October 2006 Archives

For Ed Wierenga's Readings in the Metaphysics of Modality class today I sported a home-made costume and decended upon the class with these words:

THE MODAL INTUITION FAIRY...trent dougherty

I am the fairy of modal intuition.
And for philosophers I do go a'fishin'.
I catch some here, I catch some there...
I even catch some at their prayers:
"That than which no greater can be concieved."
My own work, do not be decieved!
But one man for avoiding me always is a'braggin:
Yes, you guessed it: it's Peter van Inwagen.

Pictures of me in the costume are forthcoming...

This past weekend I attended the national meeting of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. The keynote speakers were Sir Anthony Kenny and John Haldane (who will surely be sir'd one of these days). This was a very rewarding "British Invasion" and two such dignified figures brought an old-world feel to the affair.

I asked Sir Anthony what he thought were the best arguments on both sides of the God controversy, that is what are the best reasons to be a theist or an atheist respectively. His reply I found very interesting (and, as a theist, gratifying). Here's what he said.

The advantage that the theist has is that she can, and the atheist cannot, explain the origin of human language, the origin of life, and the origin of the universe. (Someone nearby said "Three strikes and you're out.") However, he said, he couldn't make sense of the notion of a bodiless mind due to certain things he accepted from Wittgenstein.

I was not the only one who thought that seemed a little thin and lacking as a counterbalance to the pro-theist considerations. Perhaps its a generational thing: Mackie seemed to keep coming back to that objection as well. At any rate, he said he just happened to have a forthcoming book _What I Believe_ where we can read the fuller account.

Here is a well-known ad hominem argument in the philosophy of religion. Take a philosopher who both employs the problem of evil to argue against theism and also endorses an account of morality that explains it away in one way or another. Such a philosopher is rightly the object of philosophical ridicule.

Here's perhaps another.

A couple of weeks ago I received a paper from David Bradshaw on The Concept of the Divine Energies that condenses some of the main ideas found in his book Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom. Now the concept of the divine energies is an interesting topic to pursue, and I'm sure David would enjoy receiving comments to that end. However, what interests me most about the paper is David's opening thesis that much of western philosophy has been deeply colored by western theology, and vise versa, to the exclusion of other viable traditions. This seems to be particularly true of philosophy of religion but the claim isn't exclusive to our subfield. David draws attention to the fact that with the large split in the Christian theological tradition during the early Middle Ages the eastern churches continued along their own path "almost wholly oblivious to the enormous importance that Augustine (among others -MM) had attained in the West." So, by limiting western philosophy to only one of these two streams we've effectively handicapped ourselves. At least this is my takeaway gloss of the introductory paragraphs which I've reproduced below.

The one notable exception to this line of thought is the recent work on Social Trinitarianism that dips back into the work of the Cappadocia fathers. Though admittedly it's mildly controversial as whether they were advancing Social Trinitarianism. I'd be interested in hearing others thoughts on the matter.

According to the preview of the new Philosophy Gourmet Report here, Saint Louis University is now ranked as the best department to study Medieval philosophy in the US. You go Billikens!

(Sorry--I just couldn't help myself with this post.)

So I was discussing Wes Moriston's recent reply Ed Wierenga in Faith and Philosophy with him (Ed, not Wes) and I mentioned that I was extremely puzzled by the argument...or rather utter lack of argument.

In his 2002 piece Ed suggests that as long as God is acting from his own nature in always choosing the best if best there be he is free. Now forget the debate between compatibilists and incompatibilists and PAPs and all that for a moment, that's all extraneous to what I want to say about Moriston's reply.

Moriston merely says: imagine a person, Bonnie Chance, who is such that (i) she just popped into existence uncaused, (ii) she chooses by nature the best if best there be. [I don't know if we are to suppose her to have either of these traits essentially.]

He says that since Bonnie surely isn't free, and there are no relevant dissimilarities in the God case, then God--as conceived by Wierenga--isn't free. He just *declares* that Bonnie is free, there's no argument, not even an attempted argument that I think is no good (not that I can tell anyway).

I'm perplexed. If there is no relevant dissimilarity to the God case, and I'm OK with the God case, why is there any expectation that I'll be convinced here just because she's finite. And if I was already uneasy about the God case, how is adding that Bonnie--who's case is said to be just like God's--isn't free supposed to add to my discomfort? Am I missing something here?

I hasten to add that there is obviously a form of argument that goes something like this: "You said that a is F and b is relevantly like a, so you should think b is F. However, it seems that in such cases the b adverted to is usually something I already have a view on, not some case that is specifically conjured up just to be like the a case. So I don't see how that form of argument is supposed to apply here.

As far as I can see, as long as Bonnie is acting from her nature--which for me is going to include her higher-order beliefs and desires--then she is free (as far as the story goes), just like God. One man's tollens is another man's ponens...

We had quite a bit of fun some months ago (and also on my own blog) tracking the wacky hijinx of Daniel Dennet and his tirades on religion. Not to be outdone, the other pillar of popular scientism, Richard Dawkins, has come out with his book _The God Delusion_ (were there but world enough and time, I'd write a rejoinder called something like _The God Delugeian_ or rather something more clever based on that based on the flood of Christians into previously off-limits regions of academia).

Anyway, Ted sent me a link to a nice review in the New York Times Sunday Book Review. I think you can view it for free if you register. It is a self-professed attempt at "consciousness raising".

Like Leon Wieseltier's review of Dennet's _Breaking the Spell_, Jim Holt's review is full of wit and wisdom. The books are counterparts as are the reviews.
The wit is a bit acerbic at times (Dawkins can hardly complain about that), here's a sampler and then I'll get to serious comments below the fold.

*"Dawkins’s avowed hostility can make for scattershot reasoning as well as for rhetorical excess"
*"reading it can feel a little like watching a Michael Moore movie"
*"the tone is smug and the logic occasionally sloppy"
*"Shirking the intellectual hard work, Dawkins prefers to move on to parodic "proofs" that he has found on the Internet"

Brian Weatherson reports a new series of lectures in honor of David Lewis at Princeton. The first lecture will be by Frank Jackson. Of interest to Prosblogion readers will be a talk going on the same day (October 27) by Steffi Lewis, David Lewis' widow. The title of the talk is "Lewis and the Christians".

If anyone can make it and give a report back, I'm sure many of us would appreciate it (and I'd even be willing to post your reflections or notes if you aren't a Prosblogion contributor).

Congrats to SLU's Eric Silverman for winning a Graduate Student Travel Stipend to the Eastern APA to present his paper "Hick's Soul Making Theodicy and the Virtue of Love."

Way to go Eric!

I'm teaching an upper-division course in the spring on Aquinas. I'm going to try and devote a third of the course to Aquinas' philosophical theology, a third to his metaphysics, and a third to his ethics. Pretty soon I'm going to have to put in my book orders. I think that I'm going to use the Cambridge Companion to Aquinas and either The Philosophy of Aquinas or Aquinas's Summa Theologiae: Critical Essays. But before I order them, I wondered if there are any other candidates that I'm overlooking and should consider. (Let me note that I am quite familiar with Stump's Aquinas, but think that the level of complexity here is greater than what I should tackle in this course.)

Also, I'm considering either using The Treatise on Human Nature or Summa Theologiae: Questions on God. Any thoughts on which is the better translation (where 'better' is a function of both more accurate and readability for undergraduates)?

I've just read a 2005 account of religious "anti-realism" by Cambridge University philosopher of science Peter Lipton (of Best Explanation fame). I very much appreciate his writings in the philosophy of science, but this has me baffled.

He tries to adopt Bas van Fraassen's anti-realism right over into religion. (Bas is Catholic, but as far as I know not anti-realist in matters religious, he saves that for his science as far as I'm aware.)

He describes himself as a “progressive Jew” but he avows:

“I myself cannot believe that the miracles in the Bible occurred, whatever their supposed causes and even if described in purely observable terms.”

And later: “it is not just that I don’t believe them [miracle-claims] true, I believe them false. Where they contradict scientific theories I believe, I have no choice;”

The irony of it all is that he rejects a view “selectionism” because “it would leave far too many holes in the religious text [of Scripture].”

One would think God would leave a rather gaping hole in the text of Scripture.

However, Lipton assures us that “On the immersion view [his own view], by contrast, we have the text to use in its full, unexpurgated form, the form in which I believe it can do us the most good as a tool for thinking and for living.” Well, with *only* the supernatural purged at any rate.

Any of you who've attended Plantinga's "deist bashing" lectures will see how well this connects with his argument.

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews released a review of Hud Hudson's The Metaphysics of Hyperspace today. The review is by Cody Gilmore, University of California at Davis whom it was my good pleasure to hang out with a lot at a conference at Missouri on the metaphysics of Ted Sider.

Those of you familiar with Hud's book _A Materialist Theory of the Human Person_ will know that one of his defining characteristics is his integration of cutting-edge metaphysics with theistic and Christian themes. The book sounds really interesting.

Over the weekend it was necessary for me to install some updates for MovableType that fix a number of vulnerabilities in the previous version. While the update plugs some security issues, I spent a fair amount of time fixing things that were broken with the update. (Thanks to Jeremy for pointing out many of the new errors.) Contributors will notice a couple of changes and new features on the backend, but readers are likely to notice two things:

1. Comments are open again, which means you should comment on Tim's latest post.
2. The security codes for commenting are likely gone for good. (Yeah!)

I've been thinking for a while about metaphysical positions that bring with them -- free, so to speak -- theological claims. For a not-so-good example, think of Bradley's metaphysic. According to F.H. Bradley, there is no such thing as time. If Bradley is right, and God exists, then God is atemporal. (I say this is a not-so-good example because Bradley's argument for the unreality of time also gets him the unreality of space, and further, the claim that there cannot be more than one thing. So, if Bradley is right, and God exists, then pantheism is true.) The same is true for McTaggart -- if McTaggart is right about time being an illusion, then God is atemporal.

Now, of course I know that just about every metaphysic entails something-or-other about theology. And I also know that some metaphysical positions have nothing at all to say to some theological claims. However, I'm wondering whether there are any contemporary metaphysics such that, adding a contentious theological claim doesn't cost anything and doesn't provide a difficulty not already resolved in the metaphysic? A concrete example, you ask? Why, sure.