(edited since first posted)

No, in Platonism there are in addition to material, efficient/productive, formal, and final/teleological causes two more sorts: paradigmatic and instrumental.

Instrumental causes are not well explored in platonism, but they are essentially tools or means for the production of something. The carpenter's tools are instrumental causes of a table while the carpenter himself is its efficient/productive cause.

Paradigmatic causes are, essentially, Platonic Ideas/Forms: 'that which constitutes some particular X as *the same* as other such Xs' or 'that on the basis of which anything is just what it is.' If I was to use the analogy of the table being made again, the paradigmatic cause of the table would be that to which a carpenter looks when he constructs the table, but in Platonism, strictly speaking, it is debatable and usually denied that an artifact has any kind of paradigmatic cause. In modern accounts of the causes the paradigmatic cause is often collapsed into the formal cause, but the difference is actually rather easy to point out: the formal cause of this particular man is his defining character that he is strong and tall and male and etc but his paradigmatic cause is the form of man itself. In math you might say- 'the form of this triangle is that it is right with such and such proportions the paradigm is triangularity.'

Universals are some third thing that should not be collapsed into Forms, but this isn't particularly relevant at this time.

Now, that said, you more or less get in the right place. But, point in reply, for the Hegelian at least, and indeed, for common sense, societies can't *simply* be formed at will. Cato having immigrated to China is still characteristically Roman- the thought that he isn't is to reduce society into the institution of legal nationality, and this doesn't properly describe the differences between men particularly well. This isn't to say he can't become Chinese (which would be a kind of racial-determinism), but this is not a mere process of will. The assertion that societies simply come into and out of being, as if at random, is a mere assertion and does seem to deny any intelligibility to history, which is, I think, to go to far.

I understand your worry about historical determinism, but I think that's too strong a reading which actually denies what's being expressed in the idea of historical development. Darwinian development is too weak for human (social) history (it is not random how things go), but determination is far too strong (it is not precisely set just how things go either). One would need to ask why, for instance, we look to our founders and our founding as some kind of ground and model of where we are and where we're going and ask also why and how we can speak of a 'peculiar American or British or Jewish or etc character'. One thing to say might be that these are mere fictions, but I think this ultimately would mean that there is no intelligibility to the progress of human events that isn't itself a fiction. It would mean that history is no science (even in the broad German sense of 'Wissenschaft') and is either a fiction or a mere catalog of events.

Last edited by iwpoe (8/10/2015 2:08 am)

I would like to explore some ideas in relation to this topic.

I am opposed to marriage between people of the same gender on the grounds that 'gender complementarity' exists for a reason. But I find I'm in the position where I literally cannot express this idea to anyone in my community. I have two grown sons both of whom refuse to discuss it, and my wife also refuses to discuss it, even though she agrees with me.

In Australia where I live, the (conservative) government (whom I don't generally support in respect of other issues) has just engineered a means of putting off any kind of parliamentary vote on the question until after the next federal election (due in about 14 months). This has triggered widespread protests in the media, who are to all intents 100% pro 'gay marriage'; the major Sydney newspaper is now running a headline article on the progress of gay marriage in the rest of the world (the implication being that Australia is out of step.)

So I think probably within a year, gay marriage will have been legislated in Australia. I don't expect the sky to fall or the world to end. But I do expect to have to smilingly agree with a lot of specious arguments - the most egregious being that 'being gay' is like unto 'being Jewish' or 'being African', and that, therefore, those who oppose same-sex marriage are something very close to racists.

I fully accept that persons are born with inclinations to same-sex relationships. But even so, I don't accept that 'being gay' constitutes a cultural identity (the point of a controversial essay in First Things calledAgainst Heterosexuality).

 There is the suggestion afoot that even to debate whether gay marriage ought not to be legal, constitutes 'discrimination', because it implies that there is something different about it. So unless you and I and everyone else are perfectly willing to stand on the sidelines and applaud, then we're essentially 'enemies of freedom'. I think ultimately, it will become to all intents illegal to even discuss the issue, under the auspices of 'anti-discrimination'. 

So my thoughts on the 'best arguments against' is simply that, if you have to argue against it, it's already game over. If the rational purpose of the complementarity of gender roles in marriage can be called into question, then there is no rational response. You can't rationally argue against an irrational attitude. So I suspect that for most of us anti-s, it will end up, ultimately, with us being silent.

As I am, already, in my family.

DanielCC wrote:

That sounds awfully like some forms of Resemblance Nominalism wherein a group of objects can be said to share the same proper in as far as they resemble a paradigmatic example (at which point RN hits the huge difficulty of specifying in what respect they must resemble this example).

No. I've basically extracted that way of framing a Form from Gerson, who is likely phrasing it in those terms as an anti-nominalist gesture.

The point is that different examples *really are* the same: there are not 15 individuals that *seem* to be similar by virtue of their resemblance to some prime case: it is not a relational matter. There are 15 Xs which *are* the the same by virtue of their derivation of their being by way of a single real paradigm, which should not be understood as as primary case being badly duplicated, but rather better understood as like a blueprint or, if you get further down the Platonic-Pythagorean road, the true mathematical reality of particulars.

If you want better than that, then I'll have to admit that I've got a long road ahead of me that I should probably actually start posting here. Keep needling me about it.

DanielCC wrote:

I’d be inclined to say that being tall, strong, male et cetera et cetera would all be properties the man has though i.e. they’re either accidents or ‘real properties’ adhering in the substance of that particular man, whilst being a man is the kind/species universal that particular man instantiates.

Yes, but consider explaining my friend John: it is not as if the collection of his "real properties" isn't a legitimate category of explanation and thus a kind of "cause (causa)". It is easy to see how you could conflate this sort of explanation with one that appeals to the "Universal", but historically Platonism distinguishes them. The point then is that you can separate off two sorts of explanation of a thing off and categorize them as 1 formal and 2 paradigmatic.

Now, re universals: Gerson strongly contrasts Forms and Universals for reasons that I've had a hard time wrapping my head around. This probably because I came to him backwards, with a idea of Universals that makes them very much like Forms. There's a paper on it in my collection of Gerson's Papers, so maybe I'll start a thread on that today.

DanielCC wrote:

Surely this because we regard them as prime examples of a virtue to be emulated? On that case one is fully justified in speaking of paradigmatic individuals but if a virtue is a true virtue then that individual must be paradigmatic for all individuals not just those of a certain culture. Of course various groups have prioritised one virtue other another in the consequence of which that virtue has come to be seen as quintessentially representative of that group – hence why we talk of specific cultural characters.

Well, yes, but are the characters of cultures real and intelligible or arbitrary and fictional. If you think that our founders are specially relevant examples of virtue, then it does seem to me that, at the very least, you're going to lean towards the reality of a cultural character. If you don't, then, as a member of greater mankind, you're going to want to choose more freely as exemplars (you may recall Nietzsche regularly making a move like this when he calls himself a "good European" and constantly disowns Germany and his Germanic background: the point is that the German is ultimately unreal or at least diminutive, and thus he'd rather choose as heroes Pascal, Pilate, Zoroaster, and Spinoza amongst others but to hell with Bismark.)

DanielCC wrote:

I would incline towards it being the later. Surely any progress in history would have to be the progress of a given group towards virtue? In that sense of course there is no universal progress in history – all we have is instances of civilisations – shorthand for the sum of their members - waxing and waning as they approach the Ideal and fall away from it.

That is a pessimistic view of history, yes. Although you needn't deny the reality of cultures to take on such a pessimism; it's just that the history of cultures would be far more Hobbesian than progressive: the competitive struggle and death of thousands of real cultures in a struggle to nowhere.

Last edited by iwpoe (8/12/2015 7:05 am)

I watch the ABC all the time for news and current affairs, as I watch the BBC, because the commercial channels tend to have puerile news and morning shows (and aren't that much less biased towards left-liberalism - cf. Channel Ten news). Apart from Peter Hitchen's column, the American Conservative, Andrew Bolt's show (as much as I don't care for his climatr scepticism and his neoliberalism), and Special Report on Fox News, I don't really watch consume much news and current affairs apart from the ABC and BBC, as much as I partly despise them.

seigneur wrote:

The commentaries to the currently most recent post at Edward Feser's blog have taken on the topic in this thread. Many repeat the arguments given in this thread. There's one that puts my own position perhaps more concisely than I could.

TheOFloinn wrote:

Muddying the definitions impairs our ability to talk about something coherently. The natural pairing of men and women is simply a biological fact. See Darwin for details. In fact, that is just what marriage is -- the natural pairing off of men and women. That's why in the traditional churches, the ministers of matrimony are the couple, not the priest (who is simply an official witness for the Community). It's even more informal among muslims. Societies devised various strategies to control the behavior since, without some controls, it would spell demographic disaster for the clan. For example, the man cannot abandon the woman for frivolous reasons. He must support the woman and defend her and her children with his life if need be. In return, she guarantees that her children will be of him. There may be rules of moeities or consanguinity, or who can arrange the marriage. Some societies permit alpha males or Big Men to support multiple wives. (Among muslims, the man has to demonstrate that he has the means to do so.) etc. All of these rules and obligations are intended to inculcate stability, faithfulness and most of all to ensure that offspring do not become a burden on "the king's purse."

None of this is needed for other sorts of pairings, since there is no comparable consequences.

These are the reasons why family is important to the society. Marriage is the sanctification/celebration of (the start of) family - an indication by the society or "clan" that family is indeed important. Is there anything more intrinsic than this?

I gear this is going to become cyclical - whatever a society or a clan designates as important is no indication to its really being so (I will reiterate that marriage may be important - I just don't think its important for this reason). Dito the OFloinn's example makes the point that historically marriage was largely a way of handling procreation; it is not asked though whether this was in fact a good thing or a bad thing. Despite asking for what is literally years now no proponent of Natural Law and related philosophies of this type have ever given me a particularly satisfactory reason to think that procreation is good*.
 
*Underneath it all the argument seems to be: ‘Few people can endure abstinence and sexuality must lead to reproduction or be considered a mortal sin therefore if one does not wish to be abstemious then one must reproduce’.

To give an example: in the Western world at men have often been concerned about their line/family name dying out for lack of a male heir. Now are there any rational grounds for this? Perhaps in earlier ages when the failure to maintain a distinct patriarchy meant that female relatives and dependents would pass into bondage or worse. But by the time of the 18th century that was no longer a concern, yet people in their venality and materialism still clung to this idea.