When did philosophy go bad?

[JimG]

Minerva:

what I meant was that discoveries in science, especially cognitive science/neuroscience have alot of bearing on free will and the soul. Many scientists are convinced that consciousness, the mind, the will, what have you, is an entirely physical phenomenon. Thus there is no immortal soul. Nor would there be any free will. …
If physicalism is true, then free will and immortality go out the window.

Yes, I do think that many scientists take the view that everything is purely material, composed of various subatomic particles.

If they are correct, there is no soul, no God, no immortality, no free will, and the perception of self identity and self integrity is a mere illusion, since the matter that makes up our bodies continuously changes.

Even the scientist’s seeming perception that he is thinking hard about this subject (or that he decided on his own to do so) is an illusion, since physical laws have predetermined what he will or will not do, quantum physics notwithstanding. (If materialism is true, this entire post is nothing more than the result of some neruonal firings caused by the sensory (name removed by moderator)ut obtained from reading this thread.)

That is why I think that if Christianity is to have any intellectual foundation, if it believes that God is spirit, that persons are realities, that mind is something different than brain, and that one can choose for or against God, it needs a revitalized realist philosophy.

I’ve not read much of Aquinas, but I’ve read Frank Sheed’s take on him, and that comes closest to what I have in mind.

JimG

 

[Minerva]

exactly Jim, the mind has to be different from the brain/body. I don’t think Aquinas’ Aristotelianism can account for this though. Like I said earlier, Aristotle didn’t even think the brain was involved in consciousness. Neuroscience has discovered things that Aquinas never could’ve dreamed of; his philosophy is simply outdated to deal with this problem. Personally I think Descartes was on to something when he posited the mental as an entirely different substance than the physical (I don’t agree with Descartes’ skeptical project though)

 

[hermit]

JimG:

Yes, I do think that many scientists take the view that everything is purely material, composed of various subatomic particles.

I happen to have a doctorate in Physics and neither I nor my colleagues fall into this “many” category that you are quoting. The further you go into the quantum realm the less “material” reality becomes.

As far as the mind/body dichotomy, I suggest reading Plato rather than Aristotle.

I also have an undergraduate minor in Philosophy.

 

[wolpertinger]

JimG:

Yes, I do think that many scientists take the view that everything is purely material, composed of various subatomic particles.

In other words, scientists believe that matter is comprised of matter?

If they are correct, there is no soul, no God, no immortality, no free will, and the perception of self identity and self integrity is a mere illusion, since the matter that makes up our bodies continuously changes.

No, if they are right it means that science cannot account for, support, prove or disprove the existence of souls, gods, and immortality (if predicated on a soul). You should actually prefer that these concepts are beyond science’s scope – imagine the ramifications of science treating souls, gods, and immortality as natural phenomena…

Free will is a tricky question, even assuming that there is a mutually agreeable definition of free will. As long as there are random processes in nature, the world isn’t fully determined. Even if it were, free will as an emergent property of already complex organisms would imply that philosophical and theological nitpicking aside, it wouldn’t matter for any practical purposes.

Self-identity and self-integrity as defined as a static arrangement of matter is a straw man.

that mind is something different than brain

Of course the mind is something different than the brain - it’s what the brain does.

 

[aridite]

Minerva:

actually aridite, the question of atoms and how a human body is more (or is it?) than a collection of atoms, is seperate from the mind-body problem.

Since I am think dualism will ultimately not solve the problem, and that in a pretty significant sense, we are our bodies (or our bodies are an essential aspect of who we are), I think the metaphysical status of material components, personal identity and the mind/body problem are all of a piece. The question of atoms is really only an issue for natural kinds – it is not hard to accept that a laptop, being an artifact, is an aggregate of atoms. The question would impact humans, animals, plants, homogeneous material. Is silicone a thing, or a collection of things (protons, neutrons and electrons) … and once you go down the elementary particle road, where do you stop? Is anything REALLY what it seems? Aristotle has the best answer, things are what they seem (silicone, water, dogs, humans) but they are in virtue of their forms (souls if they are living).

Minerva:

Aristotelianism is unsatisfactory for solving the problem since the existence of atoms violates Aristotle and Aquinas’ belief in prime matter.

The role of prime matter is exaggerated in most people’s accounts of Aristotle and Aquinas. It is a sort of theoretical ultimate principle, but both quite often talk about the matter of animals being flesh and bones, and the matter for the eye being water. The matter of bones would be mostly earth (what they considered elementary) and underlying earth ultimately is prime matter, but precisely because it is ultimate and underlies everything, it can never be isolated. (The energy that presumable underlies all forms of subatomic particles comes close to what they mean by this.)

It is true that both of them did not think of matter as bundled in uncuttable (a-tom) little packets; they thought it was continuous. But they did believe that the material things of common experience were composed of elements (ultimately earth, air, fire and water).

Minerva:

For one thing, Aristotle didn’t even believe the brain was used for thinking - he thought it was used for regulating mucus and humors. This isn’t very helpful when you need to go head to head with the latest in neuroscience

You’re right, Aristotle thought that the seat for higher sensitive faculties (like imagination and aparently consciousness) was the heart, but by the time of Aquinas, it was recognized that the brain was important for cognitive functioning. (I guess experience with head injuries helped them figure that out.) But Aristotle is quite comfortable assigning the investigation of the physiology of cognitive activities to another science than philosophy. So while his physiology might have been flawed and great advances have been made, he still has some philosophical insight to offer on the nature of knowledge and of living things.

Minerva:

you seem to be very well versed in philosophy - did you major in it?

Actually I got a doctorate in it, and my dissertation was on these topics, so I tend to get kind of excited when they come up. At the risk of appearing to be engaging in shameless self-promotion, my dissertation was published by Greenwood Press: “Unmixing the Intellect: Aristotle on Cognitive Powers and Bodily Organs” by Joseph M. Magee. It is clearly not the last word on the subject, and I think the treatment of some topics could certainly be stronger, but it does give some account of how material constituents fit into Aristotle’s unified account of living things. Hopefully, I make a stronger case for which insights are still valuable and might be relevantly applied to what we have learned from the sciences. I think a lot more work could be done on this by Aristotelians/Thomists, but there are not many working on it that I know of.

 

[Minerva]

that’s really cool - I’m getting a doctorate in philosophy too! Where did you go to grad school? I’m at Rutgers. Are you teaching now?

I think it would be wise of me to extract myself from the debate about Aristotle/Aquinas since you clearly know more about it than I do. I still remain skeptical of Aristotelianism’s ability to solve problems of identity and the mind-body problem, and don’t like the idea of the Church making any philosophy its “official philosophy.” The Church should be more concerned, when examining a particular philosophy, whether or not it contradicts the Gospel than whether or not it contradicts Aquinas.

anyhow, I might be writing a paper on Aristotelianism sometime soon, could I contact you if I have any questions? We don’t have any Aristotelians at Rutgers

 

[JimG]

wolpertinger:

In other words, scientists believe that matter is comprised of matter? …No, if they are right it means that science cannot account for, support, prove or disprove the existence of souls, gods, and immortality (if predicated on a soul). You should actually prefer that these concepts are beyond science’s scope – imagine the ramifications of science treating souls, gods, and immortality as natural phenomena…

No, what I meant was that some scientists believe that everything inclulding mind, soul, free will, etc is composed of matter, and that anything non-material is simply non-existent.

I don’t agree that “mind” is something that the brain “does.” Rather, I think that the brain is something that the mind uses as a sensory interface for ideas and thoughts, which are non-material substances produced by the mind–the mind being equivalent to the intellect, which (along with free will) is a faculty of the soul. And the soul, for mankind, has a spiritual, not a material, nature.

And I agree that science as such is unable to investigate spiritual substances by scientific means.

I don’t think it matters much what Aristotle thought of the brain, since he was, I believe, concerned with intellect, not physiology–that is, with the immaterial rather than the material.

Now it’s true that “the further you go into the quantum realm the less ‘material’ reality becomes.” But I would use the word, “seems” rather than “becomes,” because it is still material, even though not in its everyday macroscopic form.

For a long time, basic subatomic particles were considered to be dimensionless points. The math worked out. Now how can billions of zero dimension points combine to form a 3 or 4 dimensional reality?

With string theory, the basic strings were considered to be 1-dimensional. Still a little strange. Now they’re postulating membranes rather than strings. OK, 2-dimensional building blocks, but you end up with an 11 dimensional universe.

And what are the basic building blocks made of, anyway? Matter? Is a quark or a string a physical substance, or merely a vibration in the substrate of space? Well, that’s for the physicists to figure out. But be sure to post your answer here when it is clarified!

JimG

 

[aridite]

Minerva:

that’s really cool - I’m getting a doctorate in philosophy too! Where did you go to grad school? I’m at Rutgers. Are you teaching now?

Thanks, I thought it was pretty cool at the time, but after my experience on the job market, I’m less jazzed about it. I went to the Center for Thomistic Studies at the Univ. of St. Thomas in Houston. Rutgers is reputed to be a good school, so that should definitely help when you go looking for a job. I found there were not a lot of places looking to hire Aristotelians/Thomists – go figure! I only teach part time at community colleges – my real job is Campus Ministry at Sam Houston State Univ.

Minerva:

I think it would be wise of me to extract myself from the debate about Aristotle/Aquinas since you clearly know more about it than I do. I still remain skeptical of Aristotelianism’s ability to solve problems of identity and the mind-body problem, and don’t like the idea of the Church making any philosophy its “official philosophy.” The Church should be more concerned, when examining a particular philosophy, whether or not it contradicts the Gospel than whether or not it contradicts Aquinas.

I don’t think I really have the time or inclination to really debate the all the issues like they deserve, and this is probably not the place, either. Actually, I have not found too many people who consider Aquinas’ philosophy as the “official” Catholic one, much less as the measure of all truth. There are a few, but they’re pretty much the fringe. Lately, in Catholic academic circles, he is to a large extent dismissed in the interest of diversity, or relavance, or modernity (which – I hope you do not take offense – is what your initial attitude seemed to be). Some have said (Anthony Kenny, et al.) that his decline in the estimation of Catholics has led his rising in the estimation of non-Catholic (analytic) philosophers. I don’t know if there is really a correlation, though.

Thomists today are much more sanguine about Aquinas’ ability to answer all questions, and I would agree. This is as it should be. The ideas need to be evaluated on their own merits, but I do think that there is an awful lot of merit in Aquinas (and Aristotle) that is simply dismissed as “Catholic” or “medieval” (or “ancient”). To the extent that Thomism has been canonized, one should remember that not every Catholic and/or medieval system was so esteemed. Thomism does have real merits over, say Bonaventure. Or so I think – Bonaventurians, I beg your indulgence.

Minerva:

anyhow, I might be writing a paper on Aristotelianism sometime soon, could I contact you if I have any questions? We don’t have any Aristotelians at Rutgers

No Aristotelians at Rutgers?!? I’m appalled, but not really shocked. I saw on your profile that you went to Notre Dame – I guess you didn’t get too deep into Aristotle there, either. Luckily, your library has my book. Not that the argument will be that helpful, but the bibliography might be. I would be happy to help to the extent that my schedule will permit. It would be best to contact me through e-mail, though.

 

[Minerva]

actually I had an excellent class on Aristotle at Notre Dame, and because of it know far more about Aristotle than pretty much every other grad student I’ve met at Rutgers. But at ND most of my philosophy courses were concentrated on contemporary analytic stuff. Alot of the stuff I know about the history of Catholic philosophy and Catholic intellectualism comes from my husband who’s a medievalist.

 

[wolpertinger]

JimG:

No, what I meant was that some scientists believe that everything inclulding mind, soul, free will, etc is composed of matter, and that anything non-material is simply non-existent.

While I agree with science, I can’t quite follow your meaning. Are you saying that scientists reject anything spiritual and supernatural or do you literally mean that there are scientists that deny the existence of non-material physical forces?

I don’t agree that “mind” is something that the brain “does.” Rather, I think that the brain is something that the mind uses as a sensory interface for ideas and thoughts, which are non-material substances produced by the mind–the mind being equivalent to the intellect, which (along with free will) is a faculty of the soul. And the soul, for mankind, has a spiritual, not a material, nature.

We’ll have to agree to disagree then. I don’t believe in the spiritual and specifically the soul myself.

And what are the basic building blocks made of, anyway? Matter? Is a quark or a string a physical substance, or merely a vibration in the substrate of space? Well, that’s for the physicists to figure out. But be sure to post your answer here when it is clarified!

The short of it is that we’ll never know. The best we do is to model the natural world as accurately as we can; the change of a scientific theory doesn’t change nature, it only changes the model. Having said that, even if we’ll know the actual Theory of Everything, we couldn’t possibly tell what it means.

 

[aridite]

Minerva:

actually I had an excellent class on Aristotle at Notre Dame, and because of it know far more about Aristotle than pretty much every other grad student I’ve met at Rutgers.

I’m sorry, I was being facetious. I apologize. Unfortately a lot of analytic types are pretty ignorant of classical thought, so you are ahead of them on that, IMHO. I had a class on the philosophy of mind with John Searle at UCBerkeley, and he used to brag that he had never read Plato’s Republic.

Good luck in gradual school.

 

[JimG]

wolpertinger:

While I agree with science, I can’t quite follow your meaning. Are you saying that scientists reject anything spiritual and supernatural or do you literally mean that there are scientists that deny the existence of non-material physical forces?

I think that many–including me–would take the phrase “non-material physical forces” to be a contradiction. Physics doesn’t postulate any basic differences between matter and energy any more, does it? So my meaning is that anything that is within the purview of science–matter, energy, gravity, space, time, the strong & weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism, falls under the heading of the material.

For me, (as well as for Aquinas, I presume) the spiritual and supernatural are realities (i.e. they are not nothing) that are entirely devoid of matter, and do not take up space. This would include, from a philosophical standpoint, God, spirit, angels, and mind.

Human beings are considered a special case, being composed of matter + spirit, yet so closely united as to be a unity and not a duality.

One of my favorite popular writers, Isaac Asimov, took the materialist / physicalist view. He believed that matter is all that there is. When asked what he expected to happen in an afterlife, his reply was: “Nothing.” Every aspect of the human entity, including consciousness, intellect, the sense of personal identity (“this is me thinking!”) was entirely material. When you die, the switch is simply turned off. The light is gone. The organism disintegrates, and cannot be reconstituted, ever.

Hermit pointed out that not all scientists take this position. They recognize the supernatural (i.e. the non-material) but treat it appropriately as a non-scientific category.

Possibly one problem that we have with Aristotle and other ancient philosophers is that they also wrote on what we would consider “natural science,” getting those things all wrong. Their metaphysics was better than their science; but eventually their bad science gave a bad name to their philosophy as well.

JimG

 

[JimG]

aridite:

Thanks, I thought it was pretty cool at the time, but after my experience on the job market, I’m less jazzed about it.

Ah well, regardless of the job market, I’m glad that there are still doctorates in philosophy. Sometimes the engineers need a little help.

JimG

 

[aridite]

JimG:

Possibly one problem that we have with Aristotle and other ancient philosophers is that they also wrote on what we would consider “natural science,” getting those things all wrong. Their metaphysics was better than their science; but eventually their bad science gave a bad name to their philosophy as well.

JimG

Fair enough. But I think Aristotle has two advantages. One, his metaphysics (or philosophy of the physical) is better than most. Two, he has, at least in principle, a method of distinguishing what we would call “scientific/empirical” concerns from philosophical ones. So, I think, it is not really ad hoc to say “ignore what he says about the boiling of the blood, but listen to what he says about sensation as receiving form without matter.” He can and would say, “Oops, I guess I was wrong about the heart. It seems that thinking is tied to the brain instead. But thinking still can’t be the activity of the brain (or any organ) alone.” His reasons for saying sensation has to involve the body (but not in a straight forward way), but thinking can’t be the activity of any organ (alone), seem to me to be very compelling. I’m not alone in this, but ours is the minority opinion, even about what Ari meant, much less about sensing and thinking.

 

[JimG]

aridite:

Fair enough. But I think Aristotle has two advantages. …

Thanks for your comments. I’m *really * glad that there are some Aristotelians left! Well, let’s see, there’s you, and Mortimer Adler, but is he still alive?

Many years ago I took a Philosophy course called Philosophical Psychology, using as a text a book of the same name by someone named Donceel. From what I recall, it took the view that knowledge begins in the senses, and is integrated in the brain. From this continuous integrated sensory (name removed by moderator)ut, the intellect abstracted the “material” to form the (immaterial) concept, the ideas with which the mind could work. It sounded rather Arostotelian to me.

JimG

 

[wolpertinger]

JimG:

I think that many–including me–would take the phrase “non-material physical forces” to be a contradiction. Physics doesn’t postulate any basic differences between matter and energy any more, does it? So my meaning is that anything that is within the purview of science–matter, energy, gravity, space, time, the strong & weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism, falls under the heading of the material.

Fair enough.

 

[aridite]

JimG:

Thanks for your comments. I’m *really *glad that there are some Aristotelians left! Well, let’s see, there’s you, and Mortimer Adler, but is he still alive?
I’m glad I could help. I don’t think Adler is alive any more, I’m afraid, but I’m not sure.

JimG:

Many years ago I took a Philosophy course called Philosophical Psychology

, using as a text a book of the same name by someone named Donceel. From what I recall, it took the view that knowledge begins in the senses, and is integrated in the brain. From this continuous integrated sensory (name removed by moderator)ut, the intellect abstracted the “material” to form the (immaterial) concept, the ideas with which the mind could work. It sounded rather Arostotelian to me.

JimG

Yes, the Donceel book was a sort of standard text-book of Aristotelian-Thomistic psychology (philosophy of mind). Aquinas elaborated and systematized the basic principles of Aristotle. I more contemporary treatment, though pretty critical as well, is Anthony Kenny “Aquinas on Mind.”

 

[TCB]

Minerva:

exactly Jim, the mind has to be different from the brain/body. I don’t think Aquinas’ Aristotelianism can account for this though. Like I said earlier, Aristotle didn’t even think the brain was involved in consciousness. Neuroscience has discovered things that Aquinas never could’ve dreamed of; his philosophy is simply outdated to deal with this problem. Personally I think Descartes was on to something when he posited the mental as an entirely different substance than the physical (I don’t agree with Descartes’ skeptical project though)

Mortimer Adler reconciles many of these issues. I would recommend his book,Intellect.

 

[Minerva]

Searle bragged about never reading “The Republic”??? That’s pathetic! Every educated person should read the Republic at least once IMO especially philosophers. I got to read it twice, once in a humanities seminar and once in Ancient and Medieval Philo. Both times the profs conveniently didn’t have us read chapter 7 “women children and warfare” where Plato lays out his eugenics and forced abortion program. I read it anyways and was appalled. Plato, say it ain’t so!

 

[elrondaragorn]

“There is no truth” is an oxymoron. Why don’t more people see this?

tractarian:

I would agree that Okham and Nominalism was the beginning of the end for philosophy. And Kant’s Subjectivism was the end, because he was the first person to seriously suggest that truth is subjective, not objective. Of course, objectivity is part of the definition of “truth” for every philosophy prior to Kant (even the Eastern philosophies, which are often touted as being so radically different from Western ones, but really they are not). Subjective truth is an oxymoron, plain and simple.:whacky:
Now with Postmodernism, the full implications of subjective truth have been realized, and truth itself has been abolished. Postmoderns do not even bother to refute truth, or reason, or anything else. There is complete indifference toward any topic which might need to make an appeal to Truth with a capital ‘T’.

The opposing philosophy to Nominalism–Realism–is the antidote. Realist philosophies such as Thomism, Augustinianism, and Anselmism (not sure that last one is a word ) start from the premise that the world is real, and so are our ideas about the world. Not a haphazard collection of perceptions, opinions, stories, bla bla bla…but real. Starting from there, everything else can be demonstrated to possess substance and relevance: God, natural law, marriage, you name it. :tiphat: Any philosophy with a different starting point will inevitably lead to indifference and relativism.

This is a pretty serious post and i hope i didn’t bore anyone, but it is a subject i’ve devoted some time studying.