Practical Philosophy » Historical errors » 11/01/2015 6:47 pm |
@theway, a good book that talks about the whole Galileo issue is "The Genesis of Science" by James Hannam. Also, I think this book gives one a good introduction to Medieval Science and how it developed.
@Etzelnik Yes, I think Galileo was hard-headed. He made the situation worse by releasing the book, "Dialogue Concerning The Two Chief World Systems." He portrayed the Simplicio (The Pope) as one-dimensional.
Practical Philosophy » Decrease in Protestant Support for the Death Penalty » 10/29/2015 8:49 pm |
Hmmmm, one could argue that the death penalty is permissible towards some people. Say those people who are so morally depraved that they are a threat to society and refuse to change their immoral ways. (Nazi mass murderers, sadistic psychopaths, pedophiles, etc.) Killing them can prevent worst evils from happening.
Practical Philosophy » Historical errors » 10/26/2015 11:42 pm |
@Last Rites Yes! I know about Draper and White and they hold most of the responsibility for spreading those historical caricatures. At least in US culture, historical myths keep roaming around that are biased against Christianity or Christians. I also agree with you that history is not biased against Christians or among professional historians. In fact, Cambridge recently released a 700 page book that focuses on Medieval Science:
Theoretical Philosophy » Mathematical Platonism » 10/23/2015 5:09 pm |
@iwpoe Well, I'm not familiar with Quine's works. I just presented the argument.
Practical Philosophy » Historical errors » 10/23/2015 12:11 am |
@theway Please stay on topic, if you want to criticize the Catholic Church then start a new topic. Also, if you think that the Catholic Church or those "Others mens writings" are wrong then you need to give arguments of why they are wrong and you need to give your own arguments of why you are right. Good day!
Theoretical Philosophy » Mathematical Platonism » 10/22/2015 11:57 pm |
The Quine-Putnam indispensability argument is an argument for the existence of mathematical entities. You can find the argument here:
Also Mary Leng's Mathematics and Reality responds to the indispensability argument and proposes anti-realist/nominal arguments against mathematical Platonism.Theoretical Philosophy » Grunbaum and the Kalam » 10/14/2015 3:39 am |
Right, I remember Craig mentioning how the first premise of his Kalam argument does not presuppose Aristotelean causality. Rather, he wants his first premise to be as "neutral" as possible when it comes to different theories of causality. Of course, one can look at the argument in a more Aristotelean style. For instance, Oderberg defends the Kalam argument and he does respond to some of Grunbaum's objections.
Theoretical Philosophy » Grunbaum and the Kalam » 10/12/2015 1:16 am |
I read Grunbaum's article, the Pseudo-Problem of Creation in Physical Cosmology, at the infidels website. Now, I'm not an expert in cosmology, so I will focus more on Grunbaum's metaphysical critiques. I'm not really a defender of Craig's Kalam argument, however, Grunbaum's critiques were pretty weak. For example, Grunbaum attacks the famous straw man that no one defends, and he mentions "Thus the question more or less tacitly assumes some sort of temporal beginning for the physical universe, preceded temporally by a supposed state of nothingness." Craig's Kalam, does not assume a temporal beginning for the physical universe. Grunbaum doesn't even attack Craig's Hilbert's Hotel Paradox.From my point of view, Grunbaum is being sloppy because he is not very clear on what types of causality is he talking about such as efficient, final, material and formal. One can interpret the first premise, "Whatever begins to exist has a cause" in the efficient casuality sense, which doesn't presuppose physical time. Grunbaum also mentions that Aristotle's "external force is needed as the cause of a sublunar body's nonvertical motion" principle has been refuted, but no cosmological argument assumes this principle. Rather, some of the arguments are grounded in act/potency, simplicity/composition, contingency/necessity theories. Of course, there are more specificities within those metaphysical theories that Grunbaum never touches upon, but maybe in other papers he does.
Theoretical Philosophy » Good Criticism of materialism » 10/06/2015 9:06 pm |
Yes, I'm aware that Dr. Feser argues against ID theory and I'm not an ID theorist. However, there are some ideas (perhaps I should have said "ideas" instead of "arguments") that Menuge brings into the book that Dr. Feser uses and can be used against materialist. For example, denying reasoning leads to the self-refutation of the eliminative materialist's own argumentation.
Theoretical Philosophy » Good Criticism of materialism » 10/05/2015 10:54 pm |
A good book that critiques materialist theories of the mind is Agents under Fire by Angus Menuge. Dr. Menuge uses really similar arguments that Dr. Feser uses against such materialist theories.