Editiones scholasticae

Editiones scholasticae is a new German publishing venture devoted to publishing works in Scholastic philosophy, including reprints of works which have long been out of print.  Among the first titles announced are reprints of Bernard Wuellner’s two invaluable reference works Dictionary of Scholastic Philosophy and Summary of Scholastic Principles, used copies of which can be expensive and hard to find.  A very worthy enterprise!

On some alleged quantifier shift fallacies, Part I

If every reader of this blog owns a computer, it doesn’t follow that there is some one computer that every reader of this blog owns.  To think otherwise is to commit what is known as a quantifier shift fallacy.  A reader asks me to comment on the following passage from the second edition of Harry Gensler’s Introduction to Logic:  

Some great minds have committed this quantifier shift fallacy.  Aristotle argued, “Every agent acts for an end, so there must be some (one) end for which every agent acts.”  St Thomas Aquinas argued, “If everything at some time fails to exist, then there must be some (one) time at which everything fails to exist.”  And John Locke argued, “Everything is caused by something, so there must be some (one) thing that caused everything.”  (p. 220) 

Such claims about Aristotle, Aquinas, and Locke are often made.  Are they true?  The answer, in my view, is that they are not true – certainly not in the cases of Aristotle and Aquinas, and arguably not in the case of Locke either.

Routledge Handbook

The Routledge Handbook of Human Rights, edited by Thomas Cushman, will be published this summer.  The book includes my essay “The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Rights.”  If you have a spare $180, do pick up a copy.  Otherwise, you might look for it in your nearest academic library.

Nozick’s Tale of the Slave

While on the subject of Robert Nozick, we might note that he’s been written up this week in Slate, in an article by Stephen Metcalf.  It’s a pretty feeble piece – gratuitously snotty, philosophically shallow, and lame even as mere journalism insofar as its central “hook” is just wrong.  Contrary to what Metcalf supposes, Nozick did not renounce libertarianism.  In fact he explicitly denied doing so in an interview with Julian Sanchez given not long before Nozick’s death in 2002 (as Sanchez reminds us in responding to Metcalf).  Like too many critics of Nozick, Metcalf also focuses exclusively on his famous “Wilt Chamberlain argument” (and, as Sanchez notes, badly misses the point of it).  That argument is indeed important, but Nozick gave other arguments too, some of them no less interesting.  Consider, for instance, the argument implicit in his thought experiment “The Tale of the Slave.”

Meyer and fusionism

“Fusionism” is the label usually applied to Frank Meyer’s project of harmonizing freedom and tradition in a modern conservative synthesis.  (Meyer actually disliked the “fusionist” label, since it seemed to imply that freedom and tradition did not form an organic unity and needed therefore to be “fused.”  In his view, they naturally go together.)  If by “freedom” we mean respect for the rule of law, limited and decentralized government, and a general preference for market solutions over state action, and by “tradition” a respect for religion and the family, then any modern conservative ought to be a fusionist, and most probably are fusionists.  But Meyer himself had more than this in mind.  In particular, he seems to have been committed to a strict libertarianism of the Ayn Rand or Robert Nozick sort on which any governmental action over and above the police, military, and judicial functions is always and in principle unjust.  And he thought that this extreme position followed from a respect for traditional morality.

Blogging note

There’s an old John Callahan cartoon of a line of people exiting through a door marked “Hell” only to enter through another door marked “Sheer Hell.”  That pretty much sums up what it’s like to go from grading a gigantic stack of papers (as I did last week) to grading a gigantic stack of final exams (as I’m doing now).  Good thing I’ve got some assistance.  Posting may be light for a few days. 

On Aristotle, Aquinas, and Paley: A Reply to Marie George

My article “Teleology: A Shopper’s Guide” (now available online) appeared in Philosophia Christi Vol. 12, No. 1 (2010).  Prof. Marie George’s article “An Aristotelian-Thomist Responds to Edward Feser’s ‘Teleology’” appeared in the next issue, and was critical of what I said in my article about the relationship between the Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) understanding of teleology and the conception of teleology implicit in William Paley’s “design argument.”  Philosophia Christi is published by the Evangelical Philosophical Society, and my reply to George has now been posted at the EPS website as part of their online article series.  (By the way, in case anyone is tempted to turn this into yet another episode in the never-ending debate between A-T and Intelligent Design theory, don’t bother.  Like me, Prof. George has been critical of ID.  She and I agree that ID has nothing to do with what Aquinas is up to in the Fifth Way.  What we differ over is whether Aquinas ought also to be distanced from what Paley is up to: Like many other Thomists, I say Yes; she says No.)

O’Brien and Koons on metaphysics and morality

Over at Public Discourse, philosophers Matthew O’Brien and Robert Koons have posted a three-part series on metaphysics and morality: “What Does it Mean to be a ‘Political Animal’?”; “Moral Absolutes and the Humpty Dumpty Fallacy”; and “Who’s Afraid of Metaphysics?”  Give ‘em a read.  (By the way, if you haven’t seen The Waning of Materialism, an important recent anthology edited by Koons and George Bealer, you should check that out too.)

Les Paul contra Scruton

As you’ve no doubt figured out from the latest Google logo, Thursday was the birthday of the late Les Paul, pioneer of the electric guitar and related musical innovations.  Should we be thankful for what Paul gave us?  I certainly am.  Roger Scruton (whom I have also always admired) might disagree.  In An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Culture, Scruton tells us that:

The electric guitar… [is] a machine, which distorts and amplifies the sound, lifting it out of the realm of human noises.  If a machine could sing, it would sound like an electric guitar.  Techno-music is the voice of the machine, triumphing over the human utterance and cancelling its pre-eminent claim to our attention…. However much you listen to this music, you will never hear it as you hear the human voice… You are overhearing the machine, as it discourses in the moral void. (p. 107)

If you are tempted to regard that as anything but over-the-top… well, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Les Paul and Mary Ford.  Just try to find a “moral void” here, or anything other than something delightfully human:

Singer “in a state of flux”

The Guardian reports that Peter Singer is having second thoughts about some aspects of his moral philosophy.  In particular, he now has doubts about whether preference utilitarianism provides satisfactory moral advice about climate change.  (As the reporter puts it, “preference utilitarianism can provide good arguments not to worry about climate change, as well as arguments to do so.”)  Singer is also now open to the idea that moral value must be grounded in something objective; and though he is still not inclined to believe in God, he acknowledges that a theologically-oriented ethics has the advantage that it provides the only complete answer to the question why we should act morally.

Coyne on intentionality

Biologist Jerry Coyne responds to a recent post by Vincent Torley on the topic of whether the brain is a kind of computer.  Torley had cited me in defense of the claim that the intentionality or “meaningfulness” of our thoughts cannot be explained in materialist terms.  Coyne responds as follows:

I’ll leave this one to the philosophers, except to say that “meaning” seem [sic] to pose no problem, either physically or evolutionarily, to me: our brain-modules have evolved to make sense of what we take in from the environment.  

The fallacy Coyne commits here should be cringe-makingly obvious to anyone who’s taken a philosophy of mind course.  Coyne “explains” intentionality by telling us that “brain-modules” have evolved to “make sense” of our environment.  But to “make sense” of something is, of course, to apply concepts to it, to affirm certain propositions about it, and so forth.  In other words, the capacity to “make sense” of something itself presupposes meaning or intentionality.  Hence, if what Coyne means to say is that an individual “brain-module” operating at the subpersonal level “makes sense” of some aspect of the environment, then his position is just a textbook instance of the homunculus fallacy: It amounts to the claim that we have intentionality because our parts have intentionality, which merely relocates the problem rather than solving it.  If instead what Coyne means is that the collection of “brain-modules” operating together constitute a mind which “makes sense” of the environment, then he has put forward a tautology – the brain manifests intentionality by virtue of “making sense” of the world, where to “make sense” is to manifest intentionality.  Either way, he has explained nothing.

Two, four, six, eight! Who do you reincarnate?

Could there be such a thing as reincarnation?  A necessary condition would be the truth of some form of dualism.  So far so good, since (I would say) some form of dualism is true.  But which form?  There are at least three to choose from: substance dualism, the version associated with Plato and Descartes; property dualism, associated with the likes of John Locke, David Chalmers, and (the early) Frank Jackson; and the hylemorphic dualism defended within the Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysical tradition.  Are all of these equally favorable to a defense of reincarnation?

Comments on comments

I was out of town for several days and not monitoring the comboxes.  Unfortunately, Blogger’s overzealous spam filter kept busy while I was away and it seems some readers had trouble posting their comments.  Sorry about that.

In general, if you post a comment and it does not appear, it has no doubt ended up either in the spam filter or the moderation box.  Rest assured that I will get to it, though on days that I teach it may take me as long as a few hours to do so.  I understand why some readers would try to repost their comments in these circumstances, but if this does not succeed after the first attempt there is no point in trying again (much less trying 30, 40, or 50 times)!  Please be patient – again, I will get to it.

Review of Examined Lives

If you are a reader of First Things, you might find of interest my review of James Miller’s Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche, which appears in the June/July issue.  (I’d link to the online version, but it’s behind a paywall.)  If you’re not a reader, do the good people at FT a favor and pick up a copy – or subscribe, as the magazine begins a new era under the able leadership of new editor R. R. Reno.

Mind-body problem roundup

For readers who might be interested, I thought it would be useful to gather together in one place links to various posts on the mind-body problem and other issues in the philosophy of mind.  Like much of what you’ll find on this blog, these posts develop and apply ideas and arguments stated more fully in my various books and articles.  Naturally, I address various issues in the philosophy of mind at length in my book Philosophy of Mind, of which you can find a detailed table of contents here.  (The cover illustration by Andrzej Klimowski you see to the left is from the first edition.)  You will find my most recent and detailed exposition of the Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) approach to issues in the philosophy of mind in chapter 4 of Aquinas.  There is a lot of material on the mind-body problem to be found in The Last Superstition, especially in various sections of the last three chapters.  And there is also relevant material to be found in Locke, in the chapter I contributed to my edited volume The Cambridge Companion to Hayek, and in various academic articles.

Leibniz’s Mill

In section 17 of his Monadology, Leibniz puts forward the following argument against materialism:

Moreover, it must be confessed that perception and that which depends upon it are inexplicable on mechanical grounds, that is to say, by means of figures and motions.  And supposing there were a machine, so constructed as to think, feel, and have perception, it might be conceived as increased in size, while keeping the same proportions, so that one might go into it as into a mill.  That being so, we should, on examining its interior, find only parts which work one upon another, and never anything by which to explain a perception.  Thus it is in a simple substance, and not in a compound or in a machine, that perception must be sought for.  Further, nothing but this (namely, perceptions and their changes) can be found in a simple substance.  It is also in this alone that all the internal activities of simple substances can consist.

Gillespie on modernity

Some time back I reviewed Michael Allen Gillespie’s book The Theological Origins of Modernity in The Review of Metaphysics.  I notice that the review is now available online here.  (Gillespie traces the origins of modernity to the nominalism of William of Ockham.  That is a theme I explored in a recent post.)

Are you for real?

In a recent post, I gave as an example of an obviously wrongheaded conception of God’s relationship to the world the idea that we are literally fictional characters in a story He has authored – though I also allowed that as a mere analogy the idea may have its uses.  Vincent Torley wonders whether there might not be something more to the idea, though, citing the use Hugh McCann makes of it in his Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on “Divine Providence” (see especially section 6 of the article).

Happy Anniversary, Bill

My friend Bill Vallicella kindly offers his congratulations on the birth of my daughter, and I offer my congratulations to him on the seventh anniversary of the Maverick Philosopher blog.  As I’ve said before, I have long regarded Bill as something like the Platonic Form of a philosophy blogger.  His blog contains just the right mix of serious posts and light ones, polemical political pieces and coolly intellectual ones, long posts and short posts, original pieces and links to the work of others, along with the occasional cooking tip or link to YouTube.  Plus he is a terrific aphorist and a solid technical philosopher.  If any of you readers find my own blog worthy of your time, you might give Bill some of the credit, since he has been my model.  Chalk the defects up to yours truly.

Reply to Torley and Cudworth

This is the second installment of a two-part post on the dispute between Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) metaphysics and “Intelligent Design” (ID) theory (a post which I hope will put the subject to rest for a while).  Having in my previous installment set out the Aristotelian distinction between “nature” and “art” (or natural objects and artifacts), I now turn to consider the recent remarks of ID defenders Vincent Torley and Thomas Cudworth over at the blog Uncommon Descent.  (Those who haven’t read the previous installment are urged to do so before reading this one.  It also wouldn’t hurt if you had some familiarity with the other things I’ve said on this topic in many previous posts.)

Nature versus art

I’ve been meaning to put the debate between Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) metaphysics and “Intelligent Design” (ID) theory aside for a time, but Vincent Torley and Thomas Cudworth have recently raised objections and questions (here, here, and here) to which I would like to respond.  I will have to do so at some length, I’m afraid, because Torley’s first post is itself very long, and because there are many background issues that need to be clarified before Torley’s and Cudworth’s remarks can be addressed.  In this post I will set out the relevant background ideas, and in a second post I will consider Torley’s and Cudworth’s points.  After that I intend to give the subject a rest for a long while – to the chagrin of some readers perhaps, but (I suspect) to the relief of many.

Hunter on TLS

Philosopher Graeme Hunter kindly reviews The Last Superstition in the latest issue of Touchstone.  From the review:

Feser is a talented philosopher who can present Christian thought in broad strokes or in fine detail with equal authority. His book is notable for the clarity with which it reassembles the essential elements of Christian philosophy – showing its debt to ancient Greece, its development in the Middle Ages, and its canonical expression in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. Feser then uses his expertise in later philosophy to isolate certain interconnected fallacies of thought, from the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and up to the present, fallacies that have insinuated themselves into our thinking, limiting our ability to think clearly about science, truth, God, and the human condition.

You need have no prior knowledge of the history of philosophy to follow Feser’s guided tour, but he takes for granted a reader prepared to go slowly and think things through. The reward for doing so is great. Though I have spent a lifetime teaching and writing about the same matters as this book discusses, I was challenged and instructed on almost every page…

It is rather to Feser’s credit that he sometimes allows himself (and his reader) the simple pleasure of scoffing at the other side…

The reader who begins this book prepared to think will end it thinking much more effectively. He will see the new atheism for the stale, unprofitable confusion it is. At the same time he will accumulate some useful ammunition for the culture wars. Few books reward our labor so richly.

Happy Birthday

I am pleased to announce that my wife Rachel gave birth yesterday to our sixth child, Gwendolyn Marie Feser.  Cigars all around.  Posting may be light for a little while.

Update: Many thanks for the very kind wishes of all my readers.  Here is a pic of Gwendolyn doing her best Alfred Hitchcock impression while held by her sister Gemma:

Easter Triduum

Frank Turek of the radio program CrossExamined informs me that they will be rerunning his recent interview with me this Saturday at 10 am ET and again on Easter at 5 pm ET.  You can listen here.  I wish all my readers a holy Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  Those who have not seen them might find of interest my posts from last year on “The Meaning of the Passion” and “The Meaning of the Resurrection.”

Uncommon Descent update

My readers should know that Vincent Torley has added a disclaimer to his recent post, apologizing for any misrepresentation of my views contained in the post.  I appreciate this, and I apologize if the tone of my original response to Torley and his fellow ID defenders Jay Richards and Denyse O’Leary (which I have since replaced) was excessively harsh.  Torley has also put up another post, as has Thomas Cudworth.  I will reply to them as soon as I am able.