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A gigantic book royalty check from nothing
Robert Lawrence Kuhn and John Leslie have written up a gracious and substantive reply to my recent First Things commentary on their anthology The Mystery of Existence: Why Is There Anything At All? It...
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Churchland on dualism, Part V
Paul Churchland has just published a third edition of Matter and Consciousness, his widely used introductory textbook on the philosophy of mind. The blog Philosophy of Brains has posted a symposium on...
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The return of final causality
I commend to you the late historian of philosophy Paul Hoffman’s paper “Does Efficient Causation Presuppose Final Causation? Aquinas vs. Early Modern Mechanism.” The paper appeared in the 2009 volume...
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Man is Wolff to man
As a follow-up to my series of posts on the critics of Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos, let’s take a look at philosopher Robert Paul Wolff’s recent remarks about the book. Wolff is not nasty, as some...
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Midwest Studies in Philosophy
My article “The New Atheists and the Cosmological Argument” appears in Volume 37 of Midwest Studies in Philosophy. The theme of the volume is “The New Atheism and its Critics” and the other...
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Some questions on the soul, Part I
In a recent post I spoke of the soul after death as essentially the human being in a “radically diminished state.” The Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophical reasons for this characterization were set...
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Natural law or supernatural law?
When you blur a real distinction between any two things A and B, you invariably tend, at least implicitly, to deny the existence of either A or B. For instance, there is, demonstrably, a real...
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Oerter and the indeterminacy of the physical
Many readers will recall some worthwhile exchanges on causality and motion that I had some time back with physicist Robert Oerter. (You’ll find my contributions to our discussion here, here, and here....
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Some questions on the soul, Part II
In a recent post I responded to a reader’s question about the Aristotelian-Thomistic understanding of the soul. Another reader asks another question. Let me set out some background before addressing...
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Oerter on indeterminacy and the unknown
I thank Robert Oerter for his reply to my recent comments on his criticism of James Ross’s argument for the immateriality of the intellect. Please do go read his reply -- and never fear, he is a much...
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Do machines compute functions?
Robert Oerter has now replied to my most recent post about his criticisms of James Ross’s argument for the immateriality of the intellect. Let me begin my rejoinder with a parable. Suppose you...
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Some varieties of bullsh*t
Harry Frankfurt’s famous essay “On Bullshit” first appeared back in 1986 and was republished a few years ago in book form. Though it has surely attracted too much attention from people who get an...
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Can machines beg the question?
I thank Robert Oerter for his further reply to my recent comments (here, here, and here) on his critique of James Ross’s argument for the immateriality of the intellect. You will recall that, greatly...
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Upcoming speaking engagements
This Saturday, November 9, I’ll be speaking at a symposium on “Thomas Aquinas and Philosophical Realism” which will be held at the Catholic Center at New York University. The other speakers are James...
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Around the web
Was the twentieth-century Thomist Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange unduly influenced by Leibnizian rationalism, as followers of Etienne Gilson often allege? No, argues Steven Long, over at Thomistica.net....
View ArticleOerter is a mensch
Physicist Robert Oerter and I have been having an exchange over James Ross’s argument for the immateriality of the intellect. In response to my most recent post, Oerter has posted a brief comment....
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Bloggers in arms (Updated)
Back today from the “Thomas Aquinas and Philosophical Realism” symposium in NYC. While there I had the great pleasure of meeting blogger and statistician to the stars Matt Briggs and blogger and...
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Some questions on the soul, Part III
In some recent posts I’ve been answering readers’ questions about the Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) understanding of the soul. One more for the road, from a reader who is unclear about why mind-body...
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Aquinas’s Fifth Way in Nova et Vetera
My article “Between Aristotle and William Paley: Aquinas’s Fifth Way” appears in the latest issue (Vol. 11, No. 3) of Nova et Vetera. The article is fairly long and is by far the most detailed...
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FORTHCOMING: Scholastic Metaphysics
I’ve had a number of book projects in the works for a while, one of which, my edited volume Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics, appeared last summer. Next on the schedule is Scholastic Metaphysics: A...
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