Edward Feser: Aristotelian Proof For God’s Existence
I’m interested in seeing how some of you would personally go about refuting this. It’s a strong argument in my opinion, but perhaps you have a good objection.
Aristotle On Becoming Virtuous
“Many, however, fail to do good actions but, taking refuge in theory, think that by philosophizing they will become virtuous. They act like the sick who listen carefully to the doctor but do nothing he prescribes.” -Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics 1105b12-18
I think many philosophers fall into this trap. I know I have a couple times. There are times we think we somehow have an edge of the good life because we’re the ones who have sat there and thought about it. We think we have an edge over that little old lady down the street who helps the homeless because we’ve thought long and hard about the virtuous and how to correctly apply them. If we sit at home and not do anything, we’re no more good than a cat that licks itself all day. Part of being a Christian philosopher is not only to to contemplate the good life and virtuous actions under the headship of Christ, but it’s to go out and do the right thing. It’s to go out and pursue the good life in deed. It’s to leave the ivory tower and join the rest of humanity and do works of charity and goodness just as Christ commanded us to. It’s sad that this very thing that Aristotle speaks of is found throughout the philosophical community.
Plato’s Cave, Animated
For now we see in a mirror indirectly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known. – 1 Corinthians 13:12
This is one of the best philosophical animations that I have seen. It explains Plato’s views very visually and simply. If we had more material like this, perhaps our generation wouldn’t be so mindless and self-indulgent on pointless entertainment. Now, I do not agree with the notion that there are platonic objects but it should not be treated lightly. Plato is half-right, but I side with Aquinas in his attempt to synthesize Aristotle and Plato. For one, it is not possible for a material object’s form to exist without its matter. Properties such as bounciness, roundness, etc are abstract concepts and cannot in themselves be a material object. Rather, prime matter is actualized more perfectly when it is compounded with existence and form. However, I do think Plato is correct in some areas because there are immaterial concepts such as triangularity that cannot be perfectly instantiated in the physical world. Thus, I hold to a position where platonic objects only exist with the divine mind since it does not make sense to assert that abstract objects can exist without one.
In Defense of Classical Logic
A recent post on Dubito Deus critiques a popular argument from presuppositionalists called the Transcendental Argument (TAG). The TAG is known for arguing from necessary principles like logic to the conclusion that God is a necessary precondition for such principles [1]. In other words, if you deny God’s existence, you deny logic and thereby commit yourself to mental absurdity. I am not a supporter of presuppostionalism as a complete methodology, but I do appreciate some of the insights it offers. In this particular instance though, I only want to defend classical logic in its metaphysical form as opposed to a more conventional form that modern philosophy has reduced it to. Formal systems of reasoning is a powerful tool for successive precision in one’s thinking but its limited to a particular set of rules, syntax, or symbols that form a set pattern for the structure of our arguments. In some cases however, I find these “non-classical” logics to be a rather superfluous (and meaningless) attempt at solving obscure problems that is best reserved for those who like technical mind games. I realize it may provide benefits in helping us formulate certain propositions more precisely but it tells us no more about reality than a programming language does.
There are multiple programming language (e.g, C , BASIC, Java, Objective-C, etc) that offer certain solutions to different operations within a computer. However, these varying means of preforming a function do not tell us about the function itself as much as it tells us how we actualize that function. Each language can do so in different ways, but the nature of that function should remain the same. For example, one language could use “PRINT ”Hello World!”“ and another could use ”printf( “hello worldn” );“ but each one should ultimately do the same thing – namely, output the words ”Hello World!“ into a window. One language could be simpler and another could be more complex in order to provide more precise control over things. You can debate all day over which one of these is better but it all depends on the kind of applications you want to develop. BASIC may be better suited for developing simple programs like calculators but C could be superior for gaming. However, just because these languages use different syntaxes does not make the function itself conventional. A language could even create a contradictory syntax and strangely arrive at some ”coherent” function but at that point, it just gets ridiculous.
If that’s all “conditional logics, relevant logics, paraconsistent logics, free logics, quantum logics, fuzzy logics” do then I think they’re useless in telling us what reality is. They’re useful for other purposes, to be sure, and can provide the kind of distinction between ideas that we need but without a metaphysical foundation, such things are simply absurd. Paraconsistent logic, for example, is said to allow for contradictions by removing the disjunctive syllogism and “proof of LNC” rules of inference [2]. At this point, I cannot help but think this is simply semantic sophistry. If you want to avoid some linguistic problem (such as liar paradoxes) by creating an ad hoc system of logic then be my guest, but this is not what classical logic is about. Logicians have separated themselves from metaphysics today, but sometimes, when discussing the law of non-contradiction for example, their “conventional” understanding of logic is used to dismiss it or worse, is used to tell us that contradictory essences can exist in reality. Classical logic, on the other hand, is a metaphysical discipline of the intellect that is directed toward grasping the essences of things through the proper distinctions and the proper reasonings in a structural form. The means by which we understand these essences must itself be in response to a metaphysical understanding of reality, not as a trivial response to a linguistic problem.
Language itself ought to reflect essences and is itself a form of logic as far as it communicates our thoughts about things into a conventional form. Nonetheless, it is not the language itself by which we understand the essences of things, it is simply a creation of words and sounds that provide reference to the objects or actions in question. Insofar as language is understood in this manner, I think our attempts in being precise and distinct is good but not if it comes at the expense of our metaphysical foundation. Arguably, you could change “cat” to mean “jdfodo” just as the law of non-contradiction can be rendered meaningless in paraconsistent logic, but doing so does not removes how things are. For Aristotle, a denial of the law of non-contradiction amounts to the denial of essentialism [3]. It’s like saying essence x and essence y are both the same and not the same in the same sense and at the same time. Either x is y or it is not. This conclusion is not dependent on some abstract rules of the elite, it just depends on whether it corresponds to reality and how well it coheres with our intellect or common sense [4].
Whatever is true of a proposition must be true to the degree by which the intellect truly grasps a universal, essence, or thing. Each instance of a kind will participate in that kind to varying degrees, depending on how perfectly that instance instantiates that kind. For instance, if we compare a poorly drawn triangle to a carefully drawn triangle, we’ll immediately notice that one is more “true” to how a triangle ought to be than the other [5]. The intellect is capable of extrapolating a more perfect understanding of a thing by understanding its kind without necessarily seeing the perfect triangle. I may not be able to imagine a 1000 sided polygon, for example, but that by no means implies that I do not understand the concept. The same applies here. Even approximations are instances of a triangle and as such, provide the immediate basis from which our intellect extrapolates a universal to the conceptualization of a perfect triangle. This may be physically impossible to actualize, but it is not impossible for our intellect. Having said all of this, I think any rejection of classical logic must explicitly deny essentialism and thereby commit itself to utter stupidity. No metaphysical construct can hope to rescue any sort of logic that claims contradictions are metaphysically possible. You can redefine logic to refer to something else, but I’ll stick with a more classical approach because it is metaphysically relevant, rational, sophisticated, and in accord with common sense.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_argument_for_the_existence_of_God#The_argument ↩
- http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-paraconsistent/ ↩
- http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-noncontradiction/#5 ↩
- http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/04/fine-on-metaphysics-and-common-sense.html ↩
- Feser, Edward. Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide. Oxford: Oneworld, 2009. pg 33. ↩
Read Along: The Last Superstition Part 2
Feser’s book is definitely not letting me down. Not only is he cracking more sarcastic “jokes” and more rants about the New Atheists, but he’s getting pretty philosophical, and I likey.
So after his discussion of Plato and his theory of forms, Feser turns to the importance of Aristotle and his philosophical contributions. This is no minor issue. Feser has very strong feelings about the importance of Aristotelian philosophy and the consequences of abandoning such a philosophy. I found it funny how he wrote out his feelings about the abandonment of Aristotelianism. Funny because of the ironic manner in which he framed and answered the question, but I ultimately think he’s right. So Feser asks, ”How significant is Aristotle?”, and his lamenting answer is, “Well, I wouldn’t want to exaggerate, so let me put it this way: Abandoning Aristotelianism, as the founders of modern philosophy did, was the single greatest mistake ever made in the entire history of Western thought” (51 Feser’s emphasis).
His lament doesn’t end there. It just begins, and it continues for a whole page. From the “disintegration” of “rational justifiability of morality and religious belief”, evolution vs ID controversy, abortion, same-sex marriage, to the “mind body problem”, skepticism, and relativism, Feser suggests that our cultural decay has been in a steady and slow (now rampant) decline as a result of the abandonment of Aristotelianism, which “provided the most powerful and systematic intellectual foundation for traditional Western religion and morality [...] that has ever existed” (51-52).
No doubt these are very strong claims. He even anticipates how some of his readers might ask or think that he’s somehow joking. But he readily admits that he isn’t, and he adds a number of qualifiers. I really do look forward to how his responses play out and how he will weave them together to back up his claims. He goes as far as admitting that he is indebted to the reader by making these grand assertions. Luckily, he asserts that he will jump into the metaphysics and “pay off [his] debt to the reader” (52). Feser does seem very confident in the power behind Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy.
With this confidence, he launches off into discussions on potentiality and actuality, form and matter, and the four causes. All these are pertinent to understanding Aristotelianism and Feser makes sure his readers understand its importance and applicability. To illustrate the concept of potency and act, Feser uses his famous little bouncy ball example (which I’ve employed myself since this illustration is the best way for people to understand it). The ball’s potency is basically those ways in which the ball can be, e.g., green if you paint it, flat if you pound it down with a hammer or something, and/or “gooey” if you melt it. Actuality is the way the ball actually is: a blue bouncy ball is actually blue, bouncy, round, and hard.
A few more distinctions are needed. Something in act cannot potentially be just anything. The ball cannot potentially be a toothpick or a leather chair. Its potentialities are such that they are grounded in the nature of the thing in act. Furthermore, something goes from potential to act only if something else in actuality acts as an efficient cause on it. Feser explains that for a rubber ball to actualize its potential and become goo, it requires something external that’s in act (heat) to melt the ball.
As an aside, I really didn’t intend to go on and summarize all of the concepts that Feser explains. I’m only doing this because it helps me understand it better as I explain it to an audience.
Anyways, so Feser goes into great detail explaining these concepts and the rest of them. Feser does explain how some of modernistic philosophy has become crap when he criticizes Hume’s problem of cause and effect and demonstrates how these problems only arose as a result of abandoning the aristotelian notion of explaining things, i.e., the four causes. He uses an example of a breaking a window with a brick to demonstrate. The “problem” is that the break being thrown is one event and the window being shattered is another event (65). Who’s to say that the first event caused the second? Feser says that there is no problem and the problem only arises because of Hume’s wrongheaded position in the first place. Simply put, “things are causes, not events” (66). So with regards to the brick and the window, Feser explains that “the key point in the causal series would be something like the pushing of the brick into the glass and the glass’s giving way[...] these events are simultaneous” (66). There’s a lot more technical jargon involved in his explanation. So Feser doesn’t just trout out a simplistic answer like I’ve framed it, but he does go into detail at how this event is explained and why Hume got it wrong.
Next to the act/potency distinction, the four causes is the chief cornerstone to Aristotelianism. But Feser observes how modern science claims to have buried the hatchet and made formal and final causes obsolete and false. Feser’s response to this was…well, you can see for yourself:
Let me be very clear about something. However widely accepted, these claims are, each and every one of them, simply untrue. They are false. Wrong. Mistaken. Erroneous. Non-factual. Not the case. And this is putting it too mildly: If one were to use the proper technical jargon common in traditional Australian philosophy [...] one would characterize them as ‘bullshit.’ (71)
Fesers response is basically that modern science never came close to disproving the four causes. All they did was drop the usage of two of them and moved on. This hardly counts as a refutation. Because of this move, Feser continues, philosophical problems arose and things have just been getting worse and worse. Once again Feser makes the promise that these things will get fleshed out later on in the book (and I’m inclined that this is true since he does have a chapter that’s titled “Descent of the Modernists”). I certainly hope he doesn’t leave his readers with not enough to fill them up. But I have faith in the guy.
I’ve already started reading the third chapter, and the book is just getting better and better. I’ll save my thoughts and some discussion on it for another post.
