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8/09/2018 6:43 am  #11


Re: Recent reading

To return to my complaints Davies’ overview and criticism of various theistic accounts of evil e.g. the tapestry theory or soul-making, would be considered a disgrace to a lowbrow philosophical atheist like Martin or Maitzen. That a theist should come out with them in the muddled strawman way that he does is highly depressing.

I am also impressed how that noble son of the Ox manages to completely ignore applicatione of the Principle of Double Effect to the cases he discusses. If he is applying human moral standards to God (to show why that should not be done of course least Plantinga creep into our houses and eat our children) then quite categorically he is not applying Thomistic ones.

With due deference to Anscombe fans I really think Wittgenstein ruined Thomist and associated scholastic philosophy in the U.K. Almost all of them bear his taint and Davies is no exception.

Last edited by DanielCC (8/09/2018 7:28 am)

 

8/14/2018 11:11 am  #12


Re: Recent reading

More cheery reading

I have recently finished Richard Cross introduction to Scotus. It's an accessible little volume, though the emphasis Cross places on some subjects and not on others (for instance the subject of haecceities is relegated to a brief mention at the end) is slightly surprising, as is his failure to more clearly bring Scotus in line with modern ideas e.g. his being the father of the principle of alternative possibilities criterion for libertarian free will. Overall it's a good, lucid and engaging piece of work and leaves the reader wanting more.

The more I read about the Subtle Doctor the more I think Scotus is a better representative of natural theology than Thomas. His thought does justice to perfect being theology and modal discourse in a way Thomism can't and his epistemology/psychology is potentially less troubled by imagism.

Next is the Antoine Vos huge The Philosophy of John Duns Scotus.

Last edited by DanielCC (8/14/2018 11:13 am)

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8/15/2018 11:46 am  #13


Re: Recent reading

Daniel, Is the Richard Cross you're referring to this?:

(I'm not allowed to include the amazon link as a new member, so instead the title:Duns Scotus (Great Medieval Thinkers))

I don't know anything about Scotus so is this a good place to start?  I'm surprised to see it $40 new....

 

8/16/2018 9:33 am  #14


Re: Recent reading

kypwri wrote:

Daniel, Is the Richard Cross you're referring to this?:

(I'm not allowed to include the amazon link as a new member, so instead the title:Duns Scotus (Great Medieval Thinkers))

I don't know anything about Scotus so is this a good place to start?  I'm surprised to see it $40 new....

Yes, that's the one. I agree that $40 is way too steep.

Put it this way: it doesn't cover everything but it gives one a nice feel for Scotus' overall philosophical project. Mary Beth Ingham's The Philosophical Vision of John Duns Scotus is supposed to be more comprehensive though also more advanced. If you're familiar with the basics of Thomism and contemporary philosophy I'd take a chance on that instead.

Hard to find a cheap copy at the moment, but Efrem Bettoni did an introduction to Scotus after the manner of the Neo-Thomist manusals.

Last edited by DanielCC (8/16/2018 9:33 am)

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8/16/2018 4:09 pm  #15


Re: Recent reading

A thought on Vos' Scotus. The book is excellent (I read the central section on the Subtle Doctor's philosophy some years ago and am just beginning it again) and Vos really tries hard to give the reader a sense of the time and local in which his subject worked.

The one little quibble I have is that though Vos is right to stress Scotus innovation with regards to synchronic contingency ('logical potency') he sometimes talks as if prior scholastics including Thomas were modal fatalists, that they held the actual world was the only possible world. This is quite clearly false - earlier scholastics still understood what synchronic contingency entailed even if they were stuck with an Aristotelian paradigm that tried to parse modality into diachronic statements (this is one reason why though Thomas is happy to admit matter might be necessary in the Aristotelian sense of existing from eternity he still stresses its difference from the necessity of the divine substance). Although the emanationist view held by the Neo-Platonists and some Arabian philosophers points towards modal collapse most scholastic philosophers had a strong sense of creation's contingency dating back to Augustine's discussion of different worlds God could create.
 

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8/24/2018 3:23 pm  #16


Re: Recent reading

Obligatory reading for all Thomists:

https://www.iep.utm.edu/scotuskg/#SH6b
 

Last edited by DanielCC (8/24/2018 3:23 pm)

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