Immortal Souls… is a major philosophical contribution to the metaphysics of human nature and the praeambula fidei… Feser’s work merits the highest praise… Impressively organized, thematically systematized, and distinctively philosophical, [its] depth, scope, and contributions are manifest even to the most vociferously hostile opponent… [It] will remain a timeless contribution to the revival of [Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy] as the serious competitor to alternative theories of human nature.
Commenting
on some “minor drawbacks,” Rehman opines that the book should have devoted less
space to some issues and more space to others.
In particular, he suggests that I could have shortened the discussion of
eliminative materialism given that I take the view to be self-defeating, and
that the discussion of the semantic indeterminacy of material properties and
processes is forbiddingly technical to readers new to these issues. Meanwhile, he thinks the absence of any treatment
of the distinction between the sexes makes the book’s treatment of human nature
incomplete.
However, I
stand by these particular choices about what to include and what to omit. Eliminative materialism is a position that
many regard, quite rightly in my view, as too absurd to take seriously as a
live option. All the same, it has some prominent
and clever defenders. Moreover, I think
that some version of eliminativism is impossible to avoid if one consistently
pushes through the implications of materialism, and no one would deny that a
book like mine ought to have a lot to say about materialism and its implications. The particular section of the book Rehman
refers to is eight pages long, and there are maybe seven or eight further pages
scattered elsewhere in the book that are relevant to the topic. In a book of well over 500 pages, that does
not seem to me to be excessive.
As to the
discussion of semantic indeterminacy, this is in my judgment one of the central
issues that must be understood in order to see why a materialist account of the
intellect is impossible in principle. The
technicalities are simply unavoidable given the nature of the topic and of the
literature that has to be addressed in dealing with it. They are also necessary in order to respond adequately
to the various materialist attempts to get around the problem. In any event, Immortal Souls is not an introductory book or a
popularization. While I think there’s a
lot in it that the non-specialist will find useful, there is also a lot in it
that readers with little familiarity with academic philosophy are going to find
difficult. But the point of the book is
precisely to present as rigorous a defense as possible of the
Aristotelian-Thomistic view of human nature.
Finally, in
my view a treatment of current controversies over sex and gender would simply
have been out of place in a book of this sort.
From the point of view of Scholastic thought, Immortal Souls falls into the category of philosophical anthropology,
and from the point of view of analytic philosophy it falls into the category of
philosophy of mind. You simply wouldn’t see
a treatment of the differences between the sexes in a general work of
Scholastic philosophical anthropology or analytic philosophy of mind, given the
topics they traditionally deal with. It
would seem very odd and shoehorned in.
Of course,
that’s partly because the nature of the sexes was not a matter of controversy
until relatively recently. But while
philosophical anthropology is certainly highly relevant to that controversy, no
less relevant to dealing with it are issues that would normally arise instead
in the context of a natural law treatment of matters of sexual morality. Hence, in my judgment the current controversies
over sex and gender are best dealt with in a book on that topic, which I have
planned in any case.
Anyway, I thank Rehman for his critical engagement with the book, and for his very kind words about it.
This old ex-Catholic skeptic just wishes that the Prof would publish more things in venues that are not attached to Catholic institutions, and wishes that we would see reviews written by reviewers who are not employed by Catholic institutions. Prof. Feser recently wrote about following the argument where it leads. That's language from Plato's Socrates. But when the result always aligns with pronouncements of the Catholic Church's magisterium, some of us wonder whether the "leading" of the argument is constrained by confessional commitments. If it is, then it is not genuinely Socratic.
ReplyDeleteMaybe some will think, that's OK. Rather have St. Paul than Socrates? I guess I think, when philosophy is conceived of as a handmaiden of theology, we don't really have philosophy anymore. Maybe we have God's lawyering instead.
I should add that of course, Professor Feser does publish articles in some venues that are not attached to Catholic institutions or do not generally represent "conservative" viewpoints, e.g. journals like Philosophy Compass or Religious Studies. He also contributes articles to edited volumes on various topics, published by academic houses like Cambridge and Wiley-Blackwell.
DeleteWhat books from Ed Feser have been published by John Wiley?
Delete@Anonymous: I do not know of books by Feser that Wiley-Blackwell has published. I only know of two articles he has contributed to "companions" edited by various people and published by that house. Prof. Feser also published an article in Midwest Studies in Philosophy, which was then published by Wiley (2013) but now is published by PDC. I get this info from Prof. Feser's online CV and would like to be corrected if I've gotten any of it wrong.
DeleteI was thinking of hardbound volumes. know Feser edited the Cambridge Companion to Hayek, which is hardbound.
DeleteLooking forward to your writing on sex and gender. I just listened to an episode of New Polity where D.C. Schindler talks about gender (titled "Is there Gender in the Soul?"), and it was totally eye-opening and relevant/healing to contemporary discourse on gender and sex. So now I'm a bit on fire to read/learn more about it.
ReplyDeleteHi Prof
ReplyDeleteHow would you respond to those who agree with Parmenides argument about change, that it does not exist, From there go on to say the finding of physics reinforce that notion that change cannot and does not exist. And from there argue that this timelessness is due to the real world literally being made up of mathematics as the best explanation of why reality is timeless and changeless. (As mathematical objects are timeless and changeless)
Since they cannot mathematicize qualitative features (consciousness) , they say that these qualitive aspects supervene on these mathematical aspects in order to avoid eliminativism.
Is the only way to rebutt this is to deny the premise that change is not real
Interesting they accept minds existence, convenient to the subject.
DeleteLets start ftom the start, how exactly is anything casually dependent on mathematical objects? That is like the first issue with mathematical platonism! These things just can't cause anything.
Norm,
DeleteI saw you post similar comments about this topic many times. Are you okay? What's bothering you about Parmenides and the possibility of change specifically?
Hi Talmid
DeleteUsually these mathematical consciousness views deny the need for the existence of causality and change.
In order to get them to take the question seriously you would first have to convince them that change is real. (I think it is real, but I am working on trying to get the argument for it right and understanding Prof's Tu Quoque Retort properly but Prof has been busy)
But then, what if like Parmindies one denies the existence of change, and then goes on to argue that the best explanation of the changelessness (pardon the word) and timelessness of the world is that it is in fact literally a mathematical object.
Now maybe you might respond that even a timeless changeless world can still be an instantiation of a universal,
As Prof writes in Five Proofs
"Second, even if change didn’t exist in the physical world, in the mind, or anywhere else, it still wouldn’t follow that the actualization of potential didn’t exist anywhere. For as I have argued, it is not just a thing’s undergoing change that involves the actualization of potential, but its very existence at any moment that involves the actualization of potential. Hence, even if there is no real change or actualization of potential within an Einsteinian four-dimensional block universe, the sheer existence of that universe as a whole—in a single, timeless moment, as it were—would involve the actualization of potential and thus an actualizer distinct from the world itself.,"
But I was wondering how can one respond to the argument that being an abstract object is a better explanation of the world's timelessness and changelessness.
Maybe we can say that it is actually not a good explanation, maybe one can say that since we only know if these abstract objects in our mind, how can we say they exist outside of it and maybe the view Prof wrote about in fiveproofs is more common sensical, since we naturally conceive of the world in terms of physical things and substances.
Like for example in AR Prof says
"Even if it were not self-contradictory, it is still hard to see what it could even mean to say that there is no distinction between (for example) triangularity in the abstract and concrete triangles like the north side of the Great Pyramid and a particular billiard ball rack. Yet that is the sort of thing it seems we would have to say if we reject the distinction between the abstract and the concrete. Ladyman and Ross thus owe us some account of what we are to put in place of all the applications we ordinarily make of the distinction."
But I wish Prof would elaborate on that more clearly.
Anyways So to summarise Talmid, arguing from causality, depends on arguing for the reality of change, I would think.
If one denies change, causality becomes easy to dispatch , does that make sense.
Hi Vini
DeleteI just think we need to solidify the arguments for it because it is so crucial to defending A-T philosophy.
and there are good arguments and I am trying to work my way through them.
But it's just of late I suppose how crucial that argument is to A-T philosophy, and our retort just seems to amount to you are undergoing change in your reasoning thought process and you can't deny it . But that seems to beg the question (assuming that the person is reasoning from one concious premise to another conscious premise, maybe the person doesn't reason in that way and grasps all concepts in one act). But Prof denies that it is question begging because the person himself "rehearsed the argument" which I don't quite know what the means, (is he refering to the mode of reasoning used in the argument, or is he refering to the mouth movement or typing or writing that the person has to undergo in order to present the argument) but then if you are refering to that, the main part of the argument was supposed to be the non physical change in reasoning which cannot be denied even iff you want to deny the physical change on account of some scientific theory.
So yah, I admit I a little fidgety about it but only because it's so foundational to all other questions about causality, consciousness etc
@Norm
DeleteI'am not even trying to argue from casuality as we experience, but from their own description you provided:
"Since they cannot mathematicize qualitative features (consciousness) , they say that these qualitive aspects supervene on these mathematical aspects in order to avoid eliminativism."
Is their view than the mathematics are conscious? That just does not make sense, for my conscious experience is obviously individual, and so is yours. Since Platonic Objects are aways the same they obviously can't divide at all in diferent experiences.
Is their view than our experience depend on the numbers? It does not work either, for Platonic Objects are acasual, that is a necessary feature of they, so consciousness seems to just float free here.
Not to mention than Kant argued pretty well that any possible experience we can have is necessarily in time and space, with casuality etc, so if they have this radical distinction between a timeless, spaceless etc world and our common sense conscious experience they are just defending a form of Transcendental Idealism.
But if they do that it seems than the work of Physics only speaks of the Phenomena, so they just do not have the right to say that the Noumena is mathematical or anything else. Physics is a very useful model, but what is outside it? Since you do not accept than conscious experience reflects reality them obviously data given by it(like what Physics depend in) is useless to tell us about reality.
Of course, this view of idealism has other conclusions they nor Kant would like, but that is not important.
I tried to present problems to help you have ideas and refine they. For me, the whole discussion is a non-starter for there is no feeling like you are in time and space and not really being in it.
Hi again, Norm.
DeleteFirst of all, I'm sorry if my rushed way of expressing myself in my earlier comment came across as an attack. Reading it now, I realize that something like "Are you okay?" might sound aggressive, but that was never my intention. I was genuinely worried about you because you're a nice fellow here on the blog.
Now, having read your replies to me and to my fellow countryman, Talmid, I think you're placing too much emphasis on convincing others rather than arriving at the truth, or at what is actually real. Notice that you can have a perfectly good argument for something, but if your interlocutor doesn't share some basic common ground with you, metaphysically speaking, you may never convince him. For instance, you cannot expect to convince someone with strong antirealist metaphysical commitments of the reality of the mind, at least not in the same way you would convince someone who already accepts a broadly realist framework.
Another very important point is that you don't need to defeat every single argument an adversary puts on the table. Remember, some of these arguments may be nothing more than endless variations on the exact same problem, merely dressed up in increasingly sophisticated jargon. I'm not a philosopher, and sometimes laymen like you and me may come up with arguments (or think that certain arguments are particularly compelling) that aren't actually good arguments, either for or against a given position.
Let's start with the basics. I know you've already read Ed's arguments in Five Proofs, Aristotle's Revenge, and so on. But let's approach this the way our ancient Greek forefathers might have approached it: I see change; I experience change; and there must be some reason or explanation for why this phenomenon exists. Any respectable view must at least acknowledge it.
The retorsion argument against Parmenides that Ed deploys is perhaps the easiest way to appreciate the difficulty of denying change altogether. How could someone consistently advocate for a completely changeless reality while engaging in activities that seem to presuppose change? There is change somewhere in the fabric of reality. Even if someone doesn't recognize it in abstract mathematics, general relativity, or whatever else, he still has to account for something as ordinary as acquiring new information, reconsidering what he believes, and arriving at a different conclusion.
Now, I know that the preceding paragraph might not sound particularly promising, but think about this: is a scientist, or anyone else who advocates for a changeless reality, himself changeless? The point isn't merely that he moves from one idea to another in his head. I think the problem goes much deeper than that.
(I will continue below, my comment is already long enough)
Let's suppose that our scientist insists that he didn't reason through the steps of his argument successively, but instead grasped everything "all at once," in a single "mega-thought" that somehow encapsulated, rather like an angelic intellect, both the premises and the conclusion in one intellectual act.
DeleteSo far, so good.
But let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that he missed a crucial piece of information, something essential to the correctness of his conclusion. The question now is: can he ever genuinely correct his mistaken view?
If his worldview denies change altogether, how could he account for such a correction? Do we actually change our minds about things, learn new information, discover mistakes, and make little "oopsie daisies" time after time? Absolutely!
Now, here's what I think you should be asking: can he reconcile the obvious fact that we correct our mistakes and acquire new knowledge with an entirely changeless conception of the mind and reality?
I don't see how he could.
And it seems to me that merely insisting that "Oh, the correction was also a changeless fact, contained within the very same act of thinking!" doesn't really solve the problem. It simply pushes the difficulty back a step. If everything was already contained within that single, unchanging act of thought, in what sense was there ever a mistaken judgment that subsequently came to be corrected? If the correct answer was already there from the beginning, what exactly distinguishes the initial error from its later correction? There is an obvious distinction between the two.
Simply describing the whole process as changeless doesn't explain away the very phenomenon that needs explaining.
Metaphysical views are stubborn things, that's for sure. They are *never out of the game,* because a sufficiently sophisticated philosopher can always attempt to reinterpret the phenomena and facts to accommodate his preferred worldview. But we have to ask: can he actually do so in a way that makes sense at the most fundamental level?
Some phenomena are naturally resistant to certain metaphysical interpretations. For instance, if the self doesn't exist, you can say goodbye to reflexive reasoning and the act of repentance. And I think change is one of those phenomena.
If you have a basic, solid ground for knowing that denying it is bullshit, then everything developed in the very name of ‘anti-change’ (for lack of a better term) is also bullshit—but this is a bullshit-free, changeless fact, because that view would, ironically, remain wrong.
So, again, I don't think you should feel obliged to tackle all these difficulties and highly sophisticated challenges by yourself. The people who developed these arguments had plenty of free *time* to think about them and *change* their formulations to make them appear more convincing.
That's why I keep telling you to stick to the basics. Why would you even bother crossing a bridge when you already know that it collapses at the other end, even if you can safely make it halfway across?
That's my view on the issue, anyway. I hope it helps!
"If you have a basic, solid ground for knowing that denying it is bullshit, then everything developed in the very name of ‘anti-change’ (for lack of a better term) is also bullshit—but this is a bullshit-free, changeless fact, because that view would, ironically, remain wrong."
DeleteExactly brother. I completely agree , which is why my attempts at clarifying the arguments.
Thank You so much for your response Vini. I am so grateful. It's wonderful to find people to share these conversations with. So thanks once again
I think you make a good argument from the fact that human beings do often get things wrong and aim to correct it which entails change.
And I think it works as a good reinforcing argument. Once we have already established our interlocutor is commiting the tu quoqe fallacy
Although I guess it still comes under the label of "for the sake of argument".
And perhaps our interlocutor could just refuse to grant that premise.
So that's why I think Prof's argument pointing out the interlocutors own inconsistency in regarding the argument works better but Prof doesn't elaborate as I mentioned above as to whether the inconsistency is due the interlocutors physical movement or conscious thoughts one after the other (which would seem like begging the question) or the mode of reasoning presupposed by the argument.
If it is the physical movement , then it would be difficult to argue against as the Prof is focused on the change in the mind.
If it's the mode of reasoning, a commenter once wrote
"There are many who would say there is no temporal "change" in the platonic realm of mathematics, but that doesn't negate the idea that this platonic realm can contain logical proofs which "start" from a series of axioms and proceed via a series of inferences to some proposition that's the conclusion."
Anyways I do know I am missing something or misunderstanding Prof's point in some way, that's why I was hoping he could clarify it.
So in short Vini, I agree with your points but I think it works better as a reinforcing argument.
Is Talmid also from Brazil ??
Hi Talmid
DeleteWell their views sort of goes like this
By supervene they often mean, in so far this mathematical property exists, the corresponding qualia will exist.
So for example, in theory it is possible to ascribe some completely mathematical description of the neural correlates of consciousness.
They would say these neurons are completely reducible to mathematical objects.
But they can't mathematically describe the qualitative feeling of red. So they just say it supervenes on this mathematical property.
Hence, They would say in so far as this mathematical object (corresponding to the mathematical description of your neurons) exists, the corresponding conscious quality exists.
"Since you do not accept than conscious experience reflects reality them obviously data given by it(like what Physics depend in) is useless to tell us about reality."
DeleteWell they grant conscious experience exists and our knowledge of it as well.
But again I think this speaks to features of our experience that presuppose change. Or atleast that's the best way of putting it.
That we go from not knowing to knowing which I don't deny.
"Is their view than our experience depend on the numbers? It does not work either, for Platonic Objects are acasual, that is a necessary feature of they, so consciousness seems to just float free here."
You make a good point,
But Do you think the notion of dependence necessarily entails causality of some sort ?
Hi again, Norm,
DeleteI’m glad you’ve found our conversation useful. One of the main reasons I keep saying we need to take special care of Ed’s blog is precisely this: it allows us to have real, meaningful conversations and to feel at home with our fellow Catholics and conservatives.
Now, back to your question.
"So that's why I think Prof's argument pointing out the interlocutors own inconsistency in regarding the argument works better but Prof doesn't elaborate as I mentioned above as to whether the inconsistency is due the interlocutors physical movement or conscious thoughts one after the other (which would seem like begging the question) or the mode of reasoning presupposed by the argument.
If it is the physical movement , then it would be difficult to argue against as the Prof is focused on the change in the mind."
I see what you’re getting at. I’d say the physical movement is the least problematic part of the issue. What I want to focus on are the mental acts, which I think are crucial for understanding change.
What distinguishes one mental act from another? The clearest and unproblematic answer is the concepts involved. When you think of “triangle” and of “red,” you are dealing with two distinct concepts. Likewise, “red triangle” and “blue triangle” are also two distinct concepts. In the mind we can isolate concepts or combine them—like lego blocks—in order to form meaningful wholes or to grasp some aspect of reality.
This distinction is important because it shows why, at least for finite beings, reasoning cannot be an “all-at-once” affair. The proposition “Every man is mortal” is clearly different from “Socrates is a man.” Full ideas (propositions) remain distinct from one another. They are not separated by ordinary spatial borders of the sort one crosses when going from Brazil into Paraguay; they are separated by a special kind of semantic border. When I am thinking about the mortality of Socrates, I am simply not thinking about the mortality of every man. If those two ideas somehow blended into one another, all meaning would collapse into a word-salad mess.
From ordinary experience—and even from the brief example above—we can see something important: both concepts and the full propositions built from them remain distinct. Moreover, when I am thinking one proposition, I cannot, in that same mental act, be thinking the others. Something essential would be lost if the world were changeless for us: there would be no reasoning at all. Reasoning involves this 'Bewegung,' this movement from one thought to another—and that movement is what we call change (a small nod to Aquinas).
Even if some “higher-order” or “mega-thought” could somehow contain both premises and conclusion at once, our minds would still have to move through the ideas one after another. Otherwise, we would fall back into the same jumble I mentioned earlier.
Perhaps the mind of God, and the minds of the angels, operate in a different way. But experience, phenomenology, and the basic structure of our own minds continually remind us that, in this life at least, we are temporal creatures. We possess a degree of permanence—otherwise we could not reason at all—yet we still change, though in a non-essential sense while reasoning.
And yes, Talmid is Brazilian too. I don’t know exactly where he’s from—Brazil is a huge place—but he’s a fellow compatriot.
Hope that helps. May God bless you, bro.
"[It] will remain a timeless contribution to the revival of [Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy] as the serious competitor to alternative theories of human nature."
ReplyDeleteThat was the most precise and true thing he could have said — but I’d go even further: Immortal Souls is the only book of its kind that went as far and as deep philosophically as any book about human nature ever has in the recent AT tradition. The time it appeared, the range of topics it covers… man, for anyone who wants to grasp the truth and the full firepower of Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy applied to the human person, it doesn’t get better than this.
That's two reviews of your book in one week, in addition to others since it came out.
ReplyDeleteI had commented on the mathematical views of consciousness but it has not appeared.
ReplyDeleteIt was off topic, so it your comment won't appear.
DeleteIt did seem off-topic, which is indeed why I didn't approve it at first, but re-reading it I saw the reference to eliminativism, which gets it in just under the wire as kinda sorta on topic. So it now appears above.
DeleteI know the rules , Prof, and if you look at any comment on mine , it's very rare that you will find a comment where I am not referencing your own work
DeleteAnd I think it is also just a consequence of your metaphysics (which I think I fully agree with it) that your more higher level claims do ultimately depend on those more fundamental claims.
And hence topics that may seem to be not related, are at bottom connected especially for aristotelian metaphysics.
In fact of late, I have been trying to find ways to avoid having to reference the reality of change, but a lot of your arguments do often presuppose that change is in fact a real feature of the world, that act and potency is the best way of making sense of it, and then on we go from philosophy of nature to philosophy of mind.
I agree with you but that's why I am always looking to defend that foundation from views that challenge that foundation and I think these views that mathematicise reality pose the most threat.
You're a good man, Dr. Feser.
DeleteI agree that semantic indeterminacy is one of the most serious challenges to materialism, and it's one that is often neglected compared to, say, "qualia." There's a reason for my nickname here, and why I keep coming back even though I disagree with many of Feser's other views and I doubt I'll be able to convince many other people here. This blog was the first place I really found the semantic indeterminacy argument, and while it did take time, I do think I eventually managed to understand it, even if the details were technical.
ReplyDeleteOf course, materialists are still coming up with ways to attempt to explain meaning in physical terms. It may be impossible to discuss all of them at once, but one I haven't seen Feser discuss yet is David Lewis' views on interpretation. Now, Feser has discussed Donald Davidson's views, as well as Dennett's "intentional stance," which may be related. But from what I've read, Lewis didn't think that intentionality arises from interpretation (which seemingly leads to a vicious regress as interpretation itself is an intentional activity). Rather, he believed that nonintentional, nonsemantic facts objectively determine the intentional and semantic facts, and a "radical interpreter" was just a device to dramatize this.
Hilary Putnam (whom Feser has mentioned before) had briefly criticized Lewis, though I'm not sure if Putnam thought Lewis' views on radical interpretation specifically were doomed to failure. Others have taken up and expanded Lewis' approach, they have been criticized, the criticisms have been criticized in turn... It would be interesting to see what Feser has to say here.
I've recently read some materialist discussion elsewhere that also makes me want to mention Oderberg's "storage problem" discussed in the review. I've seen a few people make similar arguments against physicalism (the brain is finite, but we can think of an infinite number of concepts, such as every natural number). In my experience, the general reply is that we actually cannot think of an infinite number of concepts - for instance, we can't think of numbers that are infinite nonrepeating strings of digits with no short algorithm to generate them. (There's also the argument that the brain may have an infinite number of states. But modern physics, which is regularly claimed to support physicalism, does at least appear to show that finite physical systems only have a finite number of states.) I've seen articles by Douglas V. Porpora where he makes this anti-physicalist argument and attempts to defend it from objections. I wonder whether Feser has a proof that we can, in principle, think of an infinite number of concepts.