Sneaky little Megaric

Diodorus Cronus is said to have given this argument:

1. That which you have not lost, you still have.
2. You have not lost horns.
3. You still have horns.

The paradox here is that none us have horns, and yet each premise is supposedly true. How can we address this?



We could argue that premise 1 is false, since it does not follow that I have something if I have not lost it. Why? Well, it could have been stolen! Though true, this response is unsatisfactory. We could argue that premise 1 is true, but only under the strict domain of objects attainable by humans, or even things we have, or some other scope of reference excluding horns. That is a far better approach, I think.

What about premise 2? We could say that it is false, though here I would stress that in rendering this proposition false, we should not affirm the proposition "You have lost horns". Instead, we say this: it is not the case that you have not lost horns, or stated simply: it is false that you lost horns. And it is false simply because we, you or I, do not, nor did we ever, have horns. Why? Well, because we cannot lose some thing we never had! If it were otherwise, then, we might also say that I lost a hundred trillion dollars. Of course I didn't lost that much money, since I never had access to or responsibility of that sort of cash!

Socrates and Philosophical Conservatism

If we listen to Aristotle, Socrates contributed to the pool of ideas in at least two ways: universal definition and inductive argument. The first is what makes me a heir of Socrates. Let me explain.

Speaking amid the relativism of the Sophists, Socrates embarked on a mission to secure constant standards of knowledge, that of universal definition. Particular things change and exemplify universals to various degrees, but the universals themselves are forever constant. We might not know the definition of some universal, but we know that there are universals; and if we can to know them, that is, know their definition, then we can have secure and constant knowledge of some thing. What is more, if there are universals, then not everything is relative, and indeed people can be objectively wrong when they speak about matters of justice, piety, and so on.

I am a heir of Socrates because I, too, seek objective standards amid a culture of relativism and nominalism. From these standards I see the world and live my life; and from them I scorn the relativistic philosophies of the day that scorch our culture, universities and intellectual life.

Philosophical conservatives should be proud that we have such a towering figure amongst our ranks--one who exemplifies the quintessential philosophic spirit.

Addressing some Myths or Misconceptions about Science and Religion, and One about Superstition in the ‘Middle Ages’

A Misconception of the ‘Middle Ages’

Myth: The Middle Ages is an age of superstition.

The myth here is not that the so-called Middle Ages was largely superstitious,  but that it is somehow substantially different from the superstition of today, or the frequency in which people are indeed superstitious. 

It should be understood that educated medieval thinkers complained about the degree of superstition present within the lay community, just as many modern thinkers do today. Examples of such medieval thinkers are plentiful:  Agobard of Lyon, Aelfric of Eynsham, Rudolph Glaber and Geoffrey Chaucer. What is more, the people of today are comparably just as superstitious as they were then. 

The reputation of the Middle Ages being an age of irrational behavior is largely the baggage of Renaissance and Modern thinkers projecting their hostility and ignorance into a time poorly understood. 

A Misconception in Mechanical Philosophy and Early Modern Science

Myth: The Advent of Early Mechanical Philosophy Moved its Thinkers Away from God and Natural Theology

I can picture a ‘new atheist’ saying this while drunk on the powers of science and secular reasoning, it’s an eye roller. But it is a silly one.  Many thinkers of mechanical philosophy or/and modern science were deeply religious and quite concerned with God; of the Catholics, the most famous were Mersenne, Descartes and Gassendi.  Other thinkers include these men: Walter Charleton, John Wilkens, John Wallis, Robert Boyle (he retained notions of teleology), John Ray and Isaac Newton.  This was indeed a time wherein writings of science and religion, particularly natural theology, were quite close, if not downright intimate. God was often seen as the sustainer of the so-called natural laws, the mathematical laws which governed a mechanical world, or the spark which generated the world machine.

The fulcrum of this theistic understanding of a mechanical world rested on a substantial difference between matter and spirit.  If the latter is denied, as Hobbes later did, and so many after him, or at least deemed unnecessary, then ground would be conceded to irreligion and atheism.

A Misconception about Kant, Faith and Reason

Myth: Kant himself said that faith is contrary to reason and science.

Kant is a weird one. His point was this. Our mental apparatuses structure our experience; and hence we have no direct line to things themselves. What we have a line to is just the world of experience—the phenomenal world. The laws of the natural world are not laws of the things themselves, but our understanding; and hence what we have here is a sort of psychologism.  We are forced to think causally—it is a precondition of our understanding. Thus, the phenomenal world is deterministic—nothing happens without a cause; and hence there can be no freedom of choice or otherwise. But, we do have freedom, and that freedom is intimate with moral responsibility (and religion). Thus, infers Kant, the world of choice, freedom, moral responsibility and religion cannot be of the phenomenal world.

Thus, here we have the divorce between science and religion. They can offer each other nothing since they are of different categories. Thus, nothing of science can support religion and vice versa. Thus he says that he finds it necessary, in matters of religion, to deny knowledge (scientific knowledge and the like) to make room for faith. This does not suggest that faith is contrary to reason in the sense that it is irrational. 

Misconception about Darwinism and Christianity

Myth: Christians rejected Evolution—Wholesale!

I am sure that some Christians doubted Darwin’s theory of evolution, but not all. Some Christians embraced moderate forms of evolution wherein the idea that every living thing but man himself were the products of strictly blind evolutionary processes. This idea was not exclusive to Christians. The agnostic and Darwinist Thomas Henry Huxley believed that the gulf between humans and non-human animals was too great to be thought to be the product of mere evolution.

Other Christians, particularly Catholics, were reluctant to follow the dictates of mechanical philosophy, nor the preference to look at evolution as non-teleological, they were loyal Thomists. Instead, Catholic thinkers such as John Zahm and George Mivart produced an understanding of evolution which embraced teleology, or at least left room for it. 

For these men, the debate is not such much whether man evolved, but whether the process is or can be teleological or in some way guided by God. Today many if not most scientists believe that there is no conflict between Christian theism and human evolution, and it appears that most Christians, at least those of the educated sort, do not see the two as incompatible.

That Damn Ockham: Chapter Two of 'Science and Religion 1450-1900'

Chapter two of Olson's book (I introduced it here) is just as good as Chapter one. Olson accurately describes Aristotle's philosophy, and that it is was widely accepted in the later Medieval years. From there, he describes the movement against it. Typically, people think that Aristotle's philosophy was abandoned in favor of mechanical philosophy, but a truer analysis shows that it was firstly resisted for more theological reasons than a transition to mechanical philosophy itself. Olson points to two theological reasons.


Firstly, the heretical sect called the millenarians pushed against Aristotle's dismissal of practical knowledge. Productive labor and arts were celebrated and associated with God's plan for mankind. In fact, natural knowledge of this sort was supposed to be cultivated as a necessary condition of perfection within the world--a condition necessary to overcome to Antichrist.

Secondly, the necessity Aristotle prescribed to theoretical science was thought to restrict the freedom (and hence omnipotence) of God. Thinkers such as Ockham (I really hate him)emphasized a voluntarist theology wherein God's will cannot be restricted by Aristotelian natures; and moreover, God's will is unfathomable and His power unrestricted; and hence, causes in the Aristotelian sense cannot be true, let alone known by men. Instead, argued Ockham, we need to focus on how events occur. On this analysis, that is, that of Ockham's, our scientific knowledge is therefore limited to the empirical. For if God's will and intentions cannot be known, and He is unrestricted in His omnipotence, then our physical knowledge must be contingently known, and it must be based upon what we learn through experience. The basis for empiricism, nominalism and ideas against necessary connections is found right here, concerned, in part, with the theological. Olson states:

"Many characteristics of modern science emerged out of nominalist philosophy. These include the abandonment of attempts to answer the question of why things happen in favor of describing how things happen, usually through mathematical "laws"....Thus, in an ironic way, a conservative religious argument gave strong impetus to modern ways of doing science." (Page 34)

There's plenty more to say on this chapter, but nothing that captures my interest enough to write about it here. If you're looking for a fuller treatment on the development of modern science, and its philosophy, I push you to read this chapter.

Religion and Science 1450-1900

I finished reading a book entitled Science and Religion 1450-1900 by Richard Olson, it's a great read. It frustrates the trite narratives which describe religion in great conflict with science, or that the two are antipodal, or even that the Church has been characteristically oppressive of science. You know the type, I'm sure, it's freaking annoying.

Here, I'll give you some information on each chapter, though I won't include everything, since, well, life calls. Also: the information presented is in my own words, and presented with my own silliness and attitude--it's a style thing.

Chapter 1

Shut up about Galileo Already! (My title-hah!)

Copernicus' book, On the Revolutions, appeared without much of  a fuss from the Church until about 75 years later in 1615, his book was prohibited. Galileo was tried for heresy for supporting the Copernican system of astronomy in his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632).  Religious oppression?!? An intrinsic conflict between science and religion? Not exactly.

These books were out and about during the Church's Counter Reformation. There was a great debate, motivated no less the great Reformation itself, about whether scriptures concerning the natural world needed to be kept inflexible and literally true or flexible to the knowledge of the day and perhaps not literally true.

Galileo stepped into the middle of that debate, he took the more flexible interpretation, and he argued that a sun-centered system could and should be considered consistent with Scripture. From there, almost immediately, a conservative thinker and churchman, and a Dominican no less, complained that Galileo broke a prohibition given in the Council of Trent.

From there, Galileo was exonerated of wrongdoing in 1616, since the Council of Trent said no such thing. However, in a written letter, Galileo was warned by Cardinal Bellarmine not to argue that the Copernican theory was physically true (as opposed to just a useful way to predict Easter without regard to the truth of its physical reality) because it was inconsistent with the norm of epistemological nominalism within the science of the day and because it would undermine the faith of Catholics who were not philosophically inclined. For similar reasons, On Revolutions was banned, but only for four years. The passages of the book suggesting the physical reality of the theory were edited so that they do not suggest such a thing, though it was still taught as a hypothesis.

There are two versions of letters of what Bellarmine told Galileo.  The first dated March 16, 1616, and it was signed by Belllarmine. The letter told Galileo that the doctrine of Copernicus cannot be defended or held. The second letter is contended to be inauthentic ( See The Crime of Galileo, p. 125-131), though it is presented within the minutes of the Inquisition without signature, it is dated February 25, 1616. The second letter reads that Galileo cannot teach, defend or even discuss it (the idea that the sun is in the center).  Obviously, the two letters are very different: the first allows Galileo to teach it as a hypothesis and to discuss it, the second allows neither.

Do we have a war against science here? Is religion at some sort of intrinsic conflict against science? Not at all. What we have here is a Church concerned with two things: the faith of the lay audience while under siege from the forces of the Reformation and the prevalent epistemological concerns of science. The Church was open to it as a discussion, but only as a hypothesis. Nothing Bellarmine said was theological in character. His concerns were strictly with the epistemological norms of the day and the pragmatics of faith among lay Catholics.

Okay, but what about Galileo's later trial, the one with the conviction?

In around 1624, Galileo met up with the Pope to discuss a book which would discuss the virtues of both the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems in a balanced way. The work was supposed to keep the two theories as mere hypotheses, and Galileo was to express the of the Church in theological matters, as per agreement between the Pope and Galileo.

Galileo was a bit of a dink here. His published book was not balanced--it was heavily in favor of the Copernicus theory. It was clearly meant to support the physical reality of the latter. Galileo also wrote in Italian (the vernacular) rather than Latin (the language of intellectuals) so that his book can have an impact on a lay Catholic audience. What is more, Galileo inserted the arguments of the Pope into the mouth of a character named Simplicio--that's Italian for simpleton.

The Pope was far from thrilled, and he brought Galileo up on charges of violating the injunction set upon him. The Pope argued that Galileo argued for the physical truth of the Copernican theory; and hence Galileo was subsequently found guilty.

But notice here that nothing suggests that there is some fundamental, intrinsic conflict between science and religion. What we have here is a vendetta of a sort; and it is a misuse of power, perhaps. But nothing here suggests that religion, the Church or Catholicism itself is at odds with science. This is more about a story of   men acting foolishly.

Chapter 2 will follow shortly.

A Clarification on Papal Infallibility

Claim: Papal infallibility suggests that the Pope himself and his every decree is infallible.

This is wrong. As per Vatican Council 1 (1869-70), papal infallibility occurs only if the Pope speaks ex cathedra, along with other requirements. His personal opinions, decrees, behaviors or whatever else, have no intrinsic claim to infallibility. In fact, only two instances of papal decrees are universally recognized as infallible: the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption. Thence, even doctrinal decisions by Roman congregations, approved by the Pope himself, do not constitute infallible decisions.

Remember: Every Pope is a human being. Thus, every Pope is both just and a sinner (simul justus et peccator).

Thinkers of the 'Middle Ages'--The Askers of Silly Questions?

No thinker during the ‘Middle Ages’ concerned himself with the question of how many angels could dance on the head of a fine needle. That idea developed from Isaac D’Israeli’s criticism (or earlier)—a criticism dated within the early nineteenth century in regards to Aquinas’ treatment on angels. Isaac said that Aquinas might as well have asked how many angels could dance on the head of a needle. Snarky little bugger, isn’t he? In any case, no ‘Middle Age’ thinker, and certainly not Aquinas, entertained that particular question.

But did such thinkers entertain questions of that sort? In other words: Did any ‘Middle Age’ thinker entertain questions similar enough to the one Isaac thought Aquinas might as well have asked. The answer might be in the affirmative, I don’t know. ‘Middle Age’ thinkers tended to value different sorts of knowledge than those of the modern mind: knowledge about general truths, eternal truths and the like. To them, that sort of knowledge was true knowledge, they were not concerned with investigations of the natural world in order to produce this or that result. Through deductive reasoning and scholastic logic, these thinkers thought they could penetrate the mysteries of the world and provide new truths, all without leaving the comforts of their chair.

These questions seem silly to some modern thinkers, I do not doubt. But before we label ‘Middle Age’ thought irrelevant or inferior, à la Desiderius Eramus, we need to first examine our standard of measure. By which measure do we judge it inferior or irrelevant? Once we determine the standard, it needs to be established through argument rather than presumption, lest we beg a question.

Is Philosophy a Bunch of Semantic Quibbling? Defining things themselves and words

Someone once asked the difference between definitions of words and definitions of things themselves-he thought there was none. In other words, the questions 'What is a 'dog'?' and 'What is a dog?' are identical in that which they ask.

Surely this person is mistaken: for between the two, only the first asks about the meaning of the word 'dog' itself; and hence that question opens the door to a whole other semantic theories of meaning, those concerning words and the propositions. Take the other question, the second. Could we say that a dog itself is subject to semantic theory? That would be incoherent.  The word 'dog' might be subject to that, but not dogs themselves, for they are not linguistic entities.


This is an important difference. For when we ask what justice, goodness, God, deity, or whatever else is, we neither ask how the words 'justice', 'goodness' 'God' nor 'deity' are used, nor do we ask what those words mean. We are asking about things themselves. Thus, appeals to dictionaries are irrelevant, as are appeals to how we use some one word. Thus, Socrates' question to Euthyphro (What is piety?) could not have been answered with an appeal to a Greek dictionary, even if there were one. Philosophy is harder than that: We define things themselves; and in no way does this practice reduce to 'semantic quibbling', for the very nature of things themselves is paramount to proper philosophical speculation, since, after all, it is the very nature of those things we seek to understand.

That said, philosophy should also not be construed as armchair speculation with no real consequences. When we ask questions, say, about the good, we ask so that we might live well. Thus, philosophy has great practical and political consequence.

Christianity, Faith and Reason

Faith, Reason and Christianities

Do Christians argue for their beliefs? Is it all a bunch of fideism?

Jesus was not a philosopher; Jesus did not occupy a seat at the Greek schools, nor did he write an apology (defense) for his views, nor did he write a systematic rebuttal of other views. Jesus did not send his disciples out into the world to cognate philosophical systems, nor did he send them out to tackle Christianity’s pagan critiques with apologies. Christianity, as given by Jesus, was a revealed religion, and he sent his disciples out into the world to preach; he sent them to lead the world to God through practice rather than speculative reason. I do not mean to suggest that Jesus was strictly against speculative reason or that he prohibited philosophical defenses and critiques, but only that he did not explicitly send his disciples out into the world with those tools. They were to convert the world, that’s all.

Conversion, however, did not come easy. From the Jews, Christians faced theological attacks, and those attacks had to be met for the viability of Christianity amongst the Jews. From the pagans, Christianity faced philosophical and political attacks, and these attacks had to be met too. Thus, in order to defend and propagate Christianity, a necessary condition of any viable effort to Christianize the world, the Christians had to make their own arguments. But since early Christians neither had a philosophy, logic nor rhetoric of their own, they borrowed much from some of the prevailing philosophies of their day: Platonism, Neo-Platonism and Stoicism. And from the fruits of these philosophies, Christians defended their beliefs and attacked those of others; and from the fruits these philosophies, Christians penetrated the dogmas of their own faith so that they might understand it better (an anticipation of Credo, ut intelligam).

Regrettably, not all Christians were on board with the practice of borrowing from the pagans (Tertullian, for instance), for these Christians viewed Greek philosophy with hostility—Greeks systems were thought to be competitors and rivals to Christianity not just in what they believed, but in the worldly ways they came to believe it. Thankfully, the thought of men like Clement of Alexandria (and Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Marcianus Aristides, etc.) did not rescind upon challenge: Greek thought and reason itself was embraced by many Christians as gifts from God, and men like St. Augustine made it their goal to baptize Greek thought and thereupon produce a Christian Weltanschauung (a comprehensive view of the world and human life).

Thus, we see many Christians (St. Irenaeus and Minucius Felix, to name two among many) argue for some of the truths of Christianity, particularly those concerning the existence of God. That is, these Christians argue that God can be known to exist through his works, or movement (change), or other phenomena; and from Origen (yet another well lettered Christian), we see arguments as to why God cannot be the author of evil.

Early Christians argued for many of their positions, and they used philosophy and speculative reason to better understand and defend Christian belief, and that remains to be the case today. This fact is enough to show contempt towards the new atheists and their ilk who wish to portray every Christian belief in general as some sort of fideism. Heck, these atheists seem completely ignorant of the fact that a Catholic person can be ejected from the Church for proclaiming that God’s existence cannot be proven through His works! Is that fideism? I think not.

I do not mean to suggest that every Christian belief could be proven true through philosophic speculation or reason alone, no Christian thinker believes that, so far as I know. I also do not mean to suggest that a Christian needs to believe even some Christian beliefs based upon reason or philosophy. But what I am saying is that at least some Christianities, say, Catholicism, do not shy away from philosophical debate; and I am also saying that some Christianities, again, Catholicism, neither adhere to fideism nor allow for any of its positions, dogma and doctrinal statements to be understood as irrational, unreasonable or stupid.

But in what way is faith rational?

That answer might vary upon the thinker you ask. If you ask Benedict XVI, he would likely clarify that faith in the Creed is not to be understood on the same plane as practical knowledge, that is, speculative reason, scientific knowledge, the measurable, and so on. He would likely argue that there are different planes of belief and understanding. Like Bonaventure, Benedict would point out that we cannot measure ourselves like we do everything else, we must take a stand in or assent to meaning—a meaning that upholds and gives ground to everything else from which with we can give meaning to the world, our existence and existence as such. Assents of this sort are rocks for which human beings stand upon, and without which no calculable knowledge can be derived, for we can only do this from the context of meaning. And this is not assent to the irrational; it is a movement towards truth and knowledge, for truth and knowledge cannot be attained (by men) without assent of this sort, for there would be neither context nor meaning behind them.

Thus, for Benedict XVI, faith (assent to or stand in meaning) is neither irrational nor subsumed into practical knowledge—it might be better understood as supra-rational. It is to take a stand in the greater existential questions, ones which cannot be ascertained by practical knowledge, but yet provide the context for that knowledge; and hence just as we interpret the world from the light of the Sun or erect ourselves upon the rocks beneath our feet, we assent to and trust in the Creed to make sense of everything else, ourselves included.

That’s some deep shit. Admittedly, his point is hard to grasp, and I am unsure if I understood it entirely, but that is because His Holiness writes from a pre-modern perspective, and I should also add that his perspective seems influenced by Continental philosophy, something I have great difficulty penetrating. You should see me interpret Hegel—yikes! Nevertheless, His Holiness believes that to take faith in the Creed is to take a stand in a far deeper existential issue, one of meaning; and he does not believe, contra Sartre, that human beings can make their own meaning, nor can they subsume this issue into one of practical knowledge.

I hesitate to criticize Benedict, as I am not entirely confident in my interpretation of his writings. However, unless I have missed something within the source of my information (Introduction to Christianity), he said nothing which would justify the Christian faith over some other thing, say, Islam. That is, even if it were true that meaning must be taken as faith, that does not suggest that it should be Christian—why not Hinduism, Islam or Judaism? Perhaps Benedict only meant to answer the more general question: Can faith rational? I will have to delve deeper into his thought to determine this.

In answer to the particular, that concerning the rationality of Christian faith, perhaps it is permissible to turn to St. Thomas Aquinas. On the intellectual account of Thomist faith, albeit this might be a superficial reading, faith is a sort of assent to authority. Through argument we can see that God exists, that He is perfectly good, goodness itself, omniscient, etc. and through the verification of some of the miraculous within revelation, we assent to the rest of that which is revealed. Thus, we have good reason to trust in revelation.

 There is some truth to this reading of Thomas, but it is overly simplistic. Soon I will write a comprehensive account of Thomas' understanding of faith and reason, though I want to stress that the a priori understandings of faith in general as contrary to reason is not just unhistorical, it is just dumb and superficial. Skeptics need to look into the writings of Aquinas and many other theologicians to determine just what Christians, especially our elite, believe faith to be rather than spit their ill informed caricatures.

The Moderns and Mechanical Philosophy: A Rant on the Drama Queens of Philosophy

(Some notes from my readings)


The Moderns: A Rant on the Drama Queens of Philosophy

The moderns were all in the rage about Aristotle's philosophy, particularly his formal and efficient causes. In place of these causes, nature was construed in strictly mechanical and quantifiable terms: there are no purposes, powers, telos, natures, necessary connections, nor anything of that sort, just blind laws of nature ruling over particles and such, or at least as insofar as we can determine. Now of course it appears as though nature is not mechanical, but that appearance is a function of the human mind looking onto things for which it has no real extension-projections and habits of the mind (Hume, I am looking at you here!), or perhaps even the mind's necessary conditions of understanding (Hi, Kant!). Either way, it's like, just in your mind, dude.

Here though, in their dance and denial, the moderns become drama queens, the creators of problems which would not otherwise exist. I present a few here.

The Problem of Induction

With the denial or neglect of formal and efficient causation, and with Hume's attack on our ideas of necessary connection, causes are flimsy, loose and without known necessity. There is no objective reason that A causes B and not anything else, even not-B. Likewise, there is no objective reason why B needs to follow A. Thus, how can we know that the future will resemble the past? How can we know that the things we observe now will be like those we see later? On modern, mechanistic philosophy, we can't. Humbled, we are supposed to shake Hume's hand for showing us the limitations of our thought, or so the story goes. Gee, thanks, Hume! You're awesome.

Or not. A pre-modern would just point out that Hume's ridiculous problem is a result of denying causation in the way of Aristotle had it. Essences and forms of things themselves will guarantee their identity in the future, and we can be just as sure that causal processes will be definite and ordered in light of the ends, forms, and the powers of things themselves. Our knowledge is secured within things themselves.

Human Rights, and the Is-Ought 'Fallacy'

If there is no form or essence, and if there is no final cause in the world, there can be no objective measure for which we can judge a person, thing or action. Value becomes subjective, it is not of the natural order, it is relative to the persons doing the valuing. We can learn what we ought to do relative to the values we hold, but not what we ought to value, ultimately, and independently of what we actually value. Thus, in the absence of forms, essences, and of final causation, there is no objective value out there in the world itself. Thus, we have Hume's so-called fallacy, and it is a valid concern given the machinery of his philosophy, all the more reason to reject it.

Furthermore: when we give ourselves to Hume in this way, there is no clear, objective way to support human rights (in the moral sense). Locke saw this, and so he made the weird argument that we are God's properties; and hence interfering with our liberty, property or life is a violation against God's rights. Of course those rights are not derivative to us, but to God alone, and that hardly seems sufficient to predicate our human rights. The difficult task here is plausibly accounting for human rights without referring to or anchoring in natural order. Ask yourself: Why should humans have rights? Why is it that we give fewer moral rights to non-human animals (if any at all)? Why do we not give any moral rights to rocks?

Answering these questions without reference to natural orders, and without reference to an order of being, is remarkably difficult, at least if we aim to give a plausible answer. Less ambitious philosophers decided to give up the project altogether (Hobbes, and arguably Hume), I applaud their honesty,