Monday, March 16, 2026

Thomism Revisited

Thomism Revisited, a new anthology edited by Gaven Kerr, is out this month from Cambridge University Press.  It includes my essay “The Thomistic Critique of Neo-Classical Theism.”  (I have defended Thomism from neo-classical objections in earlier work. This new essay goes on offense.)  The table of contents and further information about the volume are available here.

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21 comments:

  1. AnonymousMarch 16, 2026 at 7:52 PM

    Feminism and Thomism ??? Why???

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  2. BillMarch 17, 2026 at 11:03 AM

    $110.00?? I'll wait for the movie.

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  3. NormMarch 19, 2026 at 3:14 AM

    Hi Prof,

    Wow the article looks extremely interesting. I hope to get my hands on it some day.

    I was wondering how would you defend the existence of two objects of the same kind or multiple instances of the same kind against denials stemming from scientific motivations.

    For example in what way would something like the experiments that justify STR depend on there being different instances of the same universal in some way or the other.

    I would really appreciate a brief answer, I have read your work but I don't know if you have addressed this specifically. It would be very helpful.

    Cheers

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    1. NormMarch 19, 2026 at 9:47 AM

      In case you have already addressed this specific issue somewhere of multiple instances and physics. You could just point me to it and I'll check it out.

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    2. NormMarch 20, 2026 at 7:30 AM

      I guess it may be simpler if I frame it in a question.

      Suppose someone says it's an illusion that there are multiple red objects and one universal of red as the Thomistic would say.

      There is just one red object along with its mathematical structure something like a platonic object.

      As such there are no multiple instantiations of red.

      Can we invoke the appearance/reality distinction to refute this manner of thinking, that is cancelled we say there are atleast two instantiations of red , the way red appears to us and the way red actually is.

      This is the same kind of argument you used to defend multiplicity , could we use it in this way ?

      I was also wondering, when you were discussing the views of parminedes and heraclitus, you mentioned that if they were correct, we wouldn't be able to rely on our senses. Since in other cases you admit that our senses can go wrong but we should still rely on them anyways, why wouldn't a same kind of defence be available to a scientist who wants to endorse their positions.

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    3. NormMarch 21, 2026 at 1:39 AM

      A response would actually be genuinely helpful to my studies, so if you could spare a couple of mins Prof :).

      I would be grateful. I will peacefully fade away into oblivion out of your combox

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    4. NormMarch 21, 2026 at 10:52 PM


      Ahh so I came across this nice bit from AR

      "For another thing, even Strawson’s world of sounds is a world of particular things, and thus would contain more than the abstract dimensionality or metric our eliminativist would want to make do with"

      Even if this or that instantiation of red were actually one and the same and eternally existing in itself which would make it a platonic object, they would still be different from blue right?

      And all of these particular colors would fall under the higher order universal "color" of which they would be instantiations.

      As such they would be particular.

      Does that make sense


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    5. TonyMarch 28, 2026 at 4:29 PM

      Suppose someone says it's an illusion that there are multiple red objects and one universal of red as the Thomistic would say.

      There is just one red object along with its mathematical structure something like a platonic object.

      Norm, I am having trouble understanding why anyone would even posit this. Why is "there is just one red thing, the rest that look like they are red things are merely illusions" any better than "there are no red things, period, all things that look like they are red things are mere illusions"?

      Allowing one of the appearances of "a red thing" to be real, and none of the rest, gets you an impossible quagmire of "well, WHICH one is the real one, and how do we tell it's that one and not any of the others?" If none of the easy testing shows clear difference as to "this one really is a red thing, those ones test out as not really being red things", how could you ever KNOW that this is merely because "we haven't done enough instances of the test, or found the right kind of test"?

      I am just not seeing a viable starting point to forming the hypothesis that there could only ever be one red thing. (What happens when that red thing is destroyed: is there some new red thing that comes into existence in that very moment by some weird law of the universe, or is there a "form of red" with no instances existing at all?) And even if one formulated it AS a hypothesis, I am not seeing a basis for ever thinking that we KNOW it is true.

      Of course, Aristotle's model (which was picked up and refined as the scientific method) is to start with what is more known. What is more known is that there are many things that appear red. Given that appearance, you would need a positive reason to look for a reason to say that most of those instances are not real red things, you don't START with repudiating the appearances.

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    6. NormMarch 28, 2026 at 8:40 PM

      Allowing one of the appearances of "a red thing" to be real, and none of the rest, gets you an impossible quagmire of "well, WHICH one is the real one, and how do we tell it's that one and not any of the others?" If none of the easy testing shows clear difference as to "this one really is a red thing, those ones test out as not really being red things", how could you ever KNOW that this is merely because "we haven't done enough instances of the test, or found the right kind of test"?

      Hi Tony. I agree that makes sense.

      Thanks that was really helpful

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    7. NormMarch 28, 2026 at 10:46 PM

      Hi Tony

      What if, for example, as we know quality is irreducible to quantity.

      And for example what if the world was nothing but mathematical structure and qualitative elements.

      And suppose someone room the position that these qualitative aspects are supervenient on particular mathematical structures.

      Now there can only be one mathematical structure since mathematical structures are kind of like universals.

      So if these qualities are supervenient on these mathematical structures, it would seem to follow that there can be only one red that os supervenient on that mathematical structure.

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  4. Vini TadeoMarch 19, 2026 at 4:20 PM

    Keep on the good work, Ed!

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  5. NormApril 13, 2026 at 10:49 AM

    Hi Prof

    I think this should be a rather simple question to answer in a few lines. And the topic is Aristotelian,

    "Nor will it do for the ontic structural realist to try to dodge this problem by suggesting that the natural world really just is a kind of universal or Platonic object. Among other problems, this would make it utterly mysterious how physics is or could be an empirical science any more than mathematics is and would thereby threaten to undermine the very evidential basis of physics."

    What do you mean by this Prof? :)

    Does it mean that universals and platonic objects are things that we are not supposed to see or sense hence to call the natural world a platonic object or universal would be to effectively call everything we see or sense and illusion ?

    Could you give this a shot, Prof :) It's your own work. Not my usual nonsensical questions.

    Also take a look at Dr. B's post on the war at his blog

    Cheer's Prof

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    1. Edward FeserApril 13, 2026 at 7:20 PM

      Hi Norm,

      That passage is taken from Aristotle’s Revenge, p. 173. The larger context is a discussion of the ontic structural realist thesis that structure entirely exhausts the nature of the physical universe (as contrasted with the weaker epistemic structural realist thesis that structure exhausts what physics by itself can tell us about the nature of the physical universe).

      What I am addressing in the lines you quote is one more specific possible interpretation of the ontic structural realist thesis, according to which the physical universe is a kind of abstract object rather than a concrete particular. It would, on that interpretation, be like a Platonic Form, or like numbers conceived of Platonistically. Now, Forms and numbers so conceived are typically thought of as not knowable a posteriori but only a priori. (For example, they are taken to be causally inert, and thus not the sort of thing that could bear even remote causal relations to the senses.)

      But physics is supposed to be empirical or a posteriori. In particular, even the most abstract physical theories are supposed to known only because we can generate predictions from them that can be tested empirically. Hence, if we accepted the interpretation in question, the way this purported empirical evidence would relate to the reality it is supposed to be telling us about would – since that reality would essentially be an abstract or Platonic object – be rendered mysterious.

      Does that help?

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    2. NormApril 13, 2026 at 9:59 PM

      (For example, they are taken to be causally inert, and thus not the sort of thing that could bear even remote causal relations to the senses.)

      Hey Prof. Thanks for your kind response.I understood you completely.

      One question though, aren't these platonic forms and objects of their nature undetectable to the senses irrespective of the question of being inert and how we casually relate to them and as such would undermine the scientific evidence empirically.

      For example you write in Five Proofs

      "But unlike a wooden billiard ball rack or dinner bell, you can’t perceive triangularity through the five senses"

      Since these are abstractions, as David Oderberg says we don't encounter squareness. Hence if the world was a platonic object we wouldn't be able to sense it right.

      Also one final question I have is suppose the world was radically unlike we perceive it, suppose there was only one instance of each color instead of multiple instances or all instances of the color are really just one instance of the color, this would also undermine the scientific evidence right, since the senses tell us that multiple instances of colors is abundant in nature. The fact of there being multiple instances is a significant part of our experience which is why to deny it would undermine our senses. Am I correct here ?

      And anyways these colors would be still be individual instantiations of the universal color.

      Is all this correct





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    3. Edward FeserApril 14, 2026 at 5:04 PM

      Hi again Norm,

      In response to your first question, yes, that’s correct.

      As to your second question, if I understand it correctly, I think that would be too strong a conclusion. If color perception were in that respect mistaken, it wouldn’t undermine all sensory evidence IF we had some non-arbitrary criterion for distinguishing between reliable aspects of experience and unreliable ones. (Of course, that raises the question of exactly what that criterion would be, but the point is that the unreliability of sensory perception in one respect wouldn’t by itself entail its unreliability in general.)

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    4. NormApril 14, 2026 at 7:42 PM

      Thanks Prof! I am grateful!

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    5. NormApril 14, 2026 at 8:00 PM

      In AR though you write that if it were true that multiplicity was an illusion as heraclitus says, then it would undermine our senses. I take it that you understand multiplicity to be a more crucial part of our experience.

      Regardless though, a world in which colors exist would be a world with concrete things right, since colors are instantiations of the universal "color".

      "As you write in the last sentence of this paragraph

      "Even if Strawson is right, however, that would not help our imagined eliminativist. For one thing, no one would claim that our world is a purely auditory world of the sort described by Strawson. It is instead a world of rocks, trees, animals, stars, molecules, atoms, and other physical objects, which, unlike the sounds described by Strawson, would have to exist in spatial relationships to one another. For another thing, even Strawson’s world of sounds is a world of particular things, and thus would contain more than the abstract dimensionality or metric our eliminativist would want to make do with."



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    6. NormApril 16, 2026 at 2:48 AM

      Hi Prof

      So just drawing from the previous question, if there was a world where only colors existed (as some kind of eccentric substance maybe ?, you write, "the dynamic monist claims, the similarity the stages exhibit insofar as they all instantiate these universals that leads us falsely to suppose that there is some persisting underlying entity. But then the universals themselves – the redness, the roundness, and so forth – will nevertheless persist'). In this case the existence of the colors would make every different color an instantiation of the universal "color" right ?

      Also one last question from AR , is about establishing correlation between neural processes and qualitative mental states.

      In order for us to know that there is a correlation, it isn't enough for us to always see them together right?

      It should also be the case that change is possible in the neural state, which in turn leads to a change in the mental state.

      If change were not possible in principle in the neural state, then merely observing them together wouldn't be enough to establish correlation right?

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    7. NormApril 16, 2026 at 7:54 PM

      Hi Prof

      Do consider the last comment, that will be the last in this exchange :)

      Norm

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    8. NormApril 23, 2026 at 12:00 AM

      Also Prof do you know any 20th century physicists who emphasized the importance of efficient causality to the practice of physics.

      Perhaps Max Planck ?

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