Classical Theism, Philosophy, and Religion Forum

You are not logged in. Would you like to login or register?

Theoretical Philosophy » Libertarian free will and rollback objection » 4/24/2018 7:15 pm

Proclus
Replies: 13

Go to post

Miguel wrote:

1) Can we really say that an agent is free when he do an action necessarily, even purposely, by an infinite good, say? ( I don't see in what other case an agent would "freely" AND necessarily do something.)
I would say that it's because X is an agent that in a case of an infinite good, he will necessarily choose the infinite good. But the fact that X is an agent isn't determinate by the agent himself, obviously. That would be meaningless.

I don't want to hi-jack the thread here, but I'm curious what you (or anyone else) would say to an idea that I have toyed with:  Suppose that aseity is the truly essential feature of libertarian free will (i.e. the ultimate causal origin of the action is internal to the agent; Robert Kane and Eleanor Stump have arguments to this effect).  Now suppose that in finite creatures such as humans possessing aseity with respect to a particular action entails the existence of alternative possibilities (van Inwagen's consequence argument establishes this as far as I can tell), but this entailment does not hold for God since he is the ultimate causal origin anyway, and the consequence argument would not apply in the same way.  Hence, we could say that the principle of alternative possibilities is true for humans but not true for God while maintaining that all versions of compatibilism are false.

Why should this matter?  Some Trinitarian theologians, for example, want to say that the love the Father has for the Son is free, in some sense, while maintaining that there is no possible world in which the Father does not love the Son.  I'm sure we can come up with other examples.
 

Theoretical Philosophy » Libertarian free will and rollback objection » 4/24/2018 4:23 pm

Proclus
Replies: 13

Go to post

Also, this comes up in class discussions all the time: no one in the debate is saying that human agents are completely unconstrained by external forces.  That would be crazy.  Obviously there are lots of things that I can't do (e.g. I cannot fly simply by willing it).  The libertarian is simply saying that there are some events (even just one time in a person's life would be enough to satisfy the thesis), for which there is more than one real possible outcome and the agent has some real control over which of these possible outcomes is realized.

Theoretical Philosophy » Libertarian free will and rollback objection » 4/24/2018 4:17 pm

Proclus
Replies: 13

Go to post

I'm not sure what you mean by (1), but in (2) you are still assuming that the probabilities will be fixed.  Many commentators have pointed out that one of the problems with Peter van Inwagen's original presentation of the rollback argument is that he assumes the probabilities will converge as the number of rollbacks approaches infinity.  The only reason to suppose this, however, is if you assume that the events in question are probabilistic, and this is the very thing which is at issue.  The response I give (and I believe Greg and miguel are saying this too) is that we should simply say that free will is sui generis, neither mechanically determined nor probabilistic.  If your metaphysics only has room for mechanically deterministic or probabilistic causation, then this is just evidence that you need to widen your categories.

Chit-Chat » What's everyone reading? » 3/29/2018 8:17 am

Proclus
Replies: 13

Go to post

I like that essay myself. Good suggestion!

Chit-Chat » What's everyone reading? » 3/20/2018 5:06 pm

Proclus
Replies: 13

Go to post

Greg wrote:

Proclus wrote:

(I've still got some blank days at the end of the semester for contemporary analytic philosophy, so if anyone has any suggestions for essential essays (20–30 pages) suitable for juniors and seniors, I'd love to hear them.)

Anything more determinate you’re looking for? Do you just want papers that are good essays, in our view, or do you want papers that are representative of analytic philosophy?

If the latter, Frege’s “On Sense and Reference” (perhaps also “Function and Concept” and “Concept and Object”), Russell’s “On Denoting,” Quine’s “Two Dogmas,” and selections from Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations are all classics which are difficult but accessible to undergraduates. I think they’re intensely interesting, but they may find some of them rather dry. If they are not so thick-skinned, the Investigations stand on their own.

I think Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy” is a great paper and is accessible, albeit difficult.

Thank you for the suggestions.  I'm mainly looking for papers that are representative, but since there is no way to capture everything in a semester, I've given up on being truly representative and selected some things that I simply think would be fun to read.  The Quine and the Anscombe suggestions were already on my list of potentials, so I'll definitely do those.
 

Chit-Chat » What's everyone reading? » 3/16/2018 11:17 am

Proclus
Replies: 13

Go to post

I'm teaching 19th and 20th century philosophy right now, so I'm reading some Gabriel Marcel and Martin Buber for a section on dialogical personalism.  (I've still got some blank days at the end of the semester for contemporary analytic philosophy, so if anyone has any suggestions for essential essays (20–30 pages) suitable for juniors and seniors, I'd love to hear them.)

Chit-Chat » Label for Lewis, McDonald, Chesterton, Tolkien etc? » 3/16/2018 11:06 am

Proclus
Replies: 2

Go to post

I've been thinking about a common set of sentiments that come across in authors such as CS Lewis, GK Chesterton, George McDonald, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams, maybe even TS Eliot.  What I'm picking up on is more a general vibe or orientation toward the world than a definite set of propositional commitments:  a sentiment that the world is beautiful and good, full of symbolic meaning; a love for premodern western culture, and a general rejection of modernism; a taste for the fantastic and fairy; religious conservatism of various stripes.  I thought this forum would be a good place to ask:  Is there an accepted label for this?  I would hesitate to call it a "movement," but it seems to me that there is a general sociological something that pushed a small minority of thinkers in the late 19th and early 20th century toward this general outlook.  Secondarily, do y'all know any place online (blog or forum) where people gather to discuss these kinds of authors?

Religion » Ousía and hypostasis from the philosophers to the councils » 3/16/2018 10:43 am

Proclus
Replies: 12

Go to post

I'm definitely interested in this, since the last chapter of the book I'm writing right now deals with this very issue (i.e. the shift in the meaning of the term ὑπόστασις after 325).

Theoretical Philosophy » A simple argument for the personhood of the first cause, by Lonergan » 3/16/2018 8:47 am

Proclus
Replies: 34

Go to post

Miguel wrote:

Modal necessity is not an automatic explanation for things -- which is why Pruss's version of PSR is somewhat problematic, though even he acknowledges that "odd necessities need an explanation", saying for instance that if a necessary being had parts it would be sensible to ask for what puts them together. And which is also how the Augustinian argument proceeds, to give an example; saying that numbers exist in every possible world doesn't automatically explain how they exist.

Point taken.  I wonder if we can generalize and specify what exactly it is about these kinds of necessities that requires further explanation without being obviously normative or teleological.

Theoretical Philosophy » Philosophy of mind and a resurgence of theism? » 3/16/2018 8:40 am

Proclus
Replies: 6

Go to post

Greg wrote:

It's a complicated sociological matter how many people are atheists and materialists. There are cultural forces at work which dwarf philosophical argument and even the perceived success or failure of scientific research programs. If atheism and materialism begin to wane over the next several decades, it will be because religious people decided to get together and make a lot of babies and raise them in robust, countercultural communities.

I've been advocating this plan for a while.  I knew there was a reason I liked this board.
 

Board footera

 

Powered by Boardhost. Create a Free Forum