Calhoun, I was referring to some of your replies to John, in which you seemed, to me at least, to be misunderstanding him and the subject matter, yet still making lots of assertions.

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Simply those places where others noticed, such as where you kept asserting the same thing, as on the fact eternalism rules out the A-T notion of potency, despite John's explanations it doesn't necessarily. Your responses here seemed to amount to little more than saying you disagree and then reasserting your basic claim.

I certainly no expert on this topic well, which is why I commented little on it. But one doesn't have to be especially acquianted with the topic to notice what are evasions and bald assertions.

Anyway,my point is not to get into the ins and outs of your argumentation but just to offer advice.

Here is an explanation:

This one really puzzles me, how do possible worlds serve as truthmakers for that?

When I look for a truthmaker, I look for one that fulfills the principle of truthmaker necessitarianism:

(TN) An entity T makes the proposition <p> true if and only if T makes <p> true in every possible world T exists.

It follows from it that since “John caused the vase to break” is true in this world and Lewis places the truthmakers for the relevant counterfactuals in various other worlds, T doesn't even exist in one world (and, so, doesn't make <p> true in every world it exists).

But someone only familiar with Lewis's use of “truthmaker” might only think to look for something that fulfills his much weaker (LT):

(LT) For any proposition <p> and any worlds w and v, if <p> is true in w but not in v, then either something exists in one of the worlds but not in the other, or else some n-tuple of things stand in some fundamental relation in one of the worlds but not in the other.

And there is a sense in which possible worlds make the vase proposition true if (LT) and counterfactual causation (although you probably don't need the whole stinkin' Lewisian pluriverse for it).

So, the possible worlds suggestion may just be the result of Red's having only been familiar with Lewis's truthmaker principle (possibly even just with Lewis's way of talking about truthmakers in some places).

(Can a similar case be made for brute facts? No. But cut the guy some slack on the possible worlds bit.)

The heavy lifting in the Second Way and Third Way are done by the essence/existence distinction and the hylemorphism theory of substances. If you have either, it's corresponding argument goes through for God and the theory of time doesn't come into it.

I know there are various arguments for each, but I don't find them all persuasive and I dont have any of Ed's books on me. But i've left it long enough so I though i'll post anyway!

So I find hylemorphism to be far ahead of it's competitors regarding the mind/body problem. I don't take eliminative or reductive materialism seriously anymore. I think the best competition comes from Emergentist views/property dualism/neutral monism. However, they don't have at their disposal anything like formal causation to dodge to problem of epiphenominalism. Perhaps it is open to some monists inspired by Russell or who edge toward pansychism, to incorporate some kind of finality to account for intentionality. But they needs to be fleshed out more, and just how different would it be to Hylemorphism in the end, anyway?

On one hand, allowing the mind/body problem to decide the theory for the much boader philosophy of nature regarding substances seems cheep. But it's not exactly rare. Along with Russell's point that physics only gives mathematical structure, it was the mind/body problem which played a part in his version of monism and modern spin offs of pansychism. I think the argument is powerful enough to favour Hylemorphism over the others.

Also, I think Aristotelian realism over universals further favours hylemorphism. Afterall, it's just the idea that physical things instantiate forms and that, outside of people's minds, it doesnt exist anywhere else. Certainly not in any Platonic third realm. I may have to think about this more, but without formal causation, other accounts of substances would also suffer from epiphenominalism if they also endorsed Aristotelian realism. IIRC, wasn't the form/matter distinction in part encouraged by Aristotle's agreement with Plato regarding Universals but disagreement regarding where and how they were instantiated?

But the bottom line is that neither of these arguments are affected by time, no matter what theory you take.

Ed also noted in Scholastic Metaphysics one philosopher's argument to the tune that hylemorphism entailed the essence/existence distinction. Prime matter doesn't exist without form, form is just an abstraction without matter and doesn't exist either. A hylemorphic substance doesn't have within itself it's own existence, something outside of it must be needed to explain it's existence to avoid an infinite regress. But that just affirms that an essence doesn't have existence and the distinction the Second Way relies on.


 

Hi Callum,

You're right these arguments are not necessarily undermined.

But at least matters on these views of time and change become much more complicated, A-Tism doesn't enjoy the same prima facie plausibility on these views that it did previously.

-Physicalism is still developed and defended sophisticatedly and rigorously, its still widely accepted, perhaps its prospects aren't as high as they once were but still it would be naive to count it out..

-Defenders of these arguments have their work cut out on showing the superiority their metaphysic over some kinds of neo-Humean views on modality,causation etc...
and as you can probably see, there can be disagreement on just about everything.

Callum wrote:

Prime matter doesn't exist without form

We rule out prime matter when we rule out endurance. objects persist through parts.

Callim wrote:

But the bottom line is that neither of these arguments are affected by time, no matter what theory you take.

Yes, not necessarily but like I said things could get very complicated 
seehere for example Feser explains that A-Tist believe that the whole objects persists and that is what separates it from occasionalism ..and this is also where I first pointed out that accepting alternate view seems to make short work of A-T (it might even penalize its theory of mind) ..and Feser seems to agree here at least.( He says that thomists should not accept those assumptions) 

So I think what one needs to do is to somehow sneak causal powers into the doctrine of temporal parts ..and it doesn't seem impossible though I am still trying to contemplate how exactly it could be done 


Best Regards.











 

Last edited by Calhoun (4/17/2017 8:40 am)