DanielCC wrote:

In case anyone is interested here is a more modern take on the Fourth Way:

http://web.archive.org/web/20071014120603/http://rightreason.ektopos.com/archives/2007/03/the_fourth_way.html

 

Ah, this one is really different. The biggest difference is that it isn't a deductive argument. Instead, maximal goodness is the best explanation for two facts: (i) how we acquire the concept of "better than", and (ii) the truth makers for "better than" claims. So it's an inference to the best explanation. That already makes it far weaker than the other interpretations. It also doesn't seem to be presented by Aquinas as an IBE, so this seems like a major cost to this interpretation.

More problematic, in my view, is that both of the puzzles maximal goodness is supposed to explain aren't genuine puzzles unless one adopts some very controversial claims. The first puzzle rests on thinking that no relations are real! (Except of course the participation relation that the author relies on.) Perhaps Aquinas thought this, but if he did, he was wrong. The second puzzle puts arbitrary and highly implausible requirements on statements of truth conditions or truth makers. There is no reason to think that the truth makers for 'better than' claims have to have anything in common other than being truth makers.

Overall, this is my least favorite interpretation.

seigneur wrote:

KevinScharp wrote:

On Aquinas' Five Ways
5. Design

I've already talked a bit about fine tuning. Are the people on this forum interested in discussing other kinds of design arguments?

Sure. Modern design arguments are considerably different from classical (scholastic) design arguments and decisively weaker.

Can you give your opinion on the following one? http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/governance.shtml Point I. C

Okay, here's the argument
1. All things have an order or arrangement, and work for an end. (Again, note that the argument proceeds from empirical evidence of adaptation of ends to means of such natural processes as sensory organs, the food chain, the nitrogen cycle, the Krebs cycle, and so forth; hence, Thomas' argument is à posteriori or inductive.)

2. The order of the universe cannot be explained by chance, but only by design and purpose.

3. Design and purpose is a product of intelligence.

4. Therefore nature is directed by a Divine Intelligence or Great Designer.

For me everything depends on what kind of order is being invoked. However, it's easy to see that the order invoked in 1 is an order that has to be the product of design and purpose. So, I deny 1 -- I see no reason to think that all things have an order that must be the product of design and purpose. Not a single one of those scientific examples was produced by design and purpose (or at least, there is no reason to think they were and very good reason to think they weren't).

Feser presents the argument rather differently -- he emphasizes that all efficient causes are determined by final causes. I don't know why anyone today would find that plausible. Feser seems to think that it's just as plausible today as it ever way. That seems obviously false given our vast knowledge of evolutionary processes that have no ends but can produce results that creatures like us almost inevitably see as purposeful and goal directed.

Alexander wrote:

KevinScharp wrote:

Feser presents the argument rather differently -- he emphasizes that all efficient causes are determined by final causes. I don't know why anyone today would find that plausible. Feser seems to think that it's just as plausible today as it ever way. That seems obviously false given our vast knowledge of evolutionary processes that have no ends but can produce results that creatures like us almost inevitably see as purposeful and goal directed.

Feser doesn't just "seem to think" it's plausible - he argues for this position at length (in books such as Aquinas, The Last Superstition, and (probably his most in-depth argument) in Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction; as well as devoting papers to the topic, such as Teleology: A Shopper's Guide, and Between Aristotle and William Paley: Aquinas's Fifth Way). His position is made clear to be one that is not dependent on "large scale" apparently purposeful things like living organisms, but works at any level of efficient causality. Whether or not his argument works, the way it is set out removes the possibility of dismissing it with a cry of "evolution!", and Feser makes this point explicitly in many places.

I'm not dismissing it and I'm not simply crying evolution. I'm saying that it isn't defended in the part of the book that presents the Fifth Way, and I don't see why anyone would accept it. Yes, Feser does SAY that evolution has no bearing on the matter, but people say all kinds of things. He doesn't back it up and it seems preposterous. Thanks for the pointers, I'm happy to look at a defense of this principle.

Alexander wrote:

KevinScharp wrote:

I'm saying that it isn't defended in the part of the book that presents the Fifth Way, and I don't see why anyone would accept it. Yes, Feser does SAY that evolution has no bearing on the matter, but people say all kinds of things. He doesn't back it up and it seems preposterous. Thanks for the pointers, I'm happy to look at a defense of this principle.

Well, the reason final causality isn't rigorously defended in the part of the book that presents the Fifth Way might be the 54-page chapter on metaphysics which precedes the chapter on natural theology.

Feser defends the idea quite a lot, and it could be considered one of his main "themes". A large part of the reason final causality "seems preposterous", in Feser's mind, is that we just aren't used to the idea (at least as the classical philosophers believed in it, rather than as restricted to philosophy of mind). A huge part of his argument in The Last Superstition is that the widespread rejection of final causality in nature was one of the biggest mistakes made in the history of philosophy.

So, what's the defense?

Alexander wrote:

KevinScharp wrote:

I'm saying that it isn't defended in the part of the book that presents the Fifth Way, and I don't see why anyone would accept it. Yes, Feser does SAY that evolution has no bearing on the matter, but people say all kinds of things. He doesn't back it up and it seems preposterous. Thanks for the pointers, I'm happy to look at a defense of this principle.

Well, the reason final causality isn't rigorously defended in the part of the book that presents the Fifth Way might be the 54-page chapter on metaphysics which precedes the chapter on natural theology.

Ha! Nice. I thought about that and looked thoroughly but didn't come up with much. Here's the bit I did find:

Feser wrote:

, Aquinas, ch. 2]Part of the reason the Aristotelian regards efficient causality as unintelligible without final causality is that without the notion of an end or goal towards which an efficient cause naturally points, there is no way to make sense of why certain causal chains are significant in a way others are not. For example, in characterizing the DNA of bears, we take it to be relevant to note that it causes them to be furry and to grow to a large size, but not that it also thereby causes them to be good mascots for football teams. The genetic information in bear DNA inherently “points to” or is “directed at” the first outcome, but not the second. But this sort of consideration applies to causal chains generally, including inorganic ones. As the philosopher David Oderberg has noted, it is particularly evident in natural cycles like the water cycle and the rock cycle. In the former case, condensation leads to precipitation, which leads to collection, which leads to evaporation, which leads to condensation, and the cycle begins again. In the latter case, igneous rock forms into sedimentary rock, which forms into metamorphic rock, which melts into magma, which hardens into igneous rock, and the cycle begins again. Scientists who study these processes identify each of their stages as playing a certain specific role relative to the others. For example, the role of condensation in the water cycle is to bring about precipitation; the role of pressure in the rock cycle is, in conjunction with heat, to contribute to generating magma, and in the absence of heat to contribute to generating sedimentary rock; and so forth. Each stage has the production of some particular outcome or range of outcomes as an “end” or “goal” towards which it points. Nor will it do to suggest that either cycle could be adequately described by speaking of each stage as being the efficient cause of certain others, with no reference to its playing a “role” of generating some effect as an “end” or “goal.” For each stage has many other effects that are not part of the cycle. As Oderberg points out, sedimentation might (for example) happen to block the water flow to a certain region, the formation of magma might cause some local birds to migrate, or condensation in some area might for all we know cause someone to have arthritic pain in his big toe. But blocking water flow and causing birds to migrate are no part of the rock cycle, and causing arthritic pain is no part of the water cycle. Some causal chains are relevant to the cycles and some are not. Nor is it correct to say that the student of the rock or water cycles just happens to be interested in the way some rock generates other kinds and how water in one form brings about water in another form, and is not interested in bird migration patterns or arthritis, so that he pays attention to some elements in the overall causal situation rather than others. For the patterns described by scientists studying these cycles are objective patterns in nature, not mere projections of human interests. But the only way to account for this is to recognize that each stage in the process, while it might have various sorts of effects, has only the generation of certain specific effects among them as its “end” or “goal” and that this is what determines its role in the cycle. In short, it is to recognize such cycles as teleological.

Is this what you had in mind?