tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23699434292371107332010-03-12T00:01:08.093-05:00Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.comBlogger360125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-13906788349439442732010-03-05T12:30:00.014-05:002010-03-11T14:00:17.602-05:00

 {My attempt to think through and make some sense of Aquinas' argument from motion.} A green leaf isn't orange. But a green leaf is potentially orange, and it becomes orange when this potential is actualized. We all learned about photosynthesis in grade school. A leaf starts out in one bio-chemical/biological state and ends up in another. A leaf's bio-chemical/biological state when green has

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-74447352216649100342010-03-03T10:14:00.000-05:002010-03-03T10:14:25.358-05:00

{re-dated} Inquiry is a quest; it's either an adventure or it's nothing. Philosophy and science are modes of inquiry; they are human adventures. If your philosophy or science renders the very notion of a quest or an adventure unintelligible, I'm justified in paying it no mind. You're either being dull or hypocritical.

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-28168094527503895232010-03-01T07:21:00.001-05:002010-03-11T14:00:51.740-05:00

{a series in progress} A dilemma:(A) On the one hand, if you want to be a good person, then you can't rightly submit yourself to live by an immoral text. And so you need to evaluate the text before you submit to it. Otherwise you might be led down a wicked way.(B) On the other hand, if you're really going to submit yourself to live by a text, then your moral judgements themselves must be guided

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-15551945005180988002010-02-27T13:28:00.000-05:002010-02-27T13:28:45.606-05:00

{Re-dated} Here's what I find C.S. Lewis doing in the first three chapters of Mere Christianity: (i) He observes that we all take certain moral judgements about human conduct for granted. We can try to deny these moral judgments if we want to, but, in the end, we always return to them. This is what used to be called the 'Natural Law'. (ii) He defends the Natural Law against a few common

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-31509280344888639482010-02-27T13:25:00.000-05:002010-02-27T13:32:29.480-05:00

{Re-dated} I re-read the first section of Mere Christianity last night. I see now that Lewis explicitly invites the reader to consider the source of moral obligation. He thinks it must be more like a mind than an mindless material object. Evolutionary psychologists will almost certainly misunderstand Lewis here. They'll say we can tell an entirely natural story about why we prize altruism: it

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-81113607420176331582010-02-27T13:14:00.003-05:002010-02-27T13:21:51.540-05:00

Desire independent reasons for action, based on facts which have a subjective ontology, are a significant aspect of morality. Consider my pencil. It's mine. But it's being mine is only true to us. On the other hand, it's being composed (in part) of wood is true, whatever we think about it. It's being mine gives me certain rights. You ought not take it without asking. It would be wrong to steal

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-49111143553522698342010-02-27T13:06:00.002-05:002010-02-27T13:08:44.263-05:00

You ask me a question.  I ponder my answer. If I give a short and manageable answer to your question, you'll almost certainly misunderstand me in some way.  It'll be impossible for me to clarify everything I don't mean by it. And there's no unambiguous way of sorting out what to say first.  My decision to say first what I do end up saying first can be misinterpreted. Which turns of phrase will I

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-84330089630780826142010-02-24T11:20:00.006-05:002010-02-24T11:28:52.238-05:00

Knowing is that risky activity whereby we reach out and make contact with reality. Every living thing — even the tiniest single-cell organism — knows, at least in some (admittedly) extended sense. Tiny amebas reach out from themselves and into the world, in one of the many directions available to them. (Think of them dancing around in a petrie dish.) Some of these ‘reachings-out’ work out well

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-20860370351710669092010-02-23T08:02:00.002-05:002010-02-23T09:41:32.265-05:00

Go look at the tree in your backyard. You are aware of it. And now you are aware of your awareness of it. And now you are aware of your awareness of being aware of it. (You can keep going and going until the chain of awareness dissolves. I get about 3 steps and then I lose track. I hear that, with training, you can go farther.) In order to enter most intimately into a living awareness of the

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-55252249633382451302010-02-20T11:56:00.009-05:002010-02-21T10:30:31.226-05:00

Suppose that next Monday I travel back in time to 1955. I build a miniature log cabin out of twigs. After this, I travel to 1945. I build a miniature igloo. Finally, I travel to 1935. I build a sandcastle. In what order did I build these three miniatures? (a) According to our ordinary calendar system the sandcastle came first (1935), followed by the ingloo (1945) and the cabin (1955).(b) But

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-86812542601333858232010-02-19T11:25:00.003-05:002010-02-19T11:36:23.537-05:00

When you see something like a tree, you reach out and make contact with it. Nearly no one believes that this happens, but it does. As proof that it can’t happen, we tell the standard scientific story of how sight works. But the standard scientific story actually supports my view. Consider the standard scientific story of how you see a tree: Light bounces off the tree and enters your eyes. This

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-82833207963272586692010-02-18T14:17:00.004-05:002010-02-18T23:18:41.147-05:00

{An update to this. (i.e. the post immediately bellow.)} I should say that it is an ontologically objective fact that we are teleologically ordered towards certain ends. And, yes, this teleological ordering is natural. (And Divine too, for that matter.) Contrary to what you've probably heard, we don't need to know whether God exists before we can know whether we're teleologically ordered

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-40813736281044403932010-02-18T12:04:00.003-05:002010-02-18T14:18:10.178-05:00

We recognise human rights -- above all, the right to not be murdered, right? Simply because of our status as humans, we've certain rights and responsibilities, no? Suppose a serial killer says, "Hey, maybe you people recognize a status in each other, but I don't! So cut it out with this "we" business. You can't morally reason with me. Morality doesn't enter into it for me. Morality is subjective

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-78419587907945918282010-02-16T08:30:00.004-05:002010-02-16T10:49:52.294-05:00

If you want to, you can go ahead and use the Church's Holy Scriptures to construct a cupcake recipe. I'm not sure how well that'll go for you but, hey, knock yourself out. The Church has no authority to coercively stop people from doing this. There's a sense in which anyone can do whatever they want with the Church's Holy Scriptures. BUT... ...the Church is entitled to say that anyone who

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-33538072735287076682010-02-15T10:41:00.005-05:002010-02-16T07:20:18.766-05:00

{a series in progress} Despite what you've heard, the Church is not a faith-community and Christianity is not a faith-tradition. Concepts like "faith-community" and "faith-tradition" belong to habits of mind which fundamentally misconstrue both faith and knowledge. The Church is a community of knowing and Christian theology is a knowledge-tradition. If you're struggling for freedom from all

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-70544995946084328822010-02-15T08:32:00.006-05:002010-02-15T09:31:56.720-05:00

{re-dated} Sifting through some options in a very broad and loose way. I think folks tend to miss a lot of these possibilities. (BTW, I'm not saying these possibilities are actual.) (i) The neuronal firings in my brain seem to be at least causally necessary for my performing actions (believing, walking, deciding, hating, loving, etc.) under normal circumstances. No firings, no actions. (Smack

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-90483124397693470392010-02-11T10:00:00.004-05:002010-02-16T07:20:53.138-05:00

{a series in progress} I encountered the Christian way, the Christian proclamation, by encountering the Church. A peculiar people, gathered together, praying, singing, eating, hoping, remembering, wondering, reading, baptizing and all the rest. I embarked on the the Christian way, and took on the Christian proclamation, by being initiated into this peculiar people. This Church understands

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-25393725946185278172010-02-10T17:43:00.003-05:002010-02-11T04:47:08.844-05:00

I just read the official book description of Brian Mclaren's new book. FYI, he wrote the description too. I think he just totalized me. {FYI, totalizing is bad.} {Totally not cool, bro.}

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-13407759588979616592010-02-10T16:25:00.000-05:002010-02-10T16:25:18.819-05:00

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-12787713510332785082010-02-09T14:07:00.009-05:002010-02-11T07:20:22.130-05:00

Every first year philosophy student learns about Hume's debunking of the reality of causality. Think of a billiard table. According to common sense, so it goes, we see balls bumping into other balls, causing them to roll around on the table. All wrong, says Hume. All we really see is two events: ball A moves right up to ball B and then stops, and then ball B begins to move. BUT WE NEVER SEE BALL

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-34688298004907589962010-02-09T14:03:00.003-05:002010-02-09T14:06:10.756-05:00

Why is it wrong to murder me? Well, murdering me robs me of my valuable future! It's awful to be murdered, in such a final way: I can recover from a sock to the face, but not from murder. If I can see that, and of course I can see that, then I can see that it's wrong to murder you. Someone will say: you getting murdered hurts you, and so you oppose it. But you murdering someone else doesn't (

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-46321226272367894632010-02-09T09:30:00.001-05:002010-02-09T09:31:28.848-05:00

Listen in on a conversation I'm having here. Here's my latest entry, plucked out of context. I'm surprised by my own beliefs sometimes. I say it's anachronistic to name early-modern Europe's "wars of religion" as "religious" wars. The key actor in this conflict was the modern nation state, no? Sure, the rhetoric was undoubtedly "religious" (in the Christendom sense), but how naive do you have to

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-2852534367396812692010-02-08T10:42:00.003-05:002010-02-08T16:50:05.023-05:00

A logical analysis of phenomenology. A phenomenology of logical analysis. Two inquiries that are equally ultimate? While you're aiming at one you're at least taking the other for granted.

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-54472410691374543782010-02-07T22:33:00.000-05:002010-02-07T23:12:43.566-05:00

{Re-dated} We're very confused about about propositions. Consider this proposition: the moon's surface is dusty. I believe that the moon's surface is dusty. Is my believing this a matter of bearing this proposition in mind and then assenting to it, or having attitudes about it? NO. NO. NO. It involves bearing the moon's surface in mind then and judging it dusty. It is one thing to believe, of

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369943429237110733.post-87020653244385820112010-02-06T20:07:00.000-05:002010-02-07T23:13:32.802-05:00

{re-dated} "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612563903678212286noreply@blogger.com1