- ficino
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
RomanJoe wrote:
@Ficino
Either Feser isn't clear on this issue of instantaneous vs simultaneous series, or I'm misunderstanding him. I'm not even sure Feser is a big fan of using the term "simultaneous" when we get more technically precise about the nature of a causal series ordered per se.
Feser did use the term "simultaneous" often to describe per se ordered causal series in his Aquinas and in Scholastic Metaphysics. But in the latter, p. 148-50, he makes the same distinction that he makes in Five Proofs between "simultaneous" and "instantaneous," i.e. that the process may extend "over a considerable period of time." Key for a per se series is the stipulation that "the later members ... cannot operate "without the continued presence of the earlier members from which they derive their causal power." So there has to be cotemporality at least such that the higher members are operating while the lower members operate (and transmit causal power to those lower members of the series).
In Scholastic Metaphysics he also says that in a per se series, it is necessary that subordinate members derive their causal power from the principal cause, and that the higher causes are more perfect than lower causes (149-150).
I think we're basically agreed on what Feser's view is. And I too don't have the background to evaluate claims about what's entailed by behavior of subatomic particles and such. As I said to Armando, his example strikes me as a bit of an outlier because it's not obviously about an A-T change, while Aquinas' examples of fire or the man pushing the rock with a stick are easier to grasp as A-T changes.
Last edited by ficino (12/17/2017 2:49 pm)
- ArmandoAlvarez
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
@ficino & romanjoe
As you know, when Feser brings in his cups sitting on tables (or chandeliers hanging in buildings) he does so in the context of a statement like "Change is just a subset of actualization of potential." And I would think if I understand actuality and potentiality, which admittedly I don't have the best grasp of, the cup sitting on the table would be an actualization of the cup's potential for various locations. Do you think this is an inappropriate digression from the First Way? Or is it a modern refinement of the First Way?
- Jeremy Taylor
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
The first way is concerned with the actualisation of potency, this is what it means by motion. So generation and corruption most certainly do count as motion. You have been told what motion means in this context multiple times now.
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Thread Starter- ficino
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
The first way is concerned with the actualisation of potency, this is what it means by motion. So generation and corruption most certainly do count as motion. You have been told what motion means in this context multiple times now.
If you have passages in which Aquinas defines generation and corruption as motions and applies that sense of motus to a cosmological proof, please cite them. Until then, I stick with what I have found in the texts. I have cited passages from Aristotle, Aquinas plus even Wippel, and I shall not repeat them here.
That generation and corruption count as motions for Aquinas might be entailed by this in the First Way: "For to move is nothing else than to bring something from potency into act". However, there are places in the corpus where Thomas uses "nihil aliud quam" not to imply "P if and only if Q" but merely, "If P, then Q." Ie. if motion is bringing something from potency into act, we don't know immediately that we can convert this to get "all instances of bringing things from potency to act are motions." I've found examples of "nihil aliud quam" used in this second sense, but I haven't traced the phrase through the whole corpus.
Last edited by ficino (12/17/2017 4:05 pm)
- ficino
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
@ficino & romanjoe
As you know, when Feser brings in his cups sitting on tables (or chandeliers hanging in buildings) he does so in the context of a statement like "Change is just a subset of actualization of potential." And I would think if I understand actuality and potentiality, which admittedly I don't have the best grasp of, the cup sitting on the table would be an actualization of the cup's potential for various locations. Do you think this is an inappropriate digression from the First Way? Or is it a modern refinement of the First Way?
I think Feser's blend of argument from motion and argument from contingency is a modern reconstruction of Aquinas' First and Second Ways, at the least, since those are presented in the ST as arguments from change. I don't think cups sitting on tables are the best examples for the First or Second way, though they may be so for Feser's version of them, which he himself said may be more a "rational reconstruction" than the fruit of strict exegesis of ST 1a q. 2 a. 3.
- Jeremy Taylor
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
The Thomistic definition of motion is well known, pace your strange attempts at unnecessary exegesis:
Here the saint shows, in the first book, the necessity of distinguishing act from potency if we would explain "becoming," i. e.: change, motion. Motion we see at once is here conceived as a function, not of rest or repose (as by Descartes): but of being, reality, since that which is in motion, in the process of becoming, is tending toward being, toward actual reality.Attentive study of the commentary on the first book of the Physica shows that the distinction of act from potency is not a mere hypothesis, however admirable and fruitful, nor a mere postulate arbitrarily laid down by the philosopher. Rather it is a distinction necessarily accepted by the mind that would reconcile Heraclitus with Parmenides. Heraclitus says: "All is becoming, nothing is, nothing is identified with itself." Hence he denied the principle of identity and the principle of contradiction. Parmenides, on the contrary, admitting the principle of identity and of contradiction, denied all objective becoming. St. Thomas shows that Aristotle found the only solution of the problem, that he made motion intelligible in terms of real being by his distinction of act from potency. What is in the process of becoming proceeds neither from nothingness nor from actual being, but from the still undetermined potency of being. The statue proceeds, not from the statue actually existing, but from the wood's capability to be hewn. Plant or animal proceeds from a germ. Knowledge proceeds from an intelligence that aspires to truth. This distinction of potency from act is necessary to render becoming intelligible as a function of being. The principle of identity is therefore, for Aristotle and Thomas, not a hypothesis or a postulate, but the objective foundation for demonstrative proofs of the existence of God, who is pure act.
Term
MOTION
Definition
In Thomistic philosophy any passage from potency to act. Therefore any change and any acquisition of perfection are motion. Every creature is by its essence subject to motion because it is finite. Only God is the immovable Mover because, while he changes all things, he remains unchanged.
I can't even understand what this kind of hairsplitting adds to the discussion. I have heard whispers of sockpuppets with strange mannerisms and obsessions to differentiate their personas. I hope that isn't true and will remind everyone sockpuppets are not allowed.
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
@ Jeremy Taylor,
You seem to shy away from the texts of Aristotle and Aquinas and others and to rely on secondary materials.
The relevance of what Aristotle and Aquinas actually wrote about generation and corruption should be obvious. When you are analyzing the First Way, you need to get clear on what kind of change is in view. If change in substance is NOT included in what Aquinas means by motus, then change in substance does not belong in a discussion of Thomas' argument. I do not contest that Feser wants to bring substantial change into the First Way. Perhaps he does so in part because he wants to find a rejection of Existential Inertia there. You may not want to discuss the DDC vs EI, and if not, that's OK with me. And it's fine if you'd rather discuss Feser's "rational reconstructions" of Aquinas than what Aquinas wrote. I find the saint more interesting than some of his contemporary popularizers.
Did you read what John Wippel wrote about this topic? I am not making up what I am writing. But don't follow this point if you don't want to.
It's sad that you seem to feel compelled to suggest I am a sock puppet because I disagree with you.
Last edited by ficino (12/17/2017 4:15 pm)
- Jeremy Taylor
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
If you think that that the idea the first way is concerned with change as the actualisaiton of potency is something peculiar to Feser, then you are gravely mistaken. St. Thomas himself say that this is what motion is when outlining the first way:
For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality.
Your name has come up as one of the possible sockpuppets, and I must say I find your behaviour strange - both your irrelevant exegesis and your ludicrous taking seriously of SP and his oft-refuted silliness - and it would be explainable in this way. Feser is not concerned to reject the Newtonian Principle of Inertia. He has no need to do so for his argument to succeed. SP is a moron and troll. His objection is basic and has been easily dealt with. Dragging up tedious exegesis and obsessing over minutiae doesn't change that.
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Thread Starter- ficino
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
Jeremy, I never denied that the First Way concerns certain actualizations of potency, which on A-T terms is change. Whether generation and corruption are changes that count as motions is a question about which there is controversy.
I had added the passage you quote from the First Way. It may be enough to show that Aquinas means ALL change to count as motion. I am not yet convinced. There's a difference e.g. between saying, "Brownies are nothing other than chocolaty goodness" vs. "A circle is nothing other than a series of contiguous points equidistant from a central point" or some such. I'm interested to try to see what Aquinas does when he says "A is nothing other than B".
I don't deny that as an ancient language geek I write things that sound strange. To me, people who talk about subatomic particles etc sound strange! I assure you I am not a sock puppet.
Is there a rule of posting such that trying to disentangle old texts is not an activity for this forum? I thought it is about texts that have to do with classical theism.
A thing about this thread, though: SDP focused on Thomas' First and Second Ways. I didn't think his primary focus was Feser's reconstructions. So I should think it germane to try to look closely at what Thomas seems to have meant.
- grodrigues
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
@ficino:
"Just saw this, though it's not a new post. Accuracy?"Unfortunately for St. Thomas, relativity means that motion is no longer a property of one thing. Motion is a property of at least two “things”, the observer and the object. There can be no “unmoved mover” since all motion is now known to be relative to the observer, and not to some unmoving reference.The premise of the First Way originates from the concept of a single body and its motion relative to a fixed reference. The logic of the First Way is based upon a false premise. Saint Aquinas’ First Way proves nothing because it leads from an incorrect initial premise.""
This does not even pass the laugh test. He passes from what happens in the natural order of material bodies to the Unmoved over who is above the natural order.
@Stardusty Psyche:
"If you are the Portuguese mathematical physicist PhD you claim to be surely you can show us specifically, where, how, on the merits, my above arguments are wrong, as opposed to merely calling me names."
You are a delusional kook, an ignorant moron who could not win a contest of wits with a dead gerbil.