[Serious] Thomism: Then & Now

[vulcanlogician]

It goes deeper.

Sure, it could be that some intangibles are not real but that is different from extrapolating from examples about chairs and pots and concluding that no intangibles are real. Here's an intangible: a unit. Are there units? If not how can we do math without it. Or maybe go the other way: is there a totality? ...the All, as it were.

I was doing some sticking-up for the plausibility of mereological nihilism there. But I'm not a mereological nihilist, myself. 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.

It is obvious were I am going by mentioning units and allness. These are attributes of God: unity and perfection.

You're beginning to lose me here. 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.

And we recognize those attributes in creatures to the degree they participate as some limited kind unity and completeness.  So I can see why an atheist would deny the validity of any intangibles even if it comes at the cost denying the validity of math and the utility of language.

This is a Platonic claim. And, I agree. It's compelling. I personally think Plato was on to something as far as numbers and math being real, permanent, immutable, and unchangeable. He also threw "eternal" in there. And I think that's what gets theists all excited about bringing their god into the equation. I agree with Plato. They are eternal... as in "forever and ever." The pythagorean theorem (or the immutable truth it claims about right triangles in Euclidean space) will survive the heat death of the universe. Therefore, "eternal."

NOT, therefore "God."

Plenty of atheists accept the metaphysical existence of ordinary objects. You may even convince some of them of hylomorphism. But hylomorphism when it comes to human souls and human identity is on slippery ground. In the most basic sense, we can say it's true of every object comprised of matter and form. Only mereological nihilists would object here, and most people aren't mereological nihilists.

The rest of us would admit, yes, there IS matter there. That matter IS arranged in an intelligible form. So what? That's materialism. If you start claiming a "substance" to that form, you are drifting into Cartesianism. If you say the form is wholly without substance, then you're a materialist who believes in shapes: that's what I am.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I think the mereological nihilist can answer these charges. "Sure, mereological nihilism is false just like all other metaphysical claims. It's just bears the best 1:1 resemblance with reality. If any claim is true, it's true. And if no claims are true, it's also true... at least 'true enough.'"

Those would be arguments of convenience. No serious thinker says the only truth is there is no truth.

[emjay]

It goes deeper.

Sure, it could be that some intangibles are not real but that is different from extrapolating from examples about chairs and pots and concluding that no intangibles are real. Here's an intangible: a unit. Are there units? If not how can we do math without it. Or maybe go the other way: is there a totality? ...the All, as it were.

It is obvious were I am going by mentioning units and allness. These are attributes of God: unity and perfection. And we recognize those attributes in creatures to the degree they participate as some limited kind unity and completeness.  So I can see why an atheist would deny the validity of any intangibles even if it comes at the cost denying the validity of math and the utility of language.

That is why I think the issue is deeper. The intelligibility of the material world of change necessarrily depends on the reality of some unchanging intangibles to make sense of it...like a unified and complete ground for being. And it is my position that, even if the 5 Ways do not demonstrate to the satisfaction of Pyrrhonian skeptics the reality of some grond for being, the 5 Ways still show us how indispensible intangibles are to reasoning.

Very interesting, Neo. I must admit I haven't really given much thought to 'intangibles', and that's one of the interesting things that's coming out of this new interest. But just for clarification:
1) are you talking about Platonic Forms when you're talking about intangibles? (or Aristotles' version of them, if different... I haven't finished reading Aristotle by a long shot), and
2) when in your other post you were talking about 'things', and talking about things like chairs and human rights in the same sentence, I just want to be clear, in terms of Aristotles' causes (and/or in Aquinas) are they treated the same; ie you've got something explained by these four causes (material, form, efficient, and final), but in that sense are tangible and intangible things used interchangably? ie are the both treated as equally real in the same sense, and therefore requiring the same sorts of explanations (ie with those four causes)?

[Angrboda]

I'm not wedded to mereological nihilism, but I think the objections to it are overly simplistic. It may turn out that the existence of objects is like many things in philosophy -- we suspect that there's an explanation which rescues the idea of an object, but so far it hasn't been found. We have similar problems with things like how to define knowledge. At the same time, I think mereological nihilism points to legitimate problems in creating a "plain sense" mereology in which parts, wholes, and objects clearly exist. I see analogies such as the triangle and the meaning of words which Neo suggests as interesting questions more than as legitimate objections. Language in general tends to be filled with vagueness and indeterminacy. Just like picking out objects, many things and meanings don't have clear determinate boundaries. Maybe there's a fallacy of the beard situation in which distinctions can be made regardless of whether boundaries can be identified. Or maybe an inherent vagueness in our mental representations means there are no determinate meanings, that triangles are just an ideal which our brains try to pick out from reality. I'm of the impression that it's more an operational problem. That our minds aren't built for hard edges, but are simply loops of slippery and chaotic processes driven by our biological needs. Chairs may not exist. There may not be such a thing as a bed. But when we need to sit down to eat or lie down to sleep, our brain fuzzily seeks a mass in our environment which meets our needs. Ultimately, then, the brain is about matching biological needs to tools and objects in our environment; not to making sharp distinctions about it.

As to hylomorphism, I don't know enough to really have a seat at the table in that discussion. I just know vaguely that there are controversial aspects of the idea. But then, that's philosophy.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, whenever someone talks about "the form of a bed" I strongly suspect they've never seen me or any other mech sleep. There isn't anything that isn't "the form of a bed" if I'm tired.

[emjay]

I definitely get what you guys are saying and sympathise... that merelogical nihilism or its opposite, mereological universalism helps deal with some of the arbitrariness of defining things, and in a similar sense gives more voice to the 'fuzzy logic' nature of our brains sometimes... ie not everything, even how we think, has definitive boundaries or can be easily defined. But still, for my own part at least, since I want to understand this stuff primarily in it's own terms, I don't think adding that sort of confusion much helps the discussion, so that's why I'm personally not going down that road. But each to their own.

[The Grand Nudger]

Mereological nihilism is an error theory. It doesn't add confusion - it correctly observes that there is confusion. It posits that this confusion in endemic to categorization. It's a problem for the form of the bed as a concept if there are no boundaries to that form. If everything is a bed when we're tired - and nothing is a bed when we're energetic.

When we call something a bed, and say that it has the form of a bed..we are not (then) talking about the thing..but about ourselves......or a form of the thing, but about a need of ourselves. Picking out what portion of a fundamentally enmeshed and factually indistinguishable bit of reality is useful to that subjectively true comment and need - but does not report what our comments purport to report about( or as) the object itself.

[emjay]

Mereological nihilism is an error theory.  It doesn't add confusion - it correctly observes that there is confusion.  It posits that this confusion in endemic to categorization.  It's a problem for the form of the bed as a concept if there are no boundaries to that form.  If everything is a bed when we're tired - and nothing is a bed when we're energetic.

When we call something a bed, and say that it has the form of a bed..we are not then talking about the thing..but about ourselves..or a form of the thing, but a need of ourselves.

Okay, I just mean, adding confusion in the sense of adding confusion to say a discussion of Aristotlian causes, because that's about explaining things... if you can't even agree at that point on what a thing is, it seems like it completely ruins, or sidetracks the discussion.

As I said, I do very much sympathise with the position, not just with respect to 'things' but also with say a multitude of final causes... the goals of things mean different things to different people etc, but just that to take 'things' completely off the table, makes discussion here impossible. So, in other words, for the sake of this argument if nothing else, I'm happy to think about things in their most common use form, but another time might delve into these 'mereological' questions.... but just not at the same time, especially since I'm here both to learn about the original arguments themselves, in their own form, as well as address them in my own terms.

[vulcanlogician]

Well, if you're going to posit hylomorphism (as Aristotle did) you open yourself up to attack from mereological nihilists.

But, I agree. Mereology is an interesting aside that can be fruitfully ignored when talking about the 5 ways. I'm the one who really brought hylomorphism up anyway (I think). It *is* foundational to the discussion, but also, not prone to being settled any time soon.

I do wonder if hylomorphism is essential to any of the 5 ways. If it is, then we can say mereology matters. Not that it'd be worth bringing in and discussing, but just that it matters.

I think basic hylomorphism is defensible. I also think the ways the religious have used hylomorphism to articulate certain things (like the existence of souls) are dubious.

[emjay]

Well, if you're going to posit hylomorphism (as Aristotle did) you open yourself up to attack from mereological nihilists.

But, I agree. Mereology is an interesting aside that can be fruitfully ignored when talking about the 5 ways. I'm the one who really brought hylomorphism up anyway (I think). It *is* foundational to the discussion, but also, not prone to being settled any time soon.

I do wonder if hylomorphism is essential to any of the 5 ways. If it is, then we can say mereology matters. Not that it'd be worth bringing in and discussing, but just that it matters.

I think basic hylomorphism is defensible. I also think the ways the religious have used hylomorphism to articulate certain things (like the existence of souls) are dubious.

I'm still not quite sure what that is tbh (you guys quickly changed the subject so I had to drop my reading of the Republic ( ) and switch over to Aristotle, and I've a long way to go). But by hylomorphism are you just referring to what Aristotle calls substance... ie matter+form? Or are you referring to his concept of the soul - as 'the form of a living body'... that that has to coexist with matter, just as for any other substance? Or something else? It's just that in what I've understood so far, there's nothing particularly otherworldly about how he's defining a soul at this point... there's nothing lost in thinking of that as say the mind or psyche. Granted as I said I haven't finished reading him by a long shot, so I don't know how he gets from 'the form of a living body' (which by definition requires a living body to exist) to an immortal soul, or even if it's him that does that (ie maybe that's Aquinas' contribution).