/lit/ - Literature

>>7352848

Peter Geach's work would be an interesting avenue to explore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Geach

I personally like Feser allot. Be warned that Plantinga is not considered very sharp when it comes to properly responding to historical figures like Aquinas, but he is a clever philosopher.

>>7352865

If you are rational and interested in the logic behind the faith you should definitely pursue it. Catholicism is a universal religion, meaning it has room for mystics, scholars, peasants, warriors, etc- all modes of life. Truth does not contradict itself and the articles of faith, while above human reason- will never conflict with it.

>>7296498

Well just remember Feminist Philosophers do try to deal with criticisms and make rationally compelling arguments. Whether they succeed or not is another story, but they are not as dogmatic as the mainstream. Mass movements aren't fostered by rational debate and rigorous thought though, Feminist Philosophers are generally the best of them.

>>7298498

I gaurentee you that Elizabeth Anscombe was a better Philosopher than anyone who will post on this board. The problem you are talking about comes from the feminist maxim that " the personal is political"- but many women have been happy working within western patriarchy and outside of feminism because were able to follow patriarchal standards of rigor, intellectual charity, and clear thinking, and were rewarded for it, so never felt the need to revolt.

>>7281915

Joseph de Maistre has a very in depth and sustained critique of Democracy all throughout his works. " Considerations on France" " Study On Sovereignty" " The Generative Principle of Political Constitutions" and " Du Pape" are all magisterial works.

>>7286488

Feminism fails because it ignores that Feminist inspired “sexual liberation” mixed with vulgar north American culture meant that instead of being forced to cultivate themselves as a means to develop their worth( Noble and Upper Class women were always quite educated and talented even if they weren’t allowed in standardized schooling, and peasant women were generally quite “equal” to their husbands since they had to work cooperatively and both have many skills to keep things running)- women were free to opt out of all that and use their sexuality as their means to will to power, this meant that many women ( models, actresses ect) became pawns to big business so to push the idea that a females worth was based on her sexuality alone, in order to enlarge female centered consumer industry and slowly create the vulgarized sexism via media where women are defined by being a sexual object ( which is something which radically contradicts the cultural foundations of Christian Europe, it is an American modernist invention).

Feminists fail because they ignore that bringing women into wage work effectively doubled the workforce and allowed employers to cut wages in half and put more pressure on employee's, the more women entered the workforce the less any individual could provide an income for their family on their own, and therefore what started off as a woman's choice became a woman's obligation to enter into wage work like her husband did, which of course is important for the support of female centered consumer industry because in order to consume one must have wages so to do so. This was less of a big deal for bourgeois women who got to be college educated, entered into an interesting career and had another woman watch her children. For lower class women this meant scrapping by in an assembly line like her husband did and becoming alienated from her children and at best having one of her parents to watch them, when that wasn’t possible children were left with the television to watch over them, increasing the susceptibility to consumer culture messages in the youth.

So Thomas is quite right to treat Feminism as an assault on the working class, and also on the dignity and virtue of women.

Throughout western Christendom the sacrality of the feminine has been affirmed due to the virgin Mary bringing God into the flesh without sexual contact with a man. Far before feminism we had powerful queens, noble women, saints, and a strong love and respect for women as women. It is only through the love of the Christian patriarchs that woman even realized that she could ascend from her debased status in the classical world. Feminism has perverted this instinct and turned it into a monstrosity through egalitarian delusions.

2/2

>>7283522

>the question is whether they social distinctions are justified,

Honestly, right wingers who aren't willing to say "yes" to this question ought to just go left. We don't need cowards who needlessly concede ground( " well if there was inequality we would be against it") because they too afraid of the outrage that comes with dismantling accepted dogmas.

>>7284010

>How can you properly explain something like the absurdly high rate of transgender murder victims without reference to norms of sex and gender?

People with mental illness are more often victimized in general. The problem is that we obscure the connection because it isn't PC to call a spade a spade.

>Domestic violence, for example.

Is close to equal between men and women.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/sep/05/men-victims-domestic-violence

Women use more psychological means, where men use more physical means. We allow the abuse women face to be considered a bigger deal because men have a greater capacity for inherent agency and taking abuse than women do. Along with the fact that men are generally physically stronger. But the whole mythology of domestic oppression of women from men comes from this patriarchal dynamic, where women are privileged as being in need of protection, where men are expected to take on more responsibilities and protect them. ( And its certainly better that individual men do this rather than the totalitarian states that feminists want to prop up). We've just extended that patriarchal instinct to a self contradicting state that has lead everyone to be less satisfied, due to the obliteration of the family that came from the 2nd wave assault against women through indoctrinating them with the idea that a traditional role suited to fit the general characteristics and needs of all but the exceptional woman was oppressive.

>>7285331

There are very few double standards that benefit men, they have almost always had a female equivalent. Men have always had more responsibilities that lead to more rights, where women had less responsibilities that lead to less rights. Men are shamed for being too submissive, while women are shamed for being too dominant. Men are expected to put off their social and family life so to support women financially, women are expected to put off their careers so to facilitate family and community bonding, etc.

1/2

>>7280233

I think that we need to get what thinkers like Scotus and Aquinas were saying straight and get more integrated into contemporary analytic Philosophy before we get directly involved in the Sciences. I think there is more work to be done. Scholasticism is interesting to non-theists because of the general ontology is solid and lots of strong philosophical points are there even if you don't believe in God. So I can see us applying it to the sciences eventually. Thomas Nagel has a book called "Mind and Cosmos" where he explains that materialism is holding science back, the physicist Wolfgang Smith made a similar point in "Cosmos and Transcendence". I'm just not sure where the general ontological stuff will be directly important to scientific experimentation, which usually cares more about getting probable results that are good for manipulation, rather than just getting at fundamental ontology. Philosophy is its own reward to me, so further applications of Scholasticism outside of Philosophy isn't something I think about too much. It certainly is not only useful for apologetics though.

I may have spoken untruthfully when I called my adviser an atheist, he never uses that term, he isn't " a believer" though, so perhaps agnostic is the right term. I know he thinks that Thomas' cosmological argument is good until he starts giving us God's properties. Nonetheless whenever we do Philosophy he speaks as if God's existence is a given. so who knows what is going on there. Maybe I'll ask one day.

>>7280116

Scholasticism has influenced just about everything at some point, Suarez was very important for international legal theory, Albert the Great, Albert of Saxony, Oresme, etc were all extremely important for advancing science. Buridan and Ockham were the best logicians we had until the 19th century.Theology was radically altered Aquinas, Scotus and Ockahm. Maritain was involved in the universal declaration of rights. In some cases Scholastics are integrating in newer lines of though ( like how Stump and Kretzmann justify God's eternity in light of Einstein's relativity theory in "Eternity"), in other cases we are starting to realize that certain philosophical accounts that are common just don't hold and that the Scholastics had a better account ( like this whole thread which has become yet another scientism vs scholastic ontology debate, their view of causation and objects is back). Few people even really know what Thomas and Scotus were actually getting at, so we don't have the same degree of innovation that they did in their time, we are still uncovering everything and getting it all straight. The discipline will need to update itself and take on allot of challenges if it wants to become the universal science it once was. I can see it having a vast effect in the socio-political sphere. When Christians are actually willing to intellectually defend their beliefs rigorously again society will change quite a bit.

Traditionally the discipline arose to debate heretics on neutral territory and to come to a greater knowledge of God through his effects. Knowledge of God's world is in part knowledge of God, so the general academic pursuit and Religious pursuits are seen as one ( not that Scholastics never had negative accounts, Thomas was adament that if we didn't have a good argument for an article of faith that not claim otherwise. According to my adviser when he knew a certain eminent Scholastic back when they were young the man was the harshest critic of members of his own religion and would demolish any bad arguments given in favor of it. My adviser jokingly claimed that he was lucky that he is an atheist since this Scholastic expected less from him because of it.

>>7280137

Many, like Thomas, held that our souls were a part of us, but the whole substance including our body was us. So man does not go to "heaven" as an immaterial soul, at the end of time bodily resurrection happens. Presumably Bishop Tempier was worried that those who were not resurrected would not experience the torments of hell on this view, since they would not have new bodies to experience the torment with. So he wanted to make sure that those who were not resurrected could still experience bodily burning somehow. With Tempier's condemnations it is kind of weird because as far as I understand it most of the condemned propositions weren't actually being held by anyone. I'm not sure that Tempier really had much knowledge of what specifically was going on at the time.

>>7280041

Inhere as in it is actually present in the thing that it is the form of. Platonic forms exist "outside" of substances, where Aristotelean ones exist " inside" of them.

Several parts of Aristotelean Philosophy( depending on how you interpret them) contradict the faith. ( The condemnations of 1277 highlighted this greatly). Aristotle's world was not a created world, and had infinite past time. So the forms were simply always inhering in the world. Now Thomas with the 5 ways, showed that the world does need to be created ( insofar as God needs to uphold the world at every moment it exists). He interpreted Aristotle's infinite past time argument as not being a definite one, but a probable one. He claimed that we couldn't come to a good demonstration that the world was finite or infinite in past time ( and even debunked arguments claiming the world must have finite past time, which leads to the Kalam Cosmological Argument), so they knew that God created and continued to sustain a world with either finite or infinite past time. Given that the forms had an origin in God like everything else, it made sense that forms would also be in God as ideas that he used to create and sustain the world. Thus we got forms as archetypes in God, and forms inhering in creation, rather than just one or the other.

>>7280075

Also, you can also make a case against the main argument itself if you would like. This is my interpretation of it.

1. Causation exists.( Empirical Premise)
2. Act and Potency are terms that we can use to explain causation: When something is in Potency it has the capacity to become something something else, but is not it yet. A fertilized egg has the potency to turn into a chick, an unfertilized egg does not. When a potency is realized, it is actual. To actualize a potency is to take property that something had in potency and make it actually inhere in the thing.
3. When we find an instance of causation in the world we find some potency being actualized.
4. Something that is only in potency cannot actualize anything.
5. For some potency to be actualized something actual must actualize it.
6. If A is actualized by B, then B must first be actual.
7. Either something must have actualized B from being in potency to be in actuality. Or B is either necessarily actual, having never been in potency before. ( A v B)
8. If the left disjunct “A” is true then premise 7 applies to C.
9. If disjunct “B” is true there is a “first” uncaused cause that is pure actuality.
10. If disjunct “B” is never the case then there is an infinite series of actualizations. With every being having its actuality derived from another being.
11. If “10” is the case then there can be no actualization, as every being in the series has its actuality derived from another being, but there is no being with actuality on it's own to derive the actuality from.
12. If “10” is the case there is no causation
13. There is causation ( from premise 1)
14. Premise “10” is not the case.
15. If premise 10 is not the case, then at some point in the series “9” is the case.
16. There is a first cause, which is a being of pure actuality.

With this you have 6 arguments you have to refute in order to continue. They have all been given or highlighted in these last 3 posts of mine.

1. The argument against self change
2. That Physics is not ontologically complete due to it abstracting quantity from experience and ignoring quality.
3. That Physics cannot be ontologically complete because of the irreducibility of supervenience levels.
4. That physics is subordinate to metaphysics because physical being presupposes being simpliciter.
5. The impossibility of not having a causal series and how this leads to physics, by your own admission, not being able to give a complete picture of reality. With the lemma of
6. Aquinas cosmological argument, being included in my argument. Which I have given my version of above.

>>7280079
Yeah, and Newton only claimed that that is what objects seem to do, he never explained why they do or how they do. An infinite being would have the infinite power to ensure that this happened ( such a being operating on the world at every moment is just what Newton thought was happening actually).

>>7280067

2/2

> The universe just being a bunch of energy moving on it's own refutes the first mover.

Physics only shows that there is nothing else covered by physics that moves the energy, this is not the same as justifying self motion. If anything, given the argument I gave against self motion, and the fact that physics has no explanation for the motion of the energy, we come to more support for our proof of God, since this motion requires an explanation and physics isn't giving one.

Not only that, but "the first mover" is not only covering local motion ( the kind you are talking about) but all change, since motion=change in Aristotelean vocabulary. So you would have to show how all change is self change ( which is impossible since we see things effecting other things), if not you get a causal series where things are caused by other things and gain their own causal power derivatively. Once you admit to the existence of such a series then you have to accept Aquinas' cosmological argument, which simply shows why you can't have an infinite regress of such changes or causes as I explained here >>7279557 , and if the first cause is not God you should be able to identify something else that acts as a first cause in his place. This first cause is shown by the cosmological argument to have to be unchanging itself( since that is the definition of the first cause), but according to you everything covered by physics is constantly changing. Therefore nothing covered by physics can be the first cause. So this does nothing to the cosmological argument.

>>7280026

1/2

But you haven't done any damage. Because you haven't made an argument to justify the claim that the

>universe (is) an eternal change (or movement) without 99% of it being self-caused (wave vibration at the subatomic level)

To prove this you would first have to refute this argument >>7279846 . I already gave an argument for why this does't hold.


> I'm still waiting to here how object and force being the exact same thing doesn't ruin the his model.

Because its false. Physics accounting for objects with the concept "force" does nothing to show that objects don't exist. Because you have yet to show why the physics that makes such a claim has a greater claim to reality than the metaphysics that admits of the reality of objects. Our metaphysics is based on the full reality that we experience prima facie, and as I explained here >>7280022 physics only gives us quantitative abstractions based on our experienced reality. What I have been arguing is that we have no reason to believe that ontology can be reduced down to what physicists find. I reiterated my argument here demonstrating why you actually can't do this.
>>7279998 .

So yes, science explains the phenomena in a certain way. So what ? Why do we have an reason to believe that we are the ones who have to be the ones reconciling our system with physics, and not the other way around ? Especially since physics is dependent on metaphysics, and not the other way around, as demonstrated here >>7279993


>Look I'll admit science doesn't cover everything. But what it does cover we have to take as the case.

Sure, in the realm of physics. Not in the realm of fundamental ontology, which it simply doesn't cover. We are talking about metaphysics and ontology, which is something that physics doesn't cover

>>7279985

>Time is not something you can be or out of, it's just a number.

It's a number that can only be applied to things that change, according to Aristotle and Thomas to be "in time" is to have your change measured by time. God, being unchanging, cannot be "in time" since he has no changes to measure. God doesn't have his own time, God has eternity.

Again, this is essentially like dealing with a dogmatic theologian. You aren't putting forward any reason for us to buy into what you are saying other than an appeal to authority. I'm certainly willing to listen to physicists when it comes to physics, but this doesn't mean I have to buy into the ontology you are putting forward.

We haven't even gotten into the fact that physics is just a collection of mathematical abstractions that we use as probable approximations to account for contingent phenomena so to manipulate it. The very nature of the subject matter ( since all physical "laws" could have been otherwise and are dependent on the general metaphysical structure of reality) leads to it being dependent on the necessary truths of metaphysics, and demands a degree of anti-realism. Physics doesn't account for the qualitative aspects of reality, it only abstracts quantitative properties from our experience of real things that includes both quantity and quality. Your attempt to make physics a complete picture of reality is entirely untenable.

>>7279993

Forgot to put my trip on. Anyways, just saying " this is what the authorities say" is not a good argument. And every contradiction you have pointed to I have demonstrated to not actually be there. You have yet to respond to my main argument, the one that takes out your whole ontology.

>>7279764

>
You are arbitrarily privileging a certain supervenience level over others, and assuming that what is explained in physics is ontologically exhaustive. We merely look at the microphysical level of reality and find wave lengths. This doesn't mean that the higher supervenience level where we experience the prima facie properties of objects that we do are any less real. Look at the human body, we have microphysical properties on one supervenience level, physical properties on another, biological properties acting on another, and mental properties acting on another, all of these sets of properties and activities are real to some degree and not reducible to each other, insofar as one cannot simply explain exactly what is going on on one level without actually referencing that level, hence why Biology is still a Science. Stuff goes on on the biological level that we could not properly explain if we only used physics, this shows us that microphysical reductionism is false. If it was true we would need no other science but physics.

>>7279820

Time is "created" in the sense that it is dependent, even if it lacks substantial existence itself. It is true that time is essentially an entia rationis that is the measure of change. Still the meager existence that time does have is dependent on God since time depends on what depends on God. "Creation" stills fits well enough.

>Again you are are failing to understand what time is. The only argument you can make that would have God be exempt from time is if he were exempt from logic.

Can you give an argument for this? How is, " a being who does not change" something that entails a logical contradiction like ( P ^ ~P). I'm not sure that you know what logic is.

>And it gets even more retarded when you want Jesus to be fully God because Jesus did experience time as a normal person... Likewise you could also not believe God literally spoke to Moses or gave him the 10 commandments because this involves God changing.

Jesus has a human and a divine nature, the divine nature is eternal, the human nature is not and experiences change. Also, once again, God has one act that extends to all times, his single act in eternity includes the giving of the ten commandments that we experience at tx, him upholding the world now at ty, and etc.

>Within the time of our universe. There is no beggining or end. There is only an eternal present. This is how physics WORKS. So it is physical impossible for God to be in all "times" at the same time. There is only one time and that's the present! Thus any interaction including OBSERVING requires change.

There are two separate frames of reference, the eternal one has one unified act including observation, by our frame of reference we experience this unified act at each present moment as it happens, in pieces. Read 'Eternity' by Stump and Kretzmann for a detailed account. Interestingly enough, they explain this in reference to relativistic time. Also, Thomas agrees that that a presentist view of time is closer to reality than an indexed view of time.

>Our concept of space is a logical construct.

Please take a formal logic course before you say things like these. You very clearly don't know what logic is.

> You want your God to be everywhere? Well everywhere implies space.

God's effects are everywhere in space, these extrinsic aspects of him touch upon every spatial point, but intrinsic aspects of him that are essential to what he is aren't spatial.

>"Muh Science"

If it is true you should be able to make an argument for it. Explain to me how the results we get from physics are without a doubt ontologically exhaustive. I've already demonstrated why they cannot be here >>7279764 and you have yet to respond to my argument. You are closer to a creationist fundamentalist than I am , since you read that "scientists have given this explanation for x" and unquestioningly treat it as a necessary truth that gives us a complete picture of reality without justifying such an inference.

>>7279772

How would we use relativity to deny this argument? (Mind you, act is just actually being x and to be in potency in x is just to be the kind of thing that can be actually x but is'nt. We could use different terms but these are clearer in my opinion than any alternative)

1. The subject of a change must be in potency to x.
2.Causes must "contain" their effects.( something of the effect must be in the cause)
3. The cause of a change must be actually x( in some sense or another)
4. It is impossible for one and the same thing to be at once in potency and act with respect to the same sense.
C: Anything that changes must be changed by another.

This argument seems to make sense. If you are something that is being changed, you can't already have the new property that you are changing towards, or else you would not be changing towards it, but rather would already have it. Likewise if you are the changer, then you already to have what ever it is you are going to apply to the changee in some sense so to communicate it to them. Thus you can't make it come totally anew in yourself insofar as you already have it. Now, Scotus actually qualifies this and denies it in some cases like local motion and growth- I've worked through the argument with my adviser a bit , and we still don't really get it yet, so I personally don't have anything on the argument other than mentioning that some of the causal axioms may be a little bit too loose; the axiom claiming that the cause is always "containing" its effect, is presented in a vague way. I still think it works though, its true that the sun does not have plants inside of it, but what ever it is adding to the soil so that plants are generated from it can be found in the Sun, and its activity is what instantiates the change by effecting the soil through communicating something to it.

>>7279798
Thank you.

>>7279576

Everyone seems very interested in Teloeogy these days. I'll check it out if I get this chapter of my book done. I've been procrastinating on my current paper and have to start getting disciplined again.

>>7279692

I'm in and out.

>>7279589

>This would mean God could not create, forgive, or interact with anything... He also could not create the universe as creation involves change.

Being unchanging is part of God's definition insofar as he is eternal.God has one single and eternal act that extends to all times. Since he is omnipresent at every time from his eternity he doesn't need to move from one state to another in order to act on the world. Everything that we experience in regards to God's act is complete on his side, and incomplete on ours.

Time was created in the first moment the world was, God doesn't need a moment of time before creation to create, time begins at the first moment where the world is created, we can't even speak of a temporal "before" in reference to this moment. Time and creation come simultaneously. God's priority as creator is only ontological, not temporal

>Space is a word to describe the properties of things that literally exist.

No it isn't. Space is a principle required to make sense of properties of extension and the like in material things. This is just a bad materialist presumption.

Space is only relevant for material things ( that by their nature corrupt and change) and time is just our measure of change in general. God is'nt a material being and he doesn't change, therefore God has no spatio-temporal properties.

> How do you deal with the fact that force and objects are really just the same wave lengths buzzing through the universe?

You are arbitrarily privileging a certain supervenience level over others, and assuming that what is explained in physics is ontologically exhaustive. We merely look at the microphysical level of reality and find wave lengths. This doesn't mean that the higher supervenience level where we experience the prima facie properties of objects that we do are any less real. Look at the human body, we have microphysical properties on one supervenience level, physical properties on another, biological properties acting on another, and mental properties acting on another, all of these sets of properties and activities are real to some degree and not reducible to each other, insofar as one cannot simply explain exactly what is going on on one level without actually referencing that level, hence why Biology is still a Science. Stuff goes on on the biological level that we could not properly explain if we only used physics, this shows us that microphysical reductionism is false. If it was true we would need no other science but physics.

>How do you have a first mover argument when EVERYTHING is constantly moving all by itself at the subatomic level?

Motion is just change in Aristotelean language. As explained above, you are arbitrarily privileging the microphysical level of explanation. That, and "everything is changing by itself" has not been demonstrated, you are simply begging the question here.

>>7278940

>Also why is every cosmological argument except Leibniz's so bad?

You have this the other way around, Leibniz's cosmological argument is one of the places where he fails hard. If you claim that everything needs an explanation for its existence, and that we therefore need God to explain the universe then you are left with a case of special pleading, since God is left unexplained.

If you have a causal series where every single cause has it's causal power derivatively from another cause then there would be nowhere for that causal power to come from in the first place. You need something that has its causal power underivately for the causal series to make sense, hence we need a first cause who does not gain its causal power by being caused by another.

Also, we have to remember that this is not the series of causes throughout a noticeable stretch of time like my grandfather caused my father who caused me, rather it is a series of simulatenous causes happening all at once, as I push my pen it is pushing the cup, and once I stop pushing the pen the pen will stop pushing the cup. Aquinas endorses the idea that we could have a world with infinite past time and an infinite series of accidental causes, the infinite regress cannot happen in the series of simulatenous causes that upholds creation at each moment it exists.

>>7278965

This is irrelevant, Thomas mereology' is top down, not bottom up, form defines matter, not the other way around, a few changed atoms isn't enough to change the form of the thing. You need actual noticeable formal change for it to be relevant.

>>7279018
Luckily one need not use the term "universe" at all. God is not subject to time and does not have spatial properties, that is all we need.

>>7279423

You are just assuming that identity is defined from sharing all the same material parts though. There is no reason to hold that kind of metaphysics.

>>7275545

That would be a great topic.One can definitely pick up on his mystical side in the St.Petersburg Dialogues.

>>7274880
>he solidifies this by emphasizing his intellectual, aesthetic connection to the past, though the link itself is imaginary and ahistorical

Fedoras are all about atheism though, they always call religious people "archaic" as an insult. Evola is as far away from an actual fedora as possible.

>>7274897
>>7274943

Read his work before commenting, he never claimed that Atlantis and Hyperborea literally existed as a spatio-temporal places, only that the value of them as metaphysical archetypes gave them a higher claim to reality than contingent historical approximations.

>>7271754

Yes. Scotus has an "in" in modern analytic Philosophy because C.S. Pierce and Leibniz were inspired by him. He is getting more and more popular in academic philosophy, though he is still quite obscure. He is worth reading precisely because his work is so genius while he is not properly recognized.

People have also begun to attribute possible world semantics to him rather than Leibniz ( though I think this is wrong). Scotus is read less, and is less defended than Aquinas is. But those who do read him tend to think that he was incredibly subtle and clever.

Scotus has several important modal innovations that play into libertarian free will. He innovated on individuation using haecceity. He denied Aquinas' distinction between existence and essence. He had a unique proof of God's existence. He gave a rational defense of the Trinity and the Immaculate Conception. He made a subtle and powerful case for certain kinds of self-change( contra the whole of the scholastic tradition before him). He radically broke with the epistemology of the tradition, leading to Ockham's empiricism. He innovated on Divine Command Theory.Before Kant he classified metaphysics as " The Science of the Transcendentals". etc

Anyone interested in the Philosophy of Religion, Metaphysics, or the History of Philosophy in general, need to know where Scotus stood, at least generally.

One general way Scotus should be useful for contemporary philosophers is that he gave us a very powerful and rigorous take on Aristotelean metaphysics, which is fairly trendy now, with people arguing for the agent/powers view of causation and for a hylemorphic conception of objects. Both topics are ones that Scotus excelled at.

>>7272093

Millbank is wrong about the univocity being. He believes that having a common term "being" that applies to both God and creatures means that God is equalized with his creatures and "relies on" "being" just like creatures do, making God surbordinate. This supposedly leads to pantheism, and Theology becoming subordinate to metaphysics. The thing is that Scotus rooted being in the infinite mode of being that God has primarily, being is inseperable from things, and is essentially a vicious abstraction. Creatures still derive their being from God, who has it primarily and is inseperable from it, not at all subordinate to it. We simply need it to make theological arguments intelligible. If none of the terms we use mean the same thing for God and creatures alike then we can scarcely say anything about God from our knowledge of creatures. Cross explains it in his paper here
http://www.dal.ca/content/dam/dalhousie/pdf/fass/Classics/Hankey/Deconstructing%20Radical%20Orthodoxy.pdf .

>>7273545

One of my professors mentioned that "dunce" actually started out meaning something more like " hair splitter", someone who makes subtle distinctions that make issues more complicated- its a perfect description of Scotus' phillosophy.

>>7272524

Kind of. He thought that the Revolution was brought on by 18th century arrogance and that the peoples of Europe got what they ultimately deserved for the enlightenment. He noticed how revolutions swallow up and betray their founders, suggesting that human agency could only manage so much. He was still horrified by the catastrophe and all the bloodshed though. Interestingly enough, he wanted to meet Napolean ( and Napolean wanted to meet him), because its better to have the Antichrist as king then have no king at all.

>>7273065

Good point.

>>7273738

Schmitt picked the idea up from Donoso Cortes. I'm slowly working on Cortes' essays at the moment, it is fantastic so far.

Schmitt has some very penetrating insights on his own though. His analysis of how liberalism and democracy come apart, with the latter actually being more honestly expressed in totalitarianism, was very eye opening for me.

>>7271898

His general positions on modernity, socialism, liberalism, and amor fati are all pretty spot on. He also has very strong interpretations of eastern and pagan traditions ( his Paganism is idiosyncratic though), that are worth reading. But Evola isn't so great when it comes to the finer details of his work. He keeps things at such a "birds eye" view that he is idealistic and overgeneralizes ( he admits this himself though).

Ultimately he gives us roughly neoplatonic worldview that fuses with Zen Buddhist and Nietzschen virility to negate the modern world with. Evola will try to teach you to be a crusading mystic who lives for daring action, and disassociation from the world while acting in it.

>>7273792

With secondary literature. Ackrill's " Aristotle The Philosopher" is a good place to start. From there you can decide what interests you the most in Aristotle' work and go from there.