Unmoved Mover: Simplicity

There is no composition in God (SCG, I, 18)—Modified

Argument 1:

• Anything composed is something one that is made of many different things (e.g. human person with arms)
• Since many different things introduce unity into a composed thing by being united, the composed thing did not exist prior to being united
• Yet, God is eternal and did not come to exist
• Therefore, there is no composition in God

Argument 2:

• Every composite is subsequent to its components
• But, God is not subsequent to anything
• He is eternal and did not come to exist
• Therefore, God is not a composite

Simplicity

Unmoved Mover: Pure Actuality

There is no [substantial] potentiality in God (SCG, I, 16) – Modified

• Anything that is potentially another thing must proceed from not being that thing to being that thing
• God did not come to be nor can he ever cease to be; He is eternal.
• Therefore there must be no potentiality in God.

There is no accidental potentiality in God

• Anything with accidents is divisible
• God is not divisible
• If He were, then God would depend upon the motion of his dividends
• Therefore, God has no accidents and cannot be in potency to them.

Pure Actuality

Unmoved Mover: Eternity

God is eternal (SCG, I, 15)

• Movement and change precede anything that comes to exist or ceases to exist
• Nothing precedes God
• He is First Cause or Unmoved Mover
• Therefore, God is eternal
• (i.e. there is no beginning or end to Him)

Eternity

Unmoved Mover: Can Something Move Itself?

Let me now repeat the argument for the Unmoved Mover. There are at least some movers that are moved by other movers. There cannot be an infinite series of moved movers. Therefore there must be a first. Either this first mover is moved or it isn’t. It is self-contradictory to posit a first moved mover since it wouldn’t be a first mover. Therefore, there must be some First Unmoved Mover, which we will call God. 

In order to begin the argument, I will deny the conclusion [the first premise] and follow its implications to their [sic] logical conclusions in order to prove for my argument by reductio ad absurdum, which, according to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, is “a mode of argumentation that seeks to establish a contention by deriving an absurdity from its denial, thus arguing that a thesis must be accepted because its rejection would be untenable” (IEP). 

Here is the argument proving that there is nothing that is moved by itself: if there is some thing which is moved by itself, it must not be moved by any of its parts or at least depend upon the motion of its parts in order to be moved. Otherwise, it would depend upon the motion of other things in order to be moved. For instance, the motion of an animal depends upon the motion of its foot in order to move.

However, since all things that are moved are divisible and have parts [(Physics, VI, 4)], a thing which is moved by itself must have parts. Therefore, either that thing does not depend upon the motion of its parts in order to be moved, or it does. If it does not, then it must be possible that the thing can move while a single part remains at rest, since the thing need not move along with its part if it is moved by itself. But if such were the case, then the whole could not move in unity as a whole, since the other part that moved along with the whole moved without the other part that remained at rest. Therefore, the whole cannot move by itself and through itself if it moved by itself and had parts. 

Therefore, that which is moved by itself must depend upon the motion of its parts in order to be moved. But anything that depends upon the motion of its parts is moved by something else. Therefore, there is nothing that is moved by itself [(Physics, VII)]

Aristotle. Physics. Trans. Richard McKeon. The Basic Works of Aristotle. New York: Random House, 
           1941. Print 

Plato's Cave (animated version)

I posted an article describing the merits of contemplation a couple weeks ago. In it, there was a quote to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave," but the article excluded supporting context for readers who hadn't previously read the story. The YouTube video above shows the animated version of the story for those bloggers. Enjoy.

The Taboo of Contemplationis 06/16/14

The Lonely Ones (1899) by Edvard Munch

There has never been an issue more controversial than contemplation. Not controversial in the sense of making news headlines or anything of that sort. Most people, in fact, would not put the controversy in those terms. They might gossip about close relatives or associates who bear that term's characteristic form, saying something like, "What's he doing studying philosophy or reading literature? Kid needs to get a job." A Logic professor once stated that he would start conversing about Descartes' epistemological skepticism in order to privately shoo away people he didn't like. But why the controversy? Something so benign and unobtrusive ought not to attract as much private attention as it does in the minds of many. So what is contemplation, really? And what does it have to do with religion, if there's any connection at all?

Contemplation specifically refers to an intellectual habit typically involving God as its object. And it doesn't have to be God. The habit often involves speculating about His effects in history through His Church or about His creation: humans, angels, and the like. Most of the time, and with most people, contemplation will take on more secular forms: reading poetry, solving math puzzles, performing science experiments, etc. So contemplation will take on those natural forms, but there's also another kind that is altogether unique and distinct. This is what the Catholic tradition calls infused contemplation. Infused contemplation is an intellectual habits of ours where, instead of being acquired through our own efforts, is infused into our souls by God with our cooperation. The effects of this divine infusion come through in what the saints call a sublime gaze of our Lord, a perfect--so far as possible--union with God at the deepest level of the soul. The Carthusian order, for instance, one of the more strict religious orders in the world, clearly states that high mission in all caps: "The only goal of the Carthusian way is CONTEMPLATION, by the power of the Spirit, living as unceasingly as possible in the light of the love of God for us, made manifest in Christ." (The Carthusian Order). Through their lives of austerity (viz. fasting, watching, solitude, and intense prayer), they achieve their order's sublime purpose.

But what do those outside religion, and outside of monotheism for the most part, have to say about contemplation? Aristotle, pre-Hellenistic pagan philosopher, locates contemplation as that activity which is most distinctive of human happiness and fulfillment:

If happiness is activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be that of the best thing in us. Whether it be reason or something else that is this element which is thought to be our natural ruler and guide and to take thought of things noble and divine, whether it be itself also divine or only the most divine element in us, the activity of this in accordance with its proper virtue will be perfect happiness. That this activity is contemplative we have already said. (Nichomachean Ethics, Book X, Chapter 7)

Aristotle finds that the telos or goal of the human agent lies chiefly in contemplation because of man's rational nature. That's his function. And though man busies himself with noble and praiseworthy tasks, like fighting wars and working a nine-to-five job for his family, these are only secondary modes of happiness. These activities are performed for the sake of something else, which was already implied. Plato, moreover, thought that through contemplation the soul may ascend to knowledge of the Form of the Good or other divine Forms, allegorizing it in The Republic (viz. "Allegory of the Cave"):

No question, he said. This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed… Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or in other words, of the good. (Book VII)

Flammarion engraving (1888) by Anonymous

Both religious and non-religious traditions praise the contemplative dimension as the highest beatitude for the human person. Yet, both traditions also recognize that most people tend to shun that sublime calling. They tend to judge by the senses and see that those who are most happy are those with wealth or honor. Those who manage others rather than those who manage themselves are those to whom the hoi polloi give undue praise. Yet, they are right in saying that our lives cannot be completely dedicated to praying, studying, and the like. We're not celestial, self-sufficient beings who can manage that kind of life completely. We have sensuous--if you want to call it that--needs that need to be met, but what gives? We ought to still try to create a larger sphere in our lives for contemplation. This fulfills us now--to the degree that we can achieve it--and transforms us in the end.

Two Men Observing the Moon (1819-1820) by Caspar David Friedrich

On Genetic Fallacies and Red Herrings 5/12/13

Red Herring

The genetic fallacy generally refers to a type of fallacious reasoning that appeals to how the position is arrived in order to prove for or against a particular claim or a particular argument. The genetic fallacy also goes by other names but the definition generally remains the same: "the fallacy of origins;" "arguing based on the source rather than on the merits of a position;" or as mentioned in a Wikipedia article, "the fallacy of irrelevance." The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy also defines the genetic fallacy this way: "A critic uses the genetic fallacy if the critic attempts to discredit or support a claim or an argument because of its origin (genesis) when such an appeal to origins is irrelevant."

Aristotle, for instance, would have also characterized this type of reasoning under sophistry, a deceptive form of argumentation that focuses on the accidental aspects of an issue rather then on the substance of the issue in order to make the argument look correct when it is not. The genetic fallacy also fulfills Aristotle's notion of sophistry by shifting attention away from the argument to other unrelated aspects of the argument, like the way in which the position came to be held.

The genetic fallacy shows up everywhere in the popular culture and especially in the media. Political debates, television talk shows, and even religious debates include instances of people committing the genetic fallacy ad nauseum. Here are just a few examples:

President Barrack Obama's television advertisement successfully debunked the claim that the study ran by Senator Mitt Romney was independent and non-partisan by referencing Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, and the chairman of the study who used to work at Romney's former company (assuming of course that that is all true). But the advertisement did not prove against the claim that "Obama and the liberals will raise taxes on the middle class by $4,000" (0:13 - 0:17). In fact, no mention was made against that claim other than the appeal to the study's partisanship.

In other words, the focus on the study's partisanship distracted the argument away from considering the relevant information needed for proving against the claim that Obama and the liberals will indeed raise taxes on the middle class by $4,000; this is called a red herring. A red herring, according to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, is a "digression that leads the reasoner off the track of considering only relevant information." Red herrings distract the person following an argument from considering important information related to the conclusion of a particular argument.

If, on the other hand, the advertisement was claiming that Obama will not raise taxes on the middle class by $4,000 because partisan groups ran the studies that projected those figures, then the advertisement would be committing the genetic fallacy by basing their conclusions off of the people's backgrounds rather than on more relevant information (like counter-statistics and so forth). In other words, people's backgrounds or the particular associations of which they happen to be a part does not necessarily falsify the statistics they put forward in a study. After all, the evidence they publish may indeed indicate the truth of the matter regardless of their particular backgrounds or reputations.

Richard Dawkins, a prominent atheist and outspoken advocate against religion, suggested to the young girl at the podium that she may have only held her beliefs in God because of her native upbringing in the United States. Dawkins then listed a few conditioned claims (0:28 - 0:54) reminding the young girl that if she had been "brought up" in another culture, then she would have never believed in God and would have replaced God with another deity instead. Dawkins, however, only suggests that she rethink her belief in God and never finally tells her that she falsely believes in God.

The fallacy in Dawkins' reasoning involves leaping from the claim that growing up in the United States influenced the young girl's belief in God to therefore concluding that her belief in God's existence is false. The conclusion simply does not follow from the premises because growing up in the United States only incidentally relates to her belief in the truth of God's existence. This is called the genetic fallacy. In all fairness to Dawkins, however, he never explicitly claimed the young girl's belief in God to be false. In fact, it is difficult to tell whether or not Dawkins had even truly advanced an argument, due to the fact that the young girl never asked Dawkins to argue against anything. Nevertheless, Dawkins committed the genetic fallacy by leaping from the young girl's upbringing to concluding her belief in God's existence to be false, which he implicitly concluded at the end of video.

Notes / Outline on Aristotle's De Anima (On the Soul), Books I (Incomplete) and II (Complete) (Draft) 9/17/13

De Anima Notes

Book I

(Chapter I)

• Aim is to grasp and understand, first, soul's essential nature, and secondly its properties
• Soul seems to require body for its proper functioning, as form is to matter.

(Chapter II)

• We need to study predecessors' views on the soul
• Predecessors focused on two unique characteristics that belong to things with a soul: movement and sensation.
• Democritus compared soul to spherical fire and soul atoms. He believe soul atoms were spherical since that would most cause movement in other things.
• Some adapted view that soul is first movement in things, that which is itself unmoved.
• Plato fashions soul out of elements in Timaeus: Animal-itself is compounded of Idea of the One with everything else of the person being constituted in similar ways.
• All characterize soul by three marks: Movement, Sensation, Incorporeality. All of these are traced back to the first principles.

(Chapter III)

• Let's begin with movement because it is impossible that soul should move itself.
• 2 possible senses in which anything may be moved:
• indirectly, owing to something other than itself (e.g. sailors on a ship)
• directly, owing to itself (e.g. ship being moved by something else)
• Is soul directly moved?
• Four species of movement:
• locomotion
• alteration
• diminution
• growth
• If movement is not incidental but belonging to soul by nature, and the four species of movement involve place, then place must be natural to the soul.
• If essence of soul be to move itself, its being moved cannot be incidental to it, as is the case with "white" and "three cubits long." These latter two characteristics do move but not apart from the thing of which they predicate. Therefore, these things move incidentally and not of themselves; hence, they do not have place.
• If the soul is to move itself essentially, and not be incidentally moved, then it must have a place. Does it?
• Further, if movement is natural to soul, there must be counter-movement that is unnatural to it, and conversely.
• The terminus ad quem (boundary at which) of a thing's natural movement is place of its natural rest, and terminus ad quem of enforced movement is enforced rest.
• How does this apply to soul?
• Further, we observe soul to originate movement in the body.

Incomplete notes on Book I

Book II

(Chapter I)

• Let's make a fresh start now. What is soul?
• We have several senses in which we recognize substance:
• in the sense of matter, which in itself is not "a this"
• in the sense of form or essence, which is that in virtue of which a thing is called "a this"
• in the sense of both form and matter
• Matter is potentiality and form is actuality. Of the latter, there are two grades related to one another (e.g. knowledge to the exercise of knowledge)
• Now there are differences among substances:
• natural bodies
• living (i.e. self-nutrition and growth / decay)
• not-living
• Every natural body which has life in it is a substance in the sense of a composite (i.e. body as the material substratum and the principle or form of its animation / life)
• But since a natural body is a body of such-and-such a kind, the body --- and only the body --- cannot be soul; the body is the subject or matter, not what is attributed to it.
• Hence the soul must be the substance in the sense of the form of a natural body having life potentially within it.
• But substance --- that is, in the sense of form --- is actuality, and thus soul is the actuality of a body. 
• The word "actuality" of the soul has two senses. What do we mean by actuality in this case?:
• the possession of knowledge
• the actual exercise of knowledge
• Soul must be actuality in the former sense, viz. the possession of knowledge, for both sleeping and waking presuppose existence of the soul and also correspond to possession of knowledge --- but not employed --- and exercise of knowledge respectively
• Yet, knowledge possessed must come prior to its employment, since an employment of knowledge requires knowledge to be employed.
• Therefore, soul is actuality in the first sense.
• For this reason, soul is the first grade of actuality of a natural body having life potentially within it.
• And by grades of actuality we mean the following:
• first grade of actuality: the vital capacity or power in the substance for movement (e.g. being able to hear and able to see)
• grades of actuality beyond the first: the vital capacity or power in act (e.g. seeing and hearing)
• The body so described is an organized body with parts. We can dismiss, therefore, the question whether the body and soul are one. 
• Unity has many senses: in this case, the relation of an actuality to that of which it is the actuality
• Answer to "what is soul?":
• substance in the sense which corresponds to the definitive formula of a thing's essence
• "the essential whatness" of a body of the character just assigned, viz. organized or possessed potentially of life
• Even other natural / artificial bodies have souls (e.g. axes, trees, books, etc.) for the above reasons.
• By "potentially capable of living," we mean that which still retains it the principle of life and not that which has lost the soul it had.
• Even seeds and fruits are bodies which possess the above qualification though only potentially (i.e. they are at a further remove from actuality than the fully formed and organized body)
• Analogy for describing soul's actuality in the body:
• soul is actuality in the sense corresponding to the power of sight and the power in the tool, which are first grades of actuality
• Soul, therefore, inseparable from the body --- or at least some parts of it are (if it has parts)
• reason: actuality of parts of soul are nothing but actualities of bodily parts or organs
• Yet, some parts of the soul may be separable since they are not actualities of any bodily parts / organs whatsoever...
• Conclusion of sketch or outline determination of the nature of soul

(Chapter II)

• Since what is more evident or perhaps more observable by us is "what in itself is confused" (413a12-14), we must begin this way, and we must give a clear definition in the form analogous to the conclusion of a syllogism
• my notes: what is a syllogism?:
• minimally, two premises which lead to one conclusion e.g.
• All men are animals (P₁)
• Socrates is a man (P₂)
• ∴ Socrates is an animal (C)
• "...what has soul in it differs from what has not in that the former displays life" (413a21-22)
• Now "living" has more than one meaning:
• thinking, perception, or local movement and rest;
• movement in the sense of nutrition, decay and growth
• Power of self-nutrition can isolated from the other higher "living powers" (i.e. thinking, perceiving, etc.), but these powers cannot be isolated from self-nutrition
• The self-nutritive potencies in a thing allow us to call something living at all (e.g. plants, trees, etc.), and even the higher animals have these potencies (e.g. monkeys, human beings, etc.)
• Yet, the possession of sensation leads us to classify living things as animals and not merely plants
• What do we mean primarily by sensation?:
• touch: power of self-nutrition can be isolated from touch and sensation generally, so too can touch be isolated from all other forms of sense (and here Aristotle means analytically speaking --- in terms of their taxonomical structure)
• Definition of the above will be discussed later in Book III. For now, it suffices to say that soul is the source of these phenomena and is characterized by them:
• viz. powers of self-nutrition, sensation, thinking, and motivity
• Is each of the aforementioned a soul or a part of a soul?:
• If part of a soul in what sense?:
• parts of a soul in definition only?
• or, parts of a soul in definition as well as in "local situation" (413b15)?
• In the case of plants, when divided are observed to continue to live though "removed to a distance from one another" (413b17-19).
• What does Aristotle mean by "divided"? Possibilities:
• division with respect to magnitude and quantity (e.g. cutting strawberries)
• division with respect to determinate matter under qualified species (e.g. Alex and Casey under the species "rational animal," many with respect to one)
• division with respect to various potencies of the soul as mentioned (413b13-15)
• The soul of each individual plant prior to division was actually one and potentially many (i.e. "in insects which have been cut in two; each of the segments possesses both sensation and local movement; and if sensation, necessarily also imagination and appetition; for, where there is sensation, there is also pleasure and pain and, where these, necessarily also desire" (413b20-23))
• clarification: one species to many particulars? unity of potencies in single actuality? Surely, cutting insects into segments does not allow for each one of them to retain the same unity of potencies (i.e. cutting a cockroach along its thorax kills the insect and thereby incidentally corrupts the soul). Could it be the case that, in insects, neither sensation nor local movement can be found without the other? Needs clarification
• No evidence yet about division of potencies with respect to mind or the power to think, which seems to be a very different kind of soul. In what way?:
• from what is eternal to what is perishable
• capable of existing in isolation from all other psychic powers --- needs clarification
• All the other parts of the soul (vegetative and sensitive potencies of the soul) incapable of separate existence though distinguishable by definition (413b27-30).
• "If opining is distinct from perceiving, to be capable of opining and to be capable of perceiving must be distinct..." (413b29-30):
• clarification: recall that Aristotle enumerated different potencies of the human soul (i.e. capacity for seeing, capacity for thinking, etc.) and different actualizations which correspond to these potencies (i.e. seeing, thinking, etc.). Yet, seeing can only be the actualization of the subject's capacity for seeing and not his or her capacity for hearing since every act is restricted by potency, so that only a certain kind of substratum can receive the form proper to its distinct actualization. Therefore, every act responds to its proper potency and must be considered distinct from one another as mentioned in the above quote.
• Therefore, we can distinguish between different animals based upon their unique powers
• Two phrases with two meanings:
• "that whereby we know"
• with respect to knowledge --- knowing by
• with respect to soul as the first principle --- knowing with
• similarly, "that whereby we are healthy"
• with respect to health as the form
• with respect to the body and its parts as the matter
• "knowledge" and "health" can be seen as the formal constituents which actualize their respective capacities:
• capacity to know
• capacity to be healthy
• Soul therefore must be defined as such:
• ratio or formulable essence (414a13) and not a matter or subject
• As was said, substance has three meanings:
• form
• matter
• complex of both
• Of these three:
• matter is potentiality
• form is actuality
• The mistake of former thinkers was to fit the soul into the body while neglecting to elaborate upon the body's definite specification of kind or character  (414a22-24)
• Conclusion: soul is an actuality or formulable essence of something that possesses a potentiality of being besouled

(Chapter III)

• Of the following psychic powers, some kinds of living things possess all, some less than all, others one only:
• "the nutritive, the appetitive, the sensory, the locomotive, and the power of thinking" (414a30-31)
• "If any order of living things has the sensory, it must also have the appetitive; for appetite is the genus of which desire, passion, and wish are species" (414b1-3)
• We will classify the former distinctions in Book III. For now, it is safe to say that all animals that possess sense of touch also have appetition. Why?
• whatever has the sense for touch, has the capacity for pleasure and pain which require objects of pleasure and objects of pain present to it; the desire for objects of pleasure is called appetite
• clarification: Aristotle does not have in mind plants, which cannot in this sense "touch." Touching is a qualitatively different activity than receiving stimuli, which is what plants do. Only those living organisms which have nutritive potencies in addition to sensitive potencies (e.g. capacity to touch) can be said to have desires for objects of pleasure, or the appetite.
• We will examine imagination later in Book III
• A too general definition of soul, moreover, would be absurd. There would be no distinctions of anything if that should be the case.
• Each successive and common term indicating species contains its preceding genus in potency to that determination (414b28-32)
• e.g. the sensory power the self-nutritive
• Hence, we must in the case of each order of living things ask, what is its soul (that of a man, an animal, and a plant)
• We will discuss the orderly succession of the above terms (man, animal, and plant respectively) more in Book III
• In any case, the power of perception is never found apart from the power of self-nutrition even though the latter can be found apart from the former, viz. plants.
• Even so, a small minority of animals possess calculation and thought. Those living organisms which possess these rational potencies contain all that the lower animals and plants have (i.e. sensitive and nutritive faculties)
• Conclusion: "It is evident that the way to give the most adequate definition of soul is to seek in the case of each of its forms for the most appropriate definition" (415a13-15)

(Chapter IV)

• Necessary for student of these forms of soul (e.g. that of a plant, lower animal, and a human) to accomplish the following:
• to find a definition of each which expresses what it is
• in order to understand thinking, perceptive, and nutritive potencies; we must give an account of the enablers of thinking and perceiving: "If this is correct, we must on the same ground go yet another step farther back and have some clear view of the objects of each; thus we must start with these objects [italic mine], e.g. with food, with what is perceptible, or with what is intelligible" (415a20-23).
• My notes: contrast with the modern turn to the subject, which reversed the order of inquiry (e.g. Descartes, John Locke, etc.)
• to investigate its derivative properties
• Let's first begin with investigating nutrition and reproduction. Why?:
• nutritive soul is found among all others
• most primitive and widely distributed power of soul in virtue of which something is said to have life
• Acts which nutrition and reproduction manifest themselves:
• the use of food
• reproduction under certain conditions
• a living thing which has reached its normal development
• unmutilated
• mode of generation must not be spontaneous but teleological (i.e. end-driven by nature)
• "That is the goal towards which all things strive, that for the sake of which they do whatsoever their nature renders possible" (415b2-3).
• What does "for the sake of which" mean? Either,
• "the end to achieve which" (415b5)
• "the being in whose interest, the act is done" (415b5-6)
• No living thing is able to act according to its nature / telos continuously because of the perpetual possibility of the thing to perish
• Continues acting according to its specific not numerical nature
• my notes: this similar to Plato's participation in the Forms but not quite. What Aristotle means by this passage is that, in a series of discontinuous beings, there is similarity of behavior that occurs not because of the discrete being qua discrete being but discrete being qua specific mode of being (e.g. this blue eye and that brown eye may be different and discontinuous objects, but they retain their unity through their specific mode of being, namely "to see."
• In the case of living things, their being is to live, and their kind of soul is the underlying principle or cause of that mode of being. Also, the actuality of a potential is exactly identical with its formulable essence (415b13-17)
• Soul is also final cause of its body. Why?:
• "Nature, like mind, always does whatever its does for the sake of something, which something is its end. To that something corresponds in the case of animals the soul and in this it follows the order of nature; all natural bodies are organs of the soul" (415b15-17). This is true for plants as well as for animals --- that their bodies tend towards the preservation of the soul's interior grades of actualities (i.e. its capacity to see, think, etc.) (415b17-20).
• Recall the two senses of "that for the sake of which":
• the end to achieve which, and
• the being in whose interest, anything is or is done
• my notes: the latter sense of finality applies to the soul in relation to the body.
• Soul is also the cause of the living body as the original source of local movement, and by that Aristotle means:
• change of quality
• Take for instance sensation which Aristotle thinks is a qualitative alteration (e.g. feeling hot to feeling cold, changing from state of pleasure to state of pain, etc.). Nothing that does not have soul is capable of sensation for the reasons given in the other chapters of this book. The sensitive appetite grounds the soul's capacity for this change to occur and is therefore the underlying source of movement (415b23-25).
• change of quantity
• A prime example would be that of growth and decay, which the soul makes possible as original source of movement toward self-preservation (415b25-28).
• Aristotle transgresses to Empedocles' attempt to explain local movement of plants while also urging us to consider the function of the organs of living organisms including plants. The pre-Socratic thinkers, in other words, held that fire may have been the cause of a living organism's nutritive capacities since fire apparently has its own source of movement viz. it tends to move upwards away from the earth. Aristotle partially concedes with Empedocles that fire may be a concurrent cause but not a principle cause which is the soul --- the form of the body. Therefore, the delimiting and formulable essence of a thing is determined by the soul not matter (415b29 - 416a19).
• Nutrition and reproduction are due to one and the same psychic power viz. the nutritive power.

Incomplete notes on Book II

Book III

(Chapter IV)

• Let us turn now to the part of the soul with which the soul knows and thinks in order to determine whether or not this is separable from the other powers of the soul (429a10-12):
• in definition only
• or spatially as well
• We need to ask (429a12-13):
• what differentiates this part
• how thinking can take place
• "If thinking is like perceiving, it must be either a process... (429a15)
• in which the soul is acted upon by what is capable of being thought, or
• a process different from but analogous to that
• Thinking part of soul must therefore be capable of receiving the form of the object, not the object itself but the form of the object
• "Mind must be related to what is thinkable;" that is, mind must be potentially identical in character with the form of the object; "as sense is to what is sensible" (429a15)
• Since everything is a possible object of thought --- needs clarification (i.e. how does Aristotle know that everything is potentially intelligible in the way in which everything is not potentially sensible --- the sensitive powers are passive with regard to actual sensibles, no?) --- mind must be free from all admixture in order to know. Why?:
• "...co-presence of what is alien to its nature is a hindrance and a block..." (429a20). My notes: possible meanings of this, what could possibly be alien to its nature?:
• if the nature of the rational powers is chiefly determined by the intelligible object; by which things are known according to their formulable essences which can, in turn, be predicated to a potentially infinite number of discrete beings under consideration; then any intelligible objects --- or perhaps any non-intelligible objects such as sensible objects --- which do not perform this function (assuming that there are any) present obstacles to the rational powers
• Yet, it seems odd to say this, since intelligible objects require discrete objects under consideration in order for them to be known. This needs more clarification.
• It follows from this that the intellectual part, like the sensitive part, "can have no nature of its own, other than that of having a certain capacity" (429a20):
• My notes: in other words, the rational powers must be deprived of an intelligible in order for the transition from lowers grades of actualities to higher grades of actuality to occur viz. from being able to think to actually thinking.
• "Thus that in the soul which is called mind (by mind I mean that whereby the soul thinks and judges) is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing. For this reason it cannot reasonably be regarded as blended with the body; if so, it would acquire some quality, e.g. warmth or cold, or even have an organ like the sensitive faculty: as it is, it has none. It was a good idea to call the soul 'the place of forms', though (1) this description holds only of the intellective soul, and (2) even this is the forms only potentially, not actually" (429a25).

Incomplete notes

On the Just War and U.S. Involvement in the Syrian Civil War 9/11/13 & 03/12/14

Yesterday, President Barack Obama delivered a speech urging Americans to consider a targeted military strike on Bashar al-Assad's regime. The president claimed that there was substantial evidence implicating Assad and his regime in a lethal chemical strike on opposition forces in Syrian neighborhoods. They continued firing gas rockets at these neighborhoods on the days following the attack (2:50 - 3:30). According to Obama, Assad's recent attacks have not only violated international crime laws against humanity but also continue to threaten our national security interests (1:35, 4:15). Members of the Obama administration have attempted diplomatic negotiations with Syrian allies. The president has also made clear that he would find peaceful solutions before initiating force on the Assad regime.

Obama has laid out plans for Congress to decide for or against a targeted military strike on Assad's regime; which seek to "deter Assad from using chemical weapons, to degrade his regime's ability to use them, and to make clear to the world that we will not tolerate their use" (5:30 - 5:43). Yet, Assad's regime may be incapable to present a serious threat to the U.S. military or to initiate any other kind of retaliation that would be any different from the threats that the U.S. receives on a daily basis (8:45 - 9:06). Moreover, Reuters recently published an article in which the Foreign Minister of Syria Walid al-Moualem, in cooperation with his Russian allies, said, "'We want to join the convention on the prohibition of chemical weapons. We are ready to observe our obligations in accordance with that convention, including providing all information about these weapons'" ("Syria vows to give up chemical weapons, no deal yet at the U.N."). The author also quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin so as to say that his weapons plan with Syria would only work if the Obama administration and U.S. allies were willing to "rule out military action."

Could the Obama administration's refusal to step down from its weighty military actions cause another World War? Should the Obama administration decide for or against military intervention in the Middle East? This article will outline, from a natural law perspective, an ethical framework for deciding for or against wartime resolutions under strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force, or the "just war" doctrine as it is called. In order for the Obama administration to correctly exercise the right of lawful self-defense, the following four conditions need to be met simultaneously:

• the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
• all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
• there must be serious prospects of success;
• the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, ¶ 2309)

If the Obama administration's supposed intentions and actions for defending the country from Assad's regime fall in line with all four conditions outlined by the "just war" doctrine, and if there is sufficient evidence for the claims about the threats Assad's regime presents to the United States' national security interests, then the Obama administration would indeed be accomplishing its purpose in defending the country in lawful self-defense. If not, the Obama administration will seriously undermine the country's moral credibility on an international scale, as well as engender further hatred against the U.S. by the Middle East and jeopardize the fundamental rights and safety of our country. Only upon serious contemplation and reflection on the matter can we decide in favor of a bright future for our country.

An Excerpt from Thomas Nagel's The Last Word

In his book, The Last Word, Thomas Nagel, an American philosopher and University Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University, takes a dim view of postmodernism's controversies which include tendencies toward subjectivism, relativism, and irrationalism. He also argues that postmodernism has influenced our culture away from rational discourse and sustained thinking:

Thomas Nagel

The worst of it is that subjectivism is not just an inconsequential intellectual flourish or badge of theoretical chic. It is used to deflect argument, or to belittle the pretensions of the arguments of others. Claims that something is without relativistic qualification true or false, right or wrong, good or bad, risk being derided as expressions of a parochial perspective or form of life --- not as a preliminary to showing that they are mistaken whereas something else is right, but as a way of showing that nothing is right and that instead we are all expressing our personal or cultural points of view. The actual result has been a growth in the already extreme intellectual laziness of contemporary culture and the collapse of serious argument throughout the lower reaches of the humanities and social sciences, together with a refusal to take seriously, as anything other than first-person avowals, the objective arguments of others. (5, 6)

On the Outgrowth of Modernity and the Musings of Her Children 8/31/13 [Revised 05/07/14]

As it is well known by now, Miley Cyrus' new single "We Can't Stop" had drawn the media's attention as millions of people rushed to criticize Cyrus for her raunchy, offense song and dance routines. Perhaps out of sheer desperation, Cyrus attempted to make a final stand against the dread of her waning youth by throwing obscene vulgarities upon an unsuspecting and scornful crowd. Their jaws dropped and so did mine. They became deaf; my Christian ears bled.

Friedrich Nietzsche

With that said, however, too many of us paid little to no scrutiny to the contents of her lyrics which portray even more perverse transgressions. By tracing our steps back to roots of this ideological pedigree, we will have a clearer understanding of what is at stake. If we assume that our ethical notions follow upon our convictions about nature, then a careful treatment on nature will uncover the principles of the ethical attitudes that we have. If we also assume that most people take for granted what their superiors tell them, and if those superiors take for granted what their superiors tell them, then only those who have thought for themselves about nature and ethics will truly be the ones influencing the rest. In other words, past thinkers have unknowingly influenced our culture towards greater emphases on subjectivism and value relativism. From the ivory watchtowers to the average households, ideas take root slowly but surely. They nestle in the minds of many and influence their course of action as they trickle down from the highest scholar to the unsuspecting person. Sooner or later, they become us.

From the sixteenth century onwards, as more thinkers became increasingly skeptical of tradition and of our claims to certain knowledge, many philosophers and scientists worked towards Enlightenment idealism, the quest for man's domination over nature. In Rene Descartes' Principles and Meditations, after having rendered the quest for epistemological certainty in nature null and void, Descartes retreats into his own interiority, finding solace in his famous Latin phrase, Cogito Ergo Sum, "I think therefore I am." His ideas were a radical departure from pre-modern thought, which held in high esteem man's co-partnership with nature, the study of being (esse). Soon enough, modern thinkers such as John Locke and David Hume reduced our ideas to impoverished sense impressions, ebbing and flowing with the passage of time (Essay Concerning Human Understanding II, I, 2 and 5, vol. 1; A Treatise of Human Nature, I, 1, 1 p. 7). How was one to make sense of unchanging moral principles, the ideas of which had continually fallen privy to change and corruption? Did we need Immanuel Kant to save the day, or should we have reassessed the situation entirely?

Miley Cyrus

After all, if the world cannot provide for moral laws and absolutes, and if our interiority does not suffice for that matter, where do we go from here? Friedrich Nietzsche, a nineteenth century German philosopher, stared head-on at the resultant pessimism that overshadowed the modern struggle, which he saw as being expressed in Greek tragedies. Having expanded upon the Greek tragedies' resonance with Arthur Schopenhauer's Kantian phenomenalism --- and later rejecting it --- Nietzsche initially overcame existential pessimism by finding consolation in tragedies that draw us in toward the Real: the eternal reality of the will. He thought that we could find joy and have our "greatest dignity in our meaning as works of art --- for only as an aesthetic phenomenon are existence and the world justified to certainty" (The Birth of Tragedy, 5, 38). Nietzsche later reneged on his previous claims by suspecting that any undertakings by traditional philosophers toward uncovering realism only revealed a projection of their own moral impositions (Beyond Good and Evil, 6, 8-9). Nietzsche's suspicions about meta-realist claims later churned out an emerging nihilism, a conception of a world with values not inherent to its order but rather as revelries of our make-shift paradigms: "[T]here are no moral facts at all. Moral judgment has this in common with religious judgment, that it believes in realities which do not exist. Morality is merely an interpretation of certain phenomena, more precisely a misinterpretation. . . . In this respect moral judgment should never be taken literally" (The Twilight of the Idols, 33). We can read more about Nietzsche's doctrine of self-determination and "will to power" in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in which he develops the ideal Übermensch as someone who has thrown off the shackles of oppressive morality, or we can listen to Cyrus' new song, "We Can't Stop."

Now it seems we have come full circle as our culture now dreamily intimates notions of supreme superiority over all forms of moral objectivism. Cyrus' "We Can't Stop" represents the logical absurdities of a culture already saturated in Übermensch-think, and she's not alone. She represents the victor of a rival ideology to which we have allowed ourselves to be succumbed, yet many of us today have difficulty realizing this to be the case. In other words, Cyrus' teddy-bear dance routines and aggressive lyrics are, together in their unity, a bleak omen prefiguring notions of unrestrained freedom for our future generations to embrace. Hopefully, some good will come out of this; we can assure ourselves of that fact, at least. But for now, be prepared for more Miley.

An Excerpt from Jacques Maritain's The Degrees of Knowledge: The Majesty and Poverty of Metaphysics 8/19/13

After having to his satisfaction scolded the nominalists of his day --- and also ours --- for blaming "knowledge-through-concepts for not being a supra-sensible intuition of the existing singular;" (1) Jacques Maritain, a twentieth century French philosopher, paints a fascinating portrait of intuitive archetypes who contemplate God's majestic light apace:

Jacques Maritain

There is a sort of grace in the natural order presiding over the birth of a metaphysician just as there is over the birth of a poet. The latter thrusts his heart into things like a dart or rocket and, by divination, sees, within the very sensible itself and inseparable from it, the flash of a spiritual light in which a glimpse of God is revealed to him. The former turns away from the sensible, and through knowledge sees within the intelligible, detached from perishable things, this very spiritual light itself, captured in some conception. The metaphysician breathes an atmosphere of abstraction which is death for the artist. Imagination, the discontinuous, the unverifiable, in which the metaphysician perishes, is life itself to the artist. While both absorb rays that come down from creative Night, the artist finds nourishment in a bound intelligibility which is as multiform as God's reflections upon earth, the metaphysician finds it in a naked intelligibility that is as determined as the proper being of things. They are playing seesaw, each in turn rising up to the sky. Spectators make fun of their game; they sit upon solid ground. (2)

Review of "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver 8/03/13

"Cathedral"

*SPOILERS* Raymond Carver's simple yet profoundly rich story of deep communion and compassion draws the reader in with its carefully crafted characters and ordinary but powerful symbols. Carver's "Cathedral" tells a story of a blind man (Robert) who saves the unnamed narrator ("the husband") from his spiritual indifference and loneliness. The story begins when Robert enters the couple's home as a messiah figure, eager to save the husband from the routines of everyday life. The wife also presents herself as the antagonist who nitpicks her husband's naiveté to the point of disparaging him of his capacity for personal depth. Near the end of the story, while the wife is sleeping, Robert draws the husband in towards greater spiritual awareness by "listening" to him and by asking the husband to draw a cathedral in order so that the husband might see the cathedral with his own ethereality. The story begins to approach its climax as Carver now imagines the husband surmounting his incapacity to express his deep but hidden desire for interpersonal communion, which he projects onto his crude drawing of the French cathedral. Just as the wife awakens to interrupt her husband from his transcendence, the blind man stops her and urges the husband to close his eyes. The story finally ends as Robert fully elevates the husband to a kind of homemade serenity: "'It's really something,' [the husband] said."

Illustration by Sonja Murphy

Jesus Christ: the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Lamb of God 7/12/13

The Holy Spirit sanctified me in His wisdom by showing me parallels between Jacob's mysterious blessing to Judah from whom Jesus Christ would ultimately descend (c.f. Matthew 1) and the Lamb of God (a.k.a. the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, or the Root of David) who opened the scrolls and broke the seven seals. Notice the following parallels beginning first with the Book of Genesis:

Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father's sons shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion's whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as a lioness; who dares rouse him up? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. Binding his foal to the vine, he washes his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes; his eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk. (Genesis 49:8-12)

Now read the following passage from the Book of Revelation:

And I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals; and I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, "Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?" And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I wept much that no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. Then one of the elders said to me, "Weep not; lo, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals." (Revelation 5:1-5)

Thank you, Lord, for opening your heart to your disciples by inspiring men to write your sacred letter. Amen.

Book of Revelation

Additional Notes on the Tetragrammaton, the Divine Name 7/06/13

Hello, Everyone! I wrote an additional piece to my "Coming to the Faith" article just a couple of hours ago and would like to share it with you. If any of you are philosophy or linguistics majors, I would definitely appreciate a response. The following paragraphs seek to name God given our aforesaid knowledge of His infinite and necessary existence by taking a logical and linguistic approach to defining God. Thank you very much and enjoy.

The Catholic Church's teaching on the Divine Name, as quoted from Exodus 3:14:

The revelation of the ineffable name "I AM WHO AM" contains then the truth that God alone IS. The Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, and following it in the Church's tradition, understood the divine name in this sense: God is the fullness of Being and of every perfection, without origin and without end. All creatures receive all that they are and have from him; but he alone is his very being, and he is of himself everything that he is. (Paragraph 213, Catechism of the Catholic Church)

We will, following from the Church's authoritative teachings on the matter, attempt to construct a philosophical and a linguistic account of God's ineffable name by employing arguments for expressing the indeterminate being and pure actuality that God is. Let us begin with the following propositions: "Kate is six feet tall," "my sofa is brown," "my teacher is a woman," and "Alex is." All of these propositions include the copula "is" that binds together the subject and the predicate, and these propositions also express different modes or acts of existence. The first two propositions express the subject's attributed modes of existence whereas the last proposition expresses the subject's substantial existence, so that even in the last proposition there is an implied predication with regard to the subject's contingent existence. Yet these modes of expression all express restricted acts of existence that fail to accurately resemble the existence that God is. We also know from the [previous article] that God does not have existence as one of His attributes as do the subjects in the aforementioned propositions. God simply is His own existence, and if we are going to attempt to assign a name to God, we only have substantial existence and accidental existence as the only two options for extrapolating a controlled definition for God.

Tetragrammaton

The copula, moreover, appears to bind the subject and the predicate together to express varying acts of existence even though the copula is, in and of itself, without an initial subject-predicate determination, which the infinitive form of the verb expresses as unbounded by a particular subject or tense, "to be." The infinitive expresses indeterminately whatever modes of existence the subject and the predicate restrict upon it. Otherwise the infinitive would never need to be restricted to express this act of existence as opposed to that act of existence if it already expressed its own unique determination. Moreover, the subject-predicate combination restricts the infinitive to express a finite mode of being. The three elements in a proposition therefore express a restricted mode of existence.

In [a separate article] we have demonstrated for the contingent existence of the cosmos. Contingent beings, however, take the place of the subject and the predicate in our everyday language. Therefore, linguistically speaking, existence is not necessarily to be expressed initially from the subject and the predicate, but rather the subject and the predicate find their particular existence expressed in and through the infinitive in its initial and indeterminate existence, "to be."

Some subject-predicate combinations, however, only express existence conditionally like the following categorical proposition: "all unicorns are one-horned." The categorical proposition, unlike the three propositions with which we started, can only conditionally express the existence of a contingent being in determinate matter. The proposition "all unicorns are one-horned" does indeed express an affirmative proposition as to a unicorn's proper qualities, so the statement does grant unicorns a particular mode of being but only in a qualified way since unicorns do not exist. The copula therefore does not always grant expressions of complete existence to everything that could possibly exist (e.g. unicorns, sofas, beds, and vampires) even though expressions of a contingent being's existence would not be possible without it.

Therefore with regard to God, who is His own unrestricted and infinite existence, there must belong an extraordinary predication distinct from the forms of predication used for contingent beings. To God there must belong a predication expressing Him as the binding element in a subject-predicate determination. The propositions "God is the One who is 'to be,'" "God is He that is," and "God is" would best communicate His unique class of unrestricted and infinite existence as He exists through His proper essence. This, however, is not like the last of the three aforementioned propositions, "Alex is," since in this proposition it is already implied that the subject's existence is attributed to himself only contingently. The expression "God is," on the other hand, seeks to attach the predicate to God not as to one of His attributes but as to His proper essence. Finally, St. Thomas Aquinas, in the eleventh article of the thirteenth question of the first part of the first part of the Summa Theologica, quotes from St. John of Damascus' Exposition of the Orthodox Faith so as to write that God's name denominates an "infinite ocean of substance."

From my previous article: Aquinas finally concludes by saying the cause of being, bequeathing existence to all existent things as the sheer act of 'to be' itself, in all of its amplitude, existing and subsisting, imperfectly expresses who God is. This is what we all come to know as God.