[Serious] Thomism: Then & Now

[vulcanlogician]

I was doing some sticking-up for the plausibility of mereological nihilism there…I tend to think "allness" and "units" are real. I tend to think chairs are real. The form of the chair is intelligible, therefore the intelligible form of the chair is real. I think the same way about human rights, morality, and justice. All real.

Yes, I may have been a little to dismissive of mereological nihilism. Consider it a misguided attempt to steer us back towards the merits and shortcomings of the 5 Ways within the Scholastic framework. That, as opposed to defending the Scholastic framework itself from anti-realism or Pyrrhonian skepticism.

An atheist could say allness and units are simply attributes of a godless reality. I'm not sure what makes God relevant to the claim that allness or units are real.

Then at least as far as the 4th Way is concerned atheists such as yourself believe in God 😊

The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But "more" and "less" are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.

My strike-through because Thomas uses an archaic physical example based on fire and heat. The issue remains the same though. Does recognition of degrees of perfection within the patterns of nature allow us to infer a real standard of perfection. Or at least allows us to concieve various relative perfections, which is what intelligibility is kinda all about, isn't it?

I personally think Plato was on to something as far as numbers and math being real, permanent, immutable, and unchangeable… And I think that's what gets theists all excited about bringing their god into the equation…NOT, therefore "God."

I agree that the 5 Ways don’t get you to the Jehovah God found in scripture. At the same time, whatever numbers are they are NOT part of physical reality. So at the bare minimum, there is a type of reality that transcends the limits of the physical universe. IMHO that makes materialism false.

Hmmmm. Okay. That's pretty good, Neo.

I'll tell you this: I like the fourth way better than the first way. But, of course, some objections spring to mind. 

I won't criticize the stricken through things or Aquinas's understanding of physics. But I'm going to invoke Newton to show how erroneous it is to assume that there need be an absolute reference frame in order to have gradations. Newton assumed such a reference frame, and his work was more or less on point. But as it turns out... Einstein. Now, that doesn't mean that assuming an absolute reference frame is futile. Again, we can invoke Newton to see that it's not a fool's errand. It gets us somewhere. But ultimately, it's superfluous. At least in physics. I wanna say in metaphysics too.

Even when I think about ethics and employ concepts such as "good" and "bad" I don't assume an absolute reference frame. There is no "best" or "most ideal" action. There is this action that is "more good" than this other action.

As for math being proof that materialism is false, I think we have to work on ontology. What does it mean to be? I rather like Spinoza's ontology, namely that there is one substance, period. Call it material if you like. Call it God if you want. What determines the reality of a thing is if it relates causally to the one substance. If it does, it exists. If it doesn't, it doesn't exist.

I think numbers are real, but they don't exist in Plato's world of Forms. Neither do they exist in the Spinozian sense that they interact with substance. 

My thinking is this: things like numbers are real metaphysical entities. We can intuit them by reasoning. Once you begin to reason, you can "figure out" numbers, truth, falsity, good, bad, and many other metaphysical realities. But these "forms" (or whatever you want to call them) don't compete ontologically with material. They are simply "there" inasmuch that they are discoverable by one who reasons. They aren't there sort of floating about like a spirit when no reasoning is being done, waiting for someone to start thinking.