ForumUser, I've been hanging around on various boards for a few years now, and I share your frustration. People with a background in science, esp. the hard sciences, explain why the Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics is either wrong or irrelevant or both. Then defenders of Thomism (ain't many pure Aristotelians out there) reply: 1) you fail to understand A-T metaphysics; 2) Aristotle's antiquated science can be safely dropped, leaving A-T metaphysics, which is totally the truth and superior to any other system; 3) you are promoting "scientism," which is self-refuting; 4) without A-T metaphysics, you can provide no rational account of anything worthwhile; 5) without A-T metaphysics, science cannot get off the ground; and so on.

I don't have a scientific background, so I don't see how I can adjudicate between these sorts of stances.

Arthur F. Holmes of Wheaton College is featured in a useful series of YouTube videos on the history of philosophy; easy to Google so I don't link. Of Aquinas' "proofs," Holmes said they are "system-dependent." I.e. they depend on Aristotelian metaphysics with some doses of Neo-Platonism. I think he is right. But why should we adopt Aristotelian metaphysics? I get the suspicion that for some folks, at least, it's because Aristotelian metaphysics is required in order for Thomism to work, and they like Thomism because it backs up confessional commitments that they make for other reasons. [ETA: I do not endorse any view that claims that Aquinas adopts Aristotle's thought to the exclusion of other perspectives from ancient philosophy, nor do I claim that Aquinas is always faithful to Aristotle in metaphysics.] That's why I liked Thomism years ago.

Now, like you, I don't see an obvious way of establishing that Aristotle just gives us the truth about metaphysics and later thinkers and researchers are just myopic.

Last edited by ficino (10/30/2017 8:29 pm)

"I find the claim  they don't argue for their metaphysics strange."

? By "they," do you mean Feser and other academic Thomists? Who has claimed that they don't argue for A-T?

 

I am disappointed that instead of answering my questions, people are dismissing me with, "He's just another one of those guys," especially since I had the expectation that there were many theists here who would want me to come to see and know God, etc.

> It's not clear to me that Forumuser is judging whether Aristotle gives us the truth about metaphysics by comparing it to other metaphysical options instead of just saying: It's not part of Physics, therefore devoid of truth and unnecessary.   

Please read my post again, because I gave arguments, either implicitly or explicitly, showing how I thought this metaphysics was false in addition to being obsolete. For example (though I hate repeating myself), how do we know what 'potentialities' a thing has? I asked about aluminium sparking when put in a microwave: Did it have the potential to spark before the microwave was invented? If not, why not? If so, how do you determine what potentialities a thing has? Does everything contain every logically-possible potentiality? (Is that how God works miracles?) Yet Dr. Feser rejects this idea (without explanation) in his book, as I note. Is it only post-facto? If so, then how can you show you're not just making ad hoc statements to maintain an assumed premise? If things can gain potentialities by virtue of our inventions to interact with them, then how can you be sure the potentiality is an aspect intrinsic to the thing rather than being dependent on its environment?

Overall, I am looking for someone to answer my questions: I am not interested in bickering or "proving myself right". I find it troubling that rather than answer my questions, people's first reaction is to say, "He's wrong." That suggests to me that you're more interested in 'being right' than seeking knowledge, and perhaps that you're not so sure of the philosophy yourself. I came here to learn, so I'm hoping future posts will answer the questions I've asked in my original post (OP).

Hello ForumUser, I'm back, fwiw, and I'm glad you've posted your questions. As I said earlier, I don't have a science background. I do have an extensive background, compared to most people, in Greek and Latin and ancient philosophy, and I publish in refereed venues, though not (so far?!) on Aristotle or Aquinas.

As Jason said, I think there are a few places in your OP where you use terms differently from the way they're used in A-T metaphysics. (I have some issues over how appropriate it is to conflate Aristotle's and Aquinas' metaphysics, but that's a separate topic.) My reply will become too long if I try to propose explanations of the terms I think you use differently. I'll just list them as I see them:
matter (in Aquinas it's basically potentiality, not "stuff", except in a sense not worth getting into now)
form (In Ari it's not only configuration but configuration that makes the thing's action and reaction possible)
motion (basically, change; Aq is interested in hierarchically ordered series of movers in act in a virtual present, not in a temporal series going back in time)

I do think you bring up important problems. You ask, why should we adopt the A-T metaphysical framework? I take it you mean, as opposed to some other one?

You also note that we all tend to think we know things' essences or forms, as they are in themselves, and that we know occasions of causality, when in fact we are working from models that need not capture the reality of the things in themselves. Over on Edward Feser's blog and on other blogs, such as Victor Reppert's, I've seen back-and-forth for years between commentators who make points similar to yours vs. other commentators who insist that macro-level notions of essence and event are accurate. Feser himself will constantly use as examples of causal series groups of things like the air conditioner cooling the room, being powered by the power plant, all the way up in the same time frame to the First Unmoved Mover. Then other people will say that Feser's examples are misleading because what he thinks are essences and events are just macro-level models of realities that are "really" different at the atomic or subatomic level. At that point, I myself don't know where is a common ground for working through this stuff.

I think it would be great if you can contribute to greater clarification, if only through questions.

I noticed there is a recent book out on Aristotelian metaphysics and science. I don't know about it except what I saw here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=JpOtAQAACAAJ&dq=aristotle+metaphysics+modern+science+tahko&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi236XK-prXAhXC5yYKHYgJCNoQ6AEITjAH

Feser himself writes often that science cannot provide answers to metaphysical questions.

 

Last edited by ficino (10/31/2017 9:25 am)

Can't really give you a thorough response atm but I can quickly address your concern that the act/potency division can just be explained by scientific processes. Any Thomist will likely concede that, say, the ice cube melting involves a transfer of energy and a loss of a rigid molecular structure resulting in a loose molecular structure and consequently a liquid form. However, such a process still involves change and subsequently still involves an actualization of potential states (loose molecular structure) from a previous actual state (rigid molecular structure). Even when you talk about the absorption of radiation frequencies, that still involves change and a subsequent transfer from potential to actual. Metaphysics deals with first principles--it's not positing a scientific explanation for change, but rather an explanation of change as such, principles that explain change in all beings. It took me awhile to see this. Think of it like this, metaphysics undergirds even our scientific analyses of the world, it does not compete with them.