Sunday, March 27, 2022
Unjust war and false masculinity
I commend to
you three excellent articles by traditionalist Catholic scholars on the grave
injustice of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: historian Roberto de Mattei’s “Russia's
War and the Message of Fatima”; philosopher John Lamont’s “Putin’s
Attack on Ukraine”; and theologian Pater Edmund Waldstein’s “The
War in Ukraine in the Light of Just War Principles.” There is a reason why I emphasize that the
injustice is grave, as I have in my
earlier commentary on the war. Few among those who have expressed sympathy
with the Russian side in the conflict have claimed that the invasion meets just
war criteria (unsurprisingly, since it manifestly does not). They have tended instead to emphasize Putin’s
purported virtues and the vices of Zelensky and his Western supporters – as if
these somehow balance out the destruction of cities and the deaths of thousands
of human beings.
Monday, March 21, 2022
Conspiracy theories, spontaneous order, and the hermeneutics of suspicion
Nobody denies that conspiracies occur. They happen every time two or more people collude in order to secure some malign end. When people criticize “conspiracy theories,” it is a particular kind of conspiracy that they find implausible. I’ve written several times before about some of the marks of conspiracy theories of this dubious kind. They tend to be grounded in “narrative thinking” rather than a rigorous and dispassionate consideration of the merits and deficiencies of all alternative possible explanations. They tend to violate Ockham’s razor, posit conspiracies that are too vast and complicated to be psychologically and sociologically feasible, and reflect naiveté about the way modern bureaucracies function. The vastness of the posited conspiracy often has implications for the reliability of news media and other sources of information that make the theory epistemically self-defeating and unfalsifiable. (For simplicity’s sake, from here on out I’ll use the expression “conspiracy theories” to refer, specifically, to theories having vices like these – acknowledging, again, that there are conspiracies of a more plausible kind, and thus conspiracy theories of a more plausible kind.)
Monday, March 14, 2022
Chomsky’s “propaganda model” of mass media
A common
mistake people make when evaluating a theory is to fail to keep in mind the
distinction between the theory itself, its application to particular cases, and
the auxiliary assumptions an advocate of the theory makes when developing that
application. People will often reject a
theory because they find some particular application problematic, where if they
thought about the matter more carefully they would see that the problem is only
with that application and/or with the auxiliary assumptions, and not with the
theory itself.
Friday, March 4, 2022
Just war theory and the Russo-Ukrainian war
One of the
striking features of the catastrophe in Ukraine is how unambiguously the
principles of just war doctrine seem to apply.
On the one hand, Russia’s invasion cannot be justified given the
criteria of just war theory. On the
other hand, NATO military action against Russia cannot be justified
either. Here are the criteria for just
military action as set out in section 2309 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
At one and the same time:
- the damage inflicted by the
aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and
certain;
- all other means of putting an end
to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
- there must be serious prospects of
success;
- the use of arms must not produce
evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction
weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
End quote. I submit that Russia’s invasion clearly fails to meet the first, second, and fourth criteria, and NATO military action against Russia would clearly fail to meet the second, third, and fourth criteria.
Friday, February 25, 2022
Taylor on cognition, teleology, and God
In his book Metaphysics,
a classic brief and lucid introduction to the subject, Richard Taylor devotes a
chapter to the topic of God. Most of the
attention philosophers have paid to it seems to focus on his version of the
cosmological argument, which is indeed a fine brief exposition and
defense. But Taylor also presents a
second argument, of a broadly teleological sort. It is decidedly not a variation on Paley’s
design argument (of which, as longtime readers know, I am not a fan). It is much more interesting and
metaphysically deep than that, and at least in a general way closer to the
spirit of Aquinas’s Fifth Way
(even if it is not quite the same as Aquinas’s argument either).
Monday, February 21, 2022
Sex and metaphysics
My essay “The
Metaphysical Foundations of Sexual Morality” appears in The
Palgrave Handbook of Sexual Ethics, edited by David Boonin. You can view the anthology’s table of
contents and other information about it at the
publisher’s website. The book
is, unfortunately, as expensive as academic books tend to be, and thus hard to
get hold of for those without access to an academic library. But you can at least read a big chunk of it via the preview at
Google Books.
Friday, February 18, 2022
The failure of Johnson’s critique of natural theology
At the
Reformed Baptist Blog, Jeffrey Johnson has
responded to my First
Things review of his book
The
Failure of Natural Theology: A Critical Appraisal of the Philosophical Theology
of Thomas Aquinas. He makes
nine points, none of which is any more convincing than the book itself is. What follows is a point-by-point reply.
Friday, February 11, 2022
Johnson contra Aquinas
My review of
Jeffrey D. Johnson’s book The
Failure of Natural Theology: A Critical Appraisal of the Philosophical Theology
of Thomas Aquinas appears in the March issue of First Things. You can read it
online here.
Wednesday, February 9, 2022
McDowell’s Aristotelian near miss
John
McDowell’s paper “Singular Thought and the Extent of
Inner Space” made a big impression on me in graduate school, around
the same time his influential book Mind
and World was published. Like
a lot of philosophers, I thought there was something deep going on in
McDowell’s work, though (also like a lot of philosophers, I think) I was not
quite sure what to make of it. Part of
this has to do with the difficulty of McDowell’s style, but that difficulty
reflects, at least in part, the difficulty of the subject matter. The nature of thought and of experience is so
close to us – like the tip of one’s nose, always in one’s field of vision, and
thus rarely noticed – that it can be, precisely for that reason, harder to get hold
of than the extra-mental world is.
Wednesday, February 2, 2022
If you’ve been missing links
David S.
Oderberg asks “Is
Prime Matter Energy?” in the Australasian
Journal of Philosophy. Also, Oderberg
on the “Principle
of Sufficient Reason,” in The
Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion, edited by Stewart Goetz
and Charles Taliaferro.
At the Claremont Review of Books, Joseph M.
Bessette sets out a critique of
the Eastman memos.
Aidan
Nichols on the
Herbert McCabe he knew, at The
Lamp.
At UnHerd, Thomas Fazi and Toby Green make the left-wing case against vaccine mandates. At The Tablet, Alex Gutentag on the continual, unacknowledged, shifts in expert opinion about Covid-19. “Mandatory panic”: Freddie deBoer on Covid as the liberal 9/11. A Johns Hopkins University study concludes that lockdowns did no good and caused much damage.
Thursday, January 27, 2022
Hell is not empty
We’ve been talking about Balthasar’s view that we may at least hope that all human beings are saved. Now, Balthasar was a Catholic theologian who
was careful to try to avoid contradicting definitive Church teaching on the
subject. That is why he does not endorse
the universalist view that all must
and therefore definitely will be
saved, which is heretical (as is shown here
and here). But it is also significant that in the title
of his
famous book on the subject, he is careful to frame his question:
“Dare we hope ‘that all men be
saved’?” In other words, he’s asking
about whether all human beings might
be saved. He’s not asking whether all creatures with intellect and will, including
fallen angels, might be saved. Indeed,
in the book he says, of demonic powers:
Let it be said at the outset that theological hope can by no means apply to this power. The sphere to which redemption by the Son who became man applies is unequivocally that of mankind… [O]ne cannot agree with Barth’s claim that the angels had no freedom of choice and that the myth of a “fall of the angels” is thus to be rejected absolutely… [T]he doctrine of a fall of the angels, which is deeply rooted in the whole of Tradition, becomes not only plausible but even, if the satanic is accepted as existent, inescapable. (pp. 113-14)
Friday, January 21, 2022
A fallacy in Balthasar (Updated)
In his
influential book Dare
We Hope “That All Men Be Saved?”, theologian Hans Urs von
Balthasar gives the following argument:
If it is said of God that: “God our Savior … desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:4-5), then this is the reason for the fact that the Church should make “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings … for all men” (1 Tim 2:1), which could not be asked of her if she were not allowed to have at least the hope that prayers as widely directed as these are sensible and might be heard. If, that is, she knew with certainty that this hope was too widely directed, then what is asked of her would be self-contradictory. (pp. 23-24)
Saturday, January 15, 2022
Barron on “diversity, equity, and inclusion”
In a
recent Word on Fire video,
Bishop Robert Barron comments on the currently fashionable chatter about
“diversity, equity, and inclusion” (or DEI, as they are commonly
abbreviated). In much political and
cultural debate and institutional policy, these have come to be treated as fundamental
and absolute values. Indeed, as Bishop
Barron notes, the trio has come to have the status that liberty,
equality, and fraternity had for the French revolutionaries. But like the latter notions, DEI rhetoric is
not as innocuous as many suppose. As the
bishop argues, diversity, equity, and inclusion can have only relative and
derivative rather than absolute and fundamental value, and some forms of them
are bad.
Sunday, January 9, 2022
Geach on authority and consistency
If the
reader will indulge me, here is one more post inspired by Peter Geach – specifically,
this time, by some themes in his book Truth
and Hope. Among the
topics Geach covers are logical consistency, believing something on the basis
of authority, and the relationship between authority and consistency. The points he makes are by no means purely
academic. Indeed, they are relevant to
understanding current ecclesiastical and political crises. For among the reasons so many people today have
come to distrust authorities in the Church, government, science, media, etc. is
these authorities’ lack of consistency.
Saturday, January 1, 2022
New Year’s open thread
Dear reader,
let’s open up the discussion this year by letting you open it up. It’s time to
get that otherwise off-topic comment of yours that I keep deleting out of your
system at last. For in these open thread
posts, everything is on-topic, from Marshall
McLuhan to Malcom McLaren, from Duke Ellington to Beef Wellington, from Plato
to Play-Doh. Just keep things civil and
constructive, please. Previous open
threads archived
here.
Wednesday, December 29, 2021
Geach on Hell
Let’s take
another trip into the philosophical and theological gold mine that is Peter
Geach’s book Providence
and Evil, and this time consider his chapter on Hell. At first I wondered whether it was
appropriate to close out the year with a post on a subject so grim and
unpleasant. But on second thought it
occurred to me that it is an ideal topic.
What better preparation for forming New Year’s resolutions than a
reminder of where we are all headed if we do not repent of whatever sins we
remain attached to?
Saturday, December 25, 2021
The still, small voice of Christmas
A great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him, and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:11-13)
Among the lessons of Christmas is the truth of the principle illustrated by this famous Old Testament passage. We often expect, or at least desire, special divine assistance to be instant and dramatic, like a superhero swooping to the rescue in a Marvel movie. And we lose hope when that doesn’t happen. But God only rarely works that way, and such dramatics have to be rare lest grace smother nature. Special divine assistance is in the ordinary course of things subtle and gradual – a still, small voice rather than a whirlwind, earthquake, or fire – but nevertheless unmistakable when the big picture is kept in view.
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Sunday, December 19, 2021
The Catholic middle ground on Covid-19 vaccination
I commend to
you Catholic philosopher Josh Hochschild’s recent EDIFY video addressing the question “Are Vaccine
Mandates Ethical?” His
position is that those who wish to take one of the Covid-19 vaccines can do so
in good conscience, but also that vaccination must be voluntary. As regular readers of this blog know, that is
also my own position. More importantly,
it is the
teaching of the Church. I
also highly recommend the article “Using
Abortion-Derived Vaccines: A Moral Analysis” by Fr. Ezra Sullivan
and Fr. Leon Kuriakos Pereira, which appears in the current issue of Nova et Vetera. It is the most thorough defense of the
Church’s teaching on this subject that I am aware of. It is also a salutary antidote to the
fanaticism that has unfortunately taken deep root on both sides of this issue,
among those who insist that everyone must
refuse to take the vaccine and those who insist that everyone must be required to take it. Both positions are contrary to reason and
charity. This is a matter about which
the individual conscience ought to be at liberty.
Monday, December 13, 2021
Western cultural suicide as apostasy (Updated)
In his
classic book Suicide
of the West, James Burnham famously characterized liberalism as
“the ideology of Western suicide.” I’ve
been meaning for some time to write up an essay on the book. This isn’t it. But Burnham’s thesis came to mind when
reading Michael Anton’s essay “Unprecedented”
in the latest New Criterion, because
the phenomena Anton cites clearly confirm Burnham’s analysis.
Ours is a civilization in decline, and at a rapidly accelerating pace. That isn’t new in human history. But the precise manner in which it is disintegrating seems to be unprecedented, which is the reason for the title of Anton’s essay. What has effectively become the ideology of the ruling classes, which goes by many names – political correctness, “wokeness,” “critical social justice,” the “successor Ideology,” the baizuo mentality, and so on – manifests a perverse self-destructiveness and nihilism that, as Anton argues, appears sui generis.
Tuesday, December 7, 2021
Dissident Philosophers
Rowman and
Littlefield has just published the anthology Dissident
Philosophers: Voices Against the Political Current of the Academy,
edited by T. Allan Hillman and Tully Borland.
(The hardcover version is expensive, but the
publisher’s website indicates that there is also a cheaper eBook version.) My article “The Metaphysical Foundations of
Conservatism” appears in the volume. The
other contributors are Francis J. Beckwith, John Bickle, Marica Bernstein,
Daniel Bonevac, Jason Brennan, Rafael De Clercq, Dan Demetriou, Michael Huemer,
Eric Mack, J. P. Moreland, Jan Narveson, Michael Pakaluk, Neven Sesardić, Steven
C. Skultety, William F. Vallicella, and Robert Westmoreland. In his blurb for the book, Prof. Thomas Kelly
of Princeton University writes: “An interesting and at times fascinating
glimpse into the thought of a group of heterodox intellectuals. In addition to the clear presentation of
well-developed philosophical views that challenge left-wing orthodoxies, their
personal experiences and reflections on what is involved in being a
professional philosopher who dissents from those orthodoxies makes for
compelling reading.”
Thursday, December 2, 2021
Geach on original sin
Recently we dipped into Peter Geach’s book Providence and Evil. Let’s do so again, looking this time at what he has to say about the doctrine of original sin. Geach says that the doctrine holds that human beings have “inherited… [a] flawed nature,” and indeed that:
The traditional doctrine is that since the sin of our first parents, men have been conceived and born different in nature from what they would have been had our first parents stood firm under trial. As C. S. Lewis puts it, a new species, not made by God, sinned itself into existence. (pp. 89-90)
Tuesday, November 23, 2021
MacIntyre on human dignity
Recently,
Alasdair MacIntyre presented a talk on the theme “Human Dignity: A Puzzling and
Possibly Dangerous Idea?” at the Fall Conference of the de Nicola Center for
Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame. You can
watch it on YouTube. It has
gotten a lot of attention even beyond academic circles, which is not surprising
given MacIntyre’s stature together with the question he raises in the title. What follows is a summary of the talk
followed by my own comments. I’m only
going to cover MacIntyre’s main themes; there are various details (such as
MacIntyre’s comments on specific historical examples) for which you’ll have to
listen to his talk.
Sunday, November 21, 2021
The Feast of Christ the King
Today
Catholics celebrate the Feast of Christ the King, which makes it an appropriate
time to remind ourselves of what the Church teaches the faithful about their duty
to bring their religion to bear on political matters. “But wait,” you might ask, “hasn’t the Church
since Vatican II adopted the American attitude of keeping religion out of
politics, and making of it a purely private affair?” Absolutely not. Even Dignitatis
Humanae, Vatican II’s famous declaration on religious freedom, insists
that it “leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of
men and
societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ”
(emphasis added).
Thursday, November 18, 2021
Geach’s argument against modernism
Catholic
philosopher Peter Geach’s book Providence
and Evil is interesting not only for what it says about the topics
referred to in the title, but also for its many insights and arguments
concerning other matters that Geach treats along the way. Among these passing remarks is a brief but
trenchant critique of those who propose a “denatured” brand of Christianity in
the name of “man’s evolution and progress” (p. 85). Theirs is the view that Christian tradition
is “mutable,” so that “with the progress of knowledge a doctrine hitherto
continuously taught in one sense now needs to be construed in another sense”
(pp. 86-87). Geach doesn’t use the label
“modernism,” but that is what he is talking about.
Saturday, November 13, 2021
Dwyer Instruments Bimetal Thermom, 3 In Dial, -58 to 302F
In his book Thomas
Aquinas: His Personality and Thought, Martin Grabmann notes:
In a passage of his… [Aquinas] touches upon the question, whether the pastors of souls or the professors of theology have a more important position in the life of the Church, and he decides in favor of the latter. He gives the following reason for his view: In the construction of a building the architect, who conceives the plan and directs the construction, stands above the workmen who actually put up the building. In the construction of the divine edifice of the Church and the care of souls, the position of architect is held by the bishops, but also by the theology professors, who study and teach the manner in which the care of souls is to be conducted. (p. 5)
Thursday, November 4, 2021
The politics of chastity
Chastity is
the virtue governing the proper use of sexuality. My article “The Politics of Chastity”
appears in the Fall
2021 issue of Nova et Vetera. It is part of a symposium on Reinhard
Hütter’s book Bound
for Beatitude: A Thomistic Study in Eschatology and Ethics,
which includes an essay on the subject of chastity and pornography that
inspired my own article. The article
addresses the nature of chastity, vices contrary to chastity, the effect such
vices (and in particular pornography) have on society at large, and the implications
all of this has for political philosophy and in particular for the question of integralism.
Tuesday, November 2, 2021
Neo-Aristotelian Metaphysics and the Theology of Nature
Routledge has just published the new anthology Neo-Aristotelian
Metaphysics and the Theology of Nature, edited By William M. R.
Simpson, Robert C. Koons, and James Orr.
My article “Natural and Supernatural” appears in the volume. Here is the abstract for the article:
The “supernatural,” as that term is traditionally used in theology, is that which is beyond the power of the natural order to produce on its own. Hence it can be produced only by what has causal power superior to that of anything in the natural order, namely the divine cause of the natural order. Insofar as the natural order depends on this supernatural cause, the supernatural is metaphysically prior to the natural. However, the natural is epistemologically prior to the supernatural, insofar as we cannot form a conception of the supernatural except by contrast with the natural, and cannot know whether there is such a thing as the supernatural unless we can reason to its existence from the existence of the natural order. A proper understanding of the supernatural thus presupposes a proper understanding of the natural order and of the causal relation between that order and its cause. This chapter offers an account of these matters and of their implications for theological issues concerning causal arguments for God’s existence, divine conservation and concurrence, miracles, nature and grace, faith and reason, and the notion of a theological mystery (viz. what is beyond the power of the intellect to discover on its own).
Friday, October 29, 2021
Adventures in the Old Atheism, Part VI: Schopenhauer
Our series has examined how atheists of earlier generations often exhibited a higher degree of moral and/or metaphysical gravitas than the sophomoric New Atheists of more recent vintage. As we’ve seen, this is true of Nietzsche, Sartre, Freud, Marx, and even Woody Allen. There is arguably even more in the way of metaphysical and moral gravitas to be found in our next subject, Arthur Schopenhauer. Plus, I think it has to be said, the best hair. So let’s have a look, if you’re willing.
Sunday, October 24, 2021
Untangling the web
David S.
Oderberg and others on free speech, in the new anthology Having
Your Say: Threats to Free Speech in the 21st Century,
edited by J. R. Shackleton.
In First Things, William Lane Craig in quest
of the historical Adam. Christianity Today interviews
Craig about his
new book on the subject.
At Rolling Stone, Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen on the release of two live albums and the prospect of a new album. Fagen is interviewed at Variety and the Tablet. The Ringer on the Dan’s new following among millennials. Elliot Scheiner on engineering Gaucho.
Tuesday, October 19, 2021
Truth as a transcendental
Last June, I presented a talk on the topic “Truth as a Transcendental” at the Aquinas Philosophy Workshop on the theme Aquinas on Knowledge, Truth, and Wisdom in Greenville, South Carolina. You can now listen to the talk at the Thomistic Institute’s Soundcloud page. (What you see above is the chart on the transcendentals referred to in the talk. Click on the image to enlarge. You'll also find a handout for the talk, which includes the chart, at the link to the Soundcloud audio of the talk.)
Wednesday, October 13, 2021
From Socrates to Stock
Socrates is
a model for all philosophers, not only because he pursued the truth through
rational argumentation, but because he did so uncompromisingly, even at the
cost of his life. And he was executed,
not by religious authorities and not by a dictator, but by democratic,
egalitarian, purportedly tolerant Athens.
This would lead his student Plato to warn us, in the Republic, that the unruly passions
spawned by egalitarianism are by no means the friends of reason and philosophy. Woke politics and cancel culture provide the latest
confirmation of this thesis.
Monday, October 11, 2021
Covid-19 vaccination should not be mandatory
In a
recent post, I argued that a Catholic can in good conscience take one of
the Covid-19 vaccines, but also that such vaccination should not be
mandatory. In a
follow-up post, I expanded on the first point. Let’s now expand on the second.
Thomistic natural law theory and Catholic moral theology are not libertarian, but neither are they statist. They acknowledge that we can have enforceable obligations to which we do not consent, but also insist that there are limits to what government can require of us, and qualifications even where it can require something of us. In the case of vaccine mandates (whether we are talking about Covid-19 vaccines, polio vaccines, or whatever), they neither imply a blanket condemnation of such mandates nor a blanket approval of them. There is nuance here that too many hotheads on both sides of the Catholic debate on this issue ignore.
Saturday, October 9, 2021
Covid-19 vaccines and Jeffrey Dahmer’s nail clippings
Serial
killer Jeffrey Dahmer was murdered in prison almost thirty years ago. Suppose that, before his body was removed
from the crime scene, a prison guard had clipped off some of his fingernails as
a ghoulish souvenir. Suppose further
that this guard dabbled in genetics and cloning as a hobby. And suppose he somehow figured out a way to
make exact copies of the fingernails, so that he could sell them on eBay to people
interested in serial killer memorabilia.
Now suppose that almost thirty years later, you develop a novel nail
clipper design. You work up a prototype
and test it – using one of the cloned Dahmer fingernails as your test
material. They work great, and you go on
to manufacture and market the clippers.
Suppose they are so successful that all the other nail clipper
manufacturers go out of business. If
people want to clip their nails, they need to buy your product.
Friday, October 8, 2021
Covid-19 vaccination is not the hill to die on
What should
Catholics think about the Covid-19 vaccines and about vaccine mandates? I keep getting asked about this, so a post
devoted to the topic seems in order. As I
have said before, I think that the
statement on these subjects issued last year by the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) gets things exactly right. The vaccines can be taken in good conscience,
but authorities ought to keep them voluntary rather than making them
mandatory. (For those who are wondering,
yes, I’ve been vaccinated, as have several other members of my family.)
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
It’s the next thrilling open thread!
Please keep
in mind, dear reader, that if you’re inclined to begin a comment with “This is
off-topic, but…” then you shouldn’t post it.
Certainly I won’t approve it. Wait
for a post where it will be on-topic – such as this one, the latest, exciting
open thread, where everything is
on-topic. From logic gates to interest
rates, from CRT to CBD, from Charlemagne to House of Pain – the field is wide
open. Just keep it civil and keep it
classy, as always.
Sunday, September 26, 2021
The “first world problem” of evil
Suffering, atheists
frequently assure us, is not what we would expect if God exists. You might suppose, then, that where there is
greater suffering, there will be fewer believers in God, and where there is
less suffering there will be more believers in God. But that appears to be the reverse of the
truth. As a friend pointed out to me
recently, it is a remarkable fact that though life was, for most human beings
for most of human history, much, much harder than it is for modern Westerners,
they were also far more likely to be religious than modern Westerners are. It is precisely as modern medicine,
technology, and relative social and political stability have made life easier and greatly mitigated suffering that religious belief has declined.
Thursday, September 16, 2021
Lao Tzu’s negative theology
Among the
most interesting things about Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu (fl. 6th
century B.C.) is that he did not exist.
Or at least, that’s what some modern scholars tell us. I’m skeptical about his non-existence myself,
and so will refer to him in what follows as if he were a real person. In any event, that existence and
non-existence are both attributed to Lao Tzu is oddly appropriate given what
his classic work Tao Te Ching says
about the ultimate source of things: “All things in the world come from
being. And being comes from non-being”
(II, 40, Wing-Tsit
Chan translation). What does
this mean?
Saturday, September 11, 2021
Ioannidis on the politicization of science
Like other academics, I first became aware of John Ioannidis through his influential 2005 paper “Why Most Published Research Findings are False.” That essay was widely praised as a salutary reminder from one scientist to his fellows of the need for their field to be self-critical. With the COVID-19 pandemic, Ioannidis would become far more widely known, this time for expressing skepticism about some of the scientific claims being made about the virus and the measures taken to deal with it. His warnings were in the same spirit as that of his earlier work, and presented in the same measured and reasonable manner – but this time they were not so warmly received. In a new essay at The Tablet, Ioannidis reflects on the damage that has been done to the norms of scientific research as politics has corrupted it during the pandemic.
Sunday, September 5, 2021
Make-believe matter
Materialism
can at first blush seem to have a more commonsensical and empirical character
than Cartesian dualism. The latter asks
you to believe in a res cogitans that
is unobservable in principle. The former
– so it might appear – merely asks you to confine your belief to what you
already know from everyday experience. You
pick up an apple and bite into it. Its
vibrant color, sweet taste and odor, feel of solidity, and the crunch it makes
all make it seem as real as anything could be.
Anyone who says that all that exists are things like that might, whether or not you agree with him, at least seem
to have the evidence of the senses in his corner.
Tuesday, August 31, 2021
Aquinas on humor and social life
In Summa Theologiae II-II.168.2-4,
Aquinas discusses the essential role that play and humor have in human
life. They are necessary for the health
of the individual, insofar as in their absence the mind becomes weary and
tense. And they are necessary for the
health of social life, which would be similarly strained without the ability to
laugh and play together. The virtue of wittiness is the character trait that
facilitates this human need. Naturally,
as in every other area of human life, we can sin by excess, as when we joke in
an inappropriate manner or at an inappropriate time, or are in our general
manner of life insufficiently serious about serious matters. But we can also sin by deficiency, by being insufficiently
pleasant and willing to engage in play with our fellows. Aquinas writes:
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