tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post1595268149767882439..comments2024-03-28T10:44:57.324-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: Adventures in the Old Atheism, Part VI: SchopenhauerEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-71270103859571703692021-11-16T05:55:31.566-08:002021-11-16T05:55:31.566-08:00Wonderful column as usual. I'm not that famili...Wonderful column as usual. I'm not that familiar with Schopenhauer, but despite his high regard for the Upanishads, he always struck me as a confused thinker. I had been confused as to why Bernardo Kastrup adopted his views to support Kastrup's "analytic idealism." <br /><br />Now that you've elaborated on Schopenhauer's views, it's much clearer to me how Kastrup's own confused ideas about "Mind-At_Large' (intriguingly, he frequently uses the acronym "MAL" to refer to it; how Schopenhauer-ish!)<br /><br />Just one small point. I'm not aware that any of the major writings in the Indian tradition could be called pantheistic - panentheistic perhaps, but that phrase has been used and misused so much by the process theologians (who somehow think God is mostly "process?!??") that it may not be helpful. "non-duality" seems to mean to most people unfamiliar with the Indian tradition the same as "monism" (which it's not) so that doesn't help either.<br /><br />Regarding both the idea of Hindu pantheism and Buddhist atheism, it also might be helpful to keep in mind the extraordinary flexibility with which Buddhist (and I believe Vedantic and Tantric) monks are taught.<br /><br />Buddhists, for example, sometimes begin with a frankly dualist metaphysic, move on to Yogachara idealism (very different from most German idealism - which generally misunderstood the Upanishads; see Schopenhauer) and then to something beyond all of our modern categories of physicalism, dualism, idealism, pantheism, panentheism, etc.Donhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13741454531338054082noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-71299579900050972122021-11-11T12:13:05.224-08:002021-11-11T12:13:05.224-08:00The new atheists are so boring. Adolescents. The new atheists are so boring. Adolescents. Tom Morehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17682631498999690438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-30951533975154390632021-11-08T05:51:22.609-08:002021-11-08T05:51:22.609-08:00Well said.Well said.Son of Ya'Kovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-55282088491644804752021-11-05T12:44:05.674-07:002021-11-05T12:44:05.674-07:00"Whether you read Schopenhauer or not is of n..."Whether you read Schopenhauer or not is of no interest to anyone. However, not to do so is to render any comment you make about Schopenhauer an irrelevance."<br /><br /><br />No it isn't. There are always good reasons to decide whether or not to read any particular writer at all. One reason to decide not to read one is that no one has made a compelling case that he is important enough to spend the time on. Such is the case, for me, with Schopenhauer. You certainly haven't made a case with your pretended expertise and your expressed contempt for Christianity, especially Catholicism.<br /><br /><br />If only 5 books had ever been written, there perhaps would be no excuse for an intellectually superior person not to have read them all, no matter how incoherent, but you speak as if to claim to have read all of dear Schopie and so be an actual authority on what he thought, and how his thinking changed through his life, and you have similarly claimed to have read Aquinas well enough to not be able to understand him (sorry, a little sarcasm slipped in there). I suppose then, that you have read every philosopher and writer in depth? Because if you haven't, you should take your own advice and stop pretending that what you post is sufficiently well informed to be worth reading (note, I don't read your stuff but couldn't help noticing your claim that we who haven't worshipped at Schopie's podium by reading his every word, as you insinuate that you have, have no right to speak of him at all).<br /><br /><br />Anyway, since there are far too many writers to have read them all, rather than just 5 books, I must be selective. Perhaps you just go into a library and read every book faster than a computer could download them, I don't know. I can't do that. I am far too slow, especially when trying to read incoherent stuff. So, once again, I haven't read dear Schopie because nothing has compelled me to feel that it would be worth the time. I already have a long list of books to read and need time to understand them. I am especially interested in Aristotle and Aquinas and other writings in their tradition, and in why some people who claim to have read in this area are not able to understand it.<br /><br /><br />My comment is relevant because it warns others who are also too slow to have read everything, that if nothing else has heretofore compelled them to want to comprehensively understand Schopenhauer, that your bogus blatherings should not influence them.<br /><br /><br />Tom CohoeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-51287515860222270402021-11-05T08:08:47.268-07:002021-11-05T08:08:47.268-07:00Two words for ya Paps. "Joe Schmid".
H...Two words for ya Paps. "Joe Schmid".<br /><br />He is a young up and coming religious skeptic (more of an Agnostic than Atheist in the Russell mode). He is also a philosopher and critic of Classic Theism. Granted he is a bit overly verbose but that is just "young". I am sure he will grow out of it. The ladd has done remarkable work as a student. <br /><br />Why don't you read some of his work and come back here with actual philosophical arguments against Natural Theology? I think that will serve you better than boring the poop out of us with yer warmed over contra Fundie arguments. Or yer bitching over Orange man 11 months into Uncle Bad Touch's reign. <br /><br />Really philosophy will make you an Alpha dingo here. That all of this.....<br /><br />>Yes, I read Feser.<br /><br />You conceal it well. Now take my obvious correct advise. <br /><br />Cheers. Son of Ya'Kovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-30429867959346191802021-11-04T18:28:56.607-07:002021-11-04T18:28:56.607-07:00It seems that every single time that Dr. Feser po...It seems that every single time that Dr. Feser posts an article, you have a small number of regular but very persistent commenters seeking completely derail the subject of that article into a hyperpartisan attack on his personal set of beliefs. If he were to express a preference of a particular brand of chips, they will invariably find a way to tie that brand with an invocation of injustice and intolerance. In the hands of Dr. Feser, those Doritos turn into an instrument of oppression. I won't name names, because we know that these individuals are incapable of independent thought anyway.<br /><br />I was just wondering, why do this? None of your arguments are particularly well thought out or insightful, even from your perspective. I could make far better arguments in defense of your position. From the content of your posts, it is obvious that you have no familiarity with the works of Schopenhauer. You're just quote mining him for statements in which he expressed a negative sentiment towards Christians. You could have just as easily quote mined him for statements outrageous to modern sensibilities, such as for example his notorious misogyny. To your ilk, all that is required to either whitewash or erase someone's name from the scope of acceptable public opinion is a single quote taken out of context.<br /><br />My gripe with these regular set of bozos is that a) they don't understand leftism yet they insist that their interpretation of it is the only valid one and b) they don't understand atheism either. What they end up expressing is neither leftist nor rationalist, but rather a combination of pig headed authoritarianism and primitive superstition. <br /><br />If the extent of your critique of established religion amounts to the dullest form of superstition (as evidenced by a penchant towards ideas such as panpsychism) then I'm sorry you are not forward thinking but rather going back to what was superseded by the "Abrahamic faiths" in the first place. Your dire problem is that you are not as smart as you take yourself to be. You presume to have "science" behind you but you fail to tell apart scientific consensus from institutional consensus. And as far as institutional consensus goes, then it is the leftist who should be its first and foremost critic. If you're incapable of understanding why that is, then you have no right to deem yourself to be a part of the intellectual "left".<br /><br />Morality was a question of utmost importance to both the revolutionary and the atheist. It was the primary cause of their grievance with the existing social order. Men and women, deeply disgusted with the immorality and hypocrisy of the surrounding society, sought to redress its causes in the established social, religious and moral norms. The moral question was the first and foremost battleground in which they sought to emerge triumphant. Emancipated from organized religion, the new type of man was to exceed the previous generations in both sanctity of form and purity of mind. When understanding of this fails, what you have is an abomination we're witnessing today with contemporary called "liberal" commercialized collapse of culture and thinking, and its looming replacement with posthuman, eugenicist, technogenic and quite illiberal trends of thought. <br /><br />My dear "leftist" friends commenting on this blog. The future is not in your hands. Your kind is consigned to die out and very soon. If you don't want your future to end up in a museum exhibit, instead of pissing in Dr. Feser's cup you should learn a little from what he has to say.Michaelhttp://en.kalitribune.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-33744169450067561462021-11-04T17:00:57.880-07:002021-11-04T17:00:57.880-07:00Yes, I read Feser. I read Christian apologists. ...Yes, I read Feser. I read Christian apologists. I do it as a matter of interest and duty. I read Feser and make comment where there has been a mischaracterisation perpetrated or a mischievous massaging of interpretation to fit his narrative. This has been one such occasion. He is free to do so, but his narrative will not go unchallenged. <br /><br />And when I say "appreciate" the works of Schopenhauer, it is to intellectually understand where he is actually coming from; not through the synthetic perspective of Dr Feser's. <br /><br />"I'll go with Feser, who doesn't despise what I am." Playing the victim is not a good look, Tom, although it does give a little glimpse into the somewhat fragile nature and shaky confidence you have in the power of your own intellect that you are unable to read the raw Schopenhauer without a 'Feser filter'. <br /><br />Whether you read Schopenhauer or not is of no interest to anyone. However, not to do so is to render any comment you make about Schopenhauer an irrelevance. Papalintonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03818630173726146048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-65227073438920266322021-11-04T01:33:25.102-07:002021-11-04T01:33:25.102-07:00"Read the damn man yourself. Christian apolog..."Read the damn man yourself. Christian apologetical philosophers are not a bona fide source to appreciate the works of Schopenhauer"<br /><br />But you are? I'll go with Feser, who doesn't despise what I am. As for reading Schopenhauer, no thanks. Your recommendations are unappealing.<br /><br />Tom CohoeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-25486917295267345262021-11-03T21:58:06.141-07:002021-11-03T21:58:06.141-07:00@John
I checked out the original thread and it wa...@John<br /><br />I checked out the original thread and it was indeed you who gave me the recommendation. Thanks! Kant was, in a way, more and less impressive that what i thought at the same time. <br /><br />About the objection, i don't know if it works out, it makes me think. Kant used a diferent methodology to try to reach the conditions of experience: transcendental arguments. While rationalists like Spinoza and Leibniz tried to find their synthetic priori truths by a geometrical method(using definitions and what flowed from they), the prussian tried to see what had to be true of our minds to we to be capable of having the experiences we have. Kant did argue that what the rationalists were doing did not work because they were essencially creating definitions out of thin air and never really connecting their reasoning with the real world, so their conclusions had no real connection with reality either. <br /><br />So Kant actually did use a completely diferent method that what was being done by empiricists and rationalists, if you are stuck in that little box them he was very bright. By focusing on experience he could escape the rationalist problem of thoughts having no connection with reality and by focusing on what HAD to be the case to experience to be what it his, he could escape the humean problem of experience only getting you to contingent truths. Along with the synthetic/analitic distinction, Kant use of transcendental arguments is probably his best idea.<br /><br />This is the interesting part, though: the transcendental argument method CAN be used to know reality directly, i do see older thinkers like Aquinas using arguments that are similar to they, the five ways for instance. It is just that Kant demanded that we have a explanation of how our minds can know reality while he was a conceptualist, so the whole "our minds shape experience using these necessary categories" was the best way he had of getting necessary truths and sorta saving science. If you take away his silly demand that reason judges if reason works, them i don't see why accept transcendental idealism(which is what really prevents we of using a non-kantian route to know the world). At least that is how it looks like to me.<br /><br />About how Schopenhauer fits: probably like Kant, as far as i know, his epistemology is similar. He probably is more vulnerable because his method to know the Will his empirically looking at his internal states(which can only give us contigent knowledge) and projecting this to the Thing-Itself. <br /><br />I admit that your argument was not that easy to me to follow, so i can be wrong here. Talmidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04267925670235640337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-21190963597476408482021-11-03T15:34:07.210-07:002021-11-03T15:34:07.210-07:00Hi Daniel,
I would agree there's not any comp...Hi Daniel,<br /><br />I would agree there's not any compelling reason to think it's true that experience can only justify beliefs that are contingently true. But <i>Kant</i> explicitly accepts that position (I can't remember the exact passages, but I believe he says as much early in the CPR), so I don't think that's going to help him. More generally, I don't think there's any great difficulty here if we accept the contemporary rationalist thesis that apparent necessity is sufficient to confer <i>pro tanto</i> justification for synthetic propositions (e.g. something like Laurence BonJour's view in <i>In Defense of Pure Reason</i>); but if something like that is defensible then it's not clear why we'd have any motivation to take the Kantian route toward the justification of synthetic <i>a priori</i> propositions.Johnnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-90118058365711993362021-11-03T14:40:15.566-07:002021-11-03T14:40:15.566-07:00Not sure if this would help, but Ed argues for an ...Not sure if this would help, but Ed argues for an analytic a posteriori here, at least with regard to knowledge of God. <br /><br />https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/06/theology-and-analytic-posteriori.html<br /><br />I take it that for Ed's position to be possible, he would have to reject Kant's "Humean thesis that experience can only establish contingent / particular truths."Danielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17479435356630882897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-20172723840791558592021-11-03T13:37:17.892-07:002021-11-03T13:37:17.892-07:00edit:does NOT mean etc....
My kingdom for an edit...edit:does NOT mean etc....<br /><br />My kingdom for an edit function.Son of Ya'Kovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-74803528515559041102021-11-03T12:36:02.676-07:002021-11-03T12:36:02.676-07:00@ Talmid,
Fair points about Schopenhauer potentia...@ Talmid,<br /><br />Fair points about Schopenhauer potentially avoiding the objection; I'm admittedly not very familiar with him. I believe you're correct about me recommending you a book on Kant's CPR.<br /><br />I'm curious if you think Schopenhauer can avoid a different objection sometimes raised against Kant. For Kant, we cannot directly determine the necessary and universal structure of the world of experience; rather, we have to first investigate the necessary conditions governing possible experience, which allows us to establish a metaphysics of experience.<br /><br />Now, how is our knowledge of the latter conditions to be established in a way that is consistent with Kantian epistemology? Such conditions are certainly not merely analytic truths (and if it's insisted that they <i>are</i> analytic, then only analytic conclusions will follow, in which case Kant will have failed to establish <i>synthetic</i> necessary truths about the empirical world).<br /><br />On the other hand, if such synthetic conditions governing possible experience are purportedly justified empirically, then by Kant's own principles they cannot ground necessary / universal knowledge, because Kant essentially accepts the Humean thesis that experience can only establish contingent / particular truths.<br /><br />Finally, if the conditions of possible experience are themselves synthetic <i>a priori</i>, then they cannot be established by direct rational insight (and if it's said they can be so established, why can't rational insight provide justification for synthetic <i>a priori</i> truths about the world directly, without some detour through transcendental conditions?). Yet, if they cannot be established by direct insight, don't we require a higher-order transcendental justificaiton, which seemingly entails a vicious regress (since the same dilemma will appear for higher-order conditions)?Johnnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-29452705264488275502021-11-03T07:58:05.127-07:002021-11-03T07:58:05.127-07:00Saying what he likes about Christianity is hardly ...Saying what he likes about Christianity is hardly a "defense" for its truth or falsehood. I can say nice things about Dave Ruben because of his criticism of leftist politics and shift to the Right. Same with Sargon of Akkad but that does mean I am defending or endorsing their Atheism.<br /><br />>Much of the massaging of Schopenhauer by apologist philosophers, like Dr Feser,<br /><br />To a hammer the whole world looks like a nail. This is not the Dangerous Minds blog Paps. Philosophy is primary. If you want apologetics my boi Dave Armstrong can oblige you.<br /><br />Geez give it a rest Paps. Son of Ya'Kovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-62663486725885770332021-11-03T07:53:56.812-07:002021-11-03T07:53:56.812-07:00Not one philosophical argument or analysis in eith...Not one philosophical argument or analysis in either post. Just repeating yerself....<br /><br />That is just boring. Paps this is a philosophy blog not a Christian Apologetics blog. Dr. Feser is first and foremost a philosopher. Granted the philosophical arguments for the existence of God (which it is clear to everyone you cannot address in any fashion) are useful to Catholic Christian apologetics but philosophy is the final causality around here.<br /><br />Not yer leftist politics or Gnu Atheist contra Fundamentalist nonsense.<br /><br />Can you do any philosophy?<br /><br />As yer boi says "Come on Man!". Son of Ya'Kovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-34013073235088272092021-11-03T06:19:20.612-07:002021-11-03T06:19:20.612-07:00CONT:
Schopenhauer also had a few words to say abo...CONT:<br />Schopenhauer also had a few words to say about both the Old and New Testaments. Although his asceticism was driven in large part through pessimism he had the intellectual insight to note the Old Testament had a happy or optimistic tone about the physical world and life lived in it. He saw a deep sense of optimism drawn from Genesis in the Old Testament:<br /><br />Genesis-1:31<br /><b>“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”</b> King James Version<br /><br />And from the New Testament on, for Schopenhauer it was all downhill from there. There was to be no salvation in this world; only the false and indefensible promise that what people miss out in this life they will reap in the next. As if. Any and every two-bit soothsayer can promise that sort of nonsense. How does one recoup on the warranty if the damn thing doesn't work? There are many quotes Schopenhauer offers to demonstrate the deep pessimism about this world and life by asserted by Christianity, such as John 12:31.<br /><br />And he clearly notes:<br /><br /><b>"We see, then, that the doctrines of the Old Testament are rectified and their meaning changed by those of the New, so that, in the most important and essential matters, an agreement is brought between them ..."</b> [Schopenhauer, On Religion]<br /><br />Syncretisation and harmonisation is the 'bread and butter' of Christian apologetics. Simply because apologists engage in these intellectually and philosophically dubious practices does not make their Christian narrative any less false or less mythologised. <br /><br />Schopenhauer is correct. The Christian narrative is all allegorical. This was Schopenhauer's main argument and criticism against Christianity. For Schopenhauer, Christianity was, to the core, "sensu allegorico".<br /><br />While much of Christian dogma, which most might be regarded as true in an allegorical sense, Schopenhauer was quick to observe that it was all a pretence to claim it as fact in a literal sense.<br /><br />And therein lies the rub. In today's world religion has been found out and, through its centuries of shape-shifting apologetics, finds itself right now between a rock and a hard place. Even as a fall-back, it can no longer even pretend its main tenets are merely allegorical [as Schopenhauer correctly inferred], and as many apologists are now want to do [apart from the shrinking hard-core die-hards], because to do so would be to undermine their very own credibility.<br /><br />I would not recommend to a reader to glean what Schopenhauer says about Christianity through Christian philosophers. Read the damn man yourself. Christian apologetical philosophers are not a bona fide source to appreciate the works of Schopenhauer. <br />Papalintonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03818630173726146048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-56205307561181876932021-11-03T06:18:03.626-07:002021-11-03T06:18:03.626-07:00One can understand why it is Christians think of S...One can understand why it is Christians think of Schopenhauer as a 'friendly atheist'. Through his work he formed the view that to add value to one's life the fundamental nature of human existence was predisposed towards shunning the sensual, the emotional, and the comfortable, through the renunciation of pleasure and the practice of self-mortification. After all, at base he [Schopenhauer] saw life as a deep and enduring struggle with the self. And this is where Schopenhauer and Christianity shared the same abiding penchant for asceticism, that is, the practice of the denial of physical, emotional and psychological desires in order to attain a higher level of 'spiritual' attainment.<br /><br />His defence of Christianity was not that it was itself founded in a paradigm of truth. Far from it. Rather it was because of the shared common understanding of the central role of asceticism in his and Christianity's belief structure. When said and done, Schopenhauer did acknowledge there was a small kernel of truth in all religions, not just Christianity. <br /><br />But then asceticism is not a unique, nor an exclusive domain or prerogative, of Christianity. The Greeks wrote and understood the concept of asceticism many hundreds of years before Christianity came along. Indeed asceticism was a philosophical stance understood many centuries before Christianity was even a twinkle in Paul's eye. The origins of asceticism is bound into the fabric of our very primitive ancestors, many thousands of years before the advent of Christianity. As the Encyclopaedia Brittanica explains: <br /><br /><b>"Abstinence and fasting are by far the most common of all ascetic practices. Among the primitive peoples, it originated, in part, because of a belief that taking food is dangerous, for demonic forces may enter the body while one is eating. Further, some foods regarded as especially dangerous were to be avoided>"</b> <br /><br />One can clearly see the parallels here flowing into the Christian fable.<br /><br />Asceticism was appropriated by Christianity and made a central tenet of its belief structure. Asceticism is not a unique Christian feature. It was borrowed.<br /><br />But that is where the shared belief largely terminates. Many if not most Christian philosophers, all of them apologists, have tried to pump up the idea that Schopenhauer 'defended' Christianity. The truth here is that apart from the commonly shared idea of asceticism as a worldview, any other implied or imagined defence of Christianity by Schopenhauer is simply putting icing on a rock. Much of the massaging of Schopenhauer by apologist philosophers, like Dr Feser, that try to legitimate the claim that the Christian narrative is historically, ontologically and epistemologically true [or factual] demonstrates a somewhat desperate effort to convince the unwitting believer, exampled by Son of Ya'kov, that Christianity is the 'only true and genuine religion', even Schopenhauer says so, is stretching it a bit. <br /><br />As made very clear by the man himself in his own words:<br /><br /><b>"But the bad things about all religions is that, instead of being able to confess their allegorical nature, they have to conceal it; accordingly, they parade their doctrine in all seriousness as true "sensu propio" (literally), and as absurdities form an essential part of these doctrines, you have the great mischief of a continued fraud."</b> [Schopenhauer, On Religion]<br /><br />To Be CONT. <br /><br /><br /><br />Papalintonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03818630173726146048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-83555286601268565312021-11-02T09:37:42.034-07:002021-11-02T09:37:42.034-07:00@Anon Nov 1 8:18
>My advice: put forward a cle...@Anon Nov 1 8:18<br /><br />>My advice: put forward a clearly formulated argument for the falsehood of Catholicism, and pose it respectfully, courteously and in good faith.<br /><br />I could and would forgive the absence of the "respectful" and "courteous" part as long as it contains the "clearly formulated" and "good faith" part.<br /><br />It is the absence of the later two that irk me. <br /><br />Cheers.<br /><br />PS I am not here to convince anybody to believe in God or the Holy Church. That is not in my skill set.<br /> You lot are here to convince me what I believe is wrong and give me a good reasons why. <br /><br />Son of Ya'Kovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-50299203157269616072021-11-02T09:27:06.563-07:002021-11-02T09:27:06.563-07:00I am all for the Dad voice. Argue Philosophy or g...I am all for the Dad voice. Argue Philosophy or go home. Answers in Genesis is over there boiz if ye want to argue against an easy Theistic foe. <br /><br />Here you need to bring the philosophy. So bring it.Son of Ya'Kovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-29908583960767873472021-11-02T07:18:07.679-07:002021-11-02T07:18:07.679-07:00I think we heard Prof.Feser's Dad voice.I think we heard Prof.Feser's Dad voice.jmchughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03687641643148628056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-24225066655321298802021-11-02T06:30:44.711-07:002021-11-02T06:30:44.711-07:00From a Christian perspective, he is living a kind ...From a Christian perspective, he is living a kind of hell because he denies that there is a real object for our infinite desires. There is no fulfillment of desires or infinite satisfaction as he says. No resting in God. This is the cornerstone of Christian self understanding - that our desires, our wills, our sexuality, our appetites, are all disordered because they are not directed or submitted to the one entity that can bring them to fulfillment. And this is God. <br /><br />S and the eastern religions are right in identifying the cause of suffering in desire. But they are wrong in asserting it is because desire itself is to blame. <br /><br />And another problem with the Cartesian turn into the self is that one loses sight of the external world, of the beauty and goodness, although partial, that points beyond itself to God its creator. The stripping away of teleology is also the stripping away of inherent goodness and purpose. Nature loses its character as an icon or a quasi sacrament that points to God. And so, we are not taught to properly appreciate our own nature and its various ends either. We are taught to see our nature as completely devoid of goodness in a Manichean flight into pure spirit. Or, in reaction to the flight to the spirit, is an opposing reaction which is a flight to naturalism. An excessive focus and naive belief that the limited natural ends of our human nature can bring us true happiness without reference to our ultimate good. Danielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17479435356630882897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-76863563274553294582021-11-01T20:44:37.698-07:002021-11-01T20:44:37.698-07:00I can't find the articles about it(Stanford En...I can't find the articles about it(Stanford Encyclopedia does mention it, though), but Schopenhauer treatment of mysticism did show how bad the philosopher life screwed his system. <br /><br />In seeing how the mystics seems to become will-less on their experiences, Schopenhauer had to admit that the Thing-Itself is Will on our perspective and that it could appear diferent to beings with a diferent situation, as it does to the mystics. Despite admiting that his terryifing picture of reality as aimless Will is not all there is, Schopenhauer probably never considered that reality could not be horrible. A shame, if he tried to put his philosophy into pratice he could probably see things with his own eyes. <br /><br />Not wonder that Niezsche thought that Arthur perspective was caused by his own defects, if reality is as the german says then there is not really a way of classifying it as bad. It just is and every evaluation of it is relative. A strange philosophy. Talmidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04267925670235640337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-26231037879859681762021-11-01T20:36:53.554-07:002021-11-01T20:36:53.554-07:00Well said, Dr. Feser. Sometimes this blog has supe...Well said, Dr. Feser. Sometimes this blog has superb philosophical discussion. Sometimes not. More souls are won to Christ by kindness and personal example than anything else. Prof. A. J Ayer, an atheist and a libertine, remained a lifelong friend of the Jesuit priest/philosopher Frederick Copleston.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-14798603681719932322021-11-01T20:32:26.426-07:002021-11-01T20:32:26.426-07:00Well said. Say, Dr. Feser, do you intend to someda...Well said. Say, Dr. Feser, do you intend to someday do a post on Schopenhauer version of the PSR or his criticism of cosmological arguments? Along with Kant, i think that he had very good, even if not sucessful, criticismsq of how metaphysicians thread these themes. <br /><br />Your analysis of his philosophy was sublime, but besides having a very interesting worldview Arthur Schopenhauer also had offered interesting reflections on these themes, so i suppose thar commenting on what he had to say on these would result in another cool post. Talmidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04267925670235640337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-66555435884598450362021-11-01T16:12:50.389-07:002021-11-01T16:12:50.389-07:00Enough already. The sub-thread initiated by Papal...Enough already. The sub-thread initiated by Papalinton has been a gigantic time waster and barely on topic. In the interests of allowing a free exchange, I've tolerated the back and forth, apart from a few nasty and substance-free drive by comments from both sides which I did not let through moderation. But the exchange has nevertheless degenerated and is at this point pretty much irrelevant to Schopenhauer or anything else discussed in the original post. Hence I will not let through any further comments related to that particular sub-thread.<br /><br />In future, in this comment thread and others: Stay on topic. Don't indulge the temptation to bring your pet obsessions and talking points into every discussion. Ignore trolls and other people incapable of logical reasoning. Don't indulge the temptation to post bitchy drive by comments devoid of substance. Use common sense and show common courtesy.Edward Feserhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.com