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14082725 No.14082725 [Reply] [Original]

Has Aristotelian-Thomism ever been refuted?

>> No.14082753

Yes look for critique of basic foundationalisum.

>> No.14082858

>>14082753
>4
who

>> No.14082874
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14082874

>>14082858
>for you

>> No.14082892

>>14082874
good

>> No.14082896
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14082896

Simplicius retroactively refuted thomism by refuting the proto-thomist Philoponus who thought he had refuted the proto-scholastic Proclus - On the Eternity of the World.

>> No.14082975

>>14082896
so why is lit thomist if it got btfo

>> No.14083009

Why is Thomas so goddamned handsome?

>> No.14083015
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14083015

>>14082725
Been criticised? Certainly
Been refuted? I could care less

>> No.14083049

>>14082975
Because /lit/ is full of half-educated larpers.

>> No.14083090

>>14082975
Because it didn't actually get BTFO

>> No.14083093

When I hear Thomism I think of the gospel of thomas ;/

>> No.14083115

>>14083090
but that guy just said thomism got btfo (ミ￣ー￣ミ)

>> No.14083131

>>14083090
Ah so that's how it works?
Ok, then realism is true.
Because I said it lol.

>> No.14084442

Yes, Kant, Spinoza and Hume all offer their own type of refutation.

>> No.14084455

>>14084442
But all of those got retroactively btfo by Shankara

>> No.14084457

>>14082725
In short, no.
>>14083115
That guy is wrong.

>> No.14084461

>>14082858

Any anti-foundationalist. Kant, Hegel, Quine, Sellars, McDowell, for example.

>> No.14084463

>>14084442
None of which work
>>14084455
Based

>> No.14084464

>>14084455

Okay, in what way?

>> No.14084481

>>14084463
Thank you

>>14084464
I have barely read any Shankara. I just know that it's considered based to say things like that here.

>> No.14084484

>>14084461
>McDowell
McDowell is anti foundationalist? Source?

>> No.14084512

>>14082896
>retroactively refuted
Why do you keep saying this? Stop

>> No.14084518

The Aristotelian-Thomistic must provide how these works:
(I) How Substance, Essences work. Why even accept them over nominalism? (Hume's criticism)
(II) How is the PSR is necessary? Why can’t we accept brute contingent facts? (Hume's criticism)
(III) How the PSR doesn't entail necessitarianism. (Spinoza's Criticism)
(IV) How the PSR doesn't just end up being an argument about conceivability (Criticism of Kant).
(V) How Dualism in the Thomistic tradition works. (Criticisms made by Monist)
(VI) How God has agency of any sort — why should we attribute any agentic predicates?
(VII) Why do we have to believe in potency/act?
(VIII) Why is evil the privation of evil? Why is the good not the privation of the good? Why are they even opposites?
(IX) Why should we accept any form of foundationalism/intuitions/givens? (Criticism of the Myth of the Given)
(X) How does Aquinas satisfy the question why evil exists at all if God exists?
I haven’t seen many satisfying answers to these questions.

>> No.14084523

>>14084484
By foundationalism, here I mean an idea of the given as anywhere in our experiences. That there is some given that structures the rest of our beliefs foundationally.

>> No.14084530

>>14084518
>Roman numerals
Cringe.

>> No.14084539

>>14084518
Litteraly half of these are loaded questions.

>> No.14084540

>>14084518
>(X) How does Aquinas satisfy the question why evil exists at all if God exists?

>> No.14084561

>>14084539

Well, okay. Go ahead and tell me why? Don't merely make the assertion.

>> No.14084596

Figures! Thomism in REWWWOONSS

>> No.14084627

>>14084518
Have you read any modern Thomists, particularly in the analytic tradition? I haven’t, but it seems like these are the questions they’d be grappling with. Ignore all Edward fesers..

>> No.14084667

>>14084627

No, it's not really a tradition I have personally read. I'm familiar with Feser, Oderberg, Pruss acolytes though.

>> No.14084701
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14084701

>>14084518
>(X) How does Aquinas satisfy the question why evil exists at all if God exists?
You're asking "why ... God"? Seriously?

And you would know the answer to half of these if you had read Aristotle like you were supposed to.

>> No.14084723

>>14084701

Yeah, I just don't understand why evil can't exist postively. It seems to all the time. I don't understand why I have to accept that only good can exist.

>> No.14084774

>>14084723
>I don't understand why I have to accept that only good can exist.
Because you're a brainlet mortal and do not and cannot comprehend the good perfectly. You can call it God being a trickster or the purpose of life is to good and go to heaven (a trial/test). But simple fact is you're fallen and mortal and recognize evil as something useful sometimes. Violence, slaughter of friendly loving animals, war for resources, so on. It's part of being in the animal kingdom. Evil to you is sometimes necessary. Therefore evil does not appear to be a lack. But it is.

>> No.14084787

>>14084723
Evil is parasitic to good. You can do an act that is good, for the sake of it being good, but you cannot do an act for the sake of it being evil.

>> No.14084798

>>14084774
Skeptical theology doesn't work. The reason it doesn't work is because a Thomist generally want to say that we have access to the good, and yet don't understand the good at the same time. If I can recognize instances of good/evil in every day occurrence, I have the natural capacity to know evil. Yet the Thomist wants to also say that we don't when it comes to viewing "the grand state of things overall." It's like having your cake and eating it too. I don't understand how they are not just special pleading in certain circumstances.

I also don't understand why God can't have a diabolic sense of humor.

>> No.14084805

>>14084701
>>14084774
Not that guy but Cringe. Glib fake Christian acting like problem of evil isn’t a real problem, when real theologians and Christian moral philosophers treat the problem with the utmost respect and humility.

Your answer to the problem is dumb anyway. Those phenomena are contingent on the system in which they exist, on the universe being what it is and not something else. Also although God can bring good out of evil and permits evil he does not will evil to happen and to consider any particular act of evil necessary does not appear very orthodox to me...

>> No.14084812

>>14084787
Maybe it's parasitic to good, maybe it's its own ontological state. Maybe inverse is true: good is parasitic to evil. These have to be argued for. And I suspect that saying that the "good" is just how things naturally are not only commits the naturalistic fallacy, but just equivocates on what people tend to say is evil as a positive ontological state. In which the thomist is literally talking about something else.

>> No.14084835

>>14084798
>we have access to the good, and yet don't understand the good at the same time
I want you to take a handful of dice. Roll them on the table. Now squeeze lemon juice in your eyes. Now tell me the number you rolled.

That's just what our senses are like, and likewise our ability to perceive the good. What can I tell you.

>I also don't understand why God can't have a diabolic sense of humor.
>"why isn't perfect goodness diabolical"
room temperature IQ

>> No.14084852

>>14084805
>Also although God can bring good out of evil and permits evil he does not will evil to happen
That's pretty much what I quoted from Aquinas you big pseud.

>> No.14084855

>>14084835
That's just begging the question. I think we can understand the good and evil directly. Not to mention, I have yet to get an answer of why good and evil exist at all, or aren't just constitutive of human reasoning.

>> No.14084864

>>14084835
why isn't he perfect evil

>> No.14084875

>>14084864
because words mean things

>> No.14084879

>>14084812
> And I suspect that saying that the "good" is just how things naturally are not only commits the naturalistic fallacy, but just equivocates on what people tend to say is evil as a positive ontological state

>> No.14084897

>>14084855
>aren't just constitutive of human reasoning.
I already told you: good and evil are what you perceive. they are your judgment that you pass on whatever stimuli is hitting the back of your eyeballs.

>why good and evil exist at all
well if you're passing judgment on a thing as being "good" or "evil" then certainly these properties exist, right? they don't not exist, otherwise you wouldn't have a word for them.

why are you arguing with yourself. it seems like you have some preconceived notions about Good and Evil being concrete things that exist out in the world somewhere

>> No.14084899

>>14084561
Basically all of them are phrased as "Why should we do X". As written you can litteraly answer them with "why not".
The question in philosophy is If a point is well argued or not, talking of "shoulds" implies a preconception about which kind of points are to be argued which has no place in philosophy.

>> No.14084912

>>14084897

That view is insane and just begs the question. Good/Evil can't be merely a descriptive feature of the world because they it wouldn't have any normative status.

Also, as for your other view, yes they exist in some sense. However, not as the classic theist such as Aquinas deems them. You can carry them in relation to dispositional properties as the classic empiricist did.

>> No.14084922

>>14084899
You don't need a reason for a positive ontological claim. You don't need one to not make an assertion.

>> No.14084923

>>14084875
I don't know what you mean

>> No.14084924

>another thread spirals into the problem of evil
*yawn*
It was a good thread.

>> No.14084933

Sorry, I meant to say, "You do need a reason" for a postive ontological claim. You don't need one if you're not making an assertion.

My bad.

>> No.14084944

>>14084924

I offered multiple problems, but people want to localize on the problem of evil because it's the lowest hanging fruit.

>> No.14084951

>>14084922
None of your onthological claims are positive.

>> No.14084952

>>14084912
>That view is insane
Then I am a one-eyed madman in a world of the blind.

>Good/Evil can't be merely a descriptive feature of the world because they it wouldn't have any normative status.
I didn't say there were *merely* descriptive. You asked what they were, I answered in the context you were asking about. Good is also a form, an idea and ideal. From its influence came creation. The privation of good in the mortal realm is called evil, like we've all understood from the start (except you).

>> No.14084954
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14084954

>>14084922
>>14084933
>22
>33

>> No.14084958

>>14084951

Duh.I'm not making positive metaphysical claims when I critique the thomistic.

>> No.14084964

>>14084933
Ah, better, I misunderstood what you meant in >>14084951; my bad.

>> No.14084968

>>14084924
>>14084944
Fine. I'll tackle the other bit, which is related.
>Why is the good not the privation of the good? Why are they even opposites?
Again, because words mean things. They are opposites because good=good, and evil=lack of good. Pure evil if such a thing is possible is a complete lack of good. Pure good is perfect goodness, which belongs solely to God.

>> No.14084982

>>14084968

Unless you're saying that evil can't exist ontologically (there's some sort of logical contradiction), then you'll have to demonstrate why that's the case.

>> No.14084996

>>14084952

If you're saying that evil just impinges on the eyes, and we see it, and it's just there for the taking, that's not a normative claim.

>> No.14084999

>>14084982
[Jerry_Seinfeld_donut_hole_joke.wav]

I'm saying it is a thing that exists only by another thing's absence. And it might not exist if nobody EVER notices it. But then it's not evil at all, because things are considered good or evil after human judgment.

>> No.14085024

>>14084999
Which is just an assertion.

Also if things are only evil/good if someone witnesses them, not only is this phenomenalism and not Thomistic-Aristotlean philosophy, it's still not gonna resolve the problem.

>> No.14085040

Yes. Aristotle was the worst Greek and Christianity is the worst religion.

>> No.14085053

>>14085040
Points unargued are to be dismissed without argument, so no.

>> No.14085133

>>14082725
If you just refuse to accept the PSR the whole system collapses. And you can also point to them how crazy it is to have any sort of confidence in obscure and barely intelligible concepts like Universals, Essences, Necessary Being etc. And the lack of serious evidence for the existence of teleology, the list of objections goes on and on.

Also, given that Thomists often accuse atheists of irrationality for eg. not accepting that there is a perfect symmetry between human reason and objective reality, they owe as an explanation as to why (1) they believe in the Trinitarian Doctrine even though it violates the principle of noncontradiction and (2) how they justify believing in Christianity instead of eg. Islam even though they openly admit that they can't justify their choice through rational argumentation.

>> No.14085275

>>14085133

Well, teleology doesn't 'seriously' really lack evidence. That's debated in the sciences, particularly biology. To have normativity instantiated back in the world is basically a must, I think. I don't think this requires essences. I also think the idea of a necessary being — just being the world as a whole — is truth-apt. My general quibble with the Thomist is why the necessary being needs to be outside the world, or how that being doesn't have the univocity that Duns claimed when he criticized Aquinas.

Also, the symmetry between human reason and reality is, I think fair. That rationalist thesis has to hold if we are to have any way of understanding the world at all. Otherwise, all our knoweldge becomes radically contingent.

>> No.14085321

>>14082896
Stop confusing retroactively with preemptively. I will continue to post this every time I see this mistake on a literature board.

>> No.14085386

>>14085321
he used it right, though

>> No.14085439

>>14085275
Teleology absolutely lacks evidence, since the idea that there are inherent purposes in nature cannot be verified through observation. Even contemporary Intelligent Design theorists reject it.
On your second point, the problem with the idea of a necessary being is that it's utterly obscure and unintelligible. It basically means that there is a being whose existence requires no further explanation because it explains itself, how is that even possible is of course never clarified.
The symmetry between reason and reality is fair to some extend, but no to the degree that Rationalists take it, discovering a priori metaphysical truths that supposedly need no empirical confirmation. And all our knowledge is fallible, there is not a single belief that is shielded completely for sceptical doubts.

>> No.14085591

>>14085275
>why the necessary being needs to be outside the world
Because if it's inside the world, it would be subject to time, and thus it would be subject to change, and thus it would not be fully actual.

God is fully actualized and perfect and he is immutable, so he exists outside of time.
Either that, or God is inside the world but doesn't experience time, but instead is present everywhere at every moment in his Full actuality.

>> No.14085617

>>14085439

I don't understand why they couldn't be verified. You just assume a general hypothetical necessity, that under certain conditions, would hold. Biological functions do this all the time in by self-maintenance.

I don't understand what it means to "further explain" whatever is necessary. As for how that's possible, I also don't see the problem: there's no logical contradiction therefore it's possible.

Whether all our knoweldge is fallible doesn't follow whether or not we have knoweldge of the world. And it seems fine to assert certain a priori truths about reality: two things cannot occupy the same point in same, causation has to be dynamic between A and B. Perceptual experiences are spatial-temporal. The opposite, that the world stands against our reason, is in principle impossible to prove as well.

>> No.14085634

>>14085591

The world isn't "inside the world". So, it conditions its own change. Change as a by-product of space-time. And those can be chalked up to be a type of emergent property by some.

And I understand that god is "outside" of the world in a logical sense. But then his being is ontological distinct from the world, or it's not. If it is, then we get into interactionist problems, and how the PSR can be applied from the world to God. This is the critique made by Duns Scotus.

>> No.14085638

>>14082725
Which part of it?

>> No.14085694

>>14085634
Im not really familiar with the critics but by and large I accept the thomistic proof for being coherent.

>> No.14085767

has animism ever been refuted?

>> No.14085848

>>14085767
How can you refute animism without proving that rocks have no conscience?
You cant prove a negative lol

>> No.14086154

>>14085694

You should. Some of the best criticism of the scholastics is the scholastics themselves. They had many disputes internally.

>> No.14087397

>>14083009

Because he was the subject of idealized portraiture and he lived at a period when photography was unavailable. Also to the OP's question, the legitimate philosophical refutation is carried out on a daily basis by edgy 16 year olds who are actually in the right, though most of them are later deluded by life itself into a more moderate position, for the sake of a pleasant existence.

>> No.14087541
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14087541

There are certainly worse forms of mental illness that's for sure

>> No.14087570

>>14084627
Would you be able to recommend any? I have family who is beginning to look into Feser for the lack of a superior alternative. If you could drop a few names it would be much appreciated.

>> No.14087571

>>14085024
>phenomenalism and therefore wrong
why are you so retarded

how can you not fucking understand that good and evil are human terms and require human witness and human judgment. do you think animals can conceive of good and evil? is there a good particle and evil particle you have observed with your spectroscope? fucking retard.

>> No.14087582

>>14082725
Nope, critiqued but never refuted as such, still many thomists around

>> No.14087599

>>14087582
It actually has been refuted by Hume,
Thomists are just unreasonable fanatics

>> No.14087635

>>14087599
could you please explain how he did

>> No.14087643

>>14082725
Potential/actual appears to be axiomatic, a kind of proyected taxonomy that does not reflect reality, is the same implication where we designate a thing=creation,therefore there must be a creator. Another way of saying this is "when a seed end and a flower begin?", we could could write all the different parts of the seed and what precise chemical or aesthetical moment it becomes a flower, but this taxonomy is not present in this linear/continual process, is not a process that becomes another process and so on, but a single,whole process that don't admit any empty space between

>> No.14087865

>>14087570
he's fine as intro/exegesis of thomism but he's too polemical and bloggish to treat critiques charitably.

>> No.14088088

>>14085848
>You cant prove a negative
Of course you can.
>I don't have two heads