Judging a book by what it doesn’t cover

In his encyclical Aeterni Patris, Pope Leo XIII called for a “restoration of Christian philosophy.” He was quite specific about what he had in mind:

[D]aily experience, and the judgment of the greatest men, and, to crown all, the voice of the Church, have favored the Scholastic philosophy.

Indeed, he was even more specific than that:

Among the Scholastic Doctors, the chief and master of all towers Thomas Aquinas…

We exhort you, venerable brethren, in all earnestness to restore the golden wisdom of St. Thomas, and to spread it far and wide for the defense and beauty of the Catholic faith, for the good of society, and for the advantage of all the sciences… Let carefully selected teachers endeavor to implant the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas in the minds of students, and set forth clearly his solidity and excellence over others.  Let the universities already founded or to be founded by you illustrate and defend this doctrine, and use it for the refutation of prevailing errors.

Review of Gray etc.

Readers of the Claremont Review of Books may want to look for my review of John Gray’s book The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths in the Spring 2014 issue.  At the moment the review is behind a pay wall, but subscribing will fix that problem.

On another matter, readers keep asking me how to get hold of Scholastic Metaphysics, which was released on April 1, somewhat ahead of schedule.  Apparently the book sold out very quickly because supply could not meet all the pre-orders and Amazon has been out of stock for some time.  I have been told that a new shipment arrived at the U.S. distributor’s warehouse a week or so ago and that the book should once again be available from Amazon this week.  So, sit tight, and many, many thanks for your patience and interest.

Sexual cant from the asexual Kant

Kant never married and apparently died a virgin.  He is sometimes described as having had a low opinion of sex, on the basis of passages like this one from his Lectures on Ethics:

[S]exuality is not an inclination which one human being has for another as such, but is an inclination for the sex of another… The desire which a man has for a woman is not directed towards her because she is a human being, but because she is a woman; that she is a human being is of no concern to the man; only her sex is the object of his desires. Human nature is thus subordinated. Hence it comes that all men and women do their best to make not their human nature but their sex more alluring and direct their activities and lusts entirely towards sex. Human nature is thereby sacrificed to sex. (Louis Infield translation, p.164)

Linked in

Two new papers from David Oderberg: “Is Form Structure?” and “The Metaphysics of Privation.”

Donald Devine and I have been debating the merits of John Locke for years.  Don offers his latest thoughts at The Federalist in “The Real John Locke -- And Why He Matters.”

Stratford Caldecott -- Catholic writer, G. K. Chesterton Research Fellow at St. Benet’s Hall, Oxford, and Marvel Comics fan -- has cancer.  Marvel has stepped up to grant him a dying wish, and the stars of the Marvel movies have given him a touching tribute.  Fr. Z has the story, as do The Independent and the Catholic Herald.

This is philosophy?

This is Philosophy is a new introduction to the subject by Prof. Steven Hales.  A reader calls my attention to the book’s companion website, which contains links to some lecture slides keyed to topics covered in the book, a dictionary of terms, exercises, and so forth.

I’ve got a little exercise of my own for the reader, which has three steps.  Here’s how it goes:

 Step 1: Read this blurb from the website:

The text’s scholarship is as noteworthy as its hipness. Hales clearly explains important philosophical ideas with a minimum of jargon and without sacrificing depth of content and he consistently gives a fair and accurate presentation of both sides of central philosophical disputes.

Step 2: Read this set of lecture slides on the cosmological argument, holding before your mind the highlighted words from the blurb while doing so.

Step 3: Try not to laugh.

Ha!  Knew you couldn’t do it!  Me neither.

New Scholastic books

The old Scholastic manuals of the first half or so of the twentieth century are often hard to find, though fortunately many are now being made available again by Editiones Scholasticae, Wipf and Stock, and TAN Books, as well as by public domain reprint publishers like Kessinger, HardPress, and Literary Licensing.  Still, many remain out of print, and many have never been translated into English.  For some reason, the large older manuals of Catholic dogmatic theology seem harder to find than the philosophy and moral theology material.

Fr. Kenneth Baker has undertaken the project of translating Joseph Dalmau’s mammoth Sacrae Theologiae Summa (or Summa of Sacred Theology), originally published in 1955, into English.  It is being published by Keep the Faith, which puts out The Latin Mass magazine.  The first volume was recently published and advertised in the magazine.  Appearing out of sequence, it is Sacrae Theologiae Summa IIA: On the One and Triune God.  At the moment I do not see it advertised on their website, but I imagine that if you contact them by email you can find out how to order a copy.   (I ordered one after seeing the magazine ad -- the price was $35 -- and it arrived yesterday.)

Pre-Christian apologetics

Christianity did not arise in a vacuum.  The very first Christians debated with their opponents in a cultural context within which everyone knew that there is a God and that he had revealed himself through Moses and the prophets.  The question, given that background, was what to think of Jesus of Nazareth.  Hence the earliest apologists were, in effect, apologists for Christianity as opposed to Judaism, specifically.  That didn’t last long.  As Christianity spread beyond Judea into the larger Mediterranean world, the question became whether to accept Christianity as opposed to paganism.  Much less could be taken for granted. 

Still, significant common ground for debate was provided by Greek philosophy.  In Book VIII of The City of God, Augustine noted that thinkers in the Neoplatonic tradition had seen that God is the cause of the existence of the world; had seen also that only what is beyond the world of material and changeable things could be God; had understood the distinction between the senses and their objects on the one hand, and the intellect and its objects on the other, and affirmed the superiority of the latter; and had affirmed that the highest good is not the good of the body or even the good of the mind, but to know and imitate God.  In short, these pagan thinkers knew some of the key truths about God, the soul, and the natural law that are available to unaided human reason.  This purely philosophical knowledge facilitated Augustine’s own conversion to Christianity, and would provide an intellectual skeleton for the developing tradition of Christian apologetics and theology.

Dominicans Interactive reviews Aquinas

Dominicans Interactive is a new online initiative of the Irish Dominicans.  (Check out their Facebook page and website.)  Today the website reviews my book Aquinas.  From the review:

The chapter on natural theology deals with all five of Aquinas’s proofs for the existence of God… as well as containing a short treatment of the divine attributes (God’s simplicity, perfection, goodness, immutablity, and so on).  The reader will encounter in this chapter one of the most robust defences of the validity of every one of the arguments for the existence of God (Five Ways) available in the English language… This chapter is a tour de force and bears witness to Feser’s deserved reputation as a master of natural theology.  Both students and established scholars ought to acquire a copy of the book for the sake of this chapter alone.

Very kind!  The review also warns: “[A] note of caution: Feser’s book, while it ought to be required reading for any introductory course on Aquinas’s philosophy, is nonetheless very challenging for the neophyte.”  That’s worth emphasizing.  The book’s subtitle “A Beginner’s Guide” is a bit misleading.  It was not part of the original title when the book was contracted, and writing a “beginner’s guide” was not something I had in mind when working on it.  What happened is that after the book was finished the publisher decided to fold it into their “Beginner’s Guides” series.  In fact most readers will find it more challenging than The Last Superstition, though not as challenging as Scholastic Metaphysics.

Miracles, ID, and classical theism

The esteemed Lydia McGrew, a friend of this blog, wonders whether my defense of classical theism and criticisms of “Intelligent Design” theory can be reconciled with some of the miracle stories one finds in the Bible.  Her concerns are twofold.  First, such stories clearly attribute personal characteristics to God; yet classical theists reject what they call “theistic personalism.”  Second, the miracle stories in question involve effects which could at least in principle (Lydia claims) have been caused by something other than the God of classical theism; yet I have criticized ID theory precisely on the grounds that it cannot get you to the God of classical theism.

Neither “a person” nor impersonal

Lydia’s first objection, I’m sorry to say, rests on a pretty basic (albeit annoyingly common) misunderstanding.  Contrary to the impression she gives in her post, I have never denied that God is personal, nor do classical theists in general deny it.  On the contrary, like classical theists in general, I have argued that there is in God intellect and will, and these are the defining attributes of personhood; and as a Catholic I also affirm that there are in God three divine Persons.  So, I hardly regard God as impersonal.

A second exchange with Keith Parsons, Part II

Prof. Keith Parsons has posted his own opening statement in our second exchange, which is devoted to the topic of atheism, naturalism, and morality.  (An index of the posts in our first exchange can be found here.)  As it happens, there is a remarkable amount of agreement between what Keith says in his newest post and what I said in my opening post.  Both of us take a broadly Aristotelian approach to ethics, grounding the good for human beings in the biology of human nature.  Unsurprisingly, though, there is also disagreement.  I have argued that human biology can have moral import only if interpreted in light of an Aristotelian metaphysics.  Keith argues that it ought to be interpreted in light of a purely naturalistic metaphysics.  He would interpret the biological functions that ground what is good for us, not as instances of immanent teleology of the sort the traditional Aristotelian affirms, but rather in terms of Darwinian natural selection.  As Keith indicates, in this regard his views parallel those of Larry Arnhart.

School’s out forever?

John Farrell, Forbes science blogger extraordinaire (and friend of this blog), comments on my recent talk at Thomas Aquinas College, over at his own personal blog.  As you know if you’ve read or listened to the talk, I call for a return to Scholasticism within Catholic intellectual life as essential to sound theology and apologetics.  John has some kind words about my talk, for which I thank him, but he also expresses skepticism about the prospects of the metaphysics of the School and its Schoolmen (to use the jargon of the good old days).  Writes John:

My own sense is that Scholasticism can't work now because it presupposes an Aristotelian philosophy of nature that is simply not adequate to support what modern science has uncovered about the natural order.  Which is not to say it is no longer valid, but rather that it is too limited. [No one says Newtonian physics is wrong, but it only addresses a limited aspect of a much wider, broader nature.]

Corrupting the Calvinist youth [UPDATED]

Some guy named “Steve” who contributes to the group apologetics blog Triablogue informs us that “Feser seems to have a following among some young, philosophically-minded Calvinists.”  (Who knew?)  “Steve” is awfully perturbed by this, as he has “considerable reservations” about me, warning that I am not “a very promising role model for aspiring Reformed philosophers.” And why is that?  Not, evidently, because of the quality of my philosophical arguments, as he does not address a single argument I have ever put forward.  Indeed, he admits that he has made only an “admittedly cursory sampling” of my work -- and, it seems, has read only some blog posts of mine, at that -- and acknowledges that “this may mean I'm not qualified to offer an informed opinion of Feser.”  So he offers an uninformed opinion instead, making some amazingly sweeping remarks on the basis of his “admittedly cursory” reading.  (Why that is the sort of example “aspiring Reformed philosophers” should emulate, I have no idea.)

Normally I ignore this sort of drive-by blogging, but since Triablogue seems to have a significant readership among people interested in apologetics, I suppose I should say something lest “Steve” corrupt the Calvinist youth by his rash example.

A second exchange with Keith Parsons, Part I

I’d like once again to thank Keith Parsons, and moderator Jeffery Jay Lowder, for the very fruitful first exchange we had a few weeks ago.  You can find links to each installment here.  Per Jeff’s suggestion, our second exchange will be on the topic: ”Can morality have a rational justification if atheism or naturalism is true?”  Jeff has proposed that we keep our opening statements to 2500 words or less, and I will try to rein in my logorrheic self and abide by that limitation.  That will be difficult, though, given that my answer to the question is: “Yes and No.”

Let me explain.  I’ll begin by making a point I’m sure Keith will agree with.  Many theists and atheists alike suppose that to link morality to religion is to claim that we could have no reason to be moral if we did not anticipate punishments and rewards in an afterlife.  I am sure Keith would reject such a line of argument, and I reject it too.  To do or refrain from doing something merely because one seeks a reward or fears reprisals is not morality.  I would also reject the related but distinct claim that what makes an action morally good or bad is merely that God has commanded it, as if goodness and badness were a matter of sheer fiat on the part of a cosmic dictator who has the power to impose his will on everyone else.  This too would not really be morality at all, but just Saddam Hussein writ large.

God’s wounds

The God of classical theism -- of Athanasius and Augustine, Avicenna and Maimonides, Anselm and Aquinas -- is (among other things) pure actuality, subsistent being itself, absolutely simple, immutable, and eternal.  Critics of classical theism sometimes allege that such a conception of God makes of him something sub-personal and is otherwise incompatible with the Christian conception.  As I have argued many times (e.g. here, here, here, and here) nothing could be further from the truth.  In fact, to deny divine simplicity or the other attributes distinctive of the classical theist conception of God is implicitly to make of God a creature rather than the creator.  For it makes of him a mere instance of a kind, even if a unique instance.  It makes of him something which could in principle have had a cause of his own, in which case he cannot be the ultimate explanation of things.  It is, accordingly, implicitly to deny the core of theism itself.  As David Bentley Hart writes in The Experience of God (in a passage I had occasion to quote recently), it amounts to a kind of “mono-poly-theism,” or indeed to atheism.

But it is not only generic theism to which the critics of classical theism fail to do justice.  It is Christian theism specifically to which they fail to do justice.  One way in which this is the case is (as I have noted before, e.g. here) that it is classical theism rather than its contemporary rival “theistic personalism” that best comports with the doctrine of the Trinity.  But to reject classical theism also implicitly trivializes the Incarnation, and with it Christ’s Passion and Death.

What We Owe the New Atheists

Last week I gave a lecture at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, CA, on the theme “What We Owe the New Atheists.”  You can read the text and/or listen to the audio of the lecture at TAC’s website.  The faculty, students, and guests who attended were a wonderful bunch of folks and I thank them for their very kind hospitality. 

Anthony Brueckner (1953 - 2014)

Philosopher Tony Brueckner of UC Santa Barbara died this week.  Tony was a professor of mine when I was in graduate school, and served on my dissertation committee.  I remember him as an excellent teacher, a formidable philosopher, and a nice guy with a droll sense of humor.  I recall a phony pop quiz he handed out in class one day.  The first multiple-choice question read: “What is your name? (A) Bruce, (B) other.”  After a reference he once made to the tune in a comment in the margins of a term paper of mine, I can never listen to Steely Dan’s “The Fez” without thinking of Tony.

Tony was a philosopher’s philosopher, and his work was largely devoted to a rigorous investigation of the philosophical issues surrounding Cartesian skepticism.  No one seriously interested in that topic can avoid grappling with Tony’s work on it, most of which is collected in his book Essays on Skepticism.  Related issues are pursued in Debating Self-Knowledge, co-written with Gary Ebbs.

By all accounts (such as this one) he was a kind man.  R.I.P.

Self control

The relationship between memory and personal identity has long been of interest to philosophers, and it is also a theme explored to good effect in movies and science fiction.  In Memento, Leonard Shelby (played by Guy Pearce) has largely lost his ability to form new memories following an attack in which he was injured and his wife raped and murdered.  He hunts down the attacker by assembling clues which he either writes down or tattoos on his body before he can forget them. 

In Philip K. Dick’s short story “Paycheck” (which is better than the movie adaptation starring Ben Affleck), the protagonist Jennings has agreed to work for two years on a secret project knowing that his memory of it (and of everything else that happened during those years) will be erased when the task is completed.  When he awakens after the memory wipe, he learns that he had, during the course of the two years, voluntarily agreed to forego the large paycheck he had originally contracted for in exchange for an envelope full of seemingly worthless trinkets.  He spends the rest of the story trying to figure out why he would have done so, and it becomes evident before long that it has something to do with the secret project’s having been a device which can see into the future. 

(Readers who haven’t either seen Memento or read Dick’s story or seen the movie version are warned that major spoilers follow.)

Welcome to the machine

Not too long ago I attended a conference on theology and technology sponsored by First Things.  Unsurprisingly, the question arose whether modern technology is on balance a good or bad thing, and the general view seemed to be that it was in itself neutral -- its goodness or badness deriving from the circumstances of its use.  As Fr. Thomas Joseph White pointed out, however, from a Thomist point of view, while circumstances can certainly make the use of technology bad, of itself it is actually good rather than merely neutral.  It is the product of the practical intellect, the exercise of which per se helps perfect us (even if, again, circumstances can make technology, like other products of practical reason, evil). 

Naturally I wholeheartedly agree, being not only a Thomist but a confirmed city dweller and something of a technophile.  Still, it is worthwhile considering whether there is something special about modern circumstances that makes technology morally problematic.  I think there is, though by no means do I think these circumstances suffice to make modern technology on balance a bad thing.  On the contrary, I think on balance it is a very good thing.  But all good things can lead us to hubris if we are not careful, and there is a special way in which we moderns need to be careful.

What’s around the web?

John Searle is interviewed at New Philosopher.  He’s in fine Searle form (and well-armed, as you can see from the photo accompanying the interview):  “It upsets me when I read the nonsense written by my contemporaries, the theory of extended mind makes me want to throw up.”

Jeremy Shearmur is interviewed at 3:AM Magazine about his work on Karl Popper and F. A. Hayek.  Standpoint magazine on Hayek and religion.

A memorial conference for the late E. J. Lowe will be held this July at Durham University. 

Steely Dan is being sued by former member David Palmer.  GQ magazine looks back on Steely Dan’s Aja, and The Quietus celebrates and cerebrates the 40^th anniversary of Pretzel Logic.  Donald Fagen’s book Eminent Hipsters is reviewed in City Journal and in the New York Observer.

Dharmakīrti and Maimonides on divine action

Here’s a juxtaposition for you: the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti (c. 600 - 660) and the medieval Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides (1138 - 1204).  Both had interesting things to say about divine action, Dharmakīrti from the point of view of a critic of theism and Maimonides from the point of view of a theist committed to “negative theology.” 

Theism of a sort reminiscent of Western philosophical theology has its defenders in the history of Indian philosophy, particularly within the Nyāya-Vaiśeșika tradition.  In particular, one finds in this tradition arguments for the existence of īśvara (the “Lord”) as a single permanent, personal cause of the world of intermittent things.  The debate between these thinkers and their Buddhist critics parallels the dispute between theists and atheists in the West.  (To map the Indian philosophical traditions onto those of ancient Greece, you might compare the Buddhist position to that of Heraclitus, the Advaita Vedanta position of thinkers like Shankara (788 - 820) to that of Parmenides, and Indian theism to Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover.  But the similarities should not be overstated.)

I was wrong about Keith Parsons

Longtime readers know that Prof. Keith Parsons and I have not always gotten along.  Some years ago he famously expressed the view that the arguments of natural theology are a “fraud” that do not rise to the level of a “respectable philosophical position” worthy of “serious academic attention.”  I hit back pretty hard at the time, and our subsequent remarks about each other over the years have not been kind.  I had come to the conclusion that Prof. Parsons was unwilling to engage seriously with the best arguments of natural theology.  But I am delighted to say that I was wrong.  Prof. Parsons has said that his earlier remarks about the field were “unfortunate” and “intemperate and inappropriate, however qualified.”  He has shown admirable grace and good sportsmanship in his willingness to bury the hatchet despite how heated things had been between us.  And he has most definitely engaged seriously with the arguments of traditional natural theology in our recent exchange.  I take back the unkind remarks I have made about him in the past.  He is a good guy.

Keith is now wrapping up his side in our initial exchange.  If you have not done so already, give it a read.  In the near future we will have an exchange on the subject of atheism and morality.  I look forward to it.  Keith has also expressed to me his admiration for the quality of the comments readers have been making on our exchange.  I agree, and I thank the readers both of my blog and of Keith’s blog over at Secular Outpost.