I am a non-believer and I would like my reasoning assessed.

[PaulSacramento]

Just a quick side note in regards to "causes" and "goal orientedness":
Sometimes it is helpful to look at it not from the view of " A does B and why does A do B, but why does A do B rather than C or D or whatever.
Ex:
Adding water to fire creates steam ( or fire to water, doesn't really matter) but why does it create steam rather than something else?
Why does water turn to ice below 0 Celsius as opposed to turning to something else?

[Byblos]

Byblos,

Thank you for your response. For the sake of the point, can we walk through a couple of examples? Let's do an internal human based function like a muscle contraction, and let's do a natural based function like decomposition. Do they both end up pointing to the same source?

Thanks,
Ben

If by 'source' you mean the same type of causal chain then yes. Let's look at examples of both types of causal chains.

- Essentially ordered causal series using muscle contraction: pick up a stick and hit a ball with it. The ball is caused to move by the stick, which is caused to move by your hand, which is caused to move by your muscles contracting, by the firing of certain neurons, and so on. On this causal chain if you take one of these interim causes out then the entire movement is aborted (even though technically there are micro or even nano second differences in actual time between the interim events). The whole movement is essential in order for the action to be performed. This type of causal chain cannot extend to infinity, otherwise nothing moves.

Decomposition is also a type of change which requires the actualization of some potential. If we take this even further (as I presume that's where you're going with it) and get into the theory of quantum mechanics which, as far as we know, describes the reality we live in at the most fundamental level (until otherwise discovered), the theory no more renders decomposition without an external cause than, say, Kepler's laws of planetary motion render said motion without an external cause. These laws describe certain observable behaviors without making any references as to causality so no conclusion can be drawn that causality may not be external.

- Accidentally ordered causal series, on the other hand, is best exemplified by our ancestry. I was begotten by my father who was begotten by my grandfather, and so on. Obviously my great grandfather doesn't have to be around for me to exist (hence the accidental relation).

[BenThinkingLately]

Essentially ordered causal series using muscle contraction: pick up a stick and hit a ball with it. The ball is caused to move by the stick, which is caused to move by your hand, which is caused to move by your muscles contracting, by the firing of certain neurons, and so on.

So at what point does that cause become external?

[BenThinkingLately]

If by 'source' you mean the same type of causal chain then yes. Let's look at examples of both types of causal chains.

By source, I mean the unchanging principle cause from premise 5. Do all simultaneous causal chains' end point to the unchanging principle cause? I was hoping you could illustrate how the human based process of muscle contraction and the other process mentioned both ultimately point to that SAME unchanging principle cause (i.e., God).

I'm simply trying to work through the argument for the sake of understanding.

And again... I am most definitely a believer. I am new to this line of thinking/reasoning so I'm simply wanting to "master" this philosophical argument by exploring and applying it.

Thanks,
Ben

[jlay]

If by 'source' you mean the same type of causal chain then yes. Let's look at examples of both types of causal chains.

By source, I mean the unchanging principle cause from premise 5. Do all simultaneous causal chains' end point to the unchanging principle cause? I was hoping you could illustrate how the human based process of muscle contraction and the other process mentioned both ultimately point to that SAME unchanging principle cause (i.e., God).

I'm simply trying to work through the argument for the sake of understanding.

And again... I am most definitely a believer. I am new to this line of thinking/reasoning so I'm simply wanting to "master" this philosophical argument by exploring and applying it.

Thanks,
Ben

Ben, Get Feser's, Aquinas for Beginners. Most of what Byb is communicating is covered and then some.

[BenThinkingLately]

Thanks JLay! I just ordered it off Amazon...

-Ben

[Jac3510]

Jac, that is entirely fine. Take your time. I am sure Jlay and I can continue discussing another matter while we wait.

And so as there is no confusion, I would do not see function as a synonym. I consider it a more fitting definition of use here, and because of that, I think it causes an issue with premise 1 and 2. Hopefully an explanation for why perfection is better can reach me because, as of now, I cannot make sense of these premises.

Thanks again, Jac.

Ok, so I have a few minutes. Let's go back and revisit some of the issues. First, as a passing comment, I appreciate your clarification on not intending "function" as a synonym. So as not to distract from the more important matters, I'll assume that I misunderstood you, thank you for the clarification, and attempt to answer your previous questions. And really these seem to be two:

a. What difference, if any, exists between a perfection and a function? Looking at our example of the eye, it seems to you that a blind eye has lost its function, not its perfection, insofar as a blind eye is less functional. But it would see absurd to say that functions preexist in their causes (either virtually or really), so perhaps we have what amounts to an unsupported assertion even in our definition of "perfection" (and the related claim of real existence) in the first place, which would render the argument in question moot; and

b. In what sense would perfections (not functions) cause their subjects to have more existence than those subjects lacking them? For you see clearly that a blind eye exists just as much as one that works properly! (pun intended)

Rather than answer those two questions in paragraph mode, let me go back to what we've found useful so far and present some strict arguments that I think will provide obvious answers in hindsight. First, I need to argue for the real existence of perfections as distinct from functions. Let's revisit the argument from Pure Existence and use its first premise to show that perfections are real and that functions cannot satisfy the terms of the argument I have put forward:

• 1. Any thing's property not identical with that thing's essence is either caused by its essence or comes from outside of the thing in question.
  2. Some subjects have functions.
  3. Functions are properties of a subject.
  4. Functions are not identical with a things essence but are necessarily related to and caused by that essence.
  5. Therefore, any property a subject has in virtue of its functions are either caused by the subject's essence or come to it from outside the subject in question.
  6. Subjects may lack some properties that they may attain through their functions (either essentially or from outside).
  7. That which may be attained is necessarily distinct from a thing's essence.
  8. Therefore, properties subjects may attain through their functions are necessarily distinct from the subject's essence, as well as from the function of the subject.
  9. But that which may be attained through some subject's properties is a perfection.
  10. Therefore, perfections are necessarily distinct from both a subject's essence as well as from its functions.
  11. Something may not be attained that does not exist.
  12. Therefore, perfections exist.

Now, some of that argument may be unnecessarily obvious, but I'm trying to be very tight and explicit in my thinking,. Frankly, I don't see how any of these premises are controversial. To return to our eye example, eyes have functions (per 2); one of those functions is sight (per 3); sight is not the same thing as the eye (per 4); the capacity of the eye to see is related to the fact that the eye is, in fact, an eye (per 5); just because eyes can see, it does not follow that they have seen everything or that they are seeing at any given moment (per 6); just as sight is not the same thing as the eye, seeing X is not the same thing as sight itself, so seeing X is not the same thing as the eye, either (per 7 and ; 9 is just an explication of the nature of a perfection, such that seeing X is seen to be the perfection of the eye; but 10-12 show that necessarily perfections really exist in and of themselves, since seeing X is related to, and therefore not identical to, what an eye is.

And really, that's all that we're saying. It's not terribly complicated there. When you go to New York and see the Statue of Liberty, that act of seeing that landmark as not the same thing as sight itself (which is a function) nor is it the same thing as the eye itself. So stated, it is just absurd to say that there are no such things as perfections or that perfections are just functions of any given subject. Once again, seeing the Statue of Liberty is not the same thing as sight, and that is not the same thing as the eye. (And to fast-forward back to the argument from intentionality, we can see that the Statue of Liberty is the cause of its being seen by the eye (through instrumental causes of light and refraction and such things) such that it contains the perfection in question in itself; and that's always the case; the Statue of Liberty cannot cause you to see the Washington Monument, and so on! Perfections preexist always and necessarily in their causes, and it is those causes that bring about a real effect in virtue of those preexistent perfections).

I hope, then, that makes the answer to the first question very obvious. It also hints at the answer to the second question, but we'll get to that a bit later. What I want to know from you right now is if the argument presented above makes sense.

But before I close this post, I want to make two more points, one relating to the actual definition of "perfection" (or the etymology, anyway) and the other to an underlying problem/argument that is not directly related but offers independent support for my position here.

FIRST, on the definition, I'll again point out that "perfection" is a technical term. Avoiding formal argument, though, it should be easy enough to grasp. Something is "perfect" if it doesn't have any flaws, which in turn suggests it is "perfect" if it is as it is supposed to be. You can imagine a perfect circle or a perfect beer or a perfect golf swing. "Perfect" here doesn't just relate to function, but what a thing is in virtue of what it is supposed to be or do. A flaw, then, is really not something that a thing has but is actually a lack of something. It is supposed to have this property (which would make it perfect), but it does not have that property after all. So an eye that does not see is certainly less functional than one that can. That is true. But such an eye is also imperfect insofar as it lacks something it ought to have (the ability to see, or more technically, the things it ought to be seeing). The technical term behind all of this is a word the Greeks just made up: entelecheia (pronounced in-tel-eh-KAY-uh). It literally means "to have within ones' self one's end/goal/purpose" (this from three Greek words: en meaning "(with)in", telos meaning "end/goal/purpose", and echo meaning "to have." So the eye's purpose--its goal, so to speak, the reason it exists--is to see. But seeing is AGAIN not the same thing as the eye. So the eye has in its own self in virtue of its essence--the fact that it is an eye--the power of sight. Sight is the eye's entelecheia, or as the Latins came along and translated that made up word, perfectio, which literally means "to bring to an end" or "to finish." An eye brings its end--its sight--to itself. That background, plus the above argument, ought to help clarify why functions are an important part of a perfection (function/goal/purpose is part of the definition after all) but are not all that we are talking about.

SECOND, there is a common attempt these days to banish all thoughts of ends/purposes from philosophical and scientific discussion. On this view, we may colloquially say that the function of the heart is to pump blood, but strictly that's not true; strictly the heart is not a distinct thing. It is just a collection of cells that happen to contract in this or that way. The fact that that contraction happens to cause this other stuff called blood to move through these other things called veins and arteries is neither here nor there. On that view, functions are only accidentally or incidentally related to subjects. That is, functions are nothing more than human constructs attached to subjects by the human mind, but they are not real in themselves. And on that view, perfections aren't real because ends/functions are not real. But that argument, I think, fails for two reasons. In the first place, it's just intuitively wrong and I see no reason we ought to hold it whatsoever. Hearts really are things that pump blood. That is what they are. They don't just happen to pump blood by accident anymore than an eye happens to see by accident. It is what it does! On this view, the denial of functional language of the nature of the heart actually smacks of desperation to avoid some conclusion we don't want to think about, and that makes me wonder about underlying warrant for THAT. In the second place, this whole view is self-refuting, for it is based on the notion that material things are strictly physical. And, of course, matter is not, in and of itself, about anything at all. It is not "supposed to be" anything. It just is what it is in this or that configuration. But so applied, this argument commits the taxi-cab fallacy. For consistently applied, it would undermine the reality of both intentionality and thought itself, both things that you find rather important. For thoughts, by definition, are always about something. Even when you think about thought, your thoughts are directed at the concept of thought, and the concept of thought is not itself thought. So if nothing is really "about" or "directed at" anything else, then thought isn't directed at or about anything, either; but since thought is necessarily about things, then thought wouldn't exist on this view. But since this whole view is nothing more than a way to think about functions, then the very thought (on this view) doesn't even exist! It's just stupid, to be blunt.

What all this says is that if you want to preserve thought and intentionality, which are necessarily about other things, you are required by the nature of the case to embrace perfections as real things. For if perfections aren't real on the basis that subjects don't have functions (=ends/aims, etc) essentially but only accidentally, then necessarily nothing has an end/aim and therefore nothing is "about" anything, including thought and intentionality. But if functions are essentially related to their subjects, then perfections are necessarily distinct from those subjects and being distinct necessarily exist.

-------------------------

I know this was a very long post. I'm terribly sorry. I hope it was clear. Your thoughts?

[Jac3510]

And ben, thanks for following the thread. By and large, I just concur with what Byblos said. The bottom line is that any effect has a place in both a vertical and horizontal chain (unless we want to get into discussions about B-theory of time, and I don't think that's very helpful). I am focusing, then, on the vertical chains because I think they are more effective in showing the necessity and nature of the PC.

As far as the muscle contractions, again, they still lead to an unchanging PC. The reason is that no matter how far you get into the fundamentals of what is causing what (even if you go all the way down to the quantum level; perhaps string theory is right and all of this is just because caused by vibrations of 1 dimensional strings), it still remains that those fundamental causes are themselves either changing or not. And if they are changing, they need another cause. So you must come to a cause that is unchanging and unchangeable on the pain of denying any principle cause whatsoever, which is a self-refuting statement. Because then you would be saying that all of those instrumental changes are instruments of nothing at all, that nothing is actually causing the changes in question, which is, obviously, self-contradictory. If that isn't clear, go back to the train analogy. What is pulling this car? The one in front of it? Sure, but not really. What's really pulling it is the engine. It's just using the intermediate train cars to do the pulling. To have an infinite number of cars would be to say that there is literally nothing doing all that pulling, which is clearly absurd. That's why I keep emphasizing that this argument does not say (as the Kalam does) that there cannot be an infinite regress therefore there must be a first cause, but rather that because there must be a first cause there cannot be an infinite regress.

[NSV]

Jac, I am letting you know that I am thinking about your argument. At first glace, I will be honest, perfection does not make sense to me in the way that it is explained. However, I am spending a good amount of time reading your argument again and again while trying to curve my way of thinking, so please bear with me.

I do want to point out a few things that I may need more clarification on, because as they are, they do not seem right.

So if nothing is really "about" or "directed at" anything else, then thought isn't directed at or about anything, either; but since thought is necessarily about things, then thought wouldn't exist on this view. But since this whole view is nothing more than a way to think about functions, then the very thought (on this view) doesn't even exist! It's just stupid, to be blunt.

I seem to be going down the path that these ideas are not really a thing. It seems like you are saying here that they are a thing because we can think about them. I feel as if I could think about endless abstract things and they never truly are real in the sense that we can build premises on them. (Correct me if I have misunderstood your argument. My apologies in advance.)

One of the things I am discussing, let's say perfection, only seems to exist in the human mind. An eye doesn't have any more of a purpose/goal/end, then an element reacting, or a crystal forming, or a hole in the ground holding water. The hole is a thing. It is an earthly container. One could say it has a purpose/end/goal to hold water, but this only exists in the mind.

This was the mindset I told you I am working on changing in order to understand your argument, but to me, the heart has no more end/purpose/goal than a crystal forming edges does.

I will keep looking into your arguments. Hopefully you can add to this so that it will help me make sense of it.

[Jac3510]

I can tell that you are thinking seriously about it by the nature of your responses. I can address the issue of whether or not these abstract ideas are really "things" later. It turns out that is a very serious issue that has huge implications even far beyond the question of God's existence. It is discussed in philosophical jargon under the term "universals," and there are three schools of thought on how to approach them (and these schools are logically exhaustive, even within each one there are various nuances). Those schools are realism, moderate-realism, and nominalism. Your initial thoughts here suggest a nominalistic approach, which is fine as far as it goes. I openly acknowledge that my argument doesn't work on nominalism at all (in fact, in my thesis, I had an entire section about that very issue). But I would suggest that nominalism ultimately doesn't work for reasons totally unrelated to our particular argument. Perhaps we can discuss that some over the next few days. I would simply say here that if you come to grasp the distinctions in the schools of thought and adopt either a realist or a moderate-realist position (I'm in the second camp for full disclosure) then you'll see that the argument is, in fact, sound.

A general article you might find useful in the short term can be found here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/universals-medieval/
I would also strongly encourage you to read the first chapter of Etiene Gilson's The Unity of Philosophical Experience, the entirety of which, I believe, can be found on Google here: http://books.google.com/books?id=d2O1Vk ... &q&f=false

edit:

Your post also touches heavily on what is called final causality--another serious philosophical issue that I think we are ultimately required to affirm after rigorous argument--but we can only cover so much and then one at a time. So I'd suggest starting with the issue of nominalism and universals as it is a bit easier to grasp and requires less of a total reworking of your current habit of thinking to see. Because whatever you end up adopting as your belief system, it is necessary and best that you start from where you are, otherwise, language and ideas become so alien as to be utterly useless to contemplate, much less access honestly. And that would mean that there would be no honest interaction with the position itself, which strikes me as the very thing that you want to avoid (it is certainly what I want to avoid!).

[NSV]

Thanks, Jac. I am going to need to do some research so I can understand some of these ideas better before we can continue. I will look into the reads you suggested and I will get back to you asap.

[Jac3510]

Take your time. In the meantime, let me give you what strikes me as the important part in the nominlism/realism debate. Essentially, if knowledge of the extramental world is to be at all possible, some sort of realism must be true. The reason is simple enough. If nominalism is true, then our classifications and words do not refer to anything outside of our minds. But if our words and ideas do not refer to anything outside of our mind, then we can neither speak of or know anything about the outside world. But since we do speak of and know things about the outside world, then nominalism must be false, since we our words and ideas really do refer to something outside of our mind. But in order to refer to something outside of the mind, then there must be actual, that is, real things that those words and ideas refer to. And that is realism in some form or fashion.

To illustrate: We say, "John is a human being" and "Mark is a human being." In these sentences, "John" and "Mark" are the subjects of their respective sentences. Now, by itself, the predication of proper names to extramental subjects is an interesting philosophical discussion (where such sentences would be, "He is John" and "He is Mark," whatever the terms "He" and "John/Mark" refer to). But let that pass. More important is the predication is a human being. In that statement, we are attributing something to our subjects, namely, that they are a certain type of thing.

Now, the question is whether or not that certain type of thing (in this case, their humanity) refers to any real thing. Semantics/lingustics won't help us here. We can't just seek to define "human being" more clearly, because that just moves the question back one step. That is, we can't say, "Well, that just means that John is a member of the class homo sapiens sapiens," because then we can ask the meaning of that predicate. Nor can we define the predicate by a list of attributes, as in the statement, "That just means that John is a bipedal mammal capable of ational thought [adding more qualifers here]." For then, we can ask the same question about that (or, better, those) predicates: namely, what does it refer to?

We can say with Hume and Kant that the words actually don't refer to an external reality at all, but only to a series of impressions interpreted a certain way by our brain. But even THAT is not enough, because we don't even know that they are impressions, since those sense-impressions/sense-data is itself extramental. And besides, even if we adopt this completely internal viewpoint of "humanity" being this particular set of impressions so interpreted, then what do you do with the claim that this person is human and that person in human? For John and Mark are not absolutely identical. So what is sufficient to call them "human"? Similarity? But similarity to what? They both have two arms, but then again, apes have two arms. We both are made of mass, but so are rocks (and note that in all of this, we aren't tlaking about apes or arms or rocks are mass, but rather our own mental concepts of these things, which means we have to ask all these same questions about those concepts, too, ad infinitum!). The only way to make sense even of this view is to claim that "human" is just some general concept of a particular person (John), but then we are referring to a real concept to which the particulars supposedly correspond. In other words, on that view, there has to be some sort of fundamental idea in reality (and not just in the mind) before we can talk about this being that. If, then, we are thoroughgoing nominalists, we must claim that ideas originate in and never leave, in that the never refer to anything outside of, the mind. And THAT means that we cannot, in principle, speak of general classes of things, since all such ideas necessitate that some this really is some that. And that means that science is impossible, since science necessarily deals with general concepts learned from particulars and applied to other particulars. So we see that the whole of science is pressuposed to some sort of realism--that is, to the idea that things really are what they really are and that the mind somehow has access to those things as they really are in themselves. That is to say, realism of some sort is true. You really are a human being, which means (per our question above) that you possess a human nature. That human nature is what makes you human. You are not human because you have two arms and two eyes and other such things. You have those things because you are human, and your humanity is real. It is the real thing to which the word "human" refers.

So, again, I claim that nominalism is false. We must presuppose some form of realism if we are going to maintain our claim that we can and do talk about and know things about the real world. And if ealism is true, then the perfections I'm talking about are real in some sense (in what sense remains to be seen), and therefore my argument follows. The PC is the cause of all the real, including the reality of intentionality, and therefore intentionality preexists in the PC absolutely and without limitatation or delimitation. The PC is, in fact, pure and absolute intentionality, which is largely what Christians are getting at when we say that God is sovereign.

edit:

I'm going to try to add to this, because this really is a hard subject, and I want it to be as clear as possible. On nominalism, the basic assumption is that all that is is the particular. There are no general things. Therefore, if general things do not exist, then words that refer to general things (e.g., humanity) refer to nothing at all--the references have no objects. It is, then, unclear, how or where these generalized ideas even come from. To quote from Gilson's book mentioned above (see p 22), Abailard, an early nominalist, thought that "such mental pictures should be made 'representing what is proper to no one of them.' Now I ask, can you imagine such a lion's tail that will fit the back of no lion in particular, and yet will generally do for all of them?"

Now Abailard could see his difficulty and so concluded that we actually have no general ideas, and so to preserve knowledge (which requires general ideas) He said that God has them. There are further difficulties with that as you will read in the text, but for now it's enough to point out that so long as you deny the existence of God you don't allow yourself even that answer. So, again, I say that nominalism must fail if we are to affirm that knowledge of any kind actually exists (up to and including the knowledge that nominalism is true; which is to say, the claim, "Realism is false" is self-defeating!)

edit2:

Lots of typos there. I'm to lazy to fix that.

[Jac3510]

I don't want to overwhelm you, NSV, but while you are digesting all the heavy stuff above, I want to try to demonstrate my original argument regarding intentionality with two part question:

Is it possible to give what you do not have?
* If yes, then how do we avoid claiming that if X causes Y without having Y, then Y literally came from nothing, and isn't that self-contradictory to claim that a nothing produces a something?
* If no, then must not the same must be true of causality, that is, X cannot cause Y if X does not in some sense have Y (the words I used being either really or virtually)?

edited for clarity

[Storyteller]

just want to say thanks for this thread.

fascinating and thought provoking and very well argued on both sides.

annette