James Chastek, Language as disproportionate to our concepts.

On St. Albert the Great

On St. Albert the Great

"Scientific Study Is Transformed Then Into a Hymn of Praise"

VATICAN CITY, MARCH 24, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today during the general audience in St. Peter's Square.

* * *

Dear brothers and sisters,

One of the greatest teachers of Medieval theology is St. Albert the Great. The title "great" (magnus) with which he has passed into history, indicates the vastness and depth of his doctrine, which he coupled with holiness of life. But already his contemporaries did not hesitate to attribute excellent titles to him; one of his disciples, Ulrich of Strasbourg, described him as "wonder and miracle of our age."

Born in Germany at the beginning of the 13th century, he was still young when he went to Italy, to Padua, seat of one of the most famous universities of the Middle Ages. He dedicated himself to the study of the so-called liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, that is, of the general culture, manifesting that typical interest for the natural sciences, which would soon become the favorite field of his specialization. During his stay in Padua, he frequented the church of the Dominicans, whom he later joined with the profession of religious vows. The hagiographic sources lead one to understand that Albert matured this decision gradually. The intense relationship with God, the example of holiness of the Dominican Friars, the listening of sermons of Blessed Giordano of Saxony, successor of St. Dominic in the leadership of the Order of Preachers, were the decisive factors that helped him to overcome every doubt, overcoming also family resistance. Often, in the years of youth, God speaks to us and indicates the plan of our life. As for Albert, so for all of us, personal prayer nourished by the Word of the Lord, the frequenting of the sacraments and the spiritual guidance of enlightened men are the means to discover and follow the voice of God. He received the religious habit from Blessed Giordano of Saxony.

After his priestly ordination, the superiors sent him to teach in several centers of theological study adjacent to monasteries of the Dominican Fathers. His brilliant intellectual qualities enabled him to perfect the study of theology in the most famous university of the time, that of Paris. From then on St. Albert undertook that extraordinary activity of writer, which he would then follow for his whole life.

He was assigned prestigious tasks. In 1248 he was charged with opening a theological study at Cologne, one of the most important administrative centers of Germany, where he lived in successive stages, and which became his adopted city. From Paris he took with him an exceptional pupil, Thomas Aquinas. The merit would suffice of having been St. Thomas' teacher to foster profound admiration toward St. Albert. Established between these two great theologians was a relationship of mutual esteem and friendship, human attitudes that help much in the development of science. In 1254, Albert was elected Provincial of the "Provincia Teutoniae" -- Teutonic Province -- of the Dominican Fathers, which embraced communities spread over a vast territory in Central and Northern Europe. He distinguished himself for the zeal with which he exercised this ministry, visiting the communities and constantly recalling his fellow brothers to fidelity, to the teachings and examples of St. Dominic.

His gifts did not pass unnoticed and the Pope of that time, Alexander IV, wanted Albert next to him for a certain time in Anagni -- where the Pope frequently went -- in Rome itself and in Viterbo, to make use of his theological counsel. The same Supreme Pontiff appointed him bishop of Regensburg, a great and famous diocese, which was, however, going through a difficult time. From 1260 to 1262 Albert carried out this ministry with tireless dedication, succeeding in taking peace and concord to the city, reorganizing parishes and convents, and giving a new impulse to charitable activities.

In the years 1263-1264 Albert preached in Germany and in Bohemia, charged by Pope Urban IV, to return then to Cologne to take up again his mission of docent, scholar and writer. Being a man of prayer, of learning and of charity, he enjoyed great authoritativeness in his interventions, in several affairs of the Church and of the society of the time. He was above all a man of reconciliation and peace in Cologne, where the archbishop had entered into harsh opposition with the city's institutions; he spent himself during the unfolding of the Second Council of Lyon in 1274, convoked by Pope Gregory X to foster the union between the Latin and Greek Churches, after the separation of the Great Schism of the East of 1054; he clarified the thought of Thomas Aquinas, who was the object of objections and even of wholly unjustified condemnations.

He died in the cell of his monastery of the Holy Cross in Cologne in 1280, and very soon was venerated by his fellow brothers. The Church proposed him to the devotion of the faithful with his beatification in 1622 and his canonization in 1931, when Pope Pius XI proclaimed him Doctor of the Church. It was undoubtedly an appropriate recognition of this great man of God and illustrious scholar not only of the truths of the faith, but of very many other sectors of learning; in fact, glancing at the titles of his very numerous works, we realize that his culture was something prodigious, and that his encyclopedic interest led him to be concerned not only with philosophy and theology, as other contemporaries, but also with every other discipline then known, from physics to chemistry, from astronomy to mineralogy, from botany to zoology. For this reason Pope Pius XII named him patron of cultivators of the natural sciences and he is also called "Doctor universalis" precisely because of the vastness of his interest and learning.

Of course, the scientific methods adopted by St. Albert the Great are not those that were to be affirmed in subsequent centuries. His method consisted simply in observation, description and classification of phenomenons studied, but thus he opened the door for future works.

He still has much to teach us. Above all, St. Albert shows that between faith and science there is no opposition, notwithstanding some episodes of misunderstanding recorded in history. A man of faith and prayer, as St. Albert the Great was, can cultivate serenely the study of the natural sciences and progress in the knowledge of the micro and macro cosmos, discovering the laws proper of matter, because all this concurs to feed the thirst for and love of God. The Bible speaks to us of creation as the first language through which God -- who is supreme intelligence, who is Logos -- reveals to us something of himself. The Book of Wisdom, for example, states that the phenomena of nature, gifted with grandeur and beauty, are as the works of an artist, through which, by analogy, we can know the Author of creation (cf. Wisdom 13:5). With a classic similarity in the Medieval Age and the Renaissance one can compare the natural world with a book written by God, which we read on the basis of several approaches of the sciences (cf. Address to the participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Oct. 31, 2008). How many scientists, in fact, in the wake of St. Albert the Great, have carried forward their research inspired by wonder and gratitude before a world that, in the eyes of scholars and believers, seemed and seems the good work of a wise and loving Creator! Scientific study is transformed then into a hymn of praise. It was well understood by a great astrophysicist of our times, whose cause of beatification has been introduced, Enrico Medi, who wrote: "Oh, you mysterious galaxies ... I see you, I calculate you, I understand you, I study you and discover you, I penetrate you and I am immersed in you. From you I take the light and I do science, I take the motion and do science, I take the sparkling of colors and make poetry; I take you stars in my hands, and trembling in the unity of my being I raise you beyond yourselves, and in prayer I hand you to the Creator, that only through me you stars can adore" (The Works. Hymn to Creation).

St. Albert the Great reminds us that between science and faith there is friendship, and that the men of science can undertake, through their vocation to the study of nature, a genuine and fascinating journey of sanctity.

His extraordinary openness of mind is revealed also in a cultural operation that he undertook with success, that is, in the acceptance and evaluation of the thought of Aristotle. Spreading at the time of St. Albert, in fact, was knowledge of numerous works of this great Greek philosopher who lived in the fourth century before Christ, above all in the realm of ethics and metaphysics. They demonstrated the force of reason, explained with lucidity and clarity the meaning and structure of reality, of its intelligibility, the value and end of human actions. St. Albert the Great opened the door for the complete reception of the philosophy of Aristotle in Medieval philosophy and theology, a reception elaborated later in a definitive way by St. Thomas. This reception of a philosophy, let us say, pagan and pre-Christian was an authentic cultural revolution for that time. And yet, many Christian thinkers feared Aristotle's philosophy, non-Christian philosophy, above all because, presented by its Arab commentators, it was interpreted in a way of appearing, at least in some points, as altogether irreconcilable with the Christian faith. Thus a dilemma was posed: are faith and reason in opposition to one another or not?

Here is one of the great merits of St. Albert: with scientific rigor he studied the works of Aristotle, convinced that everything that is rational is compatible with the faith revealed in sacred Scriptures. In other words, St. Albert the Great, thus contributed to the formation of an autonomous philosophy, different from theology and united to it only by the unity of the truth. Thus was born in the 13th century a clear distinction between these two learnings, philosophy and theology, which, in dialogue between them, cooperate harmoniously in the discovery of the authentic vocation of man, thirsty for truth and blessedness: and it is above all theology, defined by St. Albert as "affective science," which indicates to man his call to eternal joy, a joy that gushes from full adherence to the truth.

St. Albert the Great was able to communicate these concepts in a simple and comprehensible way. Authentic son of St. Dominic, he preached willingly to the people of God, which were conquered by his word and the example of his life.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us pray to the Lord so that there will never be lacking in the Holy Church learned, pious and wise theologians like St. Albert the Great and may he help each one of us to make our own the "formula of sanctity" that he followed in his life: "To want everything that I want for the glory of God, to wish and do everything only and always for his glory."

[Translation by ZENIT]

[The Holy Father then greeted the people in several languages. In English, he said:]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In our catechesis on the Christian culture of the Middle Ages, we now turn to Saint Albert, better known as Albertus Magnus, Albert the Great. A universal genius whose interests ranged from the natural sciences to philosophy and theology, Albert entered the Dominicans and, after studies in Paris, taught in Cologne. Elected provincial of the Teutonic province, he served as bishop of Regensburg for four years and then returned to teaching and writing. He played an important part in the Council of Lyons, and he worked to clarify and defend the teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas, his most brilliant student. Albert was canonized and declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XI, and Pope Pius XII named him the patron of the natural sciences. Saint Albert shows us that faith is not opposed to reason, and that the created world can be seen as a "book" written by God and capable of being "read" in its own way by the various sciences. His study of Aristotle also brought out the difference between the sciences of philosophy and theology, while insisting that both cooperate in enabling us to discover our vocation to truth and happiness, a vocation which finds its fulfillment in eternal life.

I welcome all the English-speaking visitors, especially a group of priests, Religious and seminarians visiting from the Philippines. Upon all the English-speaking pilgrims and your families, I invoke God's abundant blessings.

©Copyright 2010 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

[He concluded in Italian:]

Finally, I greet young people, the sick and newlyweds. May the Solemnity of the Annunciation, which we celebrate tomorrow, be for all an invitation to follow the example of Mary Most Holy: for you, dear young people, may it translate into prompt availability to the call of the Father, so that you can be evangelical leaven in our society; for you, dear sick, may it be a stimulus to renew the serene and confident acceptance of the divine will and transform your suffering into a means of redemption for the whole of humanity; may Mary's yes inspire in you, dear newlyweds, an ever more generous commitment in building a family founded on mutual love and eternal Christian values.

[Translation by ZENIT]

James Chastek, The four truths of the principle of contradiction

(Mr. Chastek links to this post by the Maverick Philosopher: An Empirical Refutation of the Law of Non-Contradiction? See the MP's update, More on the Law of Non-Contradiction and its Putative Empirical Refutability.)

James Chastek, Three Platonisms

The evolution of Plato's thought neatly summarized? Do Giovanni Reale and Walter Wehrle agree with it? I really should get around to reading their books... (I take it that this understanding of Plato is standard for the Laval School.)

Insight Scoop: The Scandal of Natural Law: An Interview with J. Budziszewski

John Haldane, Putting Ethics Back Together Again: A British Perspective (via Mirror of Justice)

Similarly, the idea of human rights has its origins not in the secular enlightenment but in the world of the scholastic theology. In the middle ages there was a debate over holy poverty, which turned in part on the question of whether Christ and his Apostles owned anything individually or held everything in common. The conclusion was that everyone has inalienable rights of ownership and control over their own bodies, from which was developed, by extension, the idea that people have rights over what they create through their labor. These various ideas of equality of regard, of duties of beneficence and charity, of the universality of rights of bodily integrity, and of ownership of one’s body and of the products of one’s labor, are fruits of a particular religious understanding of human nature. Detached from that understanding it will only be a matter of time before they dry and wither. Of course, one might seek to develop equivalent fruits from a different source, but the question is whether that can be done.

Brian Tierney's thesis, I believe.

Is waterboarding torture? Fr. Harrison seems to think that this is debatable. Is there a valid distinction between causing physical pain and mental pain/anguish? What of the actual procedure, in which someone is prevented from breathing normally? Even if it does not cause any permanent harm to the body or actual bodily pain, it does seem to be some sort of injury (i.e. an unjust act), an attack on the normal functioning of the body.

David Oderberg, “’Whatever is Changing is Being Changed by Something Else’: A Reappraisal of Premise One of the First Way” (via Edward Feser)

Mark Shea posts a clarification by Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S.:

On this website and elsewhere, my obedience to the Holy Father and overall fidelity to the Church's magisterium was angrily and extensively called in question last week, following some telephoned comments I gave to the New York Times (February 27, 2010, p. A15). I am therefore very appreciative of the Christian and gentlemanly spirit Mark Shea has now shown in deleting those attacks and posting instead an apology and partial retraction. That struck me as especially fitting in this Lenten season in which we are exhorted to strive for humility, forgiveness and reconciliation.

In my brief response to the Times I expressed support for fellow-Catholic Marc Thiessen's analysis and evaluation of the carefully defined and limited waterboarding procedure which, some years ago, was approved by US government authorities and applied by the CIA in the interrogation of three confessed Al Qaeda terrorists. In his new book, Courting Disaster, Thiessen argues at length that this precise type of waterboarding (as distinct from other much harsher procedures like those highlighted in the far-from-impartial Wikipedia entry on this topic) does not legally or ethically constitute torture. I did not tell the Times reporter I supported everything Thiessen says in his book; in fact, I had already previously advised the latter in emails that I thought his references to "pacifism" were mistaken, as was the way he used the double effect principle. I also told him I thought his analysis confuses the object and the intention of a given act, as defined in our Catechism, ##1751-1752. Nevertheless, I regard as manifestly unjust the accusation that Thiessen is guilty of "consequentialism" in a sense that would involve dissent from any teachings of the Church's magisterium.

The central point of my present statement is as follows. A friend has pointed out to me today that in a speech of 6 September 2007 on Catholic prisons ministry, Pope Benedict XVI personally endorsed a statement against torture found in the 2005 Vatican Compendium of the Church's Social Teaching. Citing article 404 of this document, the Holy Father said, "In this regard, I reiterate that the prohibition against torture 'cannot be contravened under any circumstances'".

In my 2005 Living Tradition article on the development of Church teaching regarding torture and corporal punishment (cf. www.rtforum/lt/lt118.html) I had cited and discussed, in my section A13 and footnote 27, this article 404 of the Compendium, which is a publication of the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace. I pointed out then that this and other statements authored by the Commission itself - as distinct from the statements of Popes and Councils which it cites abundantly throughout the Compendium - does not possess magisterial authority; for the various Vatican commissions, unlike the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, are not in themselves arms of the Church's magisterium (teaching authority).

However, having now become aware that Pope Benedict himself has personally reiterated this particular statement of the Compendium, I wish to state that I accept the Holy Father's judgement on this matter, and so would not defend any proposal, under any circumstances, to use torture for any purpose whatsoever - not even to gain potentially life-saving information from known terrorists.
As a matter of fact, I never have expressed any positive personal approval of torture for that last-mentioned purpose (and much less for any other purpose). However, Mr. Shea has informed me that on this website many Catholics have attributed this to me in recent years, seeking to support their own willingness to justify the use of torture in the current war against terrorism. No, all I ever said is this: "My understanding would be that, given the present status quaestionis, the moral legitimacy of torture under the aforesaid desperate circumstances, while certainly not affirmed by the magisterium, remains open at present to legitimate discssusion by Catholic theologians." (That's the last sentence of the aforesaid Living Tradition essay). As readers can see, I thus abstained from saying which side, if any, I would myself take in any such "legitimate discussion". (Frankly, I myself was uncertain about that.)

Nobody disputes that the CIA-approved waterboarding was a thoroughly nasty and frightening experience. However, I submit that whether or not it reached the point of torture does remain a seriously disputed question among reasonable and well-informed people. I think anyone who carefully studies with an open mind the available documentation and arguments on both sides, in regard to both the CIA and Navy SERE versions of waterboarding, will admit that ths is true, regardless of which side they personally come down on. Thiessen is not out on a limb of his own here: he can point, for instance, to the carefully considered witness of expert and independent (non-partisan) Justice Department lawyers to back up his contention that the CIA interrogators were not torturers (cf. p. 352). I will add no further comments on the waterboarding question now, except that I certainly intend to devote more study to this and related issues. However this will be my only statement on the matter in this forum. Indeed, I do not normally read this (or any other) blog, mainly because I think disputes in the blogosphere tend to generate more heat than light - especially since they so often involve intemperate, unsubstantiated, anonymous - and therefore cowardly - attacks on persons and reputations. Also, heat is often accompanied by smoke; so I hope that this present clarification of my own position at least clears the air somewhat.

Fr. Brian W. Harrison, O.S., M.A., S.T.D.
Oblates of Wisdom Study Center
Saint Louis, Missouri
March 11, 2010

Janet Smith, Rethinking Capital Punishment [pdf] (via the combox for this post by the Western Confucian)

Zenit: Papal Address on Internal Forum

Papal Address on Internal Forum

"It Is Necessary to Turn to the Confessional"

VATICAN CITY, MARCH 11, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI delivered today upon receiving in audience participants in the course on the internal forum promoted by the Apostolic Penitentiary.

* * *

Dear Friends,

I am happy to meet with you and to address to each one of you my welcome, on the occasion of the annual course on the internal forum, organized by the Apostolic Penitentiary. I cordially greet Archbishop Fortunato Baldelli, who, for the first time as Major Penitentiary, has led your study sessions and thank him for the words he addressed to me. With him I greet Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, regent, the staff of the Penitentiary and all of you who, with your participation in this initiative, manifest the strong need to reflect further on an essential subject for the ministry and life of presbyters.

Your course is placed, providentially, in the Year for Priests, which I proclaimed for the 150th anniversary of the birth in heaven of St. John Mary Vianney, who exercised in a heroic and fruitful way the ministry of reconciliation. As stated in the letter of proclamation: "All of us priests must hear those words which regard us personally that he (the Curé d'Ars) put in Christ's mouth: 'I will charge my ministers with proclaiming to sinners, whom I am always ready to receive, that my Mercy is infinite.' From the Holy Curé d'Ars we priests can learn not only an inexhaustible trust in the sacrament of penance, which drives us to put it at the center of our pastoral concerns, but also the method of the 'dialogue of salvation' that should be carried out in it."

Where do the roots of heroism and fruitfulness sink, with which St. John Mary Vianney lived his own ministry of confessor? First of all in an intense personal penitential dimension. The awareness of one's own limits and the need to take recourse to Divine Mercy to ask for pardon, to convert the heart and to be sustained on the path of sanctity, are essential in the life of the priest: Only one who has first experienced its greatness can be a convinced herald and administrator of the Mercy of God. Every priest becomes minister of penance by his ontological configuration to Christ, High and Eternal Priest, who reconciles humanity with the Father; however, fidelity in administering the sacrament of reconciliation is entrusted to the responsibility of the presbyter.

We live in a cultural context marked by a hedonistic and relativistic mentality, which tends to cancel God from the horizon of life, does not favor the acquisition of a clear picture of values of reference and does not help to discern good from the evil and to mature a correct sense of sin. This situation makes even more urgent the service of administrators of Divine Mercy.

We must not forget, in fact, that there is a sort of vicious circle between obfuscation of the experience of God and the loss of the sense of sin. However, if we look at the cultural context in which St. John Mary Vianney lived, we see that, in several aspects, it was not so dissimilar from ours. Also in his time, in fact, a hostile mentality to faith existed, expressed by forces that sought actually to impede the exercise of the ministry. In such circumstances, the Holy Curé d'Ars made "the church his home," to lead men to God. He lived radically the spirit of prayer, the personal and intimate relationship with Christ, the celebration of Mass, Eucharistic adoration and evangelical poverty, appearing to his contemporaries as such an evident sign of the presence of God, as to drive so many penitents to approach his confessional.

In the conditions of liberty in which it is possible to exercise today the priestly ministry, it is necessary that the presbyters live in a "lofty way" their own response to their vocation, because only one who becomes every day the living and clear presence of the Lord can arouse in the faithful the sense of sin, give courage and have the desire born for the forgiveness of God.

Dear brothers, it is necessary to turn to the confessional, as place in which to celebrate the sacrament of reconciliation, but also as place in which to "dwell" more often, so that the faithful can find mercy, counsel and comfort, feel loved and understood by God and experience the presence of Divine Mercy, close to the real Presence in the Eucharist.

The "crisis" of the Sacrament of Penance, so often talked about, is a question that faces first of all priests and their great responsibility to educate the People of God to the radical demands of the Gospel. In particular, it asks them to dedicate themselves generously to the listening of sacramental confessions; to guide the flock with courage, so that it will not be conformed to the mentality of this world (cf. Romans 12:2), but will be able to make choices also against the current, avoiding accommodations and compromises. Because of this it is important that the priest have a permanent ascetic tension, nourished by communion with God, and that he dedicate himself to a constant updating in the study of moral theology and of human sciences.

St. John Mary Vianney was able to establish with penitents a real and proper "dialogue of salvation," showing the beauty and greatness of the Lord's goodness and arousing that desire for God and heaven, of which the saints are the first bearers. He affirmed: "The good God knows everything. Before you even confess, he knows that you will sin again and yet he forgives you. How great is the love of our God, which drives him to willingly forget the future, so as to forgive us" (Monnin A., "Il Curato d'Ars. Vita di Gian-Battista-Maria Vianney," Vol. 1, Turin, 1870, p. 130).

It is the priest's task to foster that experience of "dialogue of salvation," which, born of the certainty of being loved by God, helps man to acknowledge his own sin and to introduce himself, progressively, into that stable dynamic of conversion of heart, which leads to the radical renunciation of evil and to a life according to God (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1431).

Dear priests, what an extraordinary ministry the Lord has entrusted to us! As in the Eucharistic Celebration he puts himself in the hands of the priest to continue to be present in the midst of his people, similarly, in the sacrament of reconciliation he entrusts himself to the priest so that men will have the experience of the embrace with which the Father receives the prodigal son, restoring him the filial dignity and reconstituting him fully heir (cf. Luke 15:11-32).

May the Virgin Mary and the Holy Curé d'Ars help us to experience in our life the breadth, the length, the height and the depth of the Love of God (cf. Ephesians 3:18-19), to be faithful and generous administrators. My heartfelt thanks to all of you to whom I willingly impart my blessing.

[Translation by ZENIT]

James Chastek, Being as an "ing" word

The word “being” has two parts: the infinitive verb “be” and the suffix “-ing”. One difficulty is that the sign “-ing” signifies more than one thing. Take the word “running”- there are two relevant senses:

1.) Running is healthy, though it can harm the knees.

2.) Bill is running a marathon.

The first mode of the word running is a noun (or gerund) the second mode is a participle. Both modes can be said in either the subject or the predicate, viz:

1.) One thing that can hurt your knees is running

2.) The running wolf caught the gazelle.

The difference between the modes of the word is whether the term consignifies with time. I say “consignifies” because neither word signifies time (running signifies some motion of the legs), but the participle is bespeaks the past, present or future action whereas the gerund doesn’t. When one says “running is healthy” he isn’t saying that there is running happening now or then or in the future, but when he says “the wolf was running”, he is. Because of this, the gerund is to the participle as the abstract to the concrete, or as the potential to the actual: the running that is healthy (gerund) is actual in Bill running (participle). Likewise, being as a gerund is potential to being as a participle.

The difference between these two senses of being is crucial, and the later Scholastics (including the -gasp – manual Thomists) gave it a prominent place. The distinction was overlooked by Kant- along with the division of potency and act that is needed to articulate it- and the omission shows. In his famous an influential critique of the ontological argument, Kant is right to say that existence (or being) is not contained the concept of something, but he goes wrong when he construes this as meaning that it is not a “real” predicate, but has only a “logical” existence. Every defined state or “concept of something” is a noun or gerundive, or is conceived of in this mode, and thus the participle is not contained in it according to its mode, but is opposed to it. But this is because the participle is more real and concrete, and because the concept has a “logical” existence. Kant notices, correctly, that the participle cannot be derived from the gerundive; but he misconstrues the character of their opposition when he calls the participle logical or less real. Exactly the opposite is the case.

(N.b. we don’t so much object to Kant’s case against the ontological proof, which is very profound, but to the terms he uses to describe being as a participle. These terms, in my opinion, are not necessary to make Kant’s case, but they stuck, and they played a crucial role in making metaphysics seem silly.)

It is being as concrete and real- that is, as signified in the mode of a participle that the ancients and medievals sought. When taken precisely in this sense, it is distinct from the concept being or being as quasi-definable. So taken, this kind of metaphysics has always been a metaphysics of existence, at least inchoately. That said, no participle is definable precisely as participle, just as “running” is not defined precisely as participle, but only as a gerundive (participles function as adjectives, but they do so by including a time reference, and definable things have no time reference)

So what if we return to the ontological proof when considering being as a participle? The question then becomes “to what does being belong?” St. Thomas would compare it to heating: which heats: the stone or the moving molecule? to which does to heat belong?” Clearly, to heat belongs to moving molecule in a way that it does not belong to the stone. So to what does being belong just as heating belongs to the moving molecule? I’d submit that unless one admits the existence of God, he must say that there is not answer to this question, even in principle. Said another way, if one claims know God does not exist, he must claim to know that there is no answer to the question “to what does being belong?” or “what is, simply speaking?” or “what is like moving molecules heat?” I’d argue, at the very east, that we can’t know that there is no answer to this question.

Public Discourse: Recovering Sight after Scientism by Edward Feser

Zenit: On St. Bonaventure's Concept of History
"The Richness of the Word of Christ Is Inexhaustible"

Blinded by Scientism by Edward Feser. James Chastek comments.

The Berquist audio files are being moved to this website. (via Just Thomism)

Public Discourse: Marc Thiessen, Double Effect, and the Torturer’s Dilemma by Christopher O. Tollefsen, February 26, 2010

Both Marc Thiessen and his critics have misunderstood an important moral distinction on the question of torture.

"Aristotelian Liberals"

A FB group:

Aristotelian Liberalism is a burgeoning tradition in political philosophy, an Aristotelian form of classical liberalism or libertarianism.

Aristotelian Liberalism synthesizes the best features of Aristotelian ethical and political thought and liberal political and economic thought. Aristotelian Liberals argue that a neo-Aristotelian philosophy not only provides liberalism with a sounder foundation, it also provides liberalism with the resources to answer traditional left-liberal, communitarian, and conservative challenges by avoiding some Enlightenment pitfalls that have plagued it since its inception: atomism, an a-historical and a-contextual view of human nature, license, excessive normative neutrality, the impoverishment of ethics and the trivialization of rights.

Aristotelian Liberalism attempts to transcend the liberal/communitarian debate by embracing liberalism's commitment to pluralism, diversity, and the free market while grounding politics in a eudaimonistic theory of virtue ethics and natural rights. Aristotelian Liberalism avoids the specters that continue to plague communitarianism – paternalism and totalitarianism – and the traditional communitarian and conservative criticisms of liberalism – atomism and license – while promoting freedom in community and human flourishing.

Aristotelian Liberalism holds that man's natural end is a life of eudaimonia (flourishing); that virtue is constitutive of one's own flourishing but must be freely chosen to count as such; that man is a profoundly social being, but nevertheless that individuals are ends-in-themselves and not means to the ends of others; that the right to liberty is a metanormative ethical principle necessary for protecting the possibility of all forms of human flourishing and an interpersonal ethical principle such that rights-respecting behavior is constitutive of one's own eudaimonia. Thus, unlike most Enlightenment versions of liberalism, Aristotelian Liberalism is not solely concerned with rights or political justice narrowly conceived. It is also important to identify ethical and cultural institutions and principles necessary for bringing about and maintaining a free and flourishing society.

Hence, Aristotelian Liberalism embraces free markets and free enterprise but not statist capitalism; it is severely critical of the state. There is still an excessive focus on the State and what it can and should do for us. Our focus, rather, needs to return to a notion of politics as discourse and deliberation between equals in joint pursuit of eudaimonia and to what we as members of society can and should do for ourselves and each other. True immanent politics presupposes liberty. Thus, Aristotelian Liberalism seeks to shift the locus of politics from the state to civil society. The market is not the whole of society, however; nor is politics - rather, both are aspects of society while the state is an antisocial institution.

Some prominent Aristotelian liberals are:
Douglas Rasmussen (http://new.stjohns.edu/academics/graduate/liberalarts/departments/philosophy/faculty/bi_phi_rasmussend.sju)

Douglas Den Uyl, VP of Educational Programs at Liberty Fund (http://www.libertyfund.org/)

Roderick Long (http://www.praxeology.net/)

Chris Matthew Sciabarra (http://www.dialecticsandliberty.com/)

Fred D. Miller, Jr. (http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/phil/faculty/miller/miller.html)

Ayn Rand (http://www.objectivistcenter.net/)

Fellow Travelers:
Murray Rothbard (http://www.mises.org/content/mnr.asp)

For your convenience, edification and reading/viewing pleasure, I have created an Aristotelian Liberal Amazon.com Store (http://astore.amazon.com/geofallaplau-20), which includes books on this burgeoning political philosophy, on market anarchism and the Austrian school of economics, and liberty-themed fiction - especially fantasy and science fiction (books and dvds).

Edward Feser on Fr. Pinckaers

From the comments to his latest:

Hello all,

Bwall and Anon 1, I agree that Pinckaers intends to be fair-minded and doesn't indulge in the knee-jerk Neo-Scholastic bashing others do. But I still think he's just wrong to pit the manualists' understanding of obligation against the other themes mentioned -- as if what existed was an incompatibility, as opposed to a mere difference of emphasis -- and gravely wrong to insinuate that the manualists' position somehow presupposes Ockhamism (especially given that he concedes, as of course he must, that they were not nominalists). In general, I am utterly opposed to the mentality that holds that Catholic thought -- here or elsewhere -- somehow got way off track between Trent and Vatican II, a mentality which you find in writers like Pinckaers no less than in dissenters like Curran and Co. And this sort of mindset has, unfortunately, contributed to a contemporary tendency of even some conservative Catholic thinkers to want to distance themselves somewhat from the manualists. This nonsense has got to stop.

As Bruce says, though, the mentality is to be found in surprising places, and I think you're right, Bruce, to see a tendency toward Platonism as part of the problem, at least among conservatives who evince hostility to Aristotelianism, Thomism, Neo-Scholasticism, etc. In conservative Catholic circles, this "Platonic" mentality manifests itself in a tendency to pit Augustinianism and the Church Fathers in general against the period between Trent and Vatican II. This is standard nouvelle theologie shtick, for example, which one finds in de Lubac, Balthasar, et al.

Part of the motivation here is ecumenical -- a desire to minimize Catholic-Protestant differences. Part of it is a tendency toward mysticism and a temperamental dislike of the rigor and systematic quality of Scholastic thinking. And part of it reflects, I think, a moral rigorism of its own -- a dislike of the realistic and down-to-earth quality of the manualists' approach to ethics, and an insistence on something more high-falutin' and touchy-feely.

This is why in sexual morality, for example, these folks often fling around the same sorts of caricaures of Neo-Scholasticism that theological liberals do -- "All those horrible manualists cared about is what body part goes where" blah blah blah -- and prefer to talk instead about a communion of persons, "one flesh union" etc. That's all fine as far as it goes, but sure enough, the moment they have to explain why exactly this rules out homosexual acts, marital sodomy, and the like, they are themselves back to talking about... why this body part is supposed to go here rather than there etc. But they do so in a way that is totally unconvincing to those who don't already agree with them, because they've chucked out the A-T metaphysics that makes the appeal to natural function intelligible. The whole thing is farcical.

In other ways too I think the decision of many Catholic conservatives after Vatican II to abandon the Neo-Scholastic tradition has been rather obviously a disaster. The disappearance of general apologetics is only one example: In response to the militant secularism that has only increased since Vatican II (all the "dialogue" with "modern man" notwithstanding), too many conservative Catholics have nothing to say except that Christianity is a better way of upholding "the digity of the human person" -- which, of course, secularists don't buy for a moment, because they disagree in the first place about what counts as upholding the dignity of the human person. To settle that question requires getting into the metaphysics of human nature, the metaphysics of the good, and all the other stuff the Neo-Scholastics did so well and their successors do so badly when they do it at all. There is also the collapse of catechesis and the disappearance of a general understanding among the faithful of what Catholic theology teaches and how it all fits together into a rational system -- something R. R. Reno lamented in a recent First Things piece, and traced to the abandonment of Neo-Scholasticism.

Is it merely a difference in emphasis? Or is obligation/law taken to be the foundational principle for the science, around which everything else is "organized"? Which offers a better moral theology, the Summa Theologiae or the manuals?

Edward Feser, Scholastic’s Bookshelf, Part III

Zenit: On St. Bonaventure
"Proposing This Theme I Feel a Certain Nostalgia"

St. Thomas Aquinas must be coming up soon; perhaps next week?

Francesco Sisci, A new battle for Confucius

A new battle for Confucius By Francesco Sisci (via the Western Confucian)

A new translation of Mozi's corpus has been made available by the Chinese University Press:
The Mozi: A Complete Translation by Ian Johnston (Translator). The Chinese University Press (December 15, 2009). ISBN-10: 9629962705. Price US$85, 1,032 pages.

It looks like the same translation is being published by Columbia University Press here in the States. Too bad it's not bilingual.

Mr. Sisci writes:

Furthermore, Mozi's doctrine of "universal love" sounded like the idea of Christian love propagated in the 17th century, as well as like the drive to egalitarianism by the communists in the 20th century.

The Confucianis criticized the Mohists for obliterating social relations -- if this charge is accurate (I haven't read the complete Mohist corpus, only selections), then Mozi and his followers are more like liberals than Christians. The Christian tradition has a doctrine of universal love (which is not identical with Confucian ren, given that the object of charity is primarily God), but it also recognizes that there is an order in charity. Moreover, we have different duties to people, according to their relation to us, or what they have done for us. Hence, the allied virtues to justice. I do not recall what the Mohist account of justice is, and whether they recognize these duties. It's something I'll have to research, if I obtain a copy of the complete corpus.

He also contrasts Mozi with Sunzi:

Importantly, the book provides a basis to reconsider an important aspect of Chinese traditional thinking - military strategy. Johnston is the first person to provide both a credible Chinese textual reconstruction and a translation of Mozi's military chapters. Mozi theorized about defensive wars and his followers, the Mohists, were renowned tacticians who helped organize the defense of small states being attacked by larger ones.

This was at a time when small states were being gobbled up by large ones competing for dominance in the Chinese central plain. The aggressive theories of famous strategist Sunzi helped conceive those and many other future wars of attack, whereas Mozi argued against aggressive wars.

It is very likely that, as popularly described in the unsuccessful 2006 Chinese-Japanese movie production Mo Gong, in the Third century BC Mohist militants aided small states to withstand attacks and then tried to apply radical political and social reforms that went against the interests of the local elites.

Johnston's translation of Mozi could cast new light on Sunzi's theories and Chinese strategic thinking. It's possible that gong, a word commonly understood as aggressive war, at the time meant more precisely war by a large force against a small one, as Lu Xiang, a modern student of Sunzi argues in a forthcoming essay. This kind of war is what Sunzi preferred and Mozi opposed.

Sunzi does not appear to be in favor of unjust wars of aggression, as he does discuss the moral component of victory. Teachers of maneuver warfare and 3GW claim Sunzi as one of their own; numbers may be important if one is one the attack, so it is not clear to me that this is a justification of conquest of smaller polities by larger polities. Did Mozi advocate a purely reactive form of warfare? If so, he would seem to be a bit too idealistic, to the point of causing defeat for anyone who followed his teachings. I remember reading one issue of Lone Wolf and Cub in which the protagonist tells a dying samurai who was disgraced because he did not stay with his lord's palaquin but chose instead to go on the offensive against assassins that attack and defense are the same, since they have the same object.

(How deep is Mr. Sisci's understanding of contemporary Chinese society and classical Chinese culture? He seems to be an apologist for the present government and the Patriotic Associations.)

I'd like to read up on Mohist logic. (Indian logic too.)

Related links:
墨子
Mozi - Chinese Text Project
SEP
Mozi and Confucianism

The Meaning of Life

At the reception for xiao Jimmy's wedding one of his high school friends asked for an update on my life, and remembered I had been studying philosophy. He jokingly asked, "What's the meaning of life." That is the question Americans associate with philosophy, I suppose. This question can be understood in two ways: an existential question that aims at knowing what the purpose or end of human living is, and thus it relates to ethics. Or a more "general" question that pertains to metaphysics -- why do things exist. (Of course, this is a question which does have import for how we live.) The short and simple answer for both questions is God. It might have been a good opportunity to talk about God being our ultimate end. But would this have been well-received, even if I were to approach as a philosopher rather than as a Christian? Would it have been prudent to talk about our Lord then? I regret not taking the conversation to a more serious level.

The FSSP is running a series of articles originally written by Dr. Dennis McInerny for their letter.

Qui non est mecum, contra me est; et, qui non congregat mecum, spargit.

Matthew 12:30

Yesterday at school I was struck by the absence of God during the school day -- that is, He is not mentioned at all. It is what you would expect at an American public school, but how can this be acceptable to any right-thinking person of good will? The other day a student said, "Oh my God," and I told him not to say that. Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to explain to him way, that we should not take His name in vain; we should instead reverence it. (I wouldn't want to give him the impression that being a secularist or anti-theist is the norm.)

At any rate, man can come to know that he has a duty to pay due homage to God as Creator of the universe, to perform the acts proper to the virtue of religio. This is a precept of the Natural Law, even if it cannot be fulfilled perfectly without from grace and charity. Our public schools, in ignoring God and refusing to discuss Him (as opposed to teaching about "religions"), thereby belittle His importance and foster the lack of proper respect. God has no place in the daily life of our public schools, and students are habituated accordingly -- much potential spiritual growth for beginners is hampered with God is effectively excluded for half of the day (7 or 8 hours out of the 16 during which we are awake). If we are already living as if God is not important to us, then how can we take His commandments seriously when we are confronted with severe temptation?

False religions, those which teach polytheism or atheism or monism, may be tolerated, but they should never have been granted equal status with Christianity. The reaction against Christianity entails a rejection of God (or right monotheism). One cannot preserve the latter in a formerly Christian society.

Discussion of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware's lecture at CUA at Eirenikon.