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Review of Coyne
In the February 2016 issue of First Things, I review Jerry Coyne’s Faith versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible.
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Upcoming Thomistic workshops
Today is the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas, and thus a good time to draw attention to several forthcoming Aquinas-related summer workshops.Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, NY will be hosting the...
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Debased Coynage
I had a lot to say about Jerry Coyne’s Faith versus Fact in my First Things review of the book, but much more could be said. The reason is not that there is so much of interest in Coyne’s book, but...
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Parfit on brute facts
Derek Parfit’s article “The Puzzle of Reality: Why Does the Universe Exist?” has been reprinted several times since it first appeared in the Times Literary Supplement in 1992, and for good reason....
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Aquinas, Vanilla Sky, and Nozick’s experience machine
I’ve been meaning for about fifteen years now to write up something on the movie Vanilla Sky (a remake of Open Your Eyes). It’s a better movie than it seems -- which is fitting, since the flick is all...
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Review of Alexander
My review of David Alexander’s Goodness, God, and Evil appears in the March 2016 issue of Ratio. It looks like the review is currently available for free online, so take a look (click on the “Get PDF”...
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Around the web
Busy, busy couple of weeks. So, I’ll let others do the writing. Here’s a large load of links:David Oderberg on the current state of bioethics: Interview at BioEdge (reprinted at...
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Scott Ryan RIP
Longtime readers who frequent the comboxes of this blog will be familiar with Scott Ryan, who for many years was a regular commenter here. He was also a moderator and regular commenter at the...
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Putting nature on the rack
What was it that distinguished the modern scientific method inaugurated by Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, and Co. from the science of the medievals? One common answer is that the moderns required...
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Conjuring teleology
At The Philosophers’ Magazine online, Massimo Pigliucci discusses teleology and teleonomy. His position has the virtues of being simple and clear. Unfortunately, it also has the vices of being...
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Parsons on Coyne
Readers of my recent First Things review of Jerry Coyne’s Faith versus Fact might find of interest atheist philosopher Keith Parsons’ comments on the review in the Letters pages of the latest issue of...
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Oderberg on final causes
Speaking of teleology: David Oderberg’s article “Finality Revived: Powers and Intentionality” has just appeared in Synthese. It seems at the moment to be available for free viewing online, so take a...
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Brentano on the mental
What distinguishes the mental from the non-mental? Franz Brentano (1838-1917), in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, famously takes intentionality to be the key. He developed this answer by way...
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So, what are you doing after your funeral?
There is, among contemporary Thomists, a controversy over the metaphysical status of human beings after death. Both sides agree that the human soul is the substantial form of the living human body,...
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A note on falsification
Antony Flew’s famous 1950 article “Theology and Falsification” posed what came to be known as the “falsificationist challenge” to theology. A claim is falsifiable when it is empirically testable --...
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The smell of the sheep (Updated)
Being insulted by the pop atheist writer John Loftus is, to borrow Denis Healey’s famous line, like being savaged by a dead sheep. It is hard to imagine that a human being could be more devoid of...
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Lofter is the best medicine
New Atheist pamphleteer John Loftus is like a train wreck orchestrated by Zeno of Elea: As Loftus rams headlong into the devastating objections of his critics, the chassis, wheels, gears, and passenger...
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Review of Hart
My review of David Bentley Hart’s The Experience of God appears in Pro Ecclesia, Vol. XXV, No. 1 (the Winter 2016 issue). (Yes, the book has been out for a while, but the review was written almost a...
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Craig on divine simplicity and theistic personalism
A number of readers have called my attention to a recent podcast during which William Lane Craig is asked for his opinion about theistic personalism, the doctrine of divine simplicity, and what writers...
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Spiering on Neo-Scholastic Essays
In the March 2016 issue of The Review of Metaphysics, philosopher Jamie Spiering reviews my book Neo-Scholastic Essays. From the review:Feser has found that Aristotelian-Thomistic teaching is a...
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