all objects throughout the universe to sustain them in existence for all time since at least the first moments of the big bang until this very moment.

      If you could kindly apply your skills in physics and logic to reconcile all these statements as being mutually compatible and all simultaneously true it would be appreciated by our Thomistic friends, I am sure.

      Oh, and if you can perform this reconciliation without violating the LNC as described in the OP that would be especially appreciated.

      Delete
    14. Tim,
      The Brothers Kharamazov is not an existent thing that an outside force either does or does not act upon.

      I realize you are making an analogy of some sort, but, like many attempts at analogy, this one quickly breaks down without being instructive.

      A story is a thought process of the author. The author uses symbols to represent those thoughts. Other individuals sense those symbols and have related thoughts, though not precisely the same thoughts as the author.

      In that process the story is never an existent object. The brains of the author and the readers (or listeners or viewers) exist, the material of the symbols or sounds or images exist, but the story has no independent existence.

      Our friend Gaëtan considers the very notion of being in or out of space and time as being intellectually immature, so, on that view, you have expressed a nonsensical assertion by considering god to be outside time while we are inside time. I rather agree with him that the true nature of space-time is yet to be fully understood.

      Could you possibly offer some other argument as to why the Thomistic notion of god being outside time yet acting throughout all time is not a violation of the LNC as described in the OP?

      Or is god simply allowed to violate the LNC?

      Delete
    15. Stardusty,
      I contest that The Brothers Karamazov is an existent thing and that outside forces can act upon it. It can be translated, abbreviated, illustrated etc.

      Delete
    16. @ StardustyPsyche,

      "Or is god simply allowed to violate the LNC?"

      The LNC is a human formulation. Human formulations are not a rule for what is above human understanding. We can only apply such rules to imperfect images of God. Conclusions in such imperfect images do not limit God. Your question, in which you begin with your own mind being the cause of truth, is just a joke.

      Your rejection of The Brothers Karamazov is just another example of your running from explanation to self as imagined source of truth.

      Comedy, all comedy, but almost tragic, as you will to nail yourself to almost nothing in your insistent error.

      😏

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    17. @ StardustyPsyche,

      I say "almost" about you in my post above because I hope and pray for you in my almost insignificant way.

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    18. Tim,
      "I contest that The Brothers Karamazov is an existent thing and that outside forces can act upon it. It can be translated, abbreviated, illustrated etc."
      Is a story an existent thing?

      Suppose all people who know the story die. Does the story continue to exist within, say, a printed paper book?

      Suppose all such books are destroyed, does the story still exist, somehow, perhaps Platonically?

      If not, but we find that the story was encoded on a CD prior all the paper books being destroyed does the story continue to exist?

      Is the pattern of etched pits in plastic existentially the same as the pattern of ink symbols on the pages of a paper book?

      If there are 1 or 100 or 1000000 copies of such books are there equal numbers of stories, or is there just 1 story irrespective of the number of copies of such books that exist? If there exist many stories then how can they all be the same story without violating the LNC? If there exists only 1 story irrespective of the number of copies how can it be said that each copy is the story, and how could it be said that the story ceases to exist when all copies are destroyed?

      Does running exist, that is, as an animal with legs runs? Running itself, is that an existent thing, or is running simply an identifiable process of real existent material? If I write a description of running in a book is that printed description of running also running?

      No, Tim, you are conflating or confusing a symbolic description of a thing with the thing itself. By the way, that is a core error in the ontological argument for the existence of god, conflating a thought of god with a form of a real existent god.

      So, no, you have not identified an analogy that would illustrate how god could be outside of space and have no spatial extent, yet continuously act upon all objects throughout space.

      That Thomistic contention remains a violation of the LNC as described in the OP.

      Delete
    19. @Stardustpsyche,
      Your comments once again reveal your radical lack of understanding of the concepts of space, time, God, and LNC.
      I will repeat: for Aristotelian, QM, and Relativity Mechanics specialists, space and time do not exist in and of themselves. They are simply a numbering system associated with each physical object that simply tracks their successive changes in state.
      Therefore, God cannot be "in" or "out" of something that doesn't exist in and of itself. The only relationship that makes sense for God is the one He has with the objects He creates. The concepts of past and present can refer to us as we change state, but not to Him, as He does not change state. Thus, there is no time for Him, just as there is no time for a photon from a photon's point of view.
      This discussion is becoming painful as it is clear that you have no operational or theoretical knowledge of quantum and relativistic physics, which is a necessary but not sufficient condition to discuss these topics. Nor are you familiar with basic philosophical concepts or common-sense understandings of the principle of identity and logic. The result is that you are publicly embarrassing yourself in this forum, which is not a site for online lectures to teach you such basic concepts.
      In my honest and humble opinion, you have other problems rooted in your moral being, such as vices, that prevent you from accessing reality and drive you to create your own distorted world. The alternative, accepting reality, would require a radical reform of your moral being.

      Delete
    20. Tom,
      "I hope and pray for you"
      Do you suppose your prayer for me might have any actual affect on me in the case that perhaps god will hear your prayer, act upon your prayer, and intercede in my life by influencing me toward goodness?

      If so, you have exposed 2 more violations of the LNC on Thomism and the Thomistic formulation of god's nature.

      God is asserted to never change in any respect and in fact to be incapable of change, but your intercessory prayer entails that god must change or at least might change and could change, in the respect that absent your prayer god was going to allow me to continue in my evil ways, but later you prayed for me to be saved, so god changed and decided to act in a manner that saves me instead, violating the LNC in having an unchangeable being in fact change.

      Further, as noted above, this is a time sequence of events.
      T1-god allows me to be evil by taking no action.
      T2-you pray to god and god hears you.
      T3-god takes action to save me from my evil ways.

      Now in the second instance you have asserted that god acts in a time sequence of events, yet god is asserted to be outside of time, another violation of the LNC, god being both in the fire and out of the fire, as it were in the OP.

      But, I suppose you do not care that god continually violates the LNC since you say "your question, in which you begin with your own mind being the cause of truth, is just a joke." You seem to find it funny, in some sense, that I would even question as to whether god can violate the LNC, meaning, in your view, of course god can!

      Now you have called Dr. Feser wrong, unwittingly I am fairly sure. In the OP Dr. Feser roundly excoriates the skeptic of the LNC, but by your account the skeptic is entirely justified in his skepticism of the LNC.

      Since god can violate the LNC he may very well have created our real world such that the LNC does not always hold.

      On your account, there is no "Law" of non-contradiction, rather, only a "Suggestion" of non-contradiction that god could have built into our real world in any manner he chooses.

      On your account the cat could literally be both alive and dead at the same time because god can violate the LNC at will and could have created our real world with violations of the LNC built into it waiting for us to discover.

      OBTW, epilog, I appreciate your concern for my well being expressed with your prayer for me, especially that you willing to create so much havoc in calling god a double violator of the LNC and calling Dr. Feser wrong in the process, that's quite a smashup just to save a grizzled old evil atheist, TYVM.

      Delete
    21. @ Gaëtan:
      Just came across this, and it made me think of your reply:

      "In his preface to Book 1, as well as in the epigrams 7.12 and 72, 10.33, 4.49, 8.3, and 10.4, the epigrammatist [sc. Martial] consciously approximates his epigram to satire through the intertexts of Horace Sat. 1.4.65–100 and Persius 5.1–20 in their reflections on the genre. Despite this approximation between epigram and satire, Martial never adopts the gesture of the censor nor does he renounce the predominance of the ludic function in his work."

      https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118841709.ch9

      Surely you agree that words have ranges of meanings. "Censor" has other senses besides "chap who decides whether or not to suppress parts of books etc. or even ban such materials." Tovar is not arguing that Martial never exercises an official function of allowing or disallowing various writings, etc., to be published in whole or in part.

      Delete
    22. @ StardustyPsyche,

      "old evil atheist, TYVM"

      You are welcome, but it is still funny to see someone who does not believe in God telling us how God must behave, although you are obviously talking about the god that exists only in your head ( 🤯 ).

      "If so, you have exposed 2 more violations of the LNC on Thomism and the Thomistic formulation of god's nature."

      Heh. No I haven't. As I already explained, "the LNC is a human formulation. Human formulations are not a rule for what is above human understanding. We can only apply such rules to imperfect images of God. Conclusions in such imperfect images do not limit God." God does not have to obey what is in your head and the consequences of this are not what you think.

      "God is asserted to never change in any respect"

      There are imperfect images of God in which response to prayer is possible without change in the image.

      "You seem to find it funny, in some sense, that I would even question as to whether god can violate the LNC"

      You made an assertion that is funny, and it still is, but you have slyly changed it to [you] "would even question", innocent of all assertion, which is even funnier. Really, there is nothing to answer here.

      "you have called Dr. Feser wrong" … [you are] "calling Dr. Feser wrong".

      I am not contradicting him, if that's what you mean by your untrustworthy inference, but you certainly are even as you again enlist him as your ally. Roaringly funny.

      😏

      [G]od … could have created our real world with violations of the LNC built into it waiting for us to discover"

      Not in a way that a determined skeptic like you couldn't run away from it, by mentioning some maximally complex, hypothetical only, mental construction, like Schrodinger's cat, as if it were science that proves something.

      Science loves the simple. You don't. The prayers still stand.

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    23. Stardusty,
      From your comments, I gather that you are a physicalist. You don't believe that entities such as phonemes, graphemes, numbers etc. (all of which are not physical) exist. Not all atheists are physicalists, of course. Obviously, if physicalism is true, then theism is false. Any being who is physical cannot be the ULTIMATE BEING upon which all other beings depend for their existence. Those who do not accept physicalism (again including many atheists) are willing to accept that Dostoyesvky, despite being outside The Brothers Karamazov, caused effects within it. You have provided no reason not depending upon the disputed premise of physicalism for supposing that theism violates the law of non-contradiction.

      Delete
    24. Gaëtan,
      "Your comments once again reveal your radical lack of understanding of the concepts of space, time, God, and LNC"
      They are not my positions. This is a point I have made clearly and repeatedly, but you do not seem to grasp for some reason. Are you being intentionally obtuse?

      These are not my positions, they are the positions I have read from self described Thomists, including the owner of this venue.

      I asked you to reconcile positions expressed by Thomists, not me. Is that clear now?

      These are positions expressed by self described Thomists. Can you reconcile them as being simultaneously true and not in violation of the LNC as described in the OP?

      ******Positions Often Expressed By Thomists******
      God is outside of space.
      God is outside of time.
      God acts upon all objects throughout space to continuously sustain them in existence, lest they should spontaneously blink out of existence absent god's continuous existentially sustaining intervention.
      God is perfectly simple, meaning god has no parts and lacks any spatial extent.
      God never changes in any aspect whatsoever.
      God has been acting upon all objects throughout the universe to sustain them in existence for all time since at least the first moments of the big bang until this very moment.

      Delete
    25. @ StardustyPsyche,

      "These are not my positions, they are the positions I have read from self described Thomists, including the owner of this venue."

      You have tried to make a case that the position you hold in your head must be reconciled with itself.

      😏

      Nobody here that you are talking to thinks that that can be done. If you want that internal reconciliation, the position that you hold inside your head must change. You must at least be willing to admit to yourself that you might not understand things as well as you have thought you do.

      There is nothing to reconcile in the list of things you advance as needing reconciliation, as I have explained to you, mentioning, for example, an imperfect image or model of God as a random sequence of unbiased binary bits in which unchanging divine simplicity allows infinitely varying responses from moment to moment to the events in Creation, while a perfect image is above this and is not limited by human formulations such as LNC, which God created for our discovery and proper use within creation, not for making rulings about God's acts, which are above our understanding or expression.

      Come now. Stop being obtuse.

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    26. Tom,
      "SP-[G]od … could have created our real world with violations of the LNC built into it waiting for us to discover"

      Tom-Not in a way that a determined skeptic like you couldn't run away from it"
      Exactly why you have called Dr. Feser wrong without realizing you have done so.

      Your contention is that god could have created the world with violations of the LNC in it, but upon discovering such violations of the LNC in the real world a determined skeptic of god will still find some sort of foolish mental gymnastics to use to run away from the fact that god built a violation of the LNC into the real world because god is, well, god, and can violate the LNC if he so chooses.

      Your contention is that the LNC is a human construction god is not bound to obey.

      You assert that god is capable of building certain violations of the LNC into the real world we live in.

      That is how you have called Dr. Feser wrong.

      In the OP Dr. Feser argues against the skeptic of the LNC. Feser uses the examples of Avicenna to illustrate the foolishness, incoherence, and self defeating position of the skeptic of the LNC.

      Yet you say the skeptic of the LNC is correct! You say there can be instances in our real world that violate the LNC, so you say the skeptic of the LNC is perfectly justified in his skepticism of the LNC because god can violate the LNC at will and god can build violations of the LNC into the real world, just as the skeptic of the LNC claims.

      You have called Dr. Feser wrong, inadvertently, reluctantly, unconsciously, yet incontrovertibly you have directly contradicted the core assertions made in the OP.

      Delete
    27. Tom Cohoe,
      I find myself in the very strange position of agreeing with Stardusty against you on this point. The tradition (which extends beyond Thomists) is more that of the law/principle of non-contradiction existing eternally in the intellect of God so that it could never be the case that God create a world in which the law of non-contradiction does not apply. I do think that we classical theists are obligated to claim that there is no contradiction between God being outside time and God causing effects within time.
      Stardusty,
      As far as I can see, your argument for such a contradiction depends on the premise of physicalism.

      Delete
    28. @ StardustyPsyche,

      [G]od could have created etc, was not my formulation. It was yours. I somehow dropped the opening quotation when I copied your words. You and all can see the missing opening quotation. You decided to stick it back in and present your words as mine. Funny, funny stuff. (😏).

      The rest of your post is a mish mashed response to what I did not actually contend except as a response from _your_ hypothesis. _If_ God made a violation of LNC as something we discovered, you would avoid it. This somehow contradicts Dr. Feser whom you call to cast thunderbolts on me.

      You ignored my model that reconciles your list of things to be reconciled. Please, please please say something interesting and worth responding to and stop joking around.

      😏

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    29. @Tim Finlay,

      Well at least you have a name, unlike other supporters of Stardusty.😏

      Aquinas tells us that articles of faith cannot be known by natural theology. When he says that truth cannot contradict truth he speaks in the context of his faith. He tells us that if we have nothing in common with a skeptic, we have no argument by which to convince him, but we ourselves can say what is wrong because "truth cannot contradict truth" (that is a paraphrase from memory, and Aquinas certainly says it better than I can). Look in the first several questions of the Summa.

      Obviously, then, Aquinas is making a statement in the context of faith, so what he is saying he would hold to be not provable in philosophy or natural theology.

      Aquinas also teaches that God is not categorizable. It follows that we cannot really speak of God at all. Nevertheless, we do. But when you tell me that some human formulation can be poked up into being truly descriptive of God, I demur.

      Sorry.

      😏

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    30. Tim,
      "I find myself in the very strange position of agreeing with Stardusty against you on this point."
      Oh, that's not so bad, you were bound to get at least a little something right eventually :-)

      JK, actually, I am well aware that your position is by far the majority position among apologists of Christianity. That is why I was somewhat surprised when Tom took the opposite stance.

      Of course, Tom just does not understand that his view directly contradicts the view that the the skeptic of the LNC is being foolish.

      Of course, Tom's view necessitates that the skeptic of the LNC is entirely justified in his skepticism of the LNC, in direct contradiction of Feser as illustrated in the OP.

      Maybe you can assist Tom. I have laid out this rather obvious fact in detail several times and Tom just does not comprehend the argument. Perhaps you can find the words to get him to realize that if god created the LNC, and is not bound by the LNC, and can create the real world we live in any way god wishes, then the skeptic of the LNC is entirely justified in his skepticism, and Feser is, in that case, entirely wrong in the OP...all according to Tom, although he is clearly oblivious to the obvious necessities of his position.

      Your position, Tim, makes an omnipotent god incoherent.

      If god is bound to abide by the LNC then the LNC is ontologically prior to god, and god is constrained, god is limited, god lacks the power to break the LNC.

      In that case god is not the ultimate lawgiver, since there is at least 1 law that is ontologically prior to god that god did not create and god is obligated to obey.

      om·nip·o·tent
      /ämˈnipədənt/
      adjective
      (of a deity) having unlimited power; able to do anything.

      If it is said that god is omnipotent within that which is logical one makes the incoherent assertion of a limited unlimited power.

      Else, if one takes Tom's position, that god created logic and is not bound by logic then not only is the skeptic of the LNC entirely justified in that skepticism, but all logical arguments for god become worthless.

      What logical argument for X can be offered if X is not constrained by logic?

      How could Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, or Leibniz possibly use sound logical arguments to prove the existence of god if god is not bound to act in accordance with logic?

      Delete
    31. Tim,
      "As far as I can see, your argument for such a contradiction depends on the premise of physicalism."
      The word "supernatural" is incoherent, violates the LNC. It means an existence beyond all that exists, clearly violating the LNC. That is what "incoherent" means in this context, self contradictory, violating the notion of non-contradiction.

      If god exists then god is a real existent feature of all that really exists, by deffinition. If god is not a real existent feature of existence then god does not exist.

      nature
      noun
      na·​ture ˈnā-chər
      1: the external world in its entirety

      If god is not some thing then god is no thing, nothing. If god is real in any sense then god must be physical in some sense.

      Gaëtan has not chosen to address these issues after misreading my posts repeatedly and falsely attributing to me a variety of positions I clearly do not hold. He did mention a few interesting concepts from modern physics regarding time.

      One is his assertion that a photon does not experience the passage of time. This comes from a naive application of the Lorentz factor, 1/sqrt(1-(v^2/c^2)), which is found in references to time dilation. Unfortunetly, setting v equal to c results in a divide by zero error, an invalid operation which is undefined.

      But, just supposing god is like such a photon, all that means is we don't need god to account for eternal existence of material, since on that view a photon experiences no passage of time, therefore photons could be the eternal necessary beings, and since energy is equivalant to mass, we could say eternal photons gave rise to all the mass we observe in the universe. This is all just pop physics based on taking a naive misuse of a factor to rather fanciful conclusions.

      Gaëtan also brought up entanglement, and rather flippantly used the term "instantaneous" to characterize the conneciton or communications between supposedly entangled particles which are actually a single entity mearly spread out and having disparate oscillating concentrations we call particles. There again, just supposing god is like that, now, then, in that case, god has spatial extent and parts and changes through time.

      The assertion of non-physicalism is incoherent. How could a thing be real if it is not some thing, something? If it is no thing then in what sense do you say nothing is real? So, no thing that is no place over no time in fact, you say, acts upon everything everywhere throughout all time.

      Utter gibberish.

      Delete
    32. @ stardustypsyche,

      You sure use a lot of words to ignore me.

      Leibniz:

      "The mathematical truths which you call eternal have been laid down by God and depend on him no less than the rest of his creatures … In general we can assert that God can do everything that is within our grasp but not that he cannot do what is beyond our grasp … Even truths which ate called eternal - as that 'the whole is greater than its part' - would not be truths if God had not so established" - letter to Marin Mersenne, mathematician best known for discovering the Mersenne prime numbers.

      RG also gets it.

      "all logical arguments for god become worthless."

      So _would_ all logical arguments for not-god. Notice that I wrote _would_, not _do_, because stardusty, as usual goes beyond what I say and ignores what I have actually said. I said that LNC is a human formulation binding human thought and that we cannot understand or even talk about God (here I use a model or an imperfect or improper image of God when I talk of God).

      You cannot understand me because you do not and probably can not even try.

      I expect you to draw a wrong conclusion from the Leibniz quotation.

      Be well, stardusty.

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete

    33. ficino4ml,

      I see that you have tried to interact with Stardusty before.

      I've also read your interaction with Dr. Bonnette on Strange Notions and so, I know that you have a grasp of the position of theists, at least Thomists.

      Do you have anything to say to help Stardusky understand the issues at stake? Or does it not bother you that he's making atheism look ignorant?

      Delete
    34. Stardusty,
      God cannot make round squares or married bachelors or all sorts of things that are logically impossible. This does not undermine God's divinity. Most philosophical atheists have historically conceded that an inability to do the logically impossible is not a real limitation and hence not a good objection to theism.

      Delete
    35. @ StardustyPsyche

      "Utter gibberish"

      What is funniest about you is not that you are an atheist. It is that you think you can prove it. Beginning with that as your premise, it is not surprising, but it is hilariously funny.

      It is where you make your mistake.

      Perhaps reading the LBFD might help you.

      😀

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    36. Tom,
      "So _would_ all logical arguments for not-god."
      Indeed, logic itself would be destroyed if, as you contend, god created logic, and thus, god can violate the LNC at will, and critically, owing to god's omnipotence, god could have built into our real world cases of real violations of the LNC.

      As I have stated previously, but it may bear repeating, I agree with Feser in that affirmatively denying the LNC is incoherent in the manner of affirmatively denying cogito ergo sum. Such denials entail the very thing being denied, rendering them self defeating.

      But not on your account, Tom, because logic itself could not be depended upon if it is possible for god to violate the LNC at will and build such violations into our real world.

      After all, you say "LNC is a human formulation", not that the LNC is ontologically prior to god, or that god is bound to obey the LNC.

      On your view god created logic, the LNC is merely something humans put together, so very clearly, on your view, the skeptic of the LNC is entirely justified in his skepticism, hence you directly contradict Dr. Feser in the OP, albeit unconsciously I think likely.

      Delete
    37. Anonymous February 10, 2023 at 11:26 PM
      "God cannot make round squares or married bachelors or all sorts of things that are logically impossible. This does not undermine God's divinity."
      It rules out god's omnipotence.
      It rules out god as the ultimate law maker.
      If god is bound to obey the Law of Non Contradiction then that law is ontologically prior to god, and there is thus at least one law that is a necessary feature of any and every existent thing including god, and god is thus ruled out as being the creator of all aspects of existence.

      "Most philosophical atheists have historically conceded that an inability to do the logically impossible is not a real limitation"
      If god wished to create a married bachelor he could not, and is thus limited.

      God is limited in other ways as well, for example, god cannot change but I can, so in that respect I am more powerful than god, and so are you.

      In fact there are a great many things god cannot do, making the attribution of omnipotence to god an incoherent assertion.

      If you say god is omnipotent within the confines of being unable to violate logic and being unable to do ordinary human actions then you have stated a limited unlimited god, which is an incoherent statement, a violation of the LNC as described in the OP.

      Delete
    38. @ StardustyPsyche,

      @ StardustyPsyche,

      Albeit unconsciously I think likely, you are just arguing in circles, attempting to cause to be true what you have already assumed. You need to grasp that repeating 'a violation of the LNC as described in the OP' over and over isn't going to work. A stuck record doesn't get anywhere. As I suggested earlier, try some variety instead of making it seem more and more likely that you think your mind runs being itself. If you don't get out of this loop you are in you will make yourself sick.

      Heh.

      Have you checked out the LBFD? You need a copy on your bookshelf.

      "a violation of the LNC as described in the OP"

      Again? Round and round.

      😀

      What better proof that you are trapped in your prior assumptions than your inability to spell God with a capital "G"?

      Funny stuff.

      😀

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    39. So, can the divine essence ride a bike? On the one hand, the divine essence does not seem to be the kind of thing that can perambulate around on a bicycle ( in oppose to the incarnate Son for example ), but on the other hand, if God decided to change to rules of logic this would be no hinderance. So the devine essence could ride a bike after all if it wanted to, according to Tom Cohoe at least.

      Delete
    40. "Can the divine essence ride a bike?"

      Jesus, the divine Son of God, having a fully human nature, could have ridden a bike. To ask whether the divine essence _can_ ride a bike is to ask whether God can again assume an incarnate nature and ride a bike. Having assumed an incarnate nature He certainly has the power to do it again, but who is a skeptic that God should do something to the skeptic's demand? He has done enough already to satisfy any skeptic whose wish to learn truth is more powerful than his wish to "prove" skepticism.

      I suppose a skeptic's mind could ride a bike without his body? If a skeptic cannot do this, how could it be any more than gibberish to ask if the skeptic could ride a bike without his body? The question is self contradictory in the simple logic that God created for we humans to use properly. It violates the LNC of our own human formulation that we discovered and elucidated using the logic that God created for us.

      You, skeptic, have discovered a limitation of your own human thinking, not a limit of God.

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
  17. I always imagine Johnson kicking Berkeley in the shin. Appeal to the shin, if you will.

    ReplyDelete
  18. "And his will accomplishes this by not allowing the intellect to dwell on the incoherence, thereby facilitating its focusing instead on the fact that we can say things like “Perhaps LNC is not true,”

    "would nullify the will’s distraction of the intellect, and force the intellect to see reality."

    So Nietzsche was at least partially right. Will does, at least in some cases, reign supreme.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nietzsche would sure not agree that the will only wins sometimes.

      Delete
  19. "What is space? What is time?..."

    Those are perfectly legitimate questions to ask an ostensible debunker. More especially of any of the ardent "I'm down with science" autistic type flakes one might encounter.

    I'm not sure what the current academic consensus is on the nature of space and time if there is indeed one. I have been told, there is not one.

    But concepts, or conceptual frameworks which were taken for granted in standard physics or kinematics classes at the undergrad level in the 1980s, seem to have become some of the core issues now as physics becomes so abstract and counter-intuitive as to approach metaphyics.

    Does time exist? Is the universe locally real? What is a field "really"?What is the explanation of action at a distance? What does the double slit experiment really demonstrate? Are the laws of the universe consistent throughout? If not, is it a "uni"verse? How many Universes? What is the realty, if any behind the universes? These, are questions every man here has seen posted up on YouTube by, or featuring, top academic cosmologists and physicists on an almost daily basis.

    C. S. Lewis' modest suggestion 70 or so years ago that a revisiting of the question of Gods' relationship to the created world by employing models along the line of Abbott's Flatland, seems extremely reasonable in retrospect.

    The clowish question posed by Starwhatever is simply a dullard's riposte.

    You guys are way too kind to the tar baby goofballs who have migrated to the fringes of this blog.

    I suppose that being Catholics, you impute souls and an eternal human value to them which their own metaphysics does not entail, and by which they do not deserve. Kind of poses a double burden on you doesn't it. Like trying to save a suicidal but very annoying and obnoxious bipolar drowning man.

    Well, if the BVM of various claimed apparitions is right, maybe they are poor sinners rather than the useless and irredeemable miscreants I see them as; and as such they need a hand up, rather than the boot heel to the face kick down, which I'd be inclined to give them.

    But ... then ... there is that whole, 'a nominalist is itself, what a nominalist says" redounding justice business.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "the boot heel to the face kick down, which I'd be inclined to give them."

      Matthew 5:43-44

      Delete
    2. StardustyPsyche on February 5, 2023 at 8:39 PM says,

      'the boot heel to the face kick down, which I'd be inclined to give them.'

      Matthew 5:43-44"

      DNW says,

      "Mark you this, Bassanio, The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly apple rotten at the heart." Merchant
      of Venice, Wm. Shakespeare

      Delete
  20. I think Stardusty is a member of Seal Team Six. There's no telling how many of our enemies he has eliminated. Blogging here is an escape for him; a way to forget all that he does for the country. So, please, don't ask him about his "vices." You wouldn't want to know.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I'm wondering, in modern times,if Hegel represents somone who is anti law of non contricdiction, and if so if he represents the biggest representitive of people who come before and after. I also wonder if this is true, it actually extnds to extremists who are more than willing to bomb people, along with themselves because praxis=logic

    ReplyDelete
  22. WCB

    "Is this merely an expression of frustration with the skeptic?  Or is there an argument here?  Not quite either, I think. "

    It is a reduction ad absurdum. If some metaphysician claims p and ~p are equivalent and meanigful, then applying it to the real world shows that that is nonsense.

    If the metaphysician applies NLC to itself and then claims that demonstrates LNC does is not true and meaningful, then this takes that out of the realm of metaphysical silliness and demonstrates why that is silly.

    In metaphysics, self reference is always problematic. Think of Russell's Paradox and Kurt Godel.

    WCB

    ReplyDelete
  23. Indeed, and not only could such therapeutic means refocus the intellect of those dwelling in a kind of stupor, but it could also work for those in active denial. At least certain species of denial require a good deal of energy and effort to maintain the delicately balanced house of cards needed to maintain the self-deception and obfuscation. Strain, and pain, can draw attention and effort away from the obsessive maintenance of that house of cards, potentially bringing the truth (not necessarily the "objective" truth, but the truth of a belief, for example) in the open.

    This (esp. the first) could be a justification for the prudent application of corporal punishment. Caning an obstinate criminal, for instance, in combination with subsequent spiritual guidance may be a way to help break that obstinacy and open the door to reform. This could be especially justified when the crime itself and considered on its own is proportionate to such a penalty.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Nothing quite so funny as a cynical unbelieving mook deploying scripture. It's done for various aims, but usually as a supposed reproof of some variety.

    Recalls to mind a text I have referred to here at great length before. It's the quasi-comic repartee found in the Vision of Fursey, as the Irish Saint is escorted to heaven by angels ushering him through a gauntlet, or gantlet if you prefer, of howling accusatory demons.

    "Satan ... raised his head again like a serpent .. "Many times," he shrieked, "has this man spoken idle words, and he must not enjoy eternal
    life without expiating his sins."
    "Not so," replied the guardian spirit ; " if you can bring up no capital accusations against him, he shall not perish for venial faults.
    " Then urged the reviler : " If you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your sins."
    " When did He take revenge ?"replied the angel ; "or whom did He ever injure ?"
    "It is not written," said the demon, " that you must not revenge yourself, but If you do not forgive from your heart."
    "Forgiveness was in his heart,"
    answered the angel, "though, yielding somewhat to a human
    custom, he did not outwardly show it."
    Then, persisted Satan : "Since he has contaminated himself with the sinful habits of men, he shall receive sentence from the Supreme Judge." " Be it so," concluded the angel. "He shall be arraigned before the Lord." ...the old serpent's venom was
    not yet exhausted. "If God is a just God, this man shall never enter into eternal life ; for it stands recorded : Unless you be converted and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Fursey has by no means fulfilled this precept."
    "He shall be judged before the Lord," was again the angel's answer. ...

    ... the demon, still according to his
    wont, flew into a passion of impious rage, saying that if God was not unjust, if falsehood and the breaking of promises were really displeasing in His sight, Fursey could not escape condemnation ; for though he engaged to renounce the world, he
    had loved the world, contrary to the precept of the apostle when he said : Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world; he had been deterred neither by his own promise nor by the command of the apostle. To which the angel replied, that
    Fursey valued not the goods of the world for his own advantage, but that he might distribute them to the needy.
    "No matter in what way the riches of the world are prized," insisted the
    the old serpent, "it is against the law of God and contrary to the Christian obligation of baptism."

    Yeah, and so it goes. Not much new with the tactics of the mook, be it Alinsky, one of his like-minded contemporary imps, or the Arch Accuser itself.

    ReplyDelete
  25. BTW I've usually seen people refer to the PNC. Does the move from Principle to Law itself require justification? Or does Law just cash out as Principle?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ficino,
      I have often heard it said by Christian apologists that a law implies a law giver or law maker, thus, the story goes, when we use science to discover a so-called law of nature that implies god as the law giver.

      So, to me, and your mileage may vary, "law" seems stronger than "principle". For example, Occam's Razor is a principle, but certainly not a law, because there are clearly instances where the simpler explanation is wrong and the more complicated explanation is correct.

      Principles seem rather more subject to exceptions, whereas laws are intended to be rigid and unbreakable.

      Yet, our friend Tom above advocates that god created logic including the LNC, and can thus break that law at will because the law is only meant for humans, not for god. Yet, god is said to intervene in the world from time to time in a way that is humanly illogical, so god would have the power, in that case, to impart real violations of the LNC into the real world we live in, making the skeptic of the LNC entirely justified, and thus making Feser wrong in his dismissals of the skeptic of the LNC.

      I prefer "axiom", meaning "provisional postulate". In my view these are assertions that seem incontrovertible, and I am personally convinced of, I can't imagine that they are wrong, I live my life stipulating they are correct, but still, I hold them as provisional because strictly speaking they are unproved.

      My formulation of "axiom" as a "provisional postulate" makes the materialistic world view entirely coherent, that is, completely lacking in self contradiction.

      It is the complex formulation of the Christian god that is so easily shown to be riddled with self contradiction.

      Not every formulation of god must be self contradictory, for example, one could coherently assert that a limited god created the big bang. That simple assertion is not by itself a violation of the LNC, or PNC if you prefer.

      But adding global properties to philosophical positions commonly renders them self defeating. By adding so many omni properties to god the Thomistic god is made easily demonstrable as incoherent.

      When confronted with the obvious fact that the Thomistic god itself violates the LNC the Thomist commonly resorts to stating or perhaps quoting Aquinas about the impossibility of understanding god, that god is beyond human comprehension and we cannot possibly hope to make sense of god.

      In other words, ultimately, the Thomist does not value logic because god is allowed, in the Thomistic mind, to be illogical, to violate the LNC, to not make sense.

      What logical argument can be offered to convince a person who does not value logic?

      Delete
    2. @ StardustyPsyche,

      "What logical argument can be offered to convince a person who does not value logic?"

      Oh, so now Aquinas and Aristotle did not even use logic? Everything they said, including 2+2=2×2, must be thrown out?

      OK, heh.

      "Yet, our friend Tom above advocates that god created logic including the LNC, and can thus break that law at will because the law is only meant for humans, not for god."

      That's not what I said. It's just your interpretation in accordance with your predetermined and apparently stuck position.

      😀

      "I can't imagine that they are wrong"

      You could if you would let yourself.

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    3. @StardustyPsyche
      bmiller

      Thanks for answering and giving this question thought. Maybe the PNC and LNC are simply different names. I am inclined to agree with you, though, that "Law" confers a higher degree of epistemic certainty than does "Principle." Over on Strange Notions, there have been many references to the PNC. On the other hand, one reads of the classical "laws of thought," i.e. non-contradiction, excluded middle and identity. Yet, I don't see why we can't also call these "principles." So perhaps it's just another case of arguing about words.

      When I was a freshman, I asked my philosophy prof about puzzles like, "Can God make a stone so heavy that He can't lift it," etc Prof. N__ replied, this is like asking, can God create a square triangle. The question just shows that the questioner doesn't know what he's talking about. A square triangle is "a materially false idea." So it is incoherent to ask whether God (or any other agent) can create one.

      I don't know how to refute that. So my thought about self-contradictory locutions and God's omnipotence would be that it is false to say that God's inability to create a square triangle is evidence that disconfirms the claim that God is omnipotent. I would think it just false to conjoin "God is omnipotent" and "God can create a square triangle." But that's just what I think. I am not an authority of the sort that some commentators on here present themselves as being.

      I can't follow or comment on all that has been said, but I think you have made at least two important points.

      1. physics shows that if A moves B, A is also somehow moved by B. There is a reciprocal interaction. If I understand this right, I think this scuttles the notion of a hierarchical series of movers ordered per se. On the latter, which is the A-T presentation, a mover "higher" in the series transmits causal power to a moved mover "lower" in the series. As far as I am aware, A-T does not countenance a reciprocal transmission of causal power from the "lower" moved mover back to a mover "higher" in the series. But if that reciprocity is the case, then as you argue, there is no need to posit a first unmoved mover. We can have a system of mutually interacting movers going back into past infinity. And by "move" here I do not mean only "push, pull, or twirl" (cf. Aristotle), but "bring from potency to act."

      2. I agree that the Thomistic doctrine of analogical predication of names of God puts us all in a position of agnosticism, as Anthony Kenny pointed out. I know that many Thomist enthusiasts will disparage Kenny. Still, if a deductive system does not employ terms under a rigidly univocal signification, that system cannot produce a conclusion known to be true with certainty.



      Delete
    4. @ ficino4ml

      If someone picked up a ball and threw it at a second ball, the second ball would move differently than it would have if the thrower had not, as an act of the will, thrown the first ball. Physics does not properly or effectively address the question of free will, only what happens after the first ball is thrown. Your argument from physics must assume that there is no such thing as free will. Without that assumption, the hierarchy of movers stands.

      "there is no need to posit a first unmoved mover"

      "Need" according to whom or what? You only assume that there is no first unmoved mover. This assumption does not disprove the opposite assumption. The opposite assumption is based on faith, "the evidence of things not seen" (letter to the Hebrews), and that is based on the revelation of Jesus.

      "Things not seen" means things not seen to be and not seen not to be, but unknown to our natural understanding from what our senses can teach us without divine revelation.

      I do not see any argument against hylomorphism in your words either, just that your words are assumed to somehow refute it without a case actually being made.

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    5. Adding to my last to SDP and bmiller:

      Two thoughts Re my 1.

      A. A defender of the First and/or Second Way might say that in a series of movers/causes ordered hierarchically per se, there can be "pushback" from a "lower" member of the series upon a "higher" member; the stone applies some resistance to the stick, but the stone's resistance itself is accounted for by appeal to causes higher in the series. I'm not sure that such a reply defends the claim that there must be a first unmoved mover of the whole series, since 1) appeal to the cause of the stone's weight or whatever is to appeal outside the series in question, making appeal to another series; 2) the Ways require that there be no "pushback" upon the first mover/cause, since the Ways make the first mover pure act. Something that is pure act cannot undergo effects. This is stated explicitly by Aquinas in his commentary on the Physics, where he accepts from Aristotle that the first unmoved mover is literally unmoved.

      B. A defender of the Ways may reply that, since all the secondary members of any causal series do not exist as purely actual, they need an act of existence imparted to them by the first mover/cause. But that's to argue against Existential Inertia, and I think that is a different argument. So I won't go into it further here except to suggest that if the Ways depend on an auxiliary premise that denies existential inertia, then we're entitled to require a proof of that denial.

      Delete
    6. @ficino4ml:

      "physics shows that if A moves B, A is also somehow moved by B. There is a reciprocal interaction. If I understand this right, I think this scuttles the notion of a hierarchical series of movers ordered per se. On the latter, which is the A-T presentation, a mover "higher" in the series transmits causal power to a moved mover "lower" in the series. As far as I am aware, A-T does not countenance a reciprocal transmission of causal power from the "lower" moved mover back to a mover "higher" in the series."

      No, you do not understand physics correctly. But even assuming that the resume is essentially correct, this assumes that Newtonian physics gives a complete, accurate account of *all* causal interactions; any Thomist will immediately shout "Question begging!". It is not difficult to see that it has some pretty unsavory, nasty consequences, such as that nothing really ever comes into existence.

      The implicit argument also betrays a misunderstanding in this sense: what is being stated is not that the basic analysis of change as reduction from potency to act is wrong, or that there are no causal chains, or something that actually blocks the argument. What is said is that a causal interaction has this extra feature, namely, that the patient also acts reciprocally in the agent. If the argument works, then it works either a causal chain has many causal links or just one link, meaning only one agent and one patient, and if that is so, why does adding the feature that the patient also influences the agent change anything? Who knows?

      Delete
    7. ficino4ml,

      Regarding 1A

      The First Way is based on the observation that things move and that things do not primarily move themselves. Which of these 2 premises do you think physics refutes in your example?

      I think your example is a case of changing the subject. The subject is that of local motion of objects, not the mutual stress of those objects on each other. Regardless of weight, or "pushback" or whatever, the stick is causing the stone to move while neither can primarily cause themselves to move.

      Regarding 1B

      A defender of the First Way can just say that since none of the links in the causal chain of a mobile in motion can primarily move itself, then each can only move another instrumentally. But the chain of instrumental movers cannot regress to infinity. And recall, that the argument is speaking of a regress of causes of motion, not a regress of infinite time.

      Delete
    8. @grodrigues:
      This part of my post was an attempt to summarize one of the points made by StardustyPsyche: ""physics shows that if A moves B, A is also somehow moved by B. There is a reciprocal interaction." If I have misunderstood SDP or physics, please explicate the appropriate correction. I have said on here several times that I know very little about physics.

      The picture of motion that we get in the First Way and in Aquinas' commentaries on Aristotle, all of which I have read, purports to explain all cases of motion. If Newtonian physics falsifies A-T explanations of SOME causal interactions, then it's enough to problematize the First and Second Way, since they essay to work from a framework that explains all causal interactions.

      I am sorry, I do not grasp the point of your last paragraph.

      Delete
    9. @ ficino4ml,

      "appeal to the cause of the stone's weight or whatever is to appeal outside the series in question, making appeal to another series"

      The stone's weight is not a cause within or without the hierarchy. Weight is not even a property of an object. It is a measure of interaction between an object of the defined hierarchy and another object not of the defined hierarchy. Of course the defined hierarchy is _multiplied_ through such interaction, but it is not multiplied to infinity unless the material universe be infinite and time be unbounded, which, to consider, is a wholly different and very complex can of worms.

      "This is stated explicitly by Aquinas in his commentary on the Physics, where he accepts from Aristotle that the first unmoved mover is literally unmoved."

      Because physics requires objects properly under its formulations to undergo "pushback" to conserve momentum does not prove that an unmoved mover cannot exist. An inability of physics to discover an unmoved mover does not prove that physics has ruled it out unless you first assume that physics discovers everything. This would be mere circular reasoning.

      "then we're entitled to require a proof of that denial"

      Why are you so entitled? OTOH, why would we not be similarly entitled to proofs of your particular denials?

      Tom Cohoe

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    10. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    11. @bmiller

      Re this of yours: "The First Way is based on the observation that things move and that things do not primarily move themselves. Which of these 2 premises do you think physics refutes in your example?"

      As I have said, I am no adept at physics. As far as I can see now, I would ask whether, if you're talking contemporary physics, whether contemporary physics certifies that there are things that do or do not "primarily" move themselves. Is the "primarily" qualifier part of modern physics? If we're talking A-T physics, then AFAIK, nothing "primarily" moves itself. In Platonism at least soul moves itself, but in A-T, not even soul primarily moves itself, as far as I have seen. If I'm wrong about this please supply texts from Aquinas or Aristotle. And I don't mean, supply texts that talk about free will, since that's disputed.

      The issue of pushback is relevant because at the very top of the series, does the first moved thing "push back" against the first unmoved mover? If yes, how does that not entail that the first mover is not pure act? If no, then what happens to Newtonian physics? Has the pushback been proved to be illusory?

      Why should we accept that the chain of movers cannot regress to infinity? Note that I dropped your qualifier, "instrumental." That's because that qualifier is itself contentious, implying the very notion of causal series that is in question.

      Delete
    12. @ficino4ml:

      "If I have misunderstood SDP or physics, please explicate the appropriate correction."

      The Third Law of Newtonian mechanics is violated, even classically (e.g. in scenarios with momentum-carrying fields). The law itself is a consequence of more general conservation laws, like conservation of momentum. Where do these conservation laws come from? Group actions and Noether's theorem. Once you understand this, you understand the kicker: they are, generally speaking, not so much as false but meaningless in GR. More pithily, Newtonian mechanics is false; is shoring up your argument with a false theory an example of understanding physics?

      I could go an extended rant to show that what you think physics says about causal interactions is not really there, or more precisely, it is a matter of metaphysical debate what exactly is going on at the level of elementary, causal interactions, but I will spare you the details.

      "I have said on here several times that I know very little about physics."

      If it matters, not less than the Stardust fellow, I assure you.

      "The picture of motion that we get in the First Way and in Aquinas' commentaries on Aristotle, all of which I have read, purports to explain all cases of motion. If Newtonian physics falsifies A-T explanations of SOME causal interactions, then it's enough to problematize the First and Second Way, since they essay to work from a framework that explains all causal interactions. "

      Right. As a purely logical matter, the First Way does not require such; of course, it then makes it more problematic to justify the causal premises. My point however was that this is begging the question against the Thomist, since it assumes that Physics captures all there is to all causal interactions; and furthermore that this has, fairly obvious, non-sensical consequences.

      "I am sorry, I do not grasp the point of your last paragraph."

      Hmm, I do not know how to make myself clearer. To repeat: you claim, on the basis of the Third Law of Newtonian Mechanics, that every causal interaction has this extra feature, namely that the patient also acts on the agent. How is claiming that all causal interactions have some *extra* feature block the argument?

      Delete
    13. Tom,
      "Oh, so now Aquinas and Aristotle did not even use logic? Everything they said, including 2+2=2×2, must be thrown out?
      OK, heh."
      Strawman.

      You do not value logic, ultimately. You tinker around with grade school logic when it is convenient from time to time.

      But you abandon logic when shown that your beliefs are illogical.

      That is how you, and all Thomists I have yet encountered, do not value logic.

      You believe that some thing that is no thing and no place in no time, acts upon all things every place in the universe over and at all times.

      You believe in something that is nothing.
      You believe in noplace that is everyplace.
      You believe in notime that is alltime.

      You believe that this incoherent something created everything, including logic itself, and can violate logic at will, yet the skeptic of the universality of logic is somehow not justified in that skepticism.

      When confronted with all these incoherent notions you harbor, your psychological escape mechanism is to state that god is not understandable, not knowable, and in some sense humans cannot even properly speak of god.

      Thus, you have explicitly told me in your own words that you have reserved in your thinking a place for a being that simply is illogical, that defies understanding, that human beings cannot possibly understand. For you it is ok to believe that this incoherent imaginary being is the ultimate answer to all the great unsolved riddles of our existence.

      You think that way because you do not value logic.

      I do not think that way because I do value logic.

      Delete
    14. ficino,
      "A square triangle is "a materially false idea." So it is incoherent to ask whether God (or any other agent) can create one.

      I don't know how to refute that."
      A refutation is, that is the very question, is god capable of being incoherent? Does god have the power to make a square triangle? Can god make a real thing both be and not be simultaneously?

      "I would think it just false to conjoin "God is omnipotent" and "God can create a square triangle.""
      Why would that conjoining be false? That is the heart of the question. To be unlimited is to be just that, to have zero limits, to have the power to do literally anything. If one limits that power to doing only things that are coherent then that is a limited unlimited power, itself an incoherent assertion.

      Thus, the assertion of omnipotence is intrinsically incoherent. The assertion requires an incoherency to be the case. If god is omnipotent then self contradiction is a real feature of the universe because god has the unlimited power to act incoherently. If god cannot act incoherently then attributing the term omnipotent to god is made incoherent because that attribution is one of a limited unlimited power.

      ficino-"there is no need to posit a first unmoved mover"

      Tom-"Need" according to whom or what? You only assume that there is no first unmoved mover. This assumption does not disprove the opposite assumption. The opposite assumption is based on faith, "the evidence of things not seen" (letter to the Hebrews), and that is based on the revelation of Jesus."

      Indeed. The First Way is unsound as an argument for the necessity of the first mover based on what is evident to the senses.

      Belief in a first mover is purely a matter of faith, imagination, speculation, and fantasy.

      Aquinas sought to prove the NECESSITY of a first mover based on what is EVIDENT TO THE SENSES. Aquinas failed, so did Aristotle, Feser, and all the rest.

      grod-"It is not difficult to see that it has some pretty unsavory, nasty consequences, such as that nothing really ever comes into existence."
      I find that rather savory indeed, nothing comes into existence or passes out of existence.

      Existential inertia is the observed fact of our universe, expressed in many ways, E=mc^2, matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed only transformed.

      Feser on numerous occasions has posited that absent an unseen sustainer material would simply blink out of existence. That would be a change, a change from something to nothing, which would call for a changer.

      Feser has it back to front.
      Continued existence of an object is no change in its existential aspect, thus no changer is called for.
      Transition from existing to not existing for an object would be a change, calling for a changer.

      Thomism is indeed a strange inversion of logic.

      Delete
    15. bmiller-"The First Way is based on the observation that things move and that things do not primarily move themselves. Which of these 2 premises do you think physics refutes in your example?"
      Physics refutes that there are only these 2 premises.

      Physics makes the First Way logically invalid in that the First Way employs a false dichotomy, the choice between objects not moving themselves and objects being moved by an unmoved first mover.

      The third choice is what physics makes clear.

      Objects move each other.

      For example, an electron alone in space cannot move itself. Two electrons in space can and do move each other.

      "A defender of the First Way can just say that since none of the links in the causal chain of a mobile in motion can primarily move itself, then each can only move another instrumentally. But the chain of instrumental movers cannot regress to infinity. And recall, that the argument is speaking of a regress of causes of motion, not a regress of infinite time."
      Physics refutes that there need be an infinite regress of instrumental movers, rather, there is a fundamentally circular collection of objects in space, each of which are both mover and moved.

      The infinity you seek is in the sense that a circle is infinite, yet finite. Infinite in the sense that a circle has no beginning and no end as one traverses its circumference, finite in that when viewed as a whole the circle is of finite size.

      Motion in the present moment is fundamentally circular in causation. Consider the molecules of air in a sealed jar, continually bouncing off each other in perpetual motion (assuming the air is in thermal equilibrium with the jar). Each collision is net lossless, as of course, the molecules do not slow and fall to the bottom in a pile. The number of molecules is finite. There is no first mover, no last mover, only mutual movers.

      The whole universe is analogous to the jar, and every bit of material in the universe is analogous to the air molecules in the jar. No hierarchical beginning or end for causation, everything is moving, and being moved by, everything else.

      Delete
    16. @ StardustyPsyche,

      "You tinker around with grade school logic when it is convenient from time to time."

      SD, this is a truly empty comment, and it betrays your desperation. It takes the fun out of the exchange that you waste words to make such weak statements.

      😀

      The heart of you problem is that you are trying to prove what you should understand cannot be proven without assuming your conclusion from the beginning, thus you thrash around so disappointingly.

      😀

      "The whole universe is analogous to the jar, and every bit of material in the universe is analogous to the air molecules in the jar."

      Even in Newtonian physics, because of amplification of small differences (like trying to predict where a truck with a train of trailers will end up when moving in reverse, small changes in the steering will not allow prediction of where the train will end up), results, in continuous space, an infinite variation in the position of the molecules in the jar. Going to QM, the probability is smeared out so that the detected position of a molecule is the same everywhere. The nulls are gone. Yet wavelength still has meaning. It is just no longer measurable and is beyond the reach of science because of the intractable uncertainty of QM.

      "Physics refutes that there need be an infinite regress of instrumental movers"

      Physics does not refute this, except in circular reasoning where "there need" means "according to predetermined assumptions".

      "Belief in a first mover is purely a matter of faith, imagination, speculation, and fantasy"

      Well I guess if these things are ruled out in your premises, then I guess it is so, but … circularity is again in operation.

      "Indeed"

      Physics, which seeks simplicity, cannot, in its rules, compress things even to the simplicity of an unbiased random sequence, which is just an imperfect image of God. God is above our understanding.

      "because god [would have] the unlimited power to act incoherently"

      His act is above your comprehension. You might say with no less sense that God is uncouth because he doesn't wear a shirt and tie according to your prescription.

      😏

      "In some sense [you state] humans cannot even properly speak of god.

      That's because it's true. Since you cannot handle that, your arguments fall flat.

      😏

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
  26. This may be helpful in this discussion.

    It is from St. Thomas' commentary on Physics Chapter 5

    Book 8 builds on previous arguments, but the focus here is on "movers that move". Basically the argument is that things extended in space are either moved by other things or move themselves in some way (but not primarily). For something extended in space to move itself must mean that part of it (the moveant) moves the other part(s) of the whole.

    Hence it remains that these two parts must be joined by contact: either by both parts touching one another, if they have magnitude; or by just one of the parts touching the other and not vice versa, which will be the case if the mover has no magnitude. For what is incorporeal can indeed touch a body by means of its power and so move it, but it is not touched in turn by the body; two bodies, however, touch each other.

    Give it a read. It answers why "pushback" does not affect something incorporeal, be it a soul or God.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Stardusty,

    Physics refutes that there are only these 2 premises.

    Nothing you wrote refutes these 2 premises. But if you add premises to an argument you are inventing a different argument.

    The third choice is what physics makes clear.

    Objects move each other.


    "The hand moves the stick that moves the stone." It seems that was covered.

    Aside from the fact that your examples are separate motions of various non-contigous objects rather than a single motion of a single mobile, it seems that you are essentially claiming that the second premise is false. If A moves B which moves C which moves A and none can primarily move themselves, then B and C are non essential and A actually does move itself. So A both cannot move itself and does move itself which is a contradiction.

    So it seems that you are arguing that inanimate objects move themselves? If so, then has anyone observed them start or stop themselves without being moved by something else?

    ReplyDelete
  28. ficino4ml,

    Sorry. I wrote the "pushback" response before I read your reply. So let me reply to the rest of your post.

    Newtonian and modern physics assume that things only move according to what A-T would term violently or naturally. They concentrate on "simple bodies", not animal or human movement which are included in Aristotle's concept of physics.

    If I'm wrong about this please supply texts from Aquinas or Aristotle. And I don't mean, supply texts that talk about free will, since that's disputed.

    [10] It is to be noted, however, that Plato, who held that every mover is moved [ Phaedrus ], understood the name motion in a wider sense than did Aristotle. For Aristotle understood motion strictly, according as it is the act of what exists in potency inasmuch as it is such. So understood, motion belongs only to divisible bodies, as it is proved in the Physics [VI, 4]. According to Plato, however, that which moves itself is not a body. Plato understood by motion any given operation, so that to understand and to judge are a kind of motion. Aristotle likewise touches upon this manner of speaking in the De anima [III, 7]. Plato accordingly said that the first mover moves himself because he knows himself and wills or loves himself. In a way, this is not opposed to the reasons of Aristotle. There is no difference between reaching a first being that moves himself, as understood by Plato, and reaching a first being that is absolutely unmoved, as understood by Aristotle.

    SCG: 13-10.

    ReplyDelete
  29. @bmiller: thanks for the quotation from In Phys. I read that and other commentaries of Aquinas on Aristotle some years ago and took extensive notes. I am fully capable of forgetting and/or just not getting it, but what you quote accords with what I read, and just reread this morning. I'd say Aquinas' position is clear, but it undertakes to explain obscurum per obscurius, in my opinion. What do we know from physics about movers that are genuinely incorporeal? If they are such, they can't be observed at all, no?

    ReplyDelete
  30. @grodrigues

    You wrote: "How is claiming that all causal interactions have some *extra* feature block the argument?"

    The Ways require that the first unmoved mover/uncaused cause is pure act. So if some thing acts in return in any way on the FUM/FUC, then the FUM/FUC undergoes an effect and is not pure act.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @ficino4ml:

      "The Ways require that the first unmoved mover/uncaused cause is pure act. So if some thing acts in return in any way on the FUM/FUC, then the FUM/FUC undergoes an effect and is not pure act. "

      I'm sorry, but this is just silly. First the First Way does not "require" any such thing, rather it is a conclusion of the argument. More to the point, this is like saying, "the argument concludes to an unmoved mover, but since all the links in the series are instrumental causes therefore the unmoved mover is also an instrumental cause". Not only a non-sequitur, but it misunderstands why exactly the argument concludes with an unmoved mover.

      If the argument works, it works whether the patient also acts reciprocally on the agent in each causal link or not.

      Delete
    2. grodrigues,
      ficino4ml,

      If the argument works, it works whether the patient also acts reciprocally on the agent in each causal link or not.

      Yes, that's why I was wondering why there was a question about how what was happening in the links had something to do with the argument. The whole point of the argument is to show that there has to be something different than each of the links at work to make the mobile move.

      Delete
    3. @grodrigues: I am wondering, are you a native speaker of English? I think there are disconnects in what we have written back and forth. E.g. on the word, "requires."

      Delete
    4. @ficino4ml:

      "I think there are disconnects in what we have written back and forth. E.g. on the word, "requires.""

      So you did not use "requirement" in the logical sense, like a premise, as I took you to mean. My bad, then.

      Since you have not made a peep about any of my points, I take it that we can put this to rest.

      Delete
    5. grod,
      "it misunderstands why exactly the argument concludes with an unmoved mover."
      The First Way concludes with an unmoved mover because the argument employs invalid logic and false premises.

      The logical fallacies employed by the First Way include:
      Begging the question-"But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover". The assertion that there must be a first mover is used as a premise in the argument for a first mover.

      False dichotomy-"Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another", as opposed to nothing being put in motion. This neglects the third choice, that objects put each other in motion.

      False premises include:
      "It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself."
      Here are some things that move themselves, and recall, Aquinas is using as examples objects such as wood, the human hand, a staff, and complex large scale multipart processes such as fire and heat:
      You.
      Aquinas.
      Amoeba.
      Star.
      Rocket.
      And so forth with a vast number of objects that do, in point of very obvious fact, move themselves.

      At base objects move themselves because their parts move each other.

      "seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover"
      Objects move each other. Causation of motion is fundamentally circular, not hierarchical and linear.

      Aquinas assumes that for motion to occur at all there must be a fundamentally linear chain of objects that are moved by another object and in turn move some other object.

      In fact modern physics describes how objects move each other. Perhaps most obviously in the mutual attraction of gravity. Also fairly apparent to most is electrostatic attraction and repulsion, which is formulated as mutual motions and mutual forces upon objects.

      Delete
  31. ficino4ml,

    Finally this:

    Why should we accept that the chain of movers cannot regress to infinity? Note that I dropped your qualifier, "instrumental." That's because that qualifier is itself contentious, implying the very notion of causal series that is in question.

    St. Thomas gives the reasons starting at SCG 13:11. I think people sometimes forget that the example is a single mobile (which consists of parts) doing a single movement. If we keep that in mind, then each of these things or parts must be moving as part of that mobile and each must be occupying space, and each must be pushing the next member. It would require infinite movement in a finite time which is impossible. Here's an explanation with figures

    I wonder why you would drop "instrumental"? A moves B moves C moves D Why wouldn't B and C be considered instrumental in moving D? Is the contention that they are moving themselves?

    ReplyDelete
  32. What do we know from physics about movers that are genuinely incorporeal? If they are such, they can't be observed at all, no?

    That was my point above. Newtonian and modern physics don't study the question of immateriality at all. It is outside their scope of competence, so it is hardly a strike against A-T that A-T does study something that modern physics is not equipped to study.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From what you say, I am left puzzled why Prof. Feser and others bring quantum mechanics and maybe the theory of relativity onto this board. All the advances made by physicists seem irrelevant, if our questions are purely metaphysical and not scientific. And if we're talking about series of movers, the ruling movers of which are immaterial, then we are no longer within the scope of science. I don't see how anything posited by physicists can be useful, if physicists deal with what can at least in principle be subject to experimental confirmation, while theses about immaterial movers cannot be so. Shouldn't we just rule all talk of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity and particle physics etc out of court at the outset?

      Delete
    2. @ ficino4ml,

      "All the advances made by physicists seem irrelevant, if our questions are purely metaphysical and not scientific [...] Shouldn't we just rule all talk of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity and particle physics etc out of court at the outset?"

      The talk about QM etcetera is about how the metaphysics is connected to the world of our senses, i.e., the world of physics and other sciences of measurement.

      If you rule out such talk, that is just disengagement.

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    3. ficino4ml,

      Shouldn't we just rule all talk of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity and particle physics etc out of court at the outset?

      I won't speak for Ed, but I doubt he would be motivated to post these types of articles if physicists (both experts and those not expert) stayed in their purported lane.

      It's the "science proves that God does not exist" claim that is being scrutinized. That is a metaphysical claim (in the modern sense) and so the topic in this case is not merely modern physics.

      If you want to look back at history and the "scientific method", Francis Bacon comes to mind. He was aware of Aristotle's 4 causes but he thought that the formal and final causes should be catagorized differently than the material and efficient causes. His goal was to improve mankind's material prosperity and knowledge of the working of the material world and the formal and final causes were (he thought) irrelevant to his goals. So he classified study of the material and efficient causes as proper subject matter for physics but the formal and final causes were subject matter for metaphysics. I wish he would have invented new terms instead of using "physics" and "metaphysics" which were already in use by the Scholastics.

      Perhaps people cannot help themselves from doing metaphysics.

      Delete
  33. "So it seems that you are arguing that inanimate objects move themselves?"
    Objects move each other.

    One expression of this is the popular expression, which is a simplification, "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction".

    Considering objects as a whole examples abound. Obviously single cell organisms and multi cell organisms move themselves as their parts move each other and mutually move material in the surrounding environment.

    A star moves itself.

    A rocket moves itself.

    A crystal moves itself.

    That is because subatomic particles move each other.

    Your hierarchical analysis of motion is superficial, archaic, and long ago scientifically replaced with mutual causation.

    "It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself."
    This is a false statement, examples above.

    "If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover;"
    Begging the question by using the first mover in a premise to argue for the first mover.

    "seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover"
    False dichotomy.

    There is a 3rd choice which the whole of physics supports, mutual causation.

    At base objects move each other in causation that is fundamentally circular, not hierarchical.

    "If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity"
    False dichotomy.

    There is an alternative to going on to infinity. Rather than regressing hierarchically to infinity motion is fundamentally circular with each thing moving each other.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @ StardustyPsyche,

      "Your hierarchical analysis of motion is superficial, archaic, and long ago scientifically replaced with mutual causation."

      Not where free will exists, but you will not be able to understand a free will that depends on amplification from superposition of random (the key and simple concept) neural firings, although they have been known to occur in the brain for quite a while. Aquinas actually adumbrated the conservation of momentum in the ST. The hierarchy is the hierarchy of choice, which is short. Your assumption that there is no such thing is just that - an assumption. It is not supported by "the whole of physics".

      Open your mind to possibility that you willfully prevent yourself from considering.

      😏

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    2. Stardusty,

      It's hard to tell from your response to me, but it looks like you are answering in the affirmative that inanimate objects move themselves primarily. Is that correct?

      Delete
    3. Tom,
      I consider your responses akin to the effects of THC on thoughts and utterances. Chaotic firings of disjointed ideas that somehow seem profound to the speaker.

      Wolfgang Pauli is generally credited with coining the phrase "not even wrong", meaning so incomplete and scattered and incoherent that the utterances do not even rise to the level of a coherent argument, albeit a wrong one.

      Physics is formulated as mutual causation, perhaps most obviously in the case of electrostatic forces (attraction and repulsion of positively and negatively charged objects) and gravitational forces (attraction of massive objects).

      Free will is irrelevant to the repulsion of two electrons, the attraction of massive objects, and the other forces described by modern physics.

      Your "key and simple concept" of "random" would be a violation of the PSR, because intrinsic randomness is the nonsensical notion that at base events happen for no reason at all, by no cause, by no mechanism, much less a sufficient reason.

      The idea that the root of free will is events occurring for no reason, is incoherent, that is, a violation of the LNC.

      At least Tim has enough sense to realize that god must be bound to obey the LNC, although, of course, that makes the assertion that god is omnipotent, incoherent, meaning, itself a violation of the LNC.

      Delete
    4. @ StardustyPsyche,

      "I consider your responses akin to the effects of THC on thoughts and utterances. Chaotic firings of disjointed ideas that somehow seem profound to the speaker."

      Keep your cool.

      😏

      "Wolfgang Pauli is generally credited with coining the phrase "not even wrong", meaning so incomplete and scattered and incoherent that the utterances do not even rise to the level of a coherent argument, albeit a wrong one."

      Good for him, but not even relevant.

      "Your "key and simple concept" of "random" would be a violation of the PSR, because intrinsic randomness is the nonsensical notion that at base events happen for no reason at all, by no cause, by no mechanism, much less a sufficient reason."

      You can't define your way out of this. I defined "random" physically for my meaning, using the results of interference experiments to get a rule free and simple random sequence (when the particle falls on the left side of the detector screen, it's a 0 - right side is a 1). You are saying, then, that physical "events happen for no reason at all".

      Your claim, then, would be a violation of your own PSR hypothesis. But this is good news for you because it leads you nearer to the Truth. You are very fortunate here, because for you, losing is winning.

      👍

      "The idea that the root of free will is events occurring for no reason, is incoherent, that is, a violation of the LNC."

      Funny, funny, funny.

      😀

      You'll have to get over your idea that you can't be wrong. Imagine that!

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    5. bmiller
      "it looks like you are answering in the affirmative that inanimate objects move themselves primarily. Is that correct?"
      You have introduced the word "primarily".

      By "primarily" I think you probably mean something like "at base", or "fundamentally", or something like that.

      The First Way is an attempt to use logic applied to what is evident to the senses to prove the necessity of a first unmoved mover.

      The examples Aquinas uses are large scale complex objects and processes composed of many parts such as wood, fire, heat, a human hand, and a staff.

      At the scale of objects and processes employed by Aquinas there are vast numbers of examples of objects that move themselves, such as you, Aquinas, single celled organisms, a rocket, a star, and on and on.

      So, while citing objects on the scale of the human hand and staff Aquinas made a gross error in claiming that objects do not move themselves, obviously, many examples clearly demonstrate his error.

      But, supposing we update the argument a bit with some basic knowledge of subatomic motion, for example:
      A single electron, alone in space, cannot move itself.
      Two electrons, can and do move each other.

      That is how objects move, "primarily", by moving each other. That is how you move yourself, because your parts move each other.

      So one arrives at 3 choices.
      1.Motion is impossible (Parmenides).
      2.Objects are moved by other objects in a linear hierarchical regress of causation to infinity absent a first mover (Aristotle).
      3.Objects move each other in a circular regress of causation that is unending in the sense of a circle having no beginning or end around its circumference, but finite in the sense of a circle being finite in overall size (modern science).

      To be both mover and moved is not a violation of the LNC, it is how physics is presently formulated "primarily".




      Delete
    6. Stardusty,

      I used "primarily" because that is the distinction that Aristotle uses to explain how nothing extended in space can really be said to move itself:

      This chapter in the Summa Contrary Gentiles has all of defenses of the premises:

      https://isidore.co/aquinas/ContraGentiles1.htm#13

      Here is one of the defenses:

      The first of these propositions Aristotle proves in three ways. The first way is as follows. If something moves itself, it must have within itself the principle of its own motion; otherwise, it is clearly moved by another. Furthermore, it must be primarily moved. This means that it must be moved by reason of itself, and not by reason of a part of itself, as happens when an animal is moved by the motion of its foot. For, in this sense, a whole would not be moved by itself, but a part, and one part would be moved by another. It is also necessary that a self-moving being be divisible and have parts, since, as it is proved in the Physics [VI, 4], whatever is moved is divisible.

      The conclusion is that nothing that is extended in space can move itself by reason of itself.

      A single electron, alone in space, cannot move itself.
      Two electrons, can and do move each other.


      First, where did the second electron come from?
      Second, can either of these 2 electrons separately or together decide to stop or start their own motion? If not, then their motion is compelled and they are not moving themselves primarily.

      Delete
    7. @ StardustyPsyche,

      If the particle is detected on the left it is a 0. On the right, a 1. I can write down the numbers as they come from the detector. The very movements of my hand are random according to the formal principles of quantum mechanics. You have a lot to learn about how Planck scale action is amplified into large scale action. The science of physics says that you don't know what you are talking about.

      I can throw a baseball at a second baseball if it is a 0, and refrain if it is a 1. The baseball's motion is randomly determined.

      Your oft repeated litany does not fix this.

      😀

      The free will of individuals can be modelled as subsequences of the random sequence that is the imperfect image of God. Our freedom is also simpler than what the sciences of measurement can discover. I have previously alluded to random neural discharges. You need to start to process this if you want to progress from the fixed nail of your current attitude.

      It is funny that you hold that if Aristotle made a mistake, the Catholic Church falls. You have failed to show him in error, but I am sure he made mistakes. By your "rule", applied to yourself, since you have made a mistake, you fall. Admit it. By science established with formal rules almost 100 years ago, there is randomness in the world.

      You scorned the idea, so your mistake is.a big mistake

      😏

      Science has demonstrated that things happen which science cannot explain. It's time to stop misleading people with your failed conviction.

      It is self contradictory. 😀

      We can name the true explanation at the root of things"the supernatural". Quantum mechanics demonstrates it. I call what the sciences of measurement cannot explain, "the supernatural".

      Escape from the prison of your fixed mind.

      The prayers still stand.

      😏

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    8. bmiller,
      "The conclusion is that nothing that is extended in space can move itself by reason of itself."
      Let's look a bit more closely at how that conclusion was reached.

      "If something moves itself, it must have within itself the principle of its own motion;"
      Tautologically true, not informative or analytically helpful.

      Yes, if something can move itself there must be an aspect of that thing that causes it to move itself, circular, but true.

      "This means that it must be moved by reason of itself, and not by reason of a part of itself,"
      Why? A rocket moves itself, but not because of every part of the rocket, rather, because of a process described by the principle of equal and opposite reactions. Why can't a part of an extended object provide the motive force to move the whole object?

      A battery powered car moves itself, but the bumpers are only moved, they do not propel the vehicle.

      That premise, or perhaps it was a conclusion of a larger argument, is demonstrably false.

      "First, where did the second electron come from?"
      That is a temporal question that leads ultimately to arguments such as the Kalam cosmological argument, which is irrelevant to the First Way.

      "It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion."
      Aquinas begins with the stipulation that things (plural) are presently in motion. That is an observed present fact, and a rather good starting point in my view.

      But where the second electron came from is irrelevant to the First Way. Aquinas stipulates that in the present moment there in fact are objects presently in motion, and presently in proximity to each other.

      "Second, can either of these 2 electrons separately or together decide to stop or start their own motion? If not, then their motion is compelled and they are not moving themselves primarily."
      Indeed, they are moving each other primarily.

      That is why the First Way is logically invalid, it suffers from a false dichotomy, which you persist in invalidly repeating in various forms, implicitly and explicitly.

      Aquinas presents a choice between 2 possibilities.
      1.A fundamental object in free space moves itself (changes its own motion) through space.
      2.A first mover moves a fundamental object through space.

      Given those two options, and the clear fact that a fundamental object completely alone in space cannot move itself (change its own motion), Aquinas concludes that a first mover is necessary.

      That conclusion turns out to be logically invalid, because there is a 3rd possibility.
      3.Two fundamental objects in free space can move each other (change each other's motion) through space.

      It is this 3rd possibility that turns out to be the case, according to the formulations of modern physics, such as gravity, the electrostatic force, and all the rest.

      Modern physics shows that the First Way is logically invalid due to its use of a false dichotomy, and therefore the conclusion of the first way, that a first mover is necessary based on the observation of motion, is proven logically invalid and therefore unsound.

      Delete
    9. @ StardustyPsyche,

      It is not hard to interpret the First Way to mean something that Aquinas never meant. Elsewhere, Aquinas makes clear that it cannot be proven that the created world does not extend into the infinite past. Your interpretation therefore makes no attempt to address what Aquinas is actually saying in the First Way. You have posted a strawman and this is because you assume what you want to conclude and refuse to try to understand that you could be wrong, a rather amusing arrogance.

      😏

      I showed how physics gives a way to create a series of random numbers and demonstrated the immense amplification that occurs when the 0 or 1 generated by the motion of a _single_ particle causes my hand to move one way or another, involving my mind and will in doing this. The series generated by objects that so move themselves choosing to move another is short and ends in an unmoved First Mover.

      Every time the randomness specified by physics in every interaction is settled, the way the particle's position hitting the detector screen is settled as in the 0 position or the 1 position, an agent that, by its will, can move another is involved. It is a short series to the will of the unmoved mover. Human persons can be involved in this series, but usually are not.

      I know that you understand this but slip away from processing it through your refusal to contemplate it. As I said, it is easy to interpret, the wrong way, things you don't want to consider.

      😏

      You are also incorrect in what you have to say about bmiller's comment on Aristotle, but I am going to say nothing about that.

      Teaching and misleading are two different things. What you are doing on this site is the second. That's not a good thing.

      😉

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    10. f neither one separately nor both together cannot stop their motion then something else is moving them. Things that move themselves can stop themselves.

      Delete
    11. "Things that move themselves can stop themselves."
      You stop yourself.
      A self drive card stops itself.
      A rocket stops itself (just turn around and retrofire).

      Yes, things that move themselves do also stop themselves. Obvious examples of objects that in fact do what you and Aquinas claim cannot be done abound.

      Every object in the universe is both mover and moved, for example, by gravity.

      F1 = F2 = G(m1 * m2)/r^2

      The force acting on m1 is equal to the force acting on m2 which is equal to the gravitational constant times m1 times m2 divided by the distance squared.

      m1 and m2 are both mover and moved.

      The causal chain of motion between m1 and m2 is fundamentally, logically, circular. What moved m1? m2. What moved m2? m1. Therefore:
      m1 does not have the power to move itself if alone in space.
      m2 does not have the power to move itself if alone in space.
      m1 can move itself and m2 if both exist in space.
      m2 can move itself and m1 if both exist in space.

      That is how physics is formulated, as mutual attractions and repulsions wherein objects are both mover and moved.

      "It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved,"
      Aquinas was simply wrong. This is an observationally false statement.

      Extended objects do in fact move themselves.

      The reason extended objects move themselves is that their parts move each other.

      Delete
    12. Tom,
      "Elsewhere, Aquinas makes clear that it cannot be proven that the created world does not extend into the infinite past."
      Yes, of course. Thomism 101.

      "Your interpretation therefore makes no attempt to address what Aquinas is actually saying in the First Way. You have posted a strawman"
      You just did not read, with understanding, what I wrote. If you wish to give it another go, then read February 19, 2023 at 8:03 PM, carefully, think about each point, carefully.

      I am the one who pointed out to bmiller that the temporal question leads to such arguments as the Kalam cosmological arguments, which are irrelevant to the First Way.

      "a rather amusing arrogance."
      I suggest watching the classic scene of Nick Nolte's character in Lorenzo's Oil, with regard to accusations of arrogance.

      I have studied the First Way in great detail, and I have written essays detailing errors of Carrasquillo in his translation of the First Way to syllogistic format and then to symbolic format.
      iteadthomam.blogspot.com/2011/01/first-way-in-syllogistic-form.html
      (Feser lists this resource in the right column here)

      I have studied the Aristotelian physics that is the basis of the First Way, and have identified errors of Aristotle that account for the errors of Aquinas.

      I have also uncovered and posted here the little known aspects of Aristotelian physics wherein Aristotle got very close to Newtonian inertial motion, but did not embrace and develop the key insight he had.

      I know far more than anybody else on this blog, including Dr. Feser, with respect to the First Way, because I have taken the time to study in depth not only the linguistic and logical structure of the argument, but where its fundamental misconceptions are embedded.

      Once you study all these things you will also have the tools to understand that the First Way employs false premises and invalid logic.

      If you wish to educate yourself in some of the more obvious false statements Aquinas made you can start at February 19, 2023 at 8:03 PM above.


      Delete
    13. @ StardustyPsyche,

      Your comment is as it always is, that you are an expert, a fit teacher, an authority and are therefore correct. That is not a good basis for convincing others not willing to accept these things about you that they are wrong about something.

      Decisions are made at every point in space and time as to the evolution of things toward the future, because the formalism of quantum mechanics specifies that the future cannot be predicted, and I showed you how amplification works. You have not dealt with this because you willfully will not understand it.

      The First Way fits this perfectly unless you preconceive that it is false and search for ways to misinterpret it, an easy thing to do with words about ideas.

      😏

      That extended things cannot cannot move themselves refers to indivisible things, not something with parts. The argument perfectly reflects in analogy why waves and point position as a description of the same particle generates so much confusion among physicists today. It is also probably the reason why Newton argued that light is corpuscular - because his laws of motion actually apply at points.

      Scientists, from Aristotle and before to the present day have been dealing with these issues which you ignore through misinterpretation through preconception.

      😀

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    14. Stardusty,


      Yes, things that move themselves do also stop themselves. Obvious examples of objects that in fact do what you and Aquinas claim cannot be done abound.

      Please read my post again:

      If neither one separately nor both together cannot stop their motion then something else is moving them. Things that move themselves can stop themselves.

      Things that can't start or stop themselves cannot be said to move themselves.

      Yes I can move myself and stop myself. I can also move electrons closer to each other or farther apart (which is why I asked you how the second electron got there) which electrons cannot do themselves. It is characteristic of inanimate objects that they cannot move themselves but of animate objects that they can. The 4 forces of physics that describe the movement of inanimate objects are not the inanimate objects themselves.

      Delete
    15. bmiller,
      "It is characteristic of inanimate objects that they cannot move themselves"
      A star moves itself, just look at astronomical movies of the sun.

      A rocket moves itself.

      A crystal moves itself.

      A battery operated clock moves itself.

      A self drive car moves itself.

      And on and on and on. Obviously, by point of observational fact, inanimate objects move themselves.

      " It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself."
      Aquinas was wrong.

      "It is certain, and evident to our senses," that Aquinas was wrong. Inanimate objects do, as a matter of what is evident to our senses, move themselves.

      The First Way fails, it is unsound due to its use of false premises, and due to its invalid logic.

      Delete
    16. Tom,
      "That extended things cannot cannot move themselves refers to indivisible things"
      In modern physics, at present, an electron is considered to be an individual indivisible thing.

      Electrons move each other.

      That is a reason the First Way suffers from the logical fallacy (invalid logic) of false dichotomy.

      Aristotle, Aquinas, Feser, you, and other Thomists were and are all wrong in that respect, in thinking that either an object such as an electron must move itself, or it must be moved by an unmoved first mover. That is your invalid logic, your false dichotomy.

      Modern physics tells us there is a third choice, mutual change. Two electrons move each other, invalidating the false dichotomy of Aristotle, Aquinas, Feser, you, and all the other Thomists who lack understanding this obvious fact that is "It is certain, and evident to our senses,"

      Now, it cannot be the case that you and Feser are, in general, stupid. You have the proven ability to use a device to connect to the internet and write intelligible sentences. Dr. Feser is a successful and respected community college teacher. There must be some other explanation as to how you folks remain persistently oblivious to this obvious scientific fact that has been formulated in various ways since Newton, some four hundred years ago.

      A single indivisible object alone in space cannot move itself, that is true. One speculative logical alternative is that there is some unseen magical being nudging everything in the universe along moment to moment, ok, fine, you can make that speculation if you wish. That makes your dichotomy.

      Is that dichotomy true, that is, is it necessarily the case that either an electron moves itself or god moves it?

      Modern physics says there is a third way of motion, mutual attraction and repulsion.

      Are you familiar with the formulations of gravity, the electrostatic force, or possibly the other forces? That is how they are formulated. Objects that cannot move themselves do not require an unseen being to move them, rather, they can move each other.

      Delete
    17. Stardusty,

      The ability to distinction between animate and inanimate objects seems to be part of human nature. Even infants do it.

      I don't think there are people who seriously doubt it. If they were serious, they would fear that rocks would spontaneously hurl themselves at their head or that there was no danger of getting within striking distance of poisonous snakes. Those people would either be locked up for their own safety or dead.

      Different things are moved according to their nature. Electrons have a negative charge and so are always moved away from other electrons according to Coulomb's law but are always moved toward protons since protons have a positive charge. I, however, can move toward or away from both of them or not. I can start my motion or stop my motion without anyone necessarily being able to predict where my motion is going. That is one difference between animate and inanimate objects, and one the infants can and do understand.

      Delete
    18. @ StardustyPsyche,

      You are down to just repeating yourself, having proven nothing except your preconceptions.

      😀

      "some unseen magical being nudging everything in the universe along moment to moment"

      Calling it "magical" does not make an argument against the fact that something makes the moment to moment choices that select which branch of the divergent tree that quantum mechanics predicts becomes the actual particular present. This "something" we call God, or an agent of God. The free will of persons is another matter.

      Become well.

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
  34. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  35. @Tom Cohoe: can the future be predicted?

    @bmiller: do animate substances move themselves without being moved, with respect to the given motion, by the First Unmoved Mover? Or is the First Unmoved Mover the first mover of the motions of animate substances?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @ ficino4ml,

      "Can the future be predicted"

      To the best of my ability to understand, not by science. This apparently terrible truth would be the basis of an actually glorious and hopeful truth, the evidence and substance of our faith.

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    2. ficino4ml,

      Thanks for following the discussion.

      According to A, animate objects move themselves by their parts but the one of the part starting it all must be at rest and also be without parts. The part at rest is at rest wrt the whole while the whole moves. Like someone on a ship is at rest wrt the ship which itself is moving across the water. It's really a well developed system that depends on time, space and objects moving in space be continua. Something that modern physics takes for granted, most likely because of A's influence.

      Wanted to get that out there since it doesn't look like we won't get that far in the other discussion.

      Now specifically regarding your question St Thomas provides 3 arguments in the SCG, Ch13 7-10.

      This is the second argument:

      [8] In the second way, Aristotle proves the proposition by induction [ Physics VIII, 4]. Whatever is moved by accident is not moved by itself, since it is moved upon the motion of another. So, too, as is evident, what is moved by violence is not moved by itself. Nor are those beings moved by themselves that are moved by their nature as being moved from within; such is the case with animals, which evidently are moved by the soul. Nor, again, is this true of those beings, such as heavy and light bodies, which are moved through nature. For such beings are moved by the generating cause and the cause removing impediments. Now, whatever is moved is moved through itself or by accident. If it is moved through itself, then it is moved either violently or by nature; if by nature, then either through itself, as the animal, or not through itself, as heavy and light bodies. Therefore, everything that is moved is moved by another.

      So animate things move themselves in any particular local motion according to their nature, but they are not the primary cause of their own nature. Similarly, inanimate things move toward each other or away from each other according to their nature, but are also not the primary cause of their nature.

      Delete
    3. bmiller,
      "According to A, animate objects move themselves by their parts but the one of the part starting it all must be at rest and also be without parts."
      Indeed, that is the false assumption, the false dichotomy, of Aquinas.

      The observed facts of physics indicates that there are parts (plural) starting it all, and while those parts are indeed without parts they are not at rest, rather, they move with respect to each other. That is the key third alternative that turns out to in fact be the observed case of physics, and that makes the First Way based on invalid logic, a false dichotomy.

      "Something that modern physics takes for granted, most likely because of A's influence."
      You just made that up out of your imagination. What formula of physics takes that, "the one of the part starting it all must be at rest", for granted?
      F1 = F2 = G(m1 * m2)/r^2
      Neither m1 or m2 are at rest, rather, they move each other, with F1 accelerating m1 and F2 accelerating m2. The whole of physics is formulated in this manner. Have you ever taken a physics course? If not, that's fine, there are many resources available on line. Just look up the gravitational force equation, or the electrostatic force equation.

      There are many physics animations available, on youtube or wherever. Combining the animations with the force formulas you can gain understanding of how mutual motion is formulated in modern physics, and how there is nothing in modern physics that posits "the part starting it all must be at rest".

      That is the key error of Aristotle, Aquinas, Feser, you, and Thomists in general. Once you realize you are all wrong about "the part starting it all must be at rest" you can truly understand the most important aspect of the First Way, it fails utterly.

      "Whatever is moved by accident is not moved by itself, since it is moved upon the motion of another. So, too, as is evident, what is moved by violence is not moved by itself."
      At base, objects move each other.

      "animals, which evidently are moved by the soul."
      There is no evidence that animals are moved by the soul. The soul is an imaginary entity which is not evident to the senses, or even the most sensitive modern scientific instruments.

      Do you suppose that a rocket is moved by its rocket soul?

      "Now, whatever is moved is moved through itself or by accident. If it is moved through itself, then it is moved either violently or by nature; if by nature, then either through itself, as the animal, or not through itself, as heavy and light bodies. Therefore, everything that is moved is moved by another."
      Again the false dichotomy, neglecting the case of mutual motion wherein, at base, fundamental particles are not at rest and move each other.

      Delete
    4. Stardusty,

      Thanks for reading along.

      The First Way regards how natural things behave in naturally. Tools made by humans do not occur naturally so bringing up artifacts will be a distraction I think.

      Regarding parts. Everything that is extended in space can be divided into parts. Every length can be divided in half and each of those halves can be divided in half and each of those halves can be divided in half ad infinitum. That is because space is a continuum. Things extended in space form a continuum unless they are make of disparate parts. Time is also a continuum since it measures motion in space. Modern physics consider time and space to be continua.

      A passenger sitting on a ship is at rest wrt the ship the entire time the ship has sailed from LA to Hawaii. That is what is meant by a part being at rest wrt to the whole.

      Animals and humans can start their own motion, move and stop their own motion. Stars and crystals cannot do what animals and humans can do. Animals and humans are alive and stars and crystals are not. Do you dispute this?

      Delete
    5. @ StardustyPsyche,

      You are just repeating yourself, slightly rearranging your words in which you pose as the mind above all other minds and in which you ignore that these slight rearrangements do not hide the fact that, for example, the divergence to different futures by _something_, is not answerable by you due to your will to ignore it and instead circle around an increasingly odd preconception to no good purpose.

      "Do you suppose that a rocket is moved by its rocket soul?"

      Absolute piffle!

      😀

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    6. bmiller,
      "The First Way regards how natural things behave in naturally. Tools made by humans do not occur naturally so bringing up artifacts will be a distraction I think."
      Do you suppose man, through his ingenuity, can violate the laws of nature set forth by god?

      If god created the forces of nature, can man defeat god by defeating his laws of nature?

      If god created the LNC or is himself bound to obey an ontologically prior LNC, can man build a machine that violates the LNC?

      I think not. Man can only build machines in accordance with the true nature of the underlying reality. All man made machines are made of natural substances that progress through time as natural substances must progress.

      If a machine made by man violates a purported law of nature XYZ then XYZ was wrong all along.

      That is a way we find out if a purported law of nature is a true law of nature, by building machines to test those assertions. If our machines cause the assertion of a law of nature to fail then that assertion is proven to have been false all along.

      "Regarding parts. Everything that is extended in space can be divided into parts."
      Indeed, rendering god incoherent on the combined assertions that he has no parts and he also acts upon all things in the universe simultaneously and continuously to sustain them in their existence.

      That asserts that god is extended through space, extended through time, yet also has no parts and is outside of time, an incoherent combination of assertions commonly made by Thomists, comprising violations of the LNC.

      "Stars and crystals cannot do what animals and humans can do. Animals and humans are alive and stars and crystals are not. Do you dispute this?"
      That is two claims and one question. I dispute much of what you have asserted. But allow me to be more specific.

      Stars and crystals can do what humans do to the extent that they do in fact move themselves, rendering the First Way unsound, and therefore a failed argument, because the first way claims that objects on the scale of the human hand, wood, or the staff cannot move themselves, which is clearly a false premise.

      A star is not generally considered to be alive, although a crystal might be considered rudimentary life depending on the deffininition of life employed. Irrespective, alive or not, it doesn't matter, or do you suppose a single cell organism, or a worm, has a soul?

      Even if you posit a worm soul, it still doesn't matter, examples of self moving non-living objects abound.

      An electron is both mover and moved, again exposing the glaring failure of the First Way by exposing a false premise employed by Aquinas.

      Electrons move each other, exposing the First Way as being logically invalid, suffering from the logical fallacy of false dichotomy, Aquinas having failed to account for the third alternative, that objects move each other, as opposed to moving themselves or being moved by an unmoved mover.

      Thomism is incoherent in multiple respects, that is, various properties simultaneously attributed to god are mutually contradictory, they violate the LNC.

      The most manifest way is the First Way, yet it sufferes from false premises and invalid logic, making the best argument for Thomism a failure.

      Recall, the First Way is an argument from what is evident to the senses, that purports to use logic founded on the LNC, and positively asserts the necessity of an unmoved first mover on that basis.

      Yes, one can still argue speculative compatabalism, but then, one can make up as many such idle speculations as one has hours in the day to formulate their specific fanciful features. Such is the Thomistic god, just another idle speculation.

      The evidence of our senses in combination with the consequences of the LNC show that an unmoved first mover is not necessary.

      Delete
    7. Stardusty,

      Can stars and crystals stop the motion that they are in by themselves? Humans can stop their motion and even reverse it themselves. Most people realize the difference between inanimate and animate objects. It seems that to hold your theory as reality one must deny what seems to be evident to everyone else including infants who presumably are not Thomists. At least not formally trained Thomists ;-)

      Delete
    8. @ StardustyPsyche,

      Piffle pie for our enjoyment as you think you can understand Aristotle, Aquinas, Professor Feser, science, and other things, when you set out to "prove" your preconception with a closed mind.

      Take note, you who read here, it is very easy to create misunderstandings of ideas when you are determined to, as is StardustyPsyche. So he misunderstands.

      🎸🍹

      He takes down no one but himself. I am too bored with him to write more.

      😀

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    9. bmiller,
      "Can stars and crystals stop the motion that they are in by themselves?"
      That is irrelevant to the First Way.

      Aquinas makes false statements, asserts false premises. That makes the First Way unsound, and thus, a failed argument.

      Aquinas also uses invalid logic, again, making the First Way a failed argument.

      Pointing out differences between a human being and other sorts of objects is irrelevant.

      "It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved,"
      False premise. An electron is both mover and moved.

      " i.e. that it should move itself."
      False premise. Examples of self moving objects abound.

      " Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another."
      Invalid logic, false dichotomy, neglects the third case that objects move each other.

      "If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover,"
      Invalid logic, begging the question, introduces the premise that a first mover is necessary in a linear hierarchical regress, in an argument that concludes this false assumption circularly and invalidly introduced as a premise.

      "Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover"
      Failed conclusion of a failed argument.

      "and this everyone understands to be God."
      Invalid logic and false premise. This statement is a non-sequitur, and thus logically invalid. The invalid logic of this statement is so glaring that Carrasquillo does not even attempt to include this statement in his syllogistic format or symbolic format. Further, the statement is false, obviously. I am somebody, and I do not understand this to be god, therefore it is false to claim everyone understands this.

      Delete
    10. Stardusty,

      "Can stars and crystals stop the motion that they are in by themselves?"
      That is irrelevant to the First Way.


      You acknowledge they are moving so yes their motion is relevant to the First Way regardless of the implications to your own theory.

      Do you want to know how A comes to his conclusions? I've done a deep dive and I think I can summarize in a couple of paragraphs. A has chapters discussing the nature of space, time and things extened in space which I think you would agree with (space and time are contina, space is a container of an object and separates boundaries between objects, 2 different things cannot be in the same space, etc).

      Think of it this way. Tom is right that almost all of your remarks are mere repetition but having new material to rage against will be invigorating.

      It will be good for me to get feedback as to whether I'm reading A correctly or not.

      Wanna see it?

      Delete
    11. bmiller,
      "You acknowledge they are moving so yes their motion is relevant to the First Way"
      Strawman, I never said anything of the sort.

      "Do you want to know how A comes to his conclusions?"
      Which A? They were both deeply mistaken.

      "Tom is right that almost all of your remarks are mere repetition"
      Yet neither of you understand the simple facts that Aquinas used false premises and invalid logic in the First Way.

      "It will be good for me to get feedback"
      That seems unlikely given your manifest lack of understanding the false premises and invalid logic of the First Way I have so clearly explained to you.

      "Wanna see it?"
      If you can show how the false premises and invalid logic of the First Way actually make that argument sound that would be a true miracle to behold.

      Delete
    12. @ StardustyPsyche,

      "If you can show how the false premises and invalid logic of the First Way actually make that argument sound that would be a true miracle to behold."

      A sound argument does not depend on a premise which is the conclusion.

      😀

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
  36. @Tom Cohoe: you said that the future cannot be predicted by science. But this was not an answer to my question, can the future be predicted. The answer should have been either, Yes, or No.
    So can the future be predicted at all? Yes, or No?

    ReplyDelete
  37. @Tom Cohoe: your answer is vague, but I infer that you believe that the future in fact can be predicted, despite your earlier statement that it cannot be predicted. You're leaving out the "by whom" or whatever other qualifier is needed for a distinction between science, which you say can't predict the future, and something else - prophecy? God's foreknowledge - that is identified by the deposit of your faith. Please correct if I have your meaning wrong.

    @bmiller: Thank you, but so far you haven't answered my question above. So far what you're saying seems consistent with a position that holds that there are many unmoved movers of bodies, sc. souls of animals. How do souls as unmoved movers, which move their associated bodies so that the animal moves itself "through itself," relate to the First Unmoved Mover? Is it somehow moving souls? If it isn't moving souls, then won't the Calvinist jump up and accuse the Catholic of failing to teach "the sovereignty of God"?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @ ficino4ml,

      I did answer your question. The deposit of _faith_ is that to which I assent by faith and hope. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen [Hebrews 11:1]". "Not seen" means not seen (understood) to be either true or not true, that there is no conclusive argument based on what we do understand for either the truth or falsity of the matter of faith.

      OTOH the faith is not blind. It is, to me, the most reasonable understanding of the future based on the words and acts of Jesus Christ. But comprehensive prediction of the future is not possible because quantum mechanics tells us that it diverges.

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    2. ficino4ml

      How do souls as unmoved movers, which move their associated bodies so that the animal moves itself "through itself," relate to the First Unmoved Mover?

      The "unmoved movers" are unmoved wrt to the whole, not wrt to the place of the whole in space. So the animal moves from one place to the other and so therefore does the soul in that respect. But unmoved mover is at rest wrt the body of the animal.

      The animal can either be moved by things like gravity or be motivated to move by things like hunger, heat, etc. Those motivating things are most likely moving things also. But eventually those things also must be moved by something that is unmoved.

      Thomists are not occasionalists so they don't believe that God moves us like a puppet. God can move Nature which can move our nature.

      Delete
    3. I understand Tom Cohoe to hold that although humans cannot predict the future because of "the formalism of quantum mechanics," nevertheless God predicts the future. Correct if I have you wrong, Tom.

      I understand bmiller to hold that ensouled substances can move themselves but are not unmoved movers, since they are moved by other movers.

      Decades ago in seminary, we were taught that God knows all things in their causes. Is it true that Thomism explains God's foreknowledge by referring contingent events to God's primary causal acts? E.g. if God can know both that the sparrow falls now and that another sparrow will fall at time T+n, does God know both these contingent events because God is the first cause or mover of those events/effects?

      Does the above also hold for the freely willed decisions of rational creatures? If God foreknows those - say, that Pharaoh will do such and such - does God foreknow them because God is somehow the mover of the rational agent's will? If not, then how does God foreknow, if the self-motion of free will is not also caused by God?

      Milton spoke of angels as unable to penetrate the mysteries of predestination. Maybe it's all just Mystery. But to me it seems that it's a problem, how even God can foreknow all events, given what both Tom and bmiller have written.

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    4. ficino4ml,

      What I wrote was wrt The First Way. TFW is an argument to the existence of God from the observation that something is moving. It's not meant to address God's foreknowledge.

      Do you see a problem with TFW?

      As an aside. I have a fried who attended seminary in the 70's. It's like he never even heard of Thomism in his classes.

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    5. @ ficino4ml,

      God doesn't predict. We do, or try. God doesn't foreknow. We try. It is us who are relative to before and after in time.

      We could have free will if God knew multiple futures in which all of the choices we could make are represented, one of which, when selected by us, became the actual present. God would still know all this stuff, but we would have participated in choosing the now from the previously diverged possibilities. This choice is relative to ourselves only. It has no effect on whether Joe in Kalamazoo has a hamburger or a hot dog for lunch. That would be his free will choice.

      I can model this with the random binary sequence I have spoken of previously on a different thread. It is simpler than science, therefore more all encompassing - as in divine simplicity. I sometimes call it an imperfect or improper image of God and acknowledge with Milton that God Himself is above our understanding. We cannot properly even speak of Him nor is He limited by the limitations of the model. I wouldn't want to start talking on this thread about the random binary sequence model unless I knew it was OK with Ed. I would not be surprised if me and Know-It-All are already trying Ed's patience.

      Do I have to answer for bmiller too? I am only one person, after all.

      I cannot prove anything. Faith does not require me to prove or disprove, just choose what seems most reasonable.

      I pray for you, through our Holy Mother Mary's intercession, that the Father will sufficiently enlighten you that you can use the free will he gave you to come back to that most reasonable faith and stop trying to understand everything, which only StardustyPsyche can do (because he told us so 😀).

      Tom Cohoe

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    6. Tom,
      "I pray for you, through our Holy Mother Mary's intercession, that the Father will sufficiently enlighten you"
      That would violate the LNC, if you suppose your intercessory prayer might have an actual effect on ficino. If you do not suppose this one can only wonder why you would pray for folks like ficino and I .

      If god was going to enlighten us anyhow then it is incoherent to assert your prayers have effects on us.

      If god was not going to enlighten us prior to your prayer, but Mary heard you so she told god of your request upon which divine communication god then chose to enlighten you, yet you claim god does not change, well, there you go violating the LNC again with your prayers.

      OBTW, why does Mary need to hear you and intercede on your behalf? It is incoherent to assert this intercession is necessary and also assert god's omnipotence, since he is thus asserted to hear you directly and in no need of the assistance of Mary on your behalf.

      "stop trying to understand everything"
      Indeed, you have identified a key human behavioral requirement to ascribe to Thomism.

      But it is kind of you to express your sincere best wishes for ficino and most especially for a wretch like me, irrespective of the violations of the LNC they entail.

      I, of course, choose to enlighten you by use of logical arguments via the written word. Would you be more likely to be enlightened by my logical arguments if I were to pray to Mary to please go have a little chat with god so he will get you to understand the logic I am providing to you?

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    7. @ StardustyPsyche,

      I note at the start that you cannot handle the idea of a random sequence, the existence of which I demonstrated to you. Numbering your responses 1 through 6 I am replying to them in the same order.

      1. It violates nothing. 2. No, it is not incoherent. It only violates your own ideas which are pretty limited considering your preconception. 3.I described how God could respond to prayer without changing in my last message to ficino. Christians pray through Mary because God wants us to. I get a benefit for sincerely praying for another. My prayer can have an effect on another, not through converting him, but as expressing love of neighbour which God desires. It is mutual help, enlightening to the willing to be enlightened without destroying free will, like a flashlight helping to show the two doors the choice has to be made from, if the will hasn't stubbornly refused through blind adherence to preconception to even see that there is a second choice. 4. I just answered that. 5. So you say - in the face of my repeated assertion that God is above our understanding and that we cannot really even talk about him. Funny, funny, funny. 😀 6. If you prayed to Mary with your fixed preconception you would not be helped in transmitting your logic because it is false. However if you prayed to Mary with patience and sincerity, a glimmering of something helpful to yourself could begin to knock very quietly on the door of your head. 😀

      Tom Cohoe

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  38. Replies
    1. @bmiller: I talk about soul because its existence is posited by A-T. And sometimes in ordinary language I use the word to refer to certain functions of the living body. But in my opinion, there is no soul-body dualism, not even the Thomistic kind where we get a soul "manquee" separated from "its" body. I can't prove that there isn't such a soul, but I see no reason to suppose that there is one. I hold that abstract objects exist, but individual souls, if they existed, would not be abstract objects, since they are held to have causal powers.

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    2. ficino4ml,

      What is your opinion then on the question of why you are alive.

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  39. @Tom Cohoe, ah, you mean that God is outside of time. For a while there I thought you were denying what the Catholic Encyclopedia used to call God's "infallible prescience of the future." But there's no "future" to God in the way there is a "future" to us, ok.

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    1. @ ficino4ml,

      There we go, ficino. A new open thread. Now I want to say that, being a dummy, I am not sure what you mean by your last word, "ok". Are you being accepting, ironic, or something else?

      If you want to reply to my question on the open thread, we can talk. I am guessing that Ed will tolerate some words about the simple divine idea that is a random binary sequence, so we could even talk about that, if you, too, are willing to tolerate talk about it.

      Let's give it a whirl!

      Tom Cohoe

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  40. ficino4ml,

    I'm just wondering what your belief system actually is. Probably would have been better if I had just asked you that rather than one question at a time.

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    1. @bmiller: I don't have a "system" in a proper sense of that word. My standpoint is somewhere within analytic philosophy with some doses of pragmatism. I'm not a strict materialist, since so far I think that we have to say that abstract objects exist if we are going to use the existential quantifier over variables that are bound by terms that imply them, as in "This is a faulty sentence form."

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  41. ficino4ml,

    OK maybe system is the wrong word.

    What beliefs do you hold to be true? Are you alive? Are there other things in the universe than you? Is the universe intelligible or is it completely unknowable?

    You function someway or the other in the world, so you have to believe something about reality.

    I ask because I don't want to waste your time assuming I know the context of your thought and giving replies that don't address your perspective.

    You mentioned you are educated in the classics and philosophy. So, for instance, what do you find wrong with the Socratic tradition (Socrates/Plato/Aristotle and their tradition) and why are your ideas superior?

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  42. @bmiller: earlier you veered away from discussing God's determination - or not - of rational creatures' acts of will, and now you are asking for my entire world-life view plus a critique of Socrates and the various heirs of Socrates? lol

    Just a few quickies: I generally accept the evidence of my senses because their info generally helps me make my way through my life. This is why I talked of a dose of pragmatism. I think almost any regressive series of demands for foundations ends up at an entity that functions as first principle (which Aquinas pretty much tells us is God) or brute fact. I can't demonstrate one or the other, since there is no foundation beyond either, so I go along with what is consistent. Perhaps I have a coherence theory of truth, but I haven't sat down to figure that out.

    As far as I know, I'm alive because my bodily systems are working as directed by various parts of my brain. I'm inclined to think that in our talk, "I" and "me" are constructs. I am not inclined to think in a serious way that my "I" is the substance that possesses some other thing, "my body." I am the living body.

    I am more like Socrates than like Plato or Aristotle because I'm like Quine in rejecting "the notion that there should be a "first philosophy", a theoretical standpoint somehow prior to natural science and capable of justifying it."

    A bit ago you asked whether I think the First Way is valid/sound. I think the First and Second Ways have the same structure, so I consider both. I think Arthur Holmes was right to say that those arguments are "system-dependent", i.e. on Aristotelian commitments to the theory of Act-Potency and, beyond that, to treating "being" as a perfection. I don't know that every instance of change/motion is the terminus of a series of causes or movers ordered hierarchically per se and initiated by God. As far as I can see, it's the theory of Act-Potency that led Aquinas to present causality and motion in that way. The principle of proportionate causality is a piece of the system that follows from the theory of Act-Potency, and I can't say I know that the PPC is true. We often hear of emergent systems, propagation delay, and such things.

    I've given sort of a mishmash in the last paragraph, but I have to get back to work now. Thanks for the questions, anyway.

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  43. ficino4ml,

    earlier you veered away from discussing God's determination - or not - of rational creatures' acts of will, and now you are asking for my entire world-life view plus a critique of Socrates and the various heirs of Socrates? lol

    Funny, I thought it was you who veered away from discussing whether an Unmoved Mover necessarily exists at all to whether the Unmoved Mover moves things deterministically or not. One good veer deserves another I say ;-)

    Thanks for answering.

    Since you hang around here to discuss the existence (or not) of God but you don't know if God exists (or not) do you hang around atheist forums and challenge them for their reasons for not believing in God? Or are we more attractive over here? Not that I'm fishing for compliments or anything ;-)

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    1. @bmiller: I often ask people on atheist forums what they think of this or that A-T thesis or argument. It's rare that someone really goes into depth. Most just say that Aquinas is old hat.

      I appreciate the opportunity to test ideas against the ideas of people who hold differently. I have learned a lot from this forum and from Strange Notions.

      As to the first Way, I observe that Aquinas early on states that everything that is moved/is in motion, is moved by another. He gives as the reason "for nothing is moved unless insofar as it is in potency toward that to which it is moved; but something moves, however, insofar as it is in act."

      So as I said, the First (and Second) Way is system-dependent. The whole argument presupposes the theory of Act-Potency and from that the PPC.

      So I think you have to demonstrate the truth of the theory of Act-Potency before you can begin to defend the First Way.

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    2. "I often ask people on atheist forums what they think of this or that A-T thesis or argument. It's rare that someone really goes into depth."
      Care to tell me the names of those forums? I would appreciate that information.

      I can tell you in fine detail specifically the numerous errors of the First Way, if you are interested in the false premises and invalid logic both Aristotle and Aquinas employed.

      For example, Aquinas neglected the potential for mutual movement, which is actualized by, say, two electrons, which individually have no potential to move themselves but together have the potential to move each other and in so doing also move themselves.

      That potential for mutual movement is actualized when, in point of observational fact, two electrons do move each other and in so doing, in point of observational fact, move themselves.

      Aristotle mistakenly considered the nature of sublunary motion to be fundamentally different than motion in the heavens. He also mistakenly thought that absent an impeding medium a massive object will accelerate toward infinite speed if continuously acted upon, a very common sense, but as it turns out, erroneous assertion.

      The First Way suffers from incorrect physics, false premises, crucial omissions, and invalid logic.

      If you want to know specifically what, where, and how these multiple errors occur in the First Way I will use one of Feser's own sources as reference, iteadthomam.blogspot.com/2011/01/first-way-in-syllogistic-form

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  44. ficino4ml,

    You only ask atheists about A-T and not any of the other arguments against atheism? What's so special about A-T?

    So I think you have to demonstrate the truth of the theory of Act-Potency before you can begin to defend the First Way.

    I don't think so, at least formally. All one has to do is be aware that something is "really" moving and that that something remains the same "something" from moment to moment. I think most everyone is aware of this.

    Aristotle (not Aquinas) proposed the act-potency distinction to solve a problem. The problem being; how can we be said to be the same entity from moment to moment throughout our life? How can we change and yet remain the same thing?

    You, being familiar with classic philosophy already know this, but let me proceed.

    The position attributed to Heraclitus is that everything is in constant flux so no "thing" can be said to be in existence as the same thing from momemnt to moment. For instance none of us have the same molecules we started with, so the "me" of a second ago ceased to be and a new "me" exists and so from moment to moment. So you are fooled if you think you can remember "you" riding a bike as a kid.

    The position attributed to Parmenides is if a thing changes, it ceases to be the thing it was full stop. So if all things ceased to be when they changed, there would be nothing left given enough time. Once there is nothing then there is no way for anything to come into existence because "From nothing, nothing comes". But there is something. Since there is something and change causes things to cease to exist then there must not be anything "really" changing. It was quite a formidable argument.

    Aristotle brought his act-potency distinction to bear against the 2 conclusions of these arguments and give a formality to what we already know from our everyday lives. If you or anyone else has a better defense against those 2 arguments please let me know what they are. I'm more than willing to hear superior arguments. Unless of course you think we don't exist from moment to moment or that nothing changes.

    But read SCG Chapter 13 again. There are only a couple of places where he explicitly uses act-potency as part of the argument. You can ignore those it you like and focus on the other arguments.

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  45. @bmiller: The ST is dated later than SCG. I quoted Aquinas' appeal to the act-potency distinction straight out of the First Way in the ST. It would seem that the saint thought that distinction critical by the time he wrote ST. It's interesting that the argument in De Esse et Essentia, an earlier work, which Eric Perl told me he (Eric P) thinks is superior to the Ways, does not come up in ST 1a 2.3. I don't know whether Anthony Kenny was right when he speculated that late in his career, Aquinas may have decided that the argument from De Esse et Essentia was not as strong as other arguments.

    In SCG I.13.5 we are told that a self-mover must have the principle of motion in itself and be moved by reason of itself. Then we're told that it can't be moved by a part. But the part will move itself and the rest of the thing. Aquinas goes on in 6 to apply the expression "by another" to the part that moves the rest of the motum. But a part of a thing is not "another" in the way that a different substance as mover is "another" with respect to the moved. There seems to be an equivocation on "another" here. Perhaps this is why the part-whole business does not recur in ST's First Way, but instead, appeals to consequences of the theory of Act-Potency.

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    1. @bmiller: ETA Aquinas wrote the SCG before he wrote his great commentaries on Aristotle. I think it reasonable to suppose that he thought the Five Ways, by the time he wrote them, were the strongest arguments he had. I would not privilege material in SCG that does not recur in ST.

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    2. ficino4ml,

      I checked Wikipedia to see if I remembered correctly and, yes, SCG was written for a different audience...pagans and Muslims for apologetic purposes rather than a formal university course (see my other response for quotations from SCG).

      Regardless, both SCG and ST both use Aristotle's Physics as the basis for the TFW. SCG has explicit citations to Physics so you can check them out yourself or I can help you find them. Just ask.

      I find no difference in TFW in SCG or ST other than how it is presented to the audience. I think SCG has better citations and so in that respect it is easier to research the reasoning behind it.

      BTW. I'm pretty ignorant. What does the TLA ETA mean? (TLA= 3 letter acronym)

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  46. ficino4ml,

    I always thought the difference between the SCG and ST is rather one of audience rather than of time. The audience of the ST is theology students who presumably had already mastered the philosophy of Aristotle while the SCG is directed at a wider audience. That is why I prefer to start with the SCG when discussing with people unfamiliar with TFW.

    SCG 1:2

    [3] To proceed against individual errors, however, is a difficult business, and this for two reasons. In the first place, it is difficult because the sacrilegious remarks of individual men who have erred are not so well known to us so that we may use what they say as the basis of proceeding to a refutation of their errors. This is, indeed, the method that the ancient Doctors of the Church used in the refutation of the errors of the Gentiles. For they could know the positions taken by the Gentiles since they themselves had been Gentiles, or at least had lived among the Gentiles and had been instructed in their teaching.

    In the second place, it is difficult because some of them, such as the Mohammedans and the pagans, do not agree with us in accepting the authority of any Scripture, by which they may be convinced of their error. Thus, against the Jews we are able to argue by means of the Old Testament, while against heretics we are able to argue by means of the New Testament. But the Muslims and the pagans accept neither the one nor the other. We must, therefore, have recourse to the natural reason, to which all men are forced to give their assent. However, it is true, in divine matters the natural reason has its failings.


    Thanks for the question. I think I can get the basics of what A is talking about regarding motion wrt to movers and unmoved movers to a few paragraphs.

    In SCG I.13.5 there are 3 things regarding self-movers with respect to space.
    1. Must have the principle motion within itself (ie, animate rather than inanimate)
    2. Must be primarily moved. The whole must be moved rather than part by part. I will add more about this below.
    3. Must be divisible. This merely means that it is made up of things touching each other extended into space or it of a single thing extended into space. But since space is continuous, we can always divide it or things extended into space in half, and that in half etc.

    Regarding 2. Let me give analogy to a car in a garage with a driveway behind it. Car, garage and driveway are all the same length. At time t0 the car is in the garage and at time t1 the car is in the driveway. Time and space are continous so the car must proceed part by part and "moment" by "moment" from garage to driveway rather than being completely in the garage one moment and in the driveway the next (which would mean it was moved primarily or as a whole, which we see doesn't happen).

    SCG I.13.6 addresses motion, or not, within the self-mover. "By another" in context is referring to one part moving another part.
    The thing is divisible because of being extended in space as are the parts extended in space, so it follows that the whole made of parts cannot move the whole primarily either. It is another way of saying:

    It is also necessary that a self-moving being be divisible and have parts, since, as it is proved in the Physics [VI, 4], whatever is moved is divisible.

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  47. @bmiller: you wrote "I always thought the difference between the SCG and ST is rather one of audience rather than of time. The audience of the ST is theology students who presumably had already mastered the philosophy of Aristotle while the SCG is directed at a wider audience. That is why I prefer to start with the SCG when discussing with people unfamiliar with TFW."

    This approach is not historical. You neglect the effect on the saint of his working out his great Aristotelian commentaries. That is part of the chronology of the saint's life. It's one thing to try to parse the arguments in the SCG. It's another to try to establish Aquinas' considered views at the point when he was most able to consider them. If elements of the arguments in earlier works like DEE or SCG do not recur in the ST, where we'd expect them if Aquinas thought them cogent, then we must conclude that he no longer viewed those elements as worthy of repetition.

    So I decline to parse SCG I.13. If we're going to work from Aquinas, let's work from what we have good reason to think he proposed as his best arguments toward the end of his career.

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