Readers respond

Some reader combox comments on the Keith Parsons pseudo-event that shouldn’t get lost in the ether – edited by me for typos, and followed by my clever rejoinders:

Ryan writes:

I think I know whom you primarily have in mind when you speak of "those for whom philosophy is only ever politics by other means." I don't wish to mention him by name, though, for he is a notorious self-Googler.

Yes. And he’s so vain, he probably thinks this post is about him.

Untenured writes:

Compare the reception that Parsons received to the one Antony Flew got. Parsons is a nobody; a two-bit net skeptic who writes a lot of so-so replies to Plantinga and Co. Flew, on the other hand, is a fairly prominent philosopher who has a number of well-known articles and books to his credit. When Parsons says that the case for God is a fraud: "Devastating! Maybe the case for Theism IS a fraud!" When Flew abandons Atheism: "He's soft in the head! Doesn't know enough ‘science’!”

Good point. But since Religion Dispatches didn’t mind reheating the months-old Parsons “story,” perhaps they’ll be serving up the years-old Flew story next. (Apparently their “dispatches” aren’t posted with dispatch.) On the other hand, in fairness to Parsons, Eric writes:

When this "news" first came to my attention, I wondered, "What if [insert prominent theistic philosopher of religion] announced that he was no longer going to do any work in philosophy of religion because the arguments for atheism were mind numbingly bad – fraudulent, even (to use Parson's term, which he concedes was hyperbolic)? Would we ever see a post on Leiter Reports like this: "This is Striking: Peter Kreeft Quits Philosophy of Religion, Claims the Case for Atheism is a Fraud," followed by serious analysis of Kreeft's claims about the overall weakness of the case for atheism? Not likely. (In Parson's defense, I asked him this question, and he said that he thinks his decision vis-a-vis philosophy of religion has "zero epistemic significance," and that he was surprised by all the attention it got in the blogosphere.)

Interesting. Glad to hear that Parsons himself, unlike certain people who have been pushing this “story,” isn’t as full of it as the diaper I just changed.

Finally, some fun from MMcCue, who writes:

A poem relating to "professional philosophers"

I am a Prestigious Professor of Philosophy,
At a quite Elite University.

I get generous grants,
To sit on my pants,

And write books that nobody reads

Yup. And to bitch and moan about his "workload," too.

Non-Story of the Year

Suppose Intelligent Design theorist Michael Behe announced that he was giving up biology. Or suppose the notorious catastrophist Immanuel Velikovsky had announced in the 1970s that he was “calling it quits” on astronomical research. Or suppose Einstein critic Petr Beckmann had announced before his death in the early 1990s that research in physics was no longer worth his time. Would academic blogs devoted to biology, astronomy, or physics have regarded these as “striking” developments, evidence that there might be something fishy about the disciplines in question? Obviously not. That someone whose views are radically at odds with those prevailing in his field decides to do something else instead is neither surprising nor noteworthy.

Somehow, though, the fact that middling atheist philosopher of religion Keith Parsons has decided to “hang up his hat” is being played up as what Joe Biden might call a Big F***in’ Deal, at least by those for whom philosophy is only ever politics by other means. The “story” first “broke” back in September – the lucky folks at The Secular Outpost were given the big “scoop” – and for some reason Religion Dispatches is now recycling it, complete with a photo of the great man himself staring off pensively toward the future, or at least toward the corner of his office. Parsons, it seems, has overnight become a Serious Thinker To Whom Attention Must Be Paid, his work suddenly worthy of the notice the press and profession had heretofore denied it, and precisely because he now says it isn’t worth anyone’s time. Funny old world!

All the same, others have been trying to stifle yawns, since Parsons’ retreat from the field is in fact about as objectively newsworthy as (say) my giving up libertarianism several years ago – the sort of thing that might be mildly interesting to those who are interested in that sort of thing, but hardly anything to stop the presses over.

In any event, I don’t mean to suggest that Parsons, Behe, Velikovsky, and Beckman are all on a par. That would be an insult to Behe, Velikovsky, and Beckman. For whatever one thinks of ID theory – and I have been very critical of it – it is evident that Behe knows far more about Darwinism than Parsons knows about philosophy of religion. Neither do I endorse the eccentric views of Velikovsky or Beckmann, but Beckmann knew more about relativity theory than Parsons does about philosophy of religion, and even Velikovsky probably knew more about astronomy. As I noted in an earlier post, Parsons’ work in philosophy of religion seems largely confined to answering recent analytic philosophers like Plantinga and Swinburne. That’s a start, I guess – not that he really does even Plantinga and Swinburne justice, but let’s grant it for the sake of argument – but it does leave the 2370 years worth of previous work in the field unanswered. In particular, it leaves out the great classical theistic tradition of Aristotle, Plotinus, Anselm, Augustine, Maimonides, Avicenna, Aquinas, Scotus, et al. – that is to say, the most important philosophers of religion – whose conceptions of God and of the arguments for His existence are very different from (and, many of us would say, far more powerful than) those of “theistic personalist” writers like Plantinga and Swinburne. And I would bet cash money that Parsons, who is evidently prone to the same myopic presentism that so many other contemporary philosophers exhibit, doesn’t know the difference any more than the average non-philosopher of religion does. (Not too much money, though, since Parsons might easily bone up on the subject just by reading earlier blog posts of mine, such as this one, or this one, or this one, or this one.)

In general, philosophers who tend to shoot off their mouths about how breathtakingly bad the traditional arguments for God’s existence are demonstrably do not know what they are talking about, as we have seen here, here, and here. And they are the sorts of people who rarely want to engage the actual arguments themselves in any depth anyway. They prefer to offer elaborate rationalizations for refusing to do so. “Come on, theistic arguments are really all about rationalizing preconceived opinions!” – said without a trace of irony – “Besides, did this Thomist whose work you recommend ever publish an article in The Philosophical Review? Did he teach in a PGR-ranked department?” That kind of thing. Shameless ad hominems and straw men coupled with a snarky, careerist conformism, all served up as a kind of higher philosophical method. Or, to call it by its traditional name, sophism. And now they’ve got a new “argument” to bounce around their echo chamber. It goes like this: “Even Keith Parsons says so!”

Oderberg’s Real Essentialism

If you want to understand how Aristotelian metaphysics might be defended today at length, in detail, with rigor, and in conversation with contemporary science and analytic philosophy, it is really essential that you read Real Essentialism. (Cute, no?) I have recommended David Oderberg’s excellent book many times, and now I have another excuse to do so insofar as my review of it has finally appeared in the latest (October 2010) issue of Faith and Philosophy. (Not available online, I’m afraid.)

See also Tuomas Tahko’s recent review. And from the other reviews:

“[Real Essentialism] presents vigorous and wide-ranging arguments in defense of an Aristotelian metaphysical scheme … This book puts forward many unfashionable views. But it argues for them with vigor and erudition.” Crawford L. Elder, Analysis

“Oderberg … exemplifies the unfortunately rare combination in analytical philosophy of rigorous and historically informed argumentation … This book places hylomorphism squarely on the table for discussion.” Sebastian Rehnman, Review of Metaphysics

“A major intellectual achievement… I can particularly recommend, for those interested in such matters – as many metaphysicians presently are – his very well informed discussion of powers and laws of nature, which raises important objections to many current accounts of these.” E. J. Lowe, The Philosophical Quarterly

Medieval times

During the Middle Ages, the Church was a cesspool of corruption, people wore chastity belts and thought the earth was flat, and humorless Scholastics debated how many angels could dance on the head of a pin while burning witches by the bushel. Right? Well no, of course not. Given the ridiculous urban legends about the period that permeate high school history lectures and pop science books, you could probably get a less misleading picture of what medieval times were really like by watching The Cable Guy.

Or you could read some good books on the subject, the latest of which is Misconceptions About the Middle Ages, edited by Stephen Harris and Bryon Grigsby. Makes a welcome addition to the history section of your library, which should already include:

Edward Grant, God and Reason in the Middle Ages

Edward Grant, The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages

James Hannam, God’s Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science

Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision

Thomas Madden, A Concise History of the Crusades

Ronald Numbers, ed., Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion

Regine Pernoud, Those Terrible Middle Ages! Debunking the Myths

James Joseph Walsh, The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries

And don’t forget the useful online articles I linked to in a previous post.

How Blogger sees your comments

Some readers have been having difficulty lately getting their comments posted. The problem, it turns out, is with Blogger’s oversensitive spam filter. I’ll keep an eye on it, and I’m sorry for the inconvenience this has caused anyone.

Unconditional surrender

In response to my post on Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken, a reader asks: “How did Zamperini feel about us dropping the big one on Hiroshima? (All broken up about it, I'm sure.)” The question arises, of course, because in an earlier post I expressed the view that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were immoral. So, did the brutality inflicted by the Japanese on POWs like Louis Zamperini justify the use of the bomb? The short answer is: No, of course not. First of all, the atomic bombs were not dropped for the purpose of liberating POWs, but rather for the purpose of frightening the Japanese into surrendering. The liberation of the POWs was a happy side effect, but it is irrelevant to evaluating the motives of those who made the decision to drop the bombs. Second, even if liberating the POWs had been the motivation, it wouldn’t have mattered, because it is intrinsically gravely immoral intentionally to massacre civilians, whatever the reason one is doing it. We may not do evil that good may come of it. (The reader in question knows and agrees with this principle of natural law. Why he and others who agree with it persist in giving consequentialist arguments in defense of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I have no idea.)

So, that’s the short answer. But the question deserves a longer answer, and mine would emphasize the following points.

Unbroken and the problem of evil

I recently finished Laura Hillenbrand’s terrific new book Unbroken, the story of Louis Zamperini, 1936 Olympian and prisoner of war under the Japanese during WWII. I was compelled to buy a copy after reading an absolutely gripping excerpt in Vanity Fair, which described the harrowing 46 days Zamperini and his fellow airman Russell Phillips spent adrift at sea after their plane went down in the Pacific and before they were picked up by the Japanese. You can read it yourself here. After doing so you might think that a human being could endure no greater suffering than Zamperini and Phillips did as castaways. You would be wrong, as the rest of the book makes clear.

Hume, cosmological arguments, and the fallacy of composition

Both critics and defenders of arguments for the existence of God as an Uncaused Cause often assume that such arguments are essentially concerned to explain the universe considered as a whole. That is true of some versions, but not all. For instance, it is not true of Aquinas’s arguments, at least as many Thomists understand them. For the Thomist, you don’t need to start with something grand like the universe in order to show that God exists. Any old thing will do – a stone, a jar of peanut butter, your left shoe, whatever. The existence of any one of these things even for an instant involves the actualization of potencies here and now, which in turn presupposes the activity of a purely actual actualizer here and now. It involves the conjoining of an essence to an act of existence here and now, which presupposes a sustaining cause whose essence and existence are identical. It involves a union of parts in something composite, which presupposes that which is absolutely simple or incomposite. And so forth. (As always, for the details see Aquinas, especially chapter 3.)

Putting the Cross back into Christmas

It is difficult to be a human being. Illness, injury, death, bereavement, depression, frustrated hopes, unfulfilled dreams, unrequited love, despair, humiliation, hunger, nakedness, want of every kind – the usual illustrations of the problem of evil provide ample evidence of this. The point applies no less to those relatively untouched by such misfortunes. For they are more prone than their fellows to become complacent, superficial, ungrateful, and selfish – an even graver misfortune, and one that tends to lead us into the lesser ones after all. But every human being has his own distinctive moral weaknesses. It is difficult to be a human being because it is difficult to be a good human being – a human being who flourishes, who fulfills the various ends nature has set for us, whether they be our animal ends or our higher, rational and moral ends.

The Long Rain

It’s been raining for days and days here in L.A., and I can’t stop thinking of Ray Bradbury’s classic short story “The Long Rain.” Bradbury no doubt gets the physics, geology, and biology of a world of endless rain quite wrong – I don't think he ever claimed to be a hard SF writer – but it’s a terrific story all the same. It’s been filmed a couple of times, once as a segment of the movie version of The Illustrated Man, and once as an episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater. Both versions are well done, but the only one I can find online is the former. (You’ll have to follow the link to “The Illustrated Man (1969) Part 8” at the end for the conclusion. What you see below starts abruptly, but it’s only a couple of minutes into the segment, which begins at the tail end of “Part 6.”)