Monday, August 17, 2026

Berkeley’s God

In my latest article at Postliberal Order, I discuss how the novel metaphysical assumptions that modern philosophy brought to the traditional project of establishing the existence and nature of God often either led to heterodoxy or greased the skids for atheism, using George Berkeley as a case study.

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82 comments:

  1. ingx24August 17, 2026 at 1:37 PM

    Sort of off-topic, I have a quick clarification question with regard to the A-T approach to the mind-body relation.

    From what I've come to understand, the A-T tradition handles the mind-body relation via formal causation: the neuromuscular events are the material/efficient-causal side of which our thoughts and intentions are the formal/final-causal side. This makes a lot of sense to me and seems like a very elegant "solution" (or maybe pre-emption) of the mind--body problem.

    However, I'm a little unclear on where mental images fit into this. To me, mental images seem clearly to be immaterial to some degree ("form without matter", as Aristotle himself put it). But I repeatedly see Dr. Feser say that mental images are "entirely material", and in some blog posts it sounds like he wants to assimilate mental images to the material/efficient side of things. And this would seem to put is right back into the unattractive alternative between reductionism and property dualism (with all the causal problems that come with the latter).

    So I'm a bit confused. Are mental images on the formal/final-causal side (as I feel they should be), or are they on the material/efficient-causal side?

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    1. NormAugust 18, 2026 at 10:31 AM

      And this would seem to put is right back into the unattractive alternative between reductionism and property dualism (with all the causal problems that come with the latter).

      Could you elaborate ingx24, because the way I understand it, it is precisely because the mental images are ultimately intrinsically dependent on matter and is material in that regard albeit irreducible to neural firings, it avoids the issues you mention smoothly, one doesn't have to wonder how mental images and sensations related to the neural aspects and the brain, they are both material at the end of the day. And material things can cause efffects in other material things, as such the neural fittings of animals result in sensations and mental images and this in turn influences the animals behaviour however we wouldn't say that anything strictly immaterial is going on here.

      However there is a sense in which sensations and mental images involve our senses faculties pulling out the accidental forms of things around us that enables us to see the things we do, and what makes it direct realism.

      Prof talks about it in this post,

      https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/12/progressive-dematerialization.html?m=1

      I think it would be really clarifying for you.

      Fr Stephen Brock also has an excellent extended treatment of perception in his book on Aquinas.

      I think that one thing to keep in mind for you is that things can be formal causes and final causes in different respects, I would say the form of red that is present in both the object being apprehended and in our perception of it, is part of the formal cause of our apprehending the object. This is in the context of our sense apprehension. We can later call back to our mind those forms, by way of our internal senses, and that will have it's own final, formal, material and efficient causes. But at the same there is nothing strictly immaterial at this juncture.

      Hope this helps

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    2. JoeDAugust 18, 2026 at 5:04 PM

      I think Feser would say mental images are material because they still have properties of material things, such as being extended spatially (any mental image of a triangle will necessarily have length even in our mind's eye for example). For similar reasons, I don't think Aristotle thought mental images are form without matter - rather, that description of form without matter belongs to the intellect's apprehension of universals. Because a mental image isn't the same as the general concept of triangularity that applies to all triangles.

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    3. ingx24August 19, 2026 at 12:52 AM

      @Norm: This actually helps significantly, thank you for the link. Perceptions and mental images would indeed qualify as part of the formal cause in the sense I would endorse, based on Dr. Feser's detailed description in that post. (I have some minor disagreements about the extent to which sensations and images are really "embodied in" the physiological activity, but this is a minor point and is a sense in which I intuitively lean more towards Platonic realism than Aristotelian realism.)

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  2. La Puissance Du YaourtAugust 17, 2026 at 2:24 PM

    The picture at the head of the article and the first two paragraphs are repeated. Assuming a copy-paste error.

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  3. AnonymousAugust 17, 2026 at 8:32 PM

    Entered my email at Postliberal Order, but couldn't link up to the article.

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    1. Edward FeserAugust 17, 2026 at 10:09 PM

      Maybe there's a glitch. I'll let them know.

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    2. AnonymousAugust 19, 2026 at 1:50 PM

      Norm.
      Thanks for mentioning him. Fr Stephen Brock on the metaphysics of prayer
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WufTVbJe88

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    3. NormAugust 19, 2026 at 9:32 PM

      Anon

      That is a great talk !

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  4. NormAugust 20, 2026 at 9:45 PM

    Hi Prof

    Without invoking the concepts of change..

    If someone said that mathematical structures exist quality mathematical structures outside. They say the sensations (that they can't deny)supervene on these structures.

    How would you reply ?

    I think one of your responses in AR was quite pertinent, in distinguishing between the abstract and concrete , why there is a distinction in the first place, And why the abstract can't appear quality abstract in the natural world.
    .
    "For example, being triangular in the strict sense involves having sides that are straight rather than wavy. Now, the triangle you draw on the marker board has straight sides, but only imperfectly or approximately. It is also a particular instance of triangularity rather than triangularity as such. Hence there must not only be something by virtue of which the thing you’ve drawn is triangular, but also something by virtue of which it is triangular in precisely the imperfect way that it is"..

    What if though someone retorts by trying to make those imperfect features different shapes in themselves, with the imperfection baked into the definition, I would still say that however that there would have to be some reason why perfect squares, circles etc can't be instantiated and that is where matter comes in the picture.

    I would also retort that why do physcists prefer to use the idealisations to describe the concrete realities despite knowing reality doesn't instantiated it perfectly. I would say it is because even though the approximations are imperfect, they also have certain perfections of that idealised figure, that would be lost on the description of they didn't make reference to it.

    What if though someone says the imperfectness are illusions of our cognitive and sense faculties that responsible for giving us information about these figures, and that the figures are actually perfect and stipulate that it has to be based on the questionable metaphysics of ladyman and ross or parminedes, I would say that those very same cognitive faculties are responsible for are ability to do physics since physics is about such structural features of reality. And if the cognitive faculties responsible for that is wrong then we will be unable to do physics.

    What would be your thoughts

    Also I feel that even if someone subscribed to a parmedean view of no change, that doesn't necessarily entail an Mathematical universe, it would still be question begging.

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    1. NormAugust 21, 2026 at 9:21 AM

      It would mean a lot of you could take this one Prof , it is the closest to your work, I would just like your thoughts on how you would answer the prospective rebuttals.

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    2. NormAugust 24, 2026 at 12:13 PM

      If I were to sum up the questions it would be,

      Why can't every approximation be taken as am individual shape in itself, why call it an imperfect triangle when it could just be in it's own category instead of "triangle"

      One response, I have is that even if this was conceded, it still wouldn't explain why can't there be a perfect triangle, that's where matter comes in

      And the second point is what if the parts of our senses and cognitive function responsible for leading us to this information is deceiving us in that regard of "imperfection" so as such there can be perfect figures.

      How would you respond here ?

      Does this make it easier to give a brief response Prof

      Norm

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    3. NormAugust 25, 2026 at 9:53 PM

      And I think that the science can't proceed if they don't say it's an approximation of a triangle.

      I myself know Prof is probably very busy....

      But man it feels so deflating...

      :(

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  5. EXEAugust 21, 2026 at 8:15 AM

    OK. I'm not gonna put my email into a Postliberal site, so I'm not gonna end up reading the whole thing. I'll accept correction as to its contents from someone who wants to read the whole thing. But I'm going to guess that this is one of two things. One, it's a simple sketch of how something happened, in which case, interesting historical trivia. Two (which seems more in character for Ed), it's an attempted appeal to consequences to convince Christians that in order to stop atheism, they ought to ignore the last 500+ years of moral and philosophical development and Retvrn To Thomism. Tell me, did I get it right? Yes? No? Maybe?

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    1. TonyAugust 21, 2026 at 12:06 PM

      I haven't read it either, but that puts me in the same boat as you so I think I am justified in answering.

      (1) While it would be very, painfully against good sense to ditch all of the science in the past 500 years merely because of some methodological problem exposed, there are clear disanalogies between science and philosophy for this issue. If you read Descartes' Discourse on the Method, for example, he explicitly represented himself to be starting from scratch, not correcting or building on the prior work of earlier thinkers. (a) Such a position would be reasonable (if analogous to doing the same to science) ONLY if the prior work had been fundamentally, systematically, and irreparably wrong-headed to the point where no real progress was even possible without starting from scratch. He nowhere establishes such a claim. (b) For those who don't agree - or at least don't see that it is probable - that the whole prior edifice was irreparably wrong-headed, they would be (at least procedurally) justified in ignoring his work just as he ignored all prior work. Regardless of how much time has now passed. To the extent that the works of Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche built expressly to address DESCARTES (and successors), to that extent their works might be nearly as justifiably ignored. (To summarize: maybe they provided something worthwhile, but when it comes to the judgment call as to where to put most of my attention and effort, putting it on people who started by ignoring all of the past is often not very prudent.)

      (2) In fact, after such initial moderns as Descartes started, most of the following moderns themselves critiqued their predecessor moderns, often validly, to the extent that there are very few professors today who are uniquely allied with any single one of Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, etc., and (here's the rub) there is invariably 1001 different views on how to take, say, Hume and adjust / repair his arguments to overcome critiques of him: nobody in the modern era can AGREE on what would or would not represent a "fix" to Humean or Kantian errors to make a solid philosophy today. That is, the current situation in philosophy isn't like that of science, and it cannot be called "progress" in any analogous way. The best that can be said is that MANY of the errors of prior thinkers have been pointed out, but with a great deal of disagreement about even that.

      (3) Modern analytic philosophers who put a great deal of stock in "the perennial philosophy" of the Scholastics (not solely Thomists) do no simply ignore all of modern philosophy. It is more typical of them (and absolutely normal for Feser) to take critiques of the Scholastics into account, and also to accept some modern thinking elements as better than the Scholastics and try to incorporate such into their re-conditioning of scholastic philosophy. For example, the modern idea of subsidiarity is now typically explicitly incorporated into neo-Thomist political theory as a correction / refinement of some prior mistakes. But that has to be able to go both ways: while Augustine + Thomas indicated 4 important functions for economic modeling, Adam Smith tried to simplify the picture by modeling solely with supply and demand functions: later thinkers realized they had to add back in a 3rd, and later on the 4th, to make the picture work (See: Redeeming Economics, John Mueller).

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    2. AnonymousAugust 21, 2026 at 1:35 PM

      EXE, Don't you have a fake email account you can put into the site? I have a personal Gmail account, a business Gmail account, and 5 fake Gmail accounts.

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    3. EXE(cute)August 21, 2026 at 1:50 PM

      EXE,

      OK. I'm not gonna put my email into a Postliberal site, so I'm not gonna end up reading the whole thing.

      Short for: "I acknowledge that I'm intellectually deficient and that Prof. Feser's works are out of my reach."

      they ought to ignore the last 500+ years of moral and philosophical development
      Whose culmination consists in: that a man can be a woman and viceversa, 9 month old foetuses "aren't human or alive" (even "uneducated" ancients like Aristotle thought that late-term abortions were immoral) and that objective truth isn't real after all and feelings >>> reality.

      and Retvrn To Thomism
      Yes! The sooner, the better.

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    4. TerilienAugust 21, 2026 at 3:01 PM

      No, it’s just about why he thinks Berkeley’s brand of theism, even if his argument for it works(which feser does not concede) is very unsatisfactory from a traditional pov.

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    5. AnonymousAugust 21, 2026 at 8:19 PM

      No, you didn't get it right.

      Delete
    6. EXE(cute)August 22, 2026 at 1:16 PM

      EXE,

      You can create an alternative e-mail account.

      iamanuderachieverwhoisinfatuatedwithfeser@.lol will do.

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    7. EXEAugust 23, 2026 at 9:00 AM

      Terilien

      OK then. I was incorrect. Fair enough.

      Delete
    8. EXEAugust 23, 2026 at 10:15 AM

      (1/2)
      Tony

      This is something I've wanted to hammer on for a while. Feser has this pet idea where he blames Horrible Early Modern Philosophers (Descartes most prominently) for deliberately and illegitimately choosing to reject Scholasticism for ulterior motives. But the vast majority of philosophers and historians of philosophy don't seem to agree, as can be seen by the fact that you don't see anyone except Feser making this kind of claim. It's more like a conspiracy theory than anything else. But let's address your points one by one.

      1. The claim that it is "unreasonable" for Descartes to try to build from scratch rather than relying on the Scholastics is absurd. You don't need to "refute" a prior metaphysics in order to propose a new one! That's ridiculous! Especially given that it's usually impossible to refute a metaphysics so decisively that it cannot be patched up or modified by someone who's motivated to want to keep it. We'd never learn anything if we followed your principles. Anyone can make up any metaphysics they want. The only thing we can do is to compare which of them is the most useful tool for understanding the world, which advantages one has over another, which paradoxes one is vulnerable to vs immune to, which ones better cohere with our scientific knowledge and/or common experience of reality, etc. The idea that you're not allowed to drop a prior metaphysics unless you've decisively refuted it is nonsense. You can do it simply because you're unsatisfied with it (say, with its inability to solve certain questions).

      In Descartes' case, he lays out his reasons for doing so pretty clearly - one, he wants certain knowledge rather than merely probable knowledge gained through sensation. He wants to be *absolutely* certain of his knowledge rather than merely pretty sure (the Scholastics believed that all knowledge came through the senses, which are inherently fallible).

      Two, as regards his rejection of substantial forms, he explicitly states (in his "Meteorology" as well as a January 1642 letter to Regius) that his reasons for ignoring them is because he finds them both useless and unnecessary as regards explaining natural phenomena. He doesn't explicitly reject them as false, but claims that we can make better progress in understanding the natural world through leaving them aside. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with him doing so. He does not need to prove that there are no substantial forms in order to decide to do this.

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    9. EXEAugust 23, 2026 at 10:43 AM

      (2/2)

      Sure, every thinker great and small has been imperfect and has been critiqued by later writers. That's perfectly fine and normal. You are free to inquire into Thomism, Pythagoreanism, Platonism, Descartianism, Hobbesianism, Lockeanism, and countless others. Each of them can be and is critiqued and compared to each other, tested for which is the best on several metrics (conformity with known experience, internal coherence, logical rigor, explanatory power, etc). Severe deficiency in these fields is good reason to reject a metaphysics, in whole or in part. Most modern thinkers don't find Thomism very convincing because however internally coherent or rigorous it is, it doesn't grapple well with experience and especially with modern scientific reality (try giving a Thomistic account of evolution, for instance!).

      And sure, if you want, you can say that morality has regressed or stagnated instead of progressing over the last 500 years. But the thing is, Thomistic morality is not easily separable from Thomistic metaphysics more generally. If the basic metaphysics is suspect or fails to explain reality well, then it is spurious to suggest that it explains morality well. Perhaps you could cobble together a Thomist moral framework with a modern physical framework, but that would not sit well together, and would require extensive argumentation as to why you're holding to principles in one area while denying or ignoring them in another.

      Sure, it's good to see that Neo-Thomists have adopted some modern ideas into their frameworks. And I'm sure there are *some* worthwhile ideas that can be salvaged from Scholasticism. But that's more like picking over a car for unrusted parts than taking it out and fixing it.

      Look, we could go back and forth all day, but at the end of it all my basic request is this: drop the conspiracy theories and the persecution complex. Just accept that your favorite philosophy fell out of a position of intellectual dominance for valid reasons and focus on trying to fix and promote it rather than complaining about that overthrow.

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    10. TonyAugust 23, 2026 at 11:20 AM

      (the Scholastics believed that all knowledge came through the senses, which are inherently fallible).

      And yet they did not hold that all knowledge is probable, they held knowledge of certain universals is not fallible. So, deriving the idea "all knowledge that comes to be in part on account of sensation implies all knowledge is fallible" is something Descartes proposes, in direct contradiction to the Aristotelians (and others, e.g. neo-platonists).

      Anyone can make up any metaphysics they want.

      Indeed, which is why we get many, TOO many to consider in depth, which is why we must prioritize and weed out the ones we are NOT going to delve into carefully. We need a filtering method.

      The only thing we can do is to compare which of them is the most useful tool for understanding the world, which advantages one has over another, which paradoxes one is vulnerable to vs immune to, which ones better cohere with our scientific knowledge and/or common experience of reality, etc.

      But in fact we tend to NOT do this for all proposals: for the most part, we tend to eliminate most proposals from serious consideration before considering them in depth, because on their face they have some feature that makes them (given our existing understanding) so improbable that they aren't worth our time. I don't bother to worry about the claims of the Flat-Earthers, as being not worth my time, (though I am perfectly happy a few people out there bother.) A brand new proposal has to situate itself in a way that merits my serious consideration, and flat out rejecting the whole of prior philosophy (without addressing it in detail) hits one of the standard filters for "probably not worth it". Doesn't make it wrong, of course. It might be quite right. But then, given the number of later moderns who rejected Descartes, it seems that he also didn't hit on a "certain" system. So...that's another filter reject.

      The idea that you're not allowed to drop a prior metaphysics unless you've decisively refuted it is nonsense.

      You're arguing against something I wasn't proposing. I was addressing the matter of getting others to decide to consider your proposal seriously, not whether you are allowed to propose it without first disproving the prior theories. Sure, you're allowed. And others are ALSO allowed to not bother to take you seriously, and you can't then insist that they're proceeding in bad faith or foolishly on that account. In science it is considered "bad form" to propose brand new models that completely reject prior models, without giving at least some reasons for rejecting prior models, like some shortcomings. This is a filter mechanism scientists (who are, each of them, limited humans) use. Why shouldn't it also work for philosophers proposing brand new complete systems?

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    11. TonyAugust 23, 2026 at 11:30 AM

      He doesn't explicitly reject them as false, but claims that we can make better progress in understanding the natural world through leaving them aside.

      Maybe. Maybe not: while progress of sorts has been made in the sciences without use of "form", much less so has been made in moral philosophy, and indeed much of moral philosophy post Descartes is a shambles, while the most coherent remaining large school (natural law) retains the explicit use of forms to explain final cause and the role of intention in action and moral right.

      And while modern philosophy generally attempts to assert a similar "we can get along just fine without final causality" in much the same way you recount Descartes' non-use of forms, in fact their doing so is a rejection of "common experience of reality", in that we (directly) experience OURSELVES operating with final causality, which they then feel they must explain away as an illusion - all the while pretending that arguing about moral models has a point to it because we can choose our actions. So, at least arguably, "forms" are indeed needed to explain our experience of intentional action and the resulting experiences of moral right and wrong, of justice and injustice.

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    12. AnonymousAugust 23, 2026 at 1:09 PM

      EXE, Read "The Conditions of Philosophy and Ten Philosophical Mistakes by Mortimer Adler and you will see why you are wrong .You can read them both free online.

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    13. EXEAugust 24, 2026 at 6:31 AM

      (1/2)
      Tony,

      Ah, here's the rub. It seems to me that your epistemology is flawed at the root. You are essentially saying that you refuse to seriously consider any idea that deviates too far from your intuitions, anything that's "too weird". Sure "we tend to do this" - but that's an intellectual *vice*, not a virtue, nor even something to be treated neutrally. This is an uncritical way to address reality, and it'll never get you closer to the truth except by accident. Your intuition is not some special source of knowledge, it is simply a collection of prejudices inherited from Nature and from your Upbringing. Privileging positions that agree with it is not rational, but that's basically what you're doing. Your position on Descartes boils down to something like "He rejected all prior philosophy, which strikes me as crazy. And future writers didn't agree with him entirely, therefore he also probably isn't worth considering". But this is nothing more than a series of excuses for not engaging with either him or the people who responded to him. You don't know anything about their reasons for rejecting him or how in what respects they rejected or accepted him.

      And Descartes *did* give reasons for his rejection and proposal of a new model. Didn't I describe them explicitly in my previous comment part 1/2?

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    14. EXEAugust 24, 2026 at 7:23 AM

      (2/2)
      Tony

      Really? The sciences have made "progress of sorts" since the Enlightenment? Talk about an understatement! Since then we have seen incredible advancements in medicine, metallurgy, ballistics, the invention of new technologies like electricity, aircraft, and rockets. We've gone to the moon, we've sequenced the human genome, we've cured diseases that were once simply endured with gritted teeth. Reducing that to just "Progress of Sorts" is ridiculous. The pace of advancement before and after the Enlightenment is night and day, and it's asinine to deny it. And don't try to pivot into "well we also invented nukes and machine guns" - I know that, but all that I'm discussing here is the fact that advancement has indisputably been rapid, far more so than was possible under Scholasticism.

      "moral philosophy post Descartes is a shambles"

      I'm going to have to ask you to be more specific about what you mean. Do you mean that you think it is bad, morally bad? If so, isn't that your own subjective judgment? Or do you mean that it is disunified, in that there is little widespread agreement? In which case, why is that a problem? Morality is complicated. The world is complicated. You might long for a simpler world where there was one singular authority administering morality from on high, but that's again, nothing more than your preference. An admission that you are more comfortable being told what to think than thinking for yourself.

      "we (directly) experience OURSELVES operating with final causality"

      This is a muddle. We experience ourselves acting for purposes, of course. Whether you believe this is "illusion" or not, it doesn't require us to buy into the entire Thomistic Four Causes framework. We simply have purposes and are capable of acting on them. That mere fact doesn't establish anything beyond itself. In fact, it seems more plausible to suggest that, rather than "abandoning the obvious truth of final causes", the belief in final causes existing outside of us is actually the result of imposing our own way of thinking and action on the world, assuming it operates the way our minds do.

      ""forms" are indeed needed to explain our experience of intentional action and the resulting experiences of moral right and wrong, of justice and injustice."

      Why? Plenty of non-Thomist metaphysics exist that can explain the fact that humans act intentionally and have opinions about right and wrong. Nothing about intentional action requires one to believe in final causes. If you want to argue that it's *the best* explanation of such, then be my guest. And as for morality, there are also loads of alternative explanations of what it is, how we can know it, etc. Just on the atheist side, for instance, probably the most common view roots right and wrong in the subjective value judgments of human beings - say, "I do not want to be murdered, and since I have empathy, I understand that others also do not want to be murdered. So we should agree amongst ourselves to forbid murder because nobody wants it to happen." Or, even if the person does not have empathy, they may rationally recognize that a society which permits murder is one in which they are in turn more likely to be murdered, and so it is in their best interests to support the outlawing of murder. Yet another atheist may state that these principles *are* objective, grounded in realities about human biology and psychology. IE, "not being the kind of person who murders other people will make you happier, so you ought to not commit murder", or "living honestly rather than dishonestly will objectively lead to you feeling more satisfied with yourself". You may disagree with any or all of these ideas if you want, but my point is that there are plenty of ways to explain our moral feelings without appealing to forms.

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    15. EXEAugust 24, 2026 at 7:24 AM

      (Addendum):

      One more thing, since I strongly suspect that I know the first thing that jumped into your heart when you read the previous. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I suspect that you felt instinctively repelled by the idea of subjective morality, that it would be backed by mere fallible human opinion rather than the Divine and Eternal Laws of An Almighty God. And I get that. I too used to crave such things. But I gradually realized that I don't live in a world where they can exist. You may think that the psychopath would simply laugh at being told that he is defying social convention, but what's to stop him from laughing at being told that he's defying the Law of God? Why should he fear that any more than defying the opinions of his fellow man? God does not send down thunderbolts or angels of fire to destroy those who brazenly defy his will. Appealing to Divine Law does not make morality any more secure than appealing to social reality. In fact, I'd say it's less secure, because at least we know that social opinions exist.

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    16. EXE(cute)August 24, 2026 at 7:28 AM

      Tony,

      Descartes' non-use of forms, in fact their doing so is a rejection of "common experience of reality", in that we (directly) experience OURSELVES operating with final causality, which they then feel they must explain away as an illusion - all the while pretending that arguing about moral models has a point to it because we can choose our actions.

      What I've heard having discussions with materialists:
      1) Morality is relative, so no brand or flavor is 'better' than the other.
      2) There are no objective truths, but the truth that there aren't objective truths is an objective truth.
      3) We should not trust our brain.
      4) Our brain is both evolutionary 'slop' and the greatest tool ever created, now we can even 'know' that the existence of the universe is a 'brute fact.'
      5) We don't have free will, but we should use our 'apparent' free will to be 'better' people and 'improve' society. Even when no brand of morality is really better after all.
      6) Christians and other religious people are 'dumb' for having chosen to be religious, even when we can't 'choose' anything at all.
      7) They are proud of having 'chosen' to reject the idea of God, even when they acknowledge that choices are not real.
      8) They dislike God, because God is 'evil', even when they had previously acknowledged that morality isn't objective. Then said 'God' deserves to be condemned based on their moral framework, which is the result of a random process that gave them a 'detritus' of a brain and senses that 'aren't reliable.'
      9) Some vague appeals to 'epistemology', because epistemology is magical and can repair the ravages of evolution. Not to mention that you need said sloppy brain to engage in epistemology.
      10) They are the 'reasonable' people.

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    17. EXEAugust 24, 2026 at 7:41 AM

      Anon,

      Hmm. Adler, eh? Well, I haven't read his books, but some of the reviews that I see of both him and his work online seem...unflattering. He seems to be Feser's intellectual predecessor, regarded as a fanatical partisan for Neo-Thomism, prone to dogmaticism and curmudgeonly dismissal of opposing viewpoints, especially in his old age. I see, however, that he is the one who started this "Descartes and Kant ruined everything" historiography, not Feser. Ah, so it's something he inherited rather than invented. Just as a baseline, he seems to strawman his opponents quite frequently:

      "Adler: "Let me summarize for you quickly some basic oppositions in the attitudes that men take toward truth. First is this attitude that I have just mentioned, skepticism. The skeptic thinks that there is nothing true or false, or that everything is equally true and false and that we are unable to know what is true or what is false, that we simply don’t have knowledge or possess the truth." "

      This is not remotely accurate as an assessment of philosophical skepticism. I'm pretty sure they allow for the existence of grey areas. Skepticism is being open to the exploration of alternatives, it is not epistemological nihilism. That's like defining Aristotelianism as Scotism and pretending other forms don't even exist. You'd quickly call BS if someone tried that on you.

      His examples of other concepts seem muddled as well. When defining "unanimity" or public consensus, he points to Nazi rallies and the kind of uproar that happens when Babe Ruth hits a home run as examples of "public unanimity". But this is confused - the first example is a self-selecting crowd, since it's hardly to be expected that anyone opposed to Hitler would willingly attend a Nazi rally. Similarly, the fans of the team opposing Babe Ruth are hardly likely to be cheering for his home run! So Adler's idea of what "unanimity" even means seems to be badly supported.

      This isn't going into the bit where he decides to keep Aristotle's misogyny, for some reason. IE, "we ought to base our inquiries on the reasoning held by everyone, or if not everyone, then at least most men, or if not most men, then at least on the opinions of their wives". Y'know, because girls are dumb.

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    18. EXE(cute)August 24, 2026 at 8:32 AM

      EXE,

      Sure "we tend to do this" - but that's an intellectual *vice*, not a virtue, This is an uncritical way to address reality, and it'll never get you closer to the truth except by accident.

      Well, according to you, teleology is 'imaginary', meaning that there are no ends. Which implies that the end of our intellects/ brains is not to attain truth.
      To vitiate something means to impede the proper operation, but our brain isn't oriented towards truth (per your admission, since ends are not a part of nature), therefore there's nothing to 'vitiate'.

      Our brains, then, 'accidentally' apprehend truth. But if our brains are not geared towards truth, then how can we recognize truth when it's 'accidentally' apprehended by us?

      Also, Tony's will isn't oriented towards anything. What are you trying to achieve then? Do you want him to use his illusory/ inoperative will to be more reasonable?

      I'm being totally serious. If you could solve these paradoxes, please.

      Yours, Cutie.

      Delete
    19. TerilienAugust 24, 2026 at 9:20 AM

      @EXE @Tony

      As I understand it, Descartes was rejecting scholasticism in large part because scholasticism was not monolithic at all, but rife with disagreements. The reality is that there wasn’t actually a prevailing, uniform, metaphysical orthodoxy. There were plenty of nominalists and conceptualists at the council of Trent for example.

      The irony is that both the haters and the players of Thomism do a disservice to medieval philosophy by flattening how incredibly diverse it was .

      Delete
    20. EXE(cute)August 24, 2026 at 3:53 PM

      EXE,

      Really? The sciences have made "progress of sorts" since the Enlightenment? Talk about an understatement!

      What you perceive as 'great progress', may be qualified in the future as nothing more than baby steps. Same as you criticize the scientific progress previous to the 'Enlightenment.' Those who lived before the Enlightenment probably thought that their societies were 'incredibly advanced.' Your excitement may be unwarranted.

      Nothing about intentional action requires one to believe in final causes.

      Then explain how can we act for an end if ends aren't real.

      assuming it operates the way our minds do.

      If the world doesn't operate the way our minds do, what's the point of using our minds to gain knowledge about the world? If the world doesn't operate the way our minds do, how can we develop scientific theories about the world? Instead of writing such long posts, you should be paying more attention to the absurdities of your claims. Quantity doesn't equate quality.

      Hmm. Adler, eh? Well, I haven't read his books, but some of the reviews that I see of both him and his work online seem...unflattering

      Didn't you mention in your previous post something about 'people who can't make their own opinions and prefer to be told what to think'? You're a total joke.

      Y'know, because girls are dumb.

      Your side says that 'being a girl' isn't an objective truth. Or that a man with a dress can play in girl's sports. Sounds like profound misogyny.

      Delete
    21. EXEAugust 24, 2026 at 4:34 PM

      Terilien

      This is correct. In fact, this is one of the key things I wish the Adlerite-Feserite crowd would understand more. This fictional unity is part of their general project of presenting the Medieval period as one of admirable intellectual unity so as to make Modernity look worse by contrast.

      Delete
    22. EXE(cute)August 24, 2026 at 4:38 PM

      EXE,

      Regarding your nonsense about final causation.
      You want to evacuate final causes from Nature, but then you end up admitting (without further argumentation), that they 'exist' in our minds.

      And 'Natural Selection' is nothing more than assigning final causes to an impersonal force of nature. Selection implies a definite outcome, an end. You simply cannot prescind of teleology.

      Nothing in your position is tenable. You want to have your cake and eat it. Sorry, kid, but we Thomists don't take seriously your silliness. If you think you're making a dent in our philosophy, you're severely deluded.

      Delete
    23. EXEAugust 24, 2026 at 5:13 PM

      To my hater,

      Fine, I've got free time, I'll humor you. The answer is simple. Your "paradoxes" are false. They only seem valid through the use of linguistic pedantry.
      Everyone understands what I mean by a "mental vice" in this context - a habit that makes it difficult for one to see or understand the truth about something. "Vitiate" is not even the same thing, it is a separate word derived from the same Latin root as "vice". But even if it were the ultimate root of "vice", the meaning of a word is conventional - it is based on usage. To claim that it must instead be based on etymology is just idiotic. You might as well claim that Sir Paul McCartney cannot be a Knight because he is not a cnecht (Old English for young boy). Because of this, it does not matter if Tony's brain is not "properly ordered by nature" towards finding truth. It is capable of finding truth, and I am perfectly permitted to take him to task for failing (in my estimation) to seriously attempt to do so.

      How can we recognize truth when we find it? Bro, that's the entire subject of epistemology, go ask them if you're serious. It's not some kind of secret, we've been trying to find better ways of testing our ideas for literal ages. Just as a very basic primer, there are broad schools of thought such as verificationism (only things that are either empirically verifiable, or which are analytic truths, can be considered true and meaningful), perspectivism (things can only be true relative to some broader perspective), pragmatism, etc. But you don't even need to go into the weeds - just basic belief testing will get you a long way. Check your assumptions to see if they might be false or if you might be falling victim to confirmation bias. Take an antagonistic perspective and try to prove your own beliefs wrong, and don't be confident that they're right unless you seriously try and fail.

      Tony's will might not be inherently oriented towards anything, but it is not inoperative or illusory. He can choose to orient it towards things, and I want to show him that his current beliefs are wrong or at least questionable. Hoping that he is capable of understanding why he should want to have true beliefs, I hope to point him in what I perceive to be the right direction. What's wrong with that?

      Delete
    24. EXEAugust 24, 2026 at 5:30 PM

      Also, to Cute, be careful that you don't equivocate between "accidental" (in the Thomist sense of not being essential) with "accidental" in the conventional sense of "happening by pure chance". Our brains apprehend truth "accidentally" in the Thomist sense, in the sense that this is not their Final Cause. But it is false to say that they only apprehend truth "accidentally" if by that you mean that it's just sheer dumb luck. To confuse the two would be a fallacy.

      Also, you just generally seem to be operating with this weird view that either God gives us brains that are inherently oriented toward truth-seeking, or else we're in total epistemic chaos with no ability to find the truth at all. There's no reason why this should be so. Pretty clearly we do have a truth-finding ability, however flawed - otherwise it is incredibly unlikely that our attempts to manipulate Nature would succeed in such a consistent manner. Ballistics, mathematics, chemistry, and so on - all these fields and more allow us to make predictions about what will happen, which are right fairly often, and when they're wrong, they're usually wrong because of something we failed to take into account or a false assumption. We can figure out what arc an arrow or a bullet would have to take to hit a certain target, or what compounds would be required to create a certain chemical reaction. It is ludicrous to suggest that we have not actually grasped any truths in these cases, because then we'd simply be getting incredibly lucky. And this is not surprising on an evolutionary view, because it is quite obvious that successfully grasping the truth is frequently advantageous to one's survival. Not every time, sure - as I have said before, frequently the best thing for helping you live on is to act quickly no matter how poorly-thought out your decision is, and we are full of cognitive biases, most of which serve to protect our frail egos. But I think it plainly ludicrous to suggest that truth-finding ability would have NO survival advantages. For example, being able to understand the connection between cloud movement and weather, so as to predict future weather, is obviously useful. So are things like the ability to understand that certain colors or smells typically imply danger, or that certain rocks can be chipped and refined to form cutting instruments. That certain plants have medicinal properties, that certain signs imply the presence of prey or a dangerous predator, etc. So we should expect evolution to produce an animal capable of understanding the truth, albeit in a flawed, limited, and halting way. In fact, I can turn it back on you - if our brains were not randomly evolved, but instead designed by God, why then are they so imperfect? Surely God is not incompetent? Surely he wants us to know the truth, right? So...what's up with that? If you could solve this paradox, please.

      Delete
    25. EXEAugust 25, 2026 at 4:31 AM

      (1/2)

      I really don't understand what point you are trying to make, unless it's "I hate you", in which case, uh, go off queen, I guess?

      Sure, the speed of technological advancement may accelerate even further in the future. So? If it does, it will be by further adhering to the ideals of reason and enlightenment, and not by adhering to your ideals. That does nothing to change the fact that the technological explosion we've seen in the last five centuries is because of the Enlightenment prevailing over Scholasticism. It is undeniable that we have made great progress *compared to what your side accomplished*. That much is certain.

      "Then explain how can we act for an end if ends aren't real."

      More conceptual confusion and equivocation. You keep making this mistake, of confusing the Thomistic *explanation* for a phenomenon with the phenomenon itself. Ends can exist even if Thomistic Final Causality doesn't. That is not the only way to conceptualize reality. That we have natural desires is simply a fact that we encounter. It does not follow at all that these desires were put there by some higher power for the purpose of leading us to some cosmic end, or indeed for any reason at all. You don't get to take this "prove me wrong!" stance where I'm the only one who needs to do any explanatory work.

      "If the world doesn't operate the way our minds do, then how come science work?"

      The world does not need to operate the same way as our brains in order for our brains to gain knowledge about the world. Why would they? You've provided no reason to think this is necessary. And in fact, it is quite obvious that the world does NOT operate the way our brains do, otherwise magical thinking would not be a thing, because there would be no disconnect between how the world works and how we think it ought to work. Most people have no problem with this. Unless you, dear, have a hard time distinguishing between reality and fantasy?

      Delete
    26. EXEAugust 25, 2026 at 5:09 AM

      (2/2)

      Sure, I admit that I don't have the time or money to buy and read all of Adler's books. I'm not perfect myself. At least I try to go out and find sources about the man and his opinions. There just isn't much there, because philosophy as a field has generally ignored Adler, because he mostly chose to write pop philosophy (albeit on the denser side). There are few responses out there to be had. And it wouldn't matter to you, anyway, because you're dishonest and motivated purely by hatred of me. I could read every one of his books back to front and you would still not respect me one jot more. And even if I were a hypocrite, that still wouldn't make *you* right, buddy.

      I'm not gonna bother trying to educate you on transgenderism, since you obviously aren't interested in learning anything about it. I notice that you didn't actually deny being a misogynist, and instead just played a cheap deflection. Sooo...you got anything to say?

      Again, you are confusing your philosophy's explanation for something with the thing to be explained. We have goals. Some of these are supplied to us via biology (hunger, thirst, etc). Some we choose for ourselves. There is no reason to believe that, just because we have these goals, that our thinking is oriented to some Ultimate End. All that we know for sure is that we do in fact have desires and goals. The claim that these point to some Cosmic Purpose which we SHOULD all aim towards is your job to demonstrate.

      Delete
    27. EXEAugust 25, 2026 at 5:19 AM

      Bonus comment because this one deserves to be held up to public light on its own:

      "And 'Natural Selection' is nothing more than assigning final causes to an impersonal force of nature. Selection implies a definite outcome, an end. You simply cannot prescind of teleology."

      Come on. This is the kind of thing I'd expect from Answers In Genesis. No, "natural selection" does not imply teleology. Try telling any biologist that and you'll get a facepalm. It is a poorly-chosen moniker that Darwin took in order to contrast artificial selection. Nobody actually thinks that it implies intentional selection. It is not "trying" to achieve anything. There is no actual design. What really happens is that a ton of stuff gets thrown at the wall, and the ones that don't manage to reproduce get weeded out. After a while, only the organisms well-suited to exist in their specific environment are left. If you come to this after the fact, this can *look* like design, but that's an illusion. You don't see the millions of different species that failed and went extinct because they weren't able to continue reproducing. Sometimes people use language in ways that are not perfectly accurate. Why is it that you seem to have such a hard time understanding that?

      Delete
    28. EXE(cute)August 25, 2026 at 8:20 AM

      EXE

      To my hater

      To what you may be "perceiving" as your hater. Your mind isn't geared towards truth, remember. Because Nature is devoid of teleology. Which is a truth in itself. Maybe you're experiencing a "delusion."

      Everyone understands what I mean by a "mental vice" in this context - a habit that makes it difficult for one to see or understand the truth about something

      Well, if it makes it "difficult", that means that there has to be an end in sight. It's making it difficult for poor Tony, to reach the desired outcome or end, which is to attain truth. But there cannot be ends in a world devoid of teleology. Then, there cannot be 'truth.'
      Also, a habit requires an end. You can't have a "habit" for nothing. A habit is an inclination towards something. Dude, be real. Your pedantry isn't going to help you!

      Just as a very basic primer, there are broad schools of thought

      Schools of 'thought'. Hmmmm. But thoughts are directed towards ends. Because a thought 'about nothing' isn't a thought, after all. But our brain is material, and there isn't any kind of teleology in the material world. Then, how can our brain 'understand' truth, which necessitates an end/ goal??
      So, no, saying 'there are schools of thought' doesn't solve the paradox, at all. I find your efforts funny, but ineffective.

      Tony's will might not be inherently oriented towards anything, but it is not inoperative or illusory. He can choose to orient it towards things

      And to 'orientate' means to direct towards a determinate end. But no ends in material reality. So Tony can't incline his will towards an end that doesn't exist. Which makes Tony's will inoperative.

      Delete
    29. TonyAugust 25, 2026 at 8:35 AM


      Correct me if I'm wrong, but I suspect that you felt instinctively repelled by the idea of subjective morality, that it would be backed by mere fallible human opinion rather than the Divine and Eternal Laws of An Almighty God.

      Oh, goody, you actually invited me to correct you, so I will. As usual, you mis-estimate me in terms of my emotional and intellectual perspective.

      I grew up in a world that professed subjective morality. I am not "instinctively repelled". I am rationally skeptical of the (many) implications needed for this. Having studied versions of them, it's not instinct, it's reasoned critique.

      There are non-theist bases for a morality that isn't subjective: Aristotle didn't rely on a God to get there. He did, though, rely on formal and final causality.

      This is a muddle. We experience ourselves acting for purposes, of course. Whether you believe this is "illusion" or not, it doesn't require us to buy into the entire Thomistic Four Causes framework. We simply have purposes and are capable of acting on them. That mere fact doesn't establish anything beyond itself.

      It establishes the common experience of final causality - even if in a limited form. We don't have to "project" that onto the universe to say "the universe is of such a nature as to harbor final causality", we simply directly observe it IN that universe. A conclusion that it applies OUTSIDE of ourselves to other aspects of the universe is, indeed, a further step, and should be justified by sufficient groundwork, yes, it shouldn't be assumed. A-T doesn't merely assume it.

      ""forms" are indeed needed to explain our experience of intentional action and the resulting experiences of moral right and wrong, of justice and injustice."

      Why? Plenty of non-Thomist metaphysics exist that can explain the fact that humans act intentionally and have opinions about right and wrong.

      I intended that comment within the context of my reference to natural law. Forms and natural law go hand in hand. I don't dispute that there are attempts at other metaphysical theories to ground intentional action and moral sense. I do dispute whether (in the West) any of them has had even close to a similar level of professional (philosopher) and practical consensus as natural law doctrine had before the modern era: each school has a following but none prevails as consensus.

      Why does that matter? Truth is not determined by consensus, Lister was right about handwashing even when nobody agreed with him. My point wasn't disputing whether there are other theories held, it was whether the current situation in moral philosophy could be held to represent "progress" in similar fashion to modern science. It is, at best, a big stretch to claim it.

      But I gradually realized that I don't live in a world where they can exist.

      This isn't the agnostic view of forms (and general final causality in the world) that says "science doesn't need them to explain what we see", it is the antagonistic view that there is no such thing and can't be. The agnostic Cartesian approach is insufficient to get there, so you must have located something that (in your view) positively proves they can't be. Have you, in such journey, also established which ones of the many non-theist competing views of morality also "cannot be"? Or are you content with the protestantly agnostic view to leave in peace everyone who latches on to any one of those, and only attack theist explanations of morality? OK with both subjective and objective (e.g. Kantian) non-theist moralities, in spite of the incompatibility between them? Why would you insist on attacking, say, a non-theist version of natural law, since it's not based on God, it's just one more version of an objective morality?

      Delete
    30. EXE(cute)August 25, 2026 at 8:57 AM

      EXE,

      Also, you just generally seem to be operating with this weird view that either God gives us brains that are inherently oriented toward truth-seeking, or else we're in total epistemic chaos with no ability to find the truth at all.

      That's not the position of the Thomist. God gives us a *whole* body, whose integrity is metaphysically granted by the substantial form. Our brains are a part of our bodies, and they are material and therefore subject to the biases and limitations of matter. But the power of the intellect (granted by the substantial form), is immaterial, and that's why we can reach certain universal truths. Because immateriality is more perfect than materiality (more in act.) That's why we can do things no other animals on Earth are capable of. That's why we can attain truth, and penetrate into the world much more efficiently than any other creature the product of evolution.

      In your system, you only have the brain (which is nothing but a 'physicalized' soul, the 'integrator' for the whole person.) The brain is, according to you, a 'detritus' of evolution. The material brain cannot account for truth, because truth requires an end, and ends require substantial forms, which define and determine. You have evacuated forms from Nature. In your scenario, you have a 'slop' of a brain, that somehow, by *undisclosed* (magically it seems) means, is 'capable' of correcting its own biases. Which means that the brain isn't a 'slop' after all, because it can 'self-direct' itself towards truth. Then, evolution creates both 'detritus' and 'perfection'. Which is contradictory.

      So we should expect evolution to produce an animal capable of understanding the truth, albeit in a flawed, limited, and halting way

      But we shouldn't expect evolution to produce animals that are capable of understanding something as complex as how the whole friggin' universe came to be, which has nothing to do with collecting food, procuring ourselves some shelter and avoid predators.

      Delete
    31. bmillerAugust 25, 2026 at 9:15 AM

      Transgenderism? How did that get in the conversation?

      Perhaps this is what all the fuss is about.

      Delete
    32. EXE(cute)August 25, 2026 at 9:31 AM

      EXE,

      It is a poorly-chosen moniker that Darwin took in order to contrast artificial selection. / Nobody actually thinks that it implies intentional selection.
      All selections are 'intentional'. Int-end-ere. Inclinate towards an end.

      Maybe you mean 'conscious'? Aquinas never packed any mental content when he spoke of natural 'intentions.' But an intention, per definition, has an outcome or end.

      Artificial selection is both intentional and conscious.
      'Natural' selection is intentional, but not necessarily conscious.

      If there are no 'intentions' in Nature, then, there are no inclinations. And then, NS becomes superfluous and ineffective, like Tony's will. Darwin was using analogy to convey the common meaning or ratio: the absence of indifference, because Nature isn't indifferent towards all her creatures. Some pass the 'filter', some don't.

      What really happens is that a ton of stuff gets thrown at the wall, and the ones that don't manage to reproduce get weeded out.

      Read above. If there wasn't an 'inclination' towards a definite outcome, Darwin should have been forced to call his 'force' Natural Non-Selection. Which of course, is absurd.

      Come on. This is the kind of thing I'd expect from Answers In Genesis.

      I prefer Aquinas Online I even made a donation!

      Delete
    33. EXEAugust 25, 2026 at 10:09 AM

      Cute,

      You literally created your screen name as a deliberate parody of mine. That's hater behavior. Only someone obsessed with me would do such a thing, and unless this is your weird tsundere way of trying to get my affection, that really only leaves "hater" as an option. Given that you are cherry picking the things I'm saying and making no serious effort to interact with me, I will henceforth choose to spend my time dealing with people like Tony, who are actually trying to do something other than mentally pleasure themselves by "pwning" people they hate.

      Delete
    34. EXE(cute)August 25, 2026 at 10:24 AM

      EXE,

      So? If it does, it will be by further adhering to the ideals of reason and enlightenment, and not by adhering to your ideals.

      You cannot know the future. Please, just stop. And maybe your 'Enlightenment' will be one day ridiculed, like you ridicule Aristotle, who, if he had experienced the misfortune of getting to know you, would probably have written a whole treatise on how not to be like you.

      It is undeniable that we have made great progress *compared to what your side accomplished*

      Scientific progress doesn't make sense without causes. And causes doesn't make sense without ends. A cause * implies * an end. You're the cause of this (and not of that), because you reach a determinate end. A completion.

      If causes are not real, but a 'projection' of our minds, then nothing is happening out there when we are not present. That's absurd. You need formal causation. in the world, not 'supplemented' by our minds.

      Delete
    35. EXE(cute)August 25, 2026 at 10:27 AM

      (Cont)

      It does not follow at all that these desires were put there by some higher power for the purpose of leading us to some cosmic end, or indeed for any reason at all.

      It doesn't make sense that we experience 'desires', which obviously require an end, if there aren't ends in Nature, because we're a part of nature too. You need to supplement Nature with 'something' more, on pain of absurdity. There aren't ends in Nature, but there are ends in us, who are so special as to become the sole exception??
      Isn't a dog 'oriented' towards its bowl of food when it is hungry?? "Oh, no", you say, "it's just us 'projecting a desire' on the dog". How absurd! Don't dogs eat when we're not around?? Don't they experience desires???

      You don't get to take this "prove me wrong!" stance where I'm the only one who needs to do any explanatory work.

      That's why Aquinas elaborated on the potency/ act division. Extensively. He agreed (with Aristotle), that you need both formal and material causation and efficient and final causation. If you eliminate forms, you make Nature "indefinite", inert.

      And in fact, it is quite obvious that the world does NOT operate the way our brains do,

      I mean, the world HAS to operate as we perceive it, or else science becomes ludicrous. If the world doesn't operate according to how we represent it, then all of our knowledge becomes useless, because it's not knowledge after all, it's just poor mimicry. Does evolution work as we have modeled it, or does it not??

      Sooo...you got anything to say?
      Sooo, you think that a man can play in girl's sports if he so choses? That's very misogynistic.

      Delete
    36. AnonymousAugust 25, 2026 at 11:44 AM

      EXE, You know little about Mortimer Adler, so have linked his lengthy Wikipedia page to educate you. His achievements will long be remembered, while your emotional and rambling blog comments will be fade into the obscurity of cyberspace.

      Delete
    37. EXE(cute)August 26, 2026 at 4:50 AM

      EXE,

      Given that you are cherry picking the things I'm saying and making no serious effort to interact with me,

      What am I "cherry picking"? Your posts are extremely long, so I am highlighting the parts that merit a response. That helps people who are reading the thread to better understand the conversation.

      I will henceforth choose to spend my time dealing with people like Tony, who are actually trying to do something

      What's happening here, is that you prefer to 'engage' with Tony, because you know you can't logically answer my questions.You know that thoughts are intrinsically teleological.That teleology is a part of nature. But you can't square that with your beloved materialm. And now you choose to hide yourself behind the smokescreen of fake "outrage/ hate", because you can't provide any valid argument. You're not fooling anyone.

      Instead of accusing Dr. Feser of being a 'conspiracy' theorist, or telling us that you "don't read books" that are kindly recommended to you, because you "base your opinions on reviews", you should try to validate your position.

      Instead of relying on cheap shots ("AIGenesis" bullhshit or the usual suspect 'misoginy'), you should try to explain how can we think and operate in the world if ends aren't real.

      Or how can it there not be teleology in the biological world, while genes are imminently teleological. A gene points towards a function (for example an enzyme.) even when the gene isn't a conscious agent.

      If a gene doesn't end producing the enzyme, and the enzyme is vital for the organism, we say that the gene has 'failed'. Because functional genes are oriented towards something. And that 'something' helps the organism flourish.

      So, keep hiding and showing how your materialism is useless to explain the world. You're doing me a favor.

      Delete
    38. EXEAugust 26, 2026 at 7:29 AM

      Tony,

      I apologize for making assumptions about your character. I oughtn't to have done that. Correction accepted. And I should clarify that, when I said "But I gradually realized that I don't live in a world where they can exist", I was referring to the idea of Divinely Commanded Laws strong enough to deter people from wrongdoing, not to Forms. Hence the following sentence about how God doesn't come down or send anyone down to punish wrongdoing. That particular point was just about how "divinely-ordained objective morality" is not actually effective at curtailing crime. Apologies for not being clear enough that I was switching subject.

      Alright, I'll concede that final causality (if you want to call it that) exists in the minds of creatures capable of making decisions. By this I mean that they are capable of choosing to act upon desires or to resist them, and of choosing between them, at least among the array of desires that their biology and circumstances present to them (in other words, you can't choose your preferences, but you can choose between the preferences that you happen to have). Fair enough. Then we're agreed that *those* exist, and that this by itself doesn't show that they exist anywhere else. They exist in humans, and potentially in other animals as well to the extent that they have the ability to choose between wants.

      Finally, I would like to push back slightly on the notion that the Medieval Period had some kind of moral and intellectual unity. As Terilien has pointed out, it was actually quite fragmentary and divisive intellectually. What moral unity existed did so because the Catholic Church used State power to enforce its beliefs on as much of Europe as physically possible. The unity that you admire was born not of intellectual superiority but of brute force. Literally any system of morals could achieve near-universal acceptance if it were imposed upon people with sufficient violence.

      Delete
    39. TerilienAugust 26, 2026 at 3:04 PM

      It would be wrong to say it was “born of brute force”, given how politically decentralized things were. Brute force requires a stronger state apparatus to keep that kind of uniformity going.

      Delete
    40. TonyAugust 26, 2026 at 7:47 PM

      Finally, I would like to push back slightly on the notion that the Medieval Period had some kind of moral and intellectual unity. As Terilien has pointed out, it was actually quite fragmentary and divisive intellectually. What moral unity existed did so because the Catholic Church used State power to enforce its beliefs on as much of Europe as physically possible. The unity that you admire was born not of intellectual superiority but of brute force.

      I am willing to admit that even in the high medieval period, the state of philosophy in Christendom was not a monolithic unity. There were disputes, variations, different models, etc.

      However, for that very reason, I think you overplay your hand at the "used State power to enforce its beliefs on as much of Europe as physically possible." Manifestly, the Church and state allowed significant differences, disputes, variations, models, etc. So, it wasn't monolithic just is saying differences were allowed.

      While it doesn't do to put too much weight on this point: broadly speaking, the Church's forcible insistence was on theology, not philosophy. Mostly, philosophy came under censure only when the proposals explicitly attacked theological tenets, otherwise they were left to shift for themselves. And, even in spheres where there was tension between the competing philosophies, "the Church" could intervene only on the basis of some KIND of central area of agreement among Church authorities, because SOMEBODY had to be around to say "that conflicts with what the Church says" - and back it up with at least plausible arguments.

      So, sure, there were disagreements, and eventually even a contradictory school emerged (nominalism) that (eventually) was clearly incompatible with Catholicism, but this doesn't bely a kind of core body of consistently upheld positions, at least by majorities, even if not the vast majority. There's nothing like that now.

      Delete
    41. EXEAugust 27, 2026 at 4:38 AM

      Cute, for the sake of your edification, I'll point out two things that you seem to keep doing:

      1. Language is *descriptive*, not *prescriptive*. You keep banging on about the "definition" or words, or even their etymological roots, as if they dictated things about reality. See, "natural selection MUST have a mind because selection implies choice" or "intention must be end-oriented because it has the word end in it". You don't seem to understand that language can change over time, and that people can and often do speak imprecisely or choose words that are not good descriptors of what they actually mean.

      2. You're not even doing your etymology competently. Intendere is a Latin word, whereas "end" is a word from Old Germanic. The Latin equivalent to the Greek *telos* was *finis*. So the Romans could not possibly have used "intendere" to refer to "end", because "end" was not a word in their language. In fact you'd have a much better argument that, since the Universe is infinite, it must have no ultimate end, because that's what in+finis ("no end") means!

      3. You seem to have this weirdly black-and-white view of reality, where our perceptions of reality are either perfect or useless with no gray area allowed between them. Why can't it just be that our mental models of reality really do represent reality, but imperfectly, with varying levels of accuracy? This comports much better with our actual experience of reality. After all, illusions, hallucinations, mirages, delusions, and simple mistakes all exist. People hold all kinds of false beliefs about reality, does that mean that those people are entirely out of touch with it, not understanding it at all?

      Delete
    42. EXEAugust 27, 2026 at 10:26 AM

      Terilien,

      No, I still maintain that my description is accurate. The initial brute force was done by the Roman Emperors from Theodosius onwards, who absolutely DID have the centralized authority required to enforce Christianity on the populace. Paganism and unapproved forms of Christianity were made illegal, and the legal supremacy of nascent Orthodox Christianity was enforced by the state. Pagan temples were broken up and their possessions confiscated, often given to the Church as gifts. Their feasts and practices were banned. By the time the Empire collapsed, Christianity had already been established. The fracturing of the Empire and rise of successor kingdoms may have removed centralized authority, but the Catholic Church still remained culturally dominant, and interwove itself into the legal and political structures of as many of those kingdoms as it possibly could. Hence why the Papacy was so deeply invested in supporting Charlemagne, it wanted its Roman Emperor in the West back. In a politically fragmented landscape the Church needed to spin more plates in order to keep its will enforced, but that doesn't mean it wasn't enforcing its will on the people. It just means that doing so became more difficult and complicated after a certain point. The fact that it did so is clearly proven by all the religious persecution involved. Anyone deemed an ideological threat was slapped with the "heretic" label and "dealt with" with extreme prejudice. What was the Inquisition even for, if not ideological persecution?

      Delete
    43. EXEAugust 27, 2026 at 11:04 AM

      Tony

      Allowing minor disagreements doesn't mean that a group isn't tyrannical. Stalin allowed disagreement in minor fields, but it would be ludicrous to suggest that this meant he supported intellectual freedom. In Stalinist Russia, you might have been allowed to dissent a tiny little bit (especially if you were important) on minor technical matters, but if you crossed the line of state/ideological dogma? Instant censure and likely death. The Catholic Church didn't have that level of totalitarian control, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

      Sure, their primary interest was in the theological - because they were interested primarily in keeping their own power. But what you're describing is an environment of unfree inquiry comparable to Communist repression. The Church "permitted discussion", but only within boundaries that *it* established and controlled. Violating those boundaries led to an immediate, forceful response. You can have your little discussions about the movement of the stars, but dare to suggest or popularize a finding that implies that the Bible's cosmology is false? Knock knock, it's the Inquisition at your door! That *just is* the enforcement of its morals that I described and criticized. That enforcement is what led to the moral unity that you admire. An organization that says you may think what you like so long as you don't cast any doubt on our religion/ideology *is suppressing free thought*, definitionally. Stalin did it, and so did the Catholic Church, to the greatest extent that it was capable of.

      Delete
    44. EXEAugust 27, 2026 at 11:06 AM

      Additionally, when the Church stood on "prior areas of agreement", or on traditions about what they had always believed, those were themselves usually nothing more than the products of *earlier* persecutions. Sure, there had to have been someone to come in and say "that conflicts with what the Church teaches", but that "worked" only insofar as the Church succeeded, or had succeeded in prior eras, in killing off any and all competing worldviews - and generally with violence rather than argumentation. It's rather circular. For instance:

      "The Church has always taught that the Hebrew Bible is valid"? Marcion wouldn't agree with you there. Oh wait, he was declared a heretic and suppressed, so his voice doesn't count.

      "The Church has always taught that Christ is fully God", you say? The Arians wouldn't agree with you on that, so there wasn't universal agreement. Oh wait, the Church suppressed them and declared them heretics so their opinions don't count.

      "The Church has always taught that sin has tainted human nature"? Pelagius wouldn't agree. Oh wait, he was declared a heretic and suppressed so his opinion doesn't count.

      The only reason why the same thing didn't happen to the Protestants is because political reality at the time prevented the Church from suppressing them totally. Do you see the issue here?

      Delete
    45. EXEAugust 27, 2026 at 11:08 AM

      Addendum: I couldn't find a good place to include this information in either of my prior comments, so I'll leave it in its own one here:

      The fact that the Church did in fact suppress dissenting opinions, not just in theology but in any areas that could potentially undermine them, can be proven by the mere fact that the Inquisition and Index Librorum Prohibitorum existed at all. But additional evidence can be found in the lengthy list of early modern thinkers who had to self-censor in order to avoid the Church's wrath.

      -Descartes himself had to publish *Discourses on the Method* anonymously, and his scientific and the release of his cosmological treatise (Le Monde) was heavily delayed because of Galileo's condemnation on suspicion of heresy (Le Monde operates on a heliocentric model).
      -Copernicus, despite often being cited as an example of the Church not suppressing heliocentrism, was so afraid of the blowback his work would receive that he only published it shortly before his own death, with legend claiming that it was literally on his very deathbed.
      -Paolo Sarpi's *History of the Council of Trent*, which was very critical of the Counter-Reformation, had to be published in England rather than his native Italy, and even then under a pseudonym. Even the guy who *edited* that book was declared a manifest heretic and persecuted.

      Delete
    46. EXE(cute)August 27, 2026 at 1:27 PM

      EXE,

      Then we're agreed that those (processes which exhibit final causality --- thoughts and free will) exist, and that this by itself doesn't show that they exist anywhere else.

      Now a question arises:
      What makes those individuals possesing said qualities, *special*? If the whole Universe is nothing but matter, (and matter isn't *oriented* towards anything), how could there be certain individuals that "violate" the rule?

      They exist in humans, and potentially in other animals as well to the extent that they have the ability to choose between wants.

      What are "humans" exactly? The A-T proponent defines humans as "rational animals". But the materialist doesn't. How can we discriminate between human/ non human? By using DNA? What's the exact "DNA recipe" that makes a human? Are individuals with trisomies "human" or not? And those with monosomies (Turner Syndrome?) Are they "human" or not?

      By "personhood"? Which leaves foetuses, babies, severely deficient individuals, individuals who are sleeping, comatose people (and others), out of the definition? Wasn't I a "human" when I was a baby (unaware of my own existence, incapable of doing anything more relevant than crying, eating and p**ping ? Were you?)

      On the Medieval period: it was an Scholastic (Ockham), who first questioned final causation (and he was a firm believer in God). So, the Scientific Revolution owes a lot to him. Not so bad for those 'dumb' Scholastics.

      Delete
    47. EXE(cute)August 27, 2026 at 1:30 PM

      EXE,

      You don't seem to understand that language can change over time, and that people can and often do speak imprecisely or choose words that are not good descriptors of what they actually mean.

      How can we *know* then what people mean with their words? How could you know what Darwin had in his mind when he elaborated his theory? Are you a mind reader, who can travel back in time and peek inside Darwin's brain?

      You're not even doing your etymology competently.

      I am using Aquinas definition. One instance where he is particularly clear about this is in his De Principii Naturae, where he states “to intend (intendere) is nothing else than to have a natural inclination (inclinationem) to something.”

      How could you have an inclination towards something that's not an end?

      Why can't it just be that our mental models of reality really do represent reality, but imperfectly, with varying levels of accuracy?

      So, the Theory of Evolution might be "representing" reality in an imperfect manner. For example, the idea that natural 'selection' can be explained by effective causation alone, might be wrong. But you don't seem to doubt it. At all. You constantly affirm it.

      Delete
    48. EXE(cute)August 27, 2026 at 1:52 PM

      EXE,

      Sorry. I intended to include this is in my last post:

      Do (functional) genes objectively tend towards a product (protein, enzyme)?

      Or is said tendency just an 'illusion' of the human mind? Previously to our arrival on Earth, didn't genes codify for proteins/ enzymes?

      Delete
    49. TerilienAugust 29, 2026 at 8:28 AM

      @exe

      Im not saying the church didn’t use , sometimes extreme, violence to enforce uniformity, I’m just saying that this wouldn't have been possible without a broad consensus preexisting it, given its lack of a monopoly on force. Mea culpa if that didn’t come.

      Delete
    50. EXEAugust 29, 2026 at 2:04 PM

      Terilien

      ...but it *did* have a monopoly on force, just not at the very beginning. You're skipping straight from Early Christianity to the Middle Ages without considering the crucial period where Christianity served as the state religion of the Roman Empire. Constantine's relationship with Christianity was complicated, but he and his successors (with the obvious exception of Julian) were at the very least supportive of it, and they seem to have formally banned many pagan sacrifices and rites (albeit to a limited extent, and always with an eye to avoiding angering the pagans too much). But from Theodosius onwards it becomes completely unambiguous. The Roman Empire made Nicene Christianity the state religion and set about persecuting every other faith, especially unapproved forms of Christianity. By the time the Empire fell apart, they had succeeded in imposing the religion on practically the whole realm. So the "pre-existing broad consensus" that you refer to was itself already built on violence. After the Empire fell, that violence simply took a new form to match the new decentralized political reality.

      Delete
    51. TonyAugust 29, 2026 at 2:44 PM

      -Copernicus, despite often being cited as an example of the Church not suppressing heliocentrism, was so afraid of the blowback his work would receive that he only published it shortly before his own death, with legend claiming that it was literally on his very deathbed.

      You might be right about his motivation for leaving it late, but the evidence points the other way. He released a summary description of his theory decades before he died; he finished the bulk of his work by the 1530's, but he "withheld" publication while he continued to eke out details of his mathematics; and in the 1530's he was expressly encouraged to publish by high Catholic thinkers including bishops. And for 60 years after publication it did not garner attention as a problem for the Church, until the Galileo affair blew up.

      "The Church has always taught that the Hebrew Bible is valid"? Marcion wouldn't agree with you there. Oh wait, he was declared a heretic and suppressed, so his voice doesn't count.

      You can kick all you want, but the PRINCIPLE enunciated for the determination Marcion and Arius etc. were wrong was always "what did the Apostles teach". An authority might use force to enjoin consequences upon those who depart from the agreed criterion, but neither the criterion itself, nor a judgment that you fail under that criterion, is persecution. You may notice that where the state declined to enjoin civil punishments on heretics (e.g. the Protestant states, who themselves punished others for heresy), the Church imposed organizational punishments (i.e. loss of the organization's privileges). Just like your library will impose loss of privileges if you fail to follow its rules. Surely you aren't proposing that an organization has no right to decide who cannot be a member or get member privileges because he publicly declares positions contrary to the organization's stated positions?

      Your other points are similar: they have more force if you don't credit there's a God who started a Church, rather less force if he did; they elide distinctions that are germane, etc.

      Delete
    52. EXEAugust 30, 2026 at 6:35 AM

      Tony,

      I notice that you neglected the two examples I provided other than Copernicus - are you conceding that my characterization of their relationship to the Church is accurate? Furthermore, the main reason why his work didn't draw criticism until Galileo was because of the preface, inserted anonymously by theologian Andreas Osiander (who was responsible for publishing the book), which stated that the heliocentric model depicted therein was not true or even probable, but merely a useful mathematical model. This certainly was not the opinion of Copernicus himself, who likely wasn't aware of this addition. So, the main reason why Copernicus didn't draw the Church's ire so soon was because the publisher anonymously inserted an "oh no I don't REALLY believe this" into his book.

      I'll treat your other point separately because I think they deserve their own comments.

      Delete
    53. EXEAugust 30, 2026 at 7:04 AM

      Tony:

      "the PRINCIPLE enunciated for the determination Marcion and Arius etc. were wrong was always "what did the Apostles teach""

      Sure. But how do you know that was actually true, rather than a post-hoc rationalization to justify the brutal suppression that they engaged in? The only account you have of Marcion, his beliefs and his reasons for believing them, comes from the people who suppressed him. Maybe Marcion was steward of an ancient and venerable tradition going all the way back to St Paul himself, and had better claims to Apostolic inheritance than the proto-Orthodox? Maybe the proto-Orthodox were lying about what the Apostles taught? You don't know, because your only source is the proto-Orthodox, people who would have had every reason in the world to lie about it. It would be ridiculous to say something like:

      "Mark and Jeff were both youth camp leaders, but Mark never really cared about the kids and was a bad man who abused them. Jeff, on the other hand, really cared about the kids and did everything he could to teach them what was good and right. We know all this is true because Jeff said so."

      But that's effectively what you're doing. You trust that the Church always accurately preserved the teaching of the Apostles and that Marcion deviated from it, but only because you trust the accounts of the events in question, which were authored by the Church. Basically, you are just blindly taking Jeff's word for it.

      "You may notice that where the state declined to enjoin civil punishments on heretics (e.g. the Protestant states, who themselves punished others for heresy), the Church imposed organizational punishments (i.e. loss of the organization's privileges)."

      What is this even supposed to prove? Sure, when they could not get the authorities to do what they wanted, they would settle for lesser punishments. Sometimes they were not able to get the kind of total suppression they wanted, and settled for less. So? How does that do anything to exonerate them?

      Delete
    54. EXEAugust 30, 2026 at 7:17 AM

      Tony,

      This one deserves its own comment:

      "Your other points are similar: they have more force if you don't credit there's a God who started a Church, rather less force if he did;"

      Sure, if you presuppose that Christianity is really true, that makes my arguments less potent. But that would be circular. "I trust that the Church was founded by God on the teaching of the Apostles, because the Church says so, and I can trust the Church's testimony because it was founded by God" would be a pretty poor piece of reasoning.

      "they elide distinctions that are germane, etc."

      OK, so I'm apparently omitting relevant distinctions. Care to be more specific? Surely you can tell me what exactly I'm failing to distinguish between, and how those distinctions are relevant?

      Delete
    55. EXE(cute)August 30, 2026 at 1:06 PM

      EXE does prefer to engage in historical discussions, because he/ she isn't capable of answering the hard (metaphysical) questions.

      Funny, since their worldview is so patently "true" and "supported by science." Hmmmm.

      What is EXE, the prolific commentator, so afraid of?

      Avoiding conflict:Silence is an easy way to step away from an uncomfortable fight.
      2) Uncertainty: They do not know how to reply to a difficult fact or logic.

      Uh-huh.

      Delete
  6. Ian WardellAugust 21, 2026 at 11:33 AM

    Article is behind paywall and I don't seem to be able to read for free on my PC. Pity, I know a great deal about Berkeley.

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousAugust 26, 2026 at 7:48 PM

    I was going to say we should stop engaging with EXE because he really needs therapy. But maybe this blog is a form of therapy and it's helpful for him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. EXE(cute)August 27, 2026 at 2:27 PM

      Anonymous (August 26, 2026 at 7:48 PM)

      EXE is in search of truth. As we all are.
      He/ she may stumble and fall, and he/ she may behave like a d*rk sometimes/ a great deal of time (like we all do.)

      More stubborn individuals have come to see the light (Joe Schmid was a fella who used to spar with Dr. Feser(1) and now he is doing Catholic apologetics(2), and Dr. Feser used to be an atheist himself.)

      (1) * Existential Inertia

      (2) Keeping an eye on him, lol!

      Delete
    2. ficino4mlAugust 27, 2026 at 5:32 PM


      Who is "we"? If you want to be part of an identified "we" you should have the guts to create a profile and post under a handle/name.

      Delete
    3. EXE(cute)August 28, 2026 at 1:54 PM

      ficino4ml,

      Is "ficino4ml" your real identity? If not, maybe you shouldn't be criticizing others.

      Delete
    4. AnonymousAugust 28, 2026 at 1:56 PM

      EXE (cute)Joe Schmid was real intellectual, who was working on his Ph.D at Princeton and and was a published writer. I don't think EXE is in that category.
      fincino4ml: Whether I post as Anonymous or click on the drop down menu and create a "name," takes the same amount of "guts."

      Delete
  8. MJRAugust 27, 2026 at 12:04 PM

    So, EXE, you are trans? Do identify as a man or a woman? I live in rural Texas.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. EXE(cute)August 30, 2026 at 1:12 PM

      MJR,

      EXE always avoids the questions that elicit some discomfort in her/him.

      Playing dumb is their strategy.

      Delete
  9. AnonymousAugust 28, 2026 at 1:34 PM

    Someone somewhere on this blog once mentioned that the fact that "a raccoon is not a bear" proves hylomorphism is right and nominalism is false. Google AI says that based on foot structure, diet, teeth, and behavior, Thomas Aquinas WOULD consider a raccoon a type of bear, had he known that raccoons exist. Any responses?

    ReplyDelete
  10. NormAugust 31, 2026 at 10:03 AM

    Hi Prof

    Would you say that if our cognitive faculties were not oriented towards truth, something as clear as basic arithmetic 2+2=4 could reasonably be called into question, it seems like the way you articulate the eann makes that claim

    You wrote,

    The bottom line is that what the EAAN/”argument from reason” shows, in my view, is that we cannot coherently trust our cognitive faculties unless we suppose that they are directed toward the attainment of truth as their telos or end.

    Couldn't one say though that mathematical logic is true irrespective of the reliability of our cognitive faculties, is it the reliability of our cognitive faculties that ground mathematical truths ?

    Also, if you could comment on this

    Why can't every approximation be taken as an individual shape in itself, why call it an imperfect triangle when it could just be in it's own category instead of "triangle"

    One response, I have is that even if this was conceded, it still wouldn't explain why can't there be a perfect triangle, that's where matter comes in and I think it would affect our ability to come up with physical laws, so science wouldn't be able to proceed

    And the second point is what if the parts of our senses and cognitive function responsible for leading us to this information is deceiving us in that regard of "imperfection" ,so as such there actually can be perfect figures.

    How would you respond here ?

    Norm

    Hope you are having a good summer

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Edward FeserAugust 31, 2026 at 9:45 PM

      Hi Norm,

      Would you say that if our cognitive faculties were not oriented towards truth, something as clear as basic arithmetic 2+2=4 could reasonably be called into question,

      That’s an ambiguous question. Would 2 + 2 = 4 itself be called into question? No. Would our being justified in believing that proposition be called into question? Yes.

      is it the reliability of our cognitive faculties that ground mathematical truths ?

      No.

      Couldn't one say though that mathematical logic is true irrespective of the reliability of our cognitive faculties

      Yes, but what is at issue in the argument you refer to is how we could have access to them. Basically, you seem to be treating the issue as if it were about metaphysics (what is in fact the case) when it is about epistemology (how we could have access to what is the case).

      Why can't every approximation be taken as an individual shape in itself, why call it an imperfect triangle when it could just be in it's own category instead of "triangle"

      It depends on what we’re talking about. A triangle isn’t strictly a substance, but consider something that is, such as a dog. What we already independently know about dogs (their ordinary life habits and needs, the traits they exhibit when not interfered with or damaged, etc.) is what tells us that a dog that is missing a leg is an imperfect instance rather than its own kind of thing.

      Delete
    2. NormSeptember 1, 2026 at 2:51 AM

      Thanks Prof

      Cheers

      Delete
    3. AnonymousSeptember 1, 2026 at 9:33 PM

      Edward, would you agree that even if our cognitive faculties weren't intelligently designed by God for knowing truth, we could still know that when there are thick dark clouds it's gonna rain? Or "If all trimps are tromps and all tromps are trumps, then all trimps are definitely trumps?"?

      Delete

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