On First Principles: That There be Some Informative Ones

Are there any substantive first (i.e. self-evident) principles? Substantive meaning informative: neither tautology nor mere principles of formal logic.

Some argue that there are none, that there can be none: Any given principle is either substantive or self-evident (exclusive disjunct).

The reason given is that in order to be grasped as self-evident, the principle must be so close to the Principle of Contradiction that it is practically a repetition of this principle. All such propositions are easily grasped as being necessarily true, and just as equally uninformative.

Conversely, all statements that are truly informative require, to be understood and affirmed as true, some theoretical framework which renders the principles grasped only within the framework to be hypothetical. Every such proposition is open to possible falsification (or further ratification) as the inquiry continues. Hence, no such proposition could be affirmed to be necessarily true.

I maintain that the above disjunct is not absolute. I suggest the following two arguments demonstrate that it is not absolute. The first is that the affirmation that this disjunct is absolute requires in practice the denial of the truth of the disjunct. The second is that some there are in fact some substantive self-evident principles.

First: If it were true that there are no substantive self-evident principles, one could not affirm with certainty that there is none. This is shown impossible on the very terms of the disjunct.

This proposition itself – Any given principle is either substantive or self-evident – is informative. It is not a practical repetition of the Principle of Contradiction. Therefore, if it were true, no one could affirm it to be true necessarily. Instead, one would have to wait for its further verification, or falsification, in which case one could not lay it down apodictically. Or, conversely, if one grasped that it—an instance of an informative proposition—is necessarily true, one would demonstrate that it—there are no substantive self-evident principles—is false.

Second: There exist seemingly mundane, but to me marvelous, truths of the perennial philosophy which are both informative and necessarily true. For example: Every animal moves itself. Informative because motion and animal are not the same concept, for the living mind (not the computer) thinks the one thing in aspects (and does not merely bundle properties). For example: Every man is risible. Informative because laughing and man are not the same concept. However, in the concept man we have the distinct ideas of rational and animal. Who is rational but of limited intelligence can grasp what is in place and can be befuddled at what is out of place. Who is animal has lungs and a voice box. Thus, who is both rational and animal has wherewithal bodily to express befuddlement: Can laugh. These truths do not yield supercomputers. But they are instances of real insight into a real world. And the discovery of these truths is just that, progress and discovery. It is progress to grasp what “animal” is and what “rational” is. Insights into reality. It is progress to put these insights together rationally. It is progress to come to a conclusion. Therefore, although these statements are analytic, so to speak, yet they exhibit real progress in our knowledge of the real.

Last piece of evidence in this brief: Consider the progression from Q. 2 of the Prima pars through Q. 11 of the same. Deductions that are informative, resting on inductions that are non-hypothetically penetrating.

Kasper and his critics

Back in April I wrote a post on the theological debate over reception of Communion by divorced and civilly remarried Catholics (that is, divorced and civilly remarried Catholics without annulments, who are not abstaining from sexual relations with each other). I presented some comments on this topic by John Rist. This will also be a topic of an upcoming synod in Rome.

Cardinal Walter Kasper is at the center of the debate. He has proposed giving Communion to some Catholics who find themselves in the situation described above (but who have taken certain steps and meet certain criteria). On Thursday he gave an interview with the Italian daily Il Mattino. In the interview he responds to his critics. I have some comments on the interview here.

Review of Amerini on Beginning of Human Life

There is a recent review of Fabrizio Amerini, Aquinas on the Beginning and End of Human Life here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/48981-aquinas-on-the-beginning-and-end-of-human-life/.  The review author states that the Catholic Church teaches that the human soul is infused at conception, and seems to imply that there is a tight connection between the Church's teaching on abortion and the rejection of delayed animation.  Moreover, the author states that the debate is very heated.  It seems to me that I know several Catholics who believe in delayed animation, and think that the issue has no important ethical consequences.  I myself hold the second view.

I can't find any clear Catholic teaching concerning animation.  Fr. Wallace and Elizabeth Anscombe (see some of the essays in Human Life, Action, and Ethics) seem to be for delayed animation.  Fr. Wallace has some odd views in ethics (see his stuff on nuclear war) but Anscombe is more or less traditional.

I also can't see the direct connection between this issue and the licitness of abortion, unless maybe you knew the exact moment of animation and you thought that abortion is OK unless it is a clear case of homicide.

I have seen respectable theologians in the seventeenth-century argue that the abortion before animation might be licit in case of danger to the mother's life, but it seems to me that DS 1184 (Ann. 1679) prohibits it, although the danger seems to be from someone else and not from the foetus: ""Licet procurare abortum ante animationem foetus, ne puella deprehsa gravida occidatur aut infametur."  I can't really see why it would be OK even apart from animation.  It is obviously unlike a case of removing a cancer or an infected organ or limb.

At any rate, does anyone know of magisterial texts?  I can't seem to find any online.

Anselm's "ontological argument": faith or reason?

[I posted the following for our AMU philosophy blog yesterday but I thought that it might also be of interest to some of our readers here at Thomistica, so I re-post it here..]

It is sometimes alleged that Anselm's argument for God's existence in Ch. 2 of the Proslogion -- often called his "ontological argument" -- is not a purely rational argument but in some way depends on his Christian faith. It seems to me, however, that it does not depend on faith in any formal way. In this post I will suggest some reasons why someone might think differently and then argue that none of these reasons show that Anselm's argument formally depends on faith.

But before I do that, let me comment on a couple related issues. First, some people say that Anselm does not have only one argument for God's existence in the Proslogion but two. M.J. Charlesworth, for example, thinks that in Ch. 3 there is an argument that is logically independent of the argument in Ch. 2. I have no quarrel with that view but do not intend to take a position on it here. I only wish to consider the Ch. 2 argument. Second, Aquinas and others argue (for a variety of reasons) that Anselm's argument for God's existence in Ch. 2 is unsound. I too am skeptical of its soundness. But I am not interested in that question here.

I should also add that when I speak (perhaps infelicitously) of a "purely rational argument" in contrast to an argument that depends on faith (i.e., requires premises that can only be known through faith), I do not mean to imply that arguments that depend on faith are necessarily irrational. By a "purely rational argument" I simply mean an argument that only accepts premises from what reason can know by its own investigation of things without the aid of revelation.

So, let's move on to some reasons why people might think that Anselm's Ch. 2 argument depends on his Christian faith:

1. There is the prayer to God in Ch. 1. Rational arguments do not typically include prayers to God.

2. At the conclusion of Ch. 1 Anselm says:  "I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe, -- that unless I believed, I should not understand." Obviously, he is starting from faith and not trying to prove rationally anything held by faith. He is merely trying to understand what he believes.

3. At the beginning of Ch. 2 Anselm writes: "And so, Lord, do you, who do give understanding to faith, give me, so far as you know it to be profitable, to understand that you are as we believe; and that you are that which we believe." It would appear that Anselm is asking for God's assistance in his argument. But an argument made with God's assistance is an argument that depends on faith. 

4. Anselm follows the previous sentence ( "And so, Lord, do you, who do give understanding to faith...") with: “And indeed, we believe that you are a being than which nothing greater can be thought.” And Anselm will go on to argue that God exists in they way that he is believed to be (i.e., as something than which nothing greater can be thought). So, Anselm is going to argue that God exists under a certain description. That description comes from faith. Anselm's argument, then, depends on faith.

At best the the above arguments show a material dependence but not a formal dependence of the Ch. 2 argument on faith...

Ad 1. As a Christian, it is not surprising that Anselm should begin his reflection on divinity with a prayer. But this does not entail that the prayer is a formal part of his argument. I see no part of the prayer that supplies a proposition that is necessary for the conclusion Anselm reaches at the end of Ch. 2. Suppose a mathematician prayed before he worked out a math problem. Should we assume that the prayer is a formal part of his solution to the problem?

Ad 2. Again as a Christian, faith has a priority for Anselm. Christians believe in God and believe things about God not merely on the basis of having understood or proved them. Faith is a supernatural gift that imparts real apodictic knowledge of God. And if Anselm does not believe the truths taught by revelation – that is, if he does not take them to have any bearing on reality – then, indeed, he will not understand them. Still, none of this prevents Christians from seeing whether some of what they believe might not also be knowable by reason according to its native power. You might tell me, for example, that the square root of 2 is an irrational number and I might sincerely believe you. Even so, I could still try to prove this for myself.

Ad 3. Let us suppose this (as far as we know) counterfactual: God dictated the argument in Ch. 2 to Anselm. Would that necessarily make the argument beyond reason’s grasp? No. To use my previous example again, suppose that you have proved for yourself that the square root of 2 is an irrational number and then suppose that after you have worked out the proof several times God announces to you: “The square root of 2 is an irrational number” and then proceeds to explain the proof to you. But you already knew all of this without God teaching you. If the divine revelation of a truth were sufficient to make that truth inaccessible to reason alone, you could never have known about 2’s square root before God vouchsafed it to you, and yet you did know it before that.

Ad 4. While Christians may believe that God can be correctly described as that than which nothing greater can be thought, this fact by itself would not carry with it the impossibility of rationally demonstrating this truth. We could only settle the matter by actually attempting a rational demonstration.

But let's look at Anselm's argument itself. Here is the relevant part of Ch. 2:

And indeed, [Lord,] we believe that you are a being than which nothing greater can be thought. Or is there no such nature, since the fool has said in his heart, there is no God? (Psalm 14:1). But, at any rate, this very fool, when he hears of this being of which I speak – a being than which nothing greater can be thought – understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his understanding; although he does not understand it to exist. For, it is one thing for an object to be in the understanding, and another to understand that the object exists. When a painter first conceives of what he will afterwards perform, he has it in his understanding, but be does not yet understand it to be, because he has not yet performed it. But after he has made the painting, he both has it in his understanding, and he understands that it exists, because he has made it. Hence, even the fool is convinced that something exists in the understanding, at least, than which nothing greater can be thought. For, when he hears of this, he understands it. And whatever is understood, exists in the understanding. And assuredly that than which nothing greater can be thought cannot exist in the understanding alone. For, suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be thought to exist in reality; which is greater. Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be thought, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be thought, is one, than which a greater can be thought. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be thought, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.

 We could sum up the argument thus:

(i) God is that than which nothing greater can be thought.

(ii) Even the fool, who denies God, can have an understanding of that than which nothing greater can be thought.

(iii) Thus, that than which nothing greater can be thought exists in his understanding.

(iv) But it is greater to exist in reality than in the understanding alone.

(v) If that than which nothing greater can be thought existed in the understanding alone, something greater than it would exist, i.e., what exists in reality and not in the understanding alone.

(vi) But that is impossible (i.e., it is impossible for there to be something greater than that than which nothing greater can be thought).

∴ (vii) That than which nothing greater can be thought – God – must exist in reality.

Clearly, there is nothing in Anselm’s text nor in my summary of the argument that formally depends on faith in Christian revelation. To object that the second premise depends on Psalm 14 is idle because the dependence is only material. We do not need Scripture to tell us that people either do or could deny God’s existence. And, in any case, the argument only requires that someone can have an understanding of that than which nothing greater can be thought. It does not require that someone who denies God’s existence have this understanding.

Does Anselm anywhere tell us whether he thinks the Ch. 2 argument depends on faith? Let's remember that Anselm takes the Proslogion to be a continuation of the Monologion. In the preface to the Monologion he tells us that his monks asked him to compose arguments about God that did not depend on the authority of Scripture but on rational necessity. Then in the preface to the Proslogion Anselm explains that he is still trying to carry out this project. Hence, Anselm himself insists that he is not making any appeal to faith. And he will reaffirm this over a decade later when he observes in the De incarnatione Verbi that the Monologion and Proslogion were written "especially in order to show that what we hold by faith regarding the divine nature and its persons -- excluding the topic of incarnation -- can be proven by compelling reasons apart from appeal to the authority of Scripture" (Ch. 6).

So, why did I invent reasons why people might think that Anselm's ontological argument depends on faith instead of looking at the actual reasons that some of Anselm's interpreters give? This is a fair question. I think that the above exercise is useful for thinking through what is going on in Anselm's argument. But if I have time in the future, I will look at why some real people believe the argument depends on faith.

Comments on philosophy of mind textbooks

Three months ago one of our contributors, Tom Osborne, wrote a post asking readers for feedback on philosophy of mind textbooks by Ed Feser, James Madden, and William Jaworski. Tom tells me that some people contacted him directly with feedback. But for three months no one posted anything in the comments box. Until now! There have been two comments in two days! I draw this to your attention because if you would like to know something about the Madden and the Jaworski books, you might find these brief comments (by Kelly Gallagher and Andrew Jaeger) helpful. Neither commenter addresses Feser's book. So, if there is someone out there who has read Feser's book, please feel free to tell us something about it either in the comments box below or at Tom's original post.

Does Aquinas think that God participates in being?

Of course not!

And yet some people -- who apparently have either not read Aquinas or not read him carefully -- persist in thinking that he holds that God (along with creatures) is a participant in being. You can find this, for example, in some Barthians (and perhaps even in Barth himself).

Consider this passage from Angela Dienhart Hancock's recent book on Barth:

The analogia entis, a scholastic term famously formulated by Thomas Aquinas, means that God and human beings (and all creation) are similar in that they participate in something called “being.” Hence we can figure out what God is like by looking at the created order, because everything is connected to everything else in the great chain of being, which stretches all the way up to being itself (God) (Karl Barth’s Emergency Homiletic, 1932-1933: A Summons to Prophetic Witness at the Dawn of the Third Reich, p. 186, n. 142).

Three things. First, I have never found the term analogia entis in Aquinas's writings. I do not deny that the idea is there formally (although not in the way suggested by Prof. Dienhart Hancock). I only say that I have not been able to find the term itself. Second, if God is being, as is suggested at the end of the above passage, how can he participate in being? Third, the first sentence, as a statement about Aquinas's doctrine is simply false.

There are many places where Aquinas makes his doctrine clear. One such place is this passage from the commentary on the Sentences:

[C]reator et creatura reducuntur in unum, non communitate univocationis sed analogiae. Talis autem communitas potest esse dupliciter. Aut ex eo quod aliqua participant aliquid unum secundum prius et posterius, sicut potentia et actus rationem entis, et similiter substantia et accidens; aut ex eo quod unum esse et rationem ab altero recipit, et talis est analogia creaturae ad creatorem: creatura enim non habet esse nisi secundum quod a primo ente descendit: unde nec nominatur ens nisi inquantum ens primum imitatur; et similiter est de sapientia et de omnibus aliis quae de creatura dicuntur (Prol. q. 1, a. 2, ad 2). (The Creator and the creature are reduced to unity not by a univocal commonality but by analogy. Now, such a commonality can be twofold. It can either be because certain things participate in something according to an order of priority and posteriority, as potency and act participate in the concept of being as also substance and accident do; or this commonality can be because a thing receives its being and its concept from another, and such is the analogy between creature and Creator. In fact, the creature only has being insofar as it descends from the first being [i.e., God]. Thus, it is only called being because it imitates the first being. And the same must be said of wisdom and everything else that is said of creatures.)

What more needs to be said?

John Rist, Cardinal Kasper, the Fathers, and Nicaea

I assume that there are a decent number of Catholic academics, especially those working in sacramental and moral theology, who have been following the official and unofficial discussions of the possibility of permitting divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion.

Some of those in favor of such a provision have tried to support their view by an appeal to Patristic authors and the Council of Nicaea. This is the approach of Cardinal Walter Kasper, for example. Here is the speech he delivered to the consistory at the Vatican in February.

John Rist, professor at the Augustinianum and the Catholic University of America, has recently criticized Kapser's appeal to early Christian sources in a short piece carried by several Catholic news outlets.

Here is Rist's quite devastating conclusion:

To conclude, upon examination the Cardinal’s case depends on misinterpreting a tiny number of texts while neglecting numerous others which contradict them. How can this have happened? To my mind we have here an example of a procedure all too frequent in academia, more especially when work may be motivated by convenience or ideology: there is an overwhelming amount of evidence in one direction and one or two texts which might conceivably be read otherwise; from which is derived the desired conclusion, or at least that the matter is open.

Follow the links above to read Kasper's speech and the rest of Rist's response.

Happy feast of St. Thomas Aquinas (bis)!

January 28 is Aquinas’s liturgical feast according to the calendar of Paul VI. On that date in 1369 Aquinas’s relics were translated to the Dominican church in Toulouse.

March 7 is Aquinas's liturgical feast according to the pre-Pauline calendar of the Roman Rite. Aquinas died on that date in 1274 at the abbey of Fossanova, where he had stopped after taking ill on his way with Reginald of Piperno to the second Council of Lyons.

Both calendars are still in force in the Roman Rite. So, we (or I, at least) celebrate Aquinas's feast twice.

Happy Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas

I usually like to allow new posts on Thomistica room to breathe. So, I try not to post on the same day as another new post. But I hope my colleague Tom Osborne will not mind if I too put up a post today. I don't think we can let the day pass without wishing our readers a happy feast of St. Thomas Aquinas. 

Today, January 28, is the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas in the Roman Rite according to the calendar of Paul VI. This is the collect from the Mass for the feast:

Deus, qui beátum Thomam sanctitátis zelo ac sacræ doctrínæ stúdio conspícuum effecísti, da nobis, qu æsumus, et quæ dócuit intelléctu conspícere, et quæ gessit imitatióne complére.

Of course, as usual, we will also wish you a happy feast day again on March 7, St. Thomas's feast day according to the calendar of the Vetus Ordo Missae.

Teaching Phil Mind: Madden, Jaworski, Feser

I will be teaching Philosophy of Mind in the Fall and am wondering whether anyone has had a good or bad experience using the introductory texts by Madden, Feser, or Jaworski.  I was inclined just to use Kim and then supplement it, but then there are these three more or less Thomistic introductory texts.  I actually haven't fully read any of the three.  What are the major differences?

Thomistic political philosophy and religious freedom

Two years ago I published a two-part interview on this blog with Raymond Dennehy on Maritain's political philosophy (here and here). In particular it was about a couple books by Maritain that were being reissued, Christianity and Democracy and The Rights of Man and the Natural Law. I had entitled the interview "The return of Thomistic political philosophy." In the comments box John Lamont wrote: "Reprinting Maritain's work is in no way a revival of Thomistic political philosophy, because Maritain's thought was completely different from that of St. Thomas in this area." I tend to think that Dr. Lamont's criticism was justified. I posted twice more on this topic (here and here), taking a rather harsh line toward Maritain's political thought -- not that I had not been skeptical of it prior to considering Dr. Lamont's objection. Quite the contrary is true. The issue was not whether Maritain's political thought had problems but whether it could properly be called "Thomistic."

In this present post I ask what an authentically Thomistic approach would be to the problem of religious freedom. Religious freedom is especially on the minds of many Catholics in the U.S. now as Catholic institutions fight against the H.H.S. mandate. But it seems to be a topic of perennial importance.

Anyhow, I would say that it is obvious that no ostensibly Thomistic political thought would accept the notion that all religions have an equal right publicly to teach and practice their beliefs. This would not mean that it would not be prudent in many circumstances to tolerate false religions nor does it take a stand on what would be permissible in private. Recently, I have tried to articulate my thoughts on these questions in a short essay. The essay focuses on Dignitatis Humanae but also incorporates Aquinas on a key point. Here are some relevant excerpts from the essay:

In the Catholic tradition religion is considered a moral virtue falling under justice. This understanding of religion can be found, for instance, in Aquinas and, more recently, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. For Aquinas, religion is fundamentally rendering the true God the honor that is due him. The Catechism sees the moral virtue of religion in a similar way.

As with all virtues, religion has corresponding vices. According to Aquinas, the opposite of religion is superstition, the offering of worship to whomever or whatever does not deserve it. Idolatry, for Aquinas, is a species of superstition. The Catechism too treats the vices of superstition and idolatry, although what Aquinas says about these appears to be dealt with in the Catechism solely under the heading of idolatry. Idolaters, the Catechism tells us, “venerate other divinities than the one true God.”

If religion as a moral virtue honors the one true God, then religions that do not are not truly religions or could justly be called false or defective religions. This is not to say that they contain no elements of truth. It is rather to say that their orthodox practice and teaching, taken as a whole and objectively considered, do not lead to God. To follow or promote religions of this sort would be to act against the moral law. This consideration evidently raises more and deeper problems for religious freedom.

[...]

But if false religions run contrary to objective moral order—as they must if they are moral vices, as we have observed—then, in principle, only prudent toleration could prevent legislation against them. In other words, there is no absolute right to follow and teach a false religion. By “absolute right” I mean one that cannot in any circumstances be legitimately violated. An “absolute right” would be a right that accrues to us simply by virtue of being human persons. You could call it a “human” or “natural right.” Such a right would transcend all cultures and political communities, requiring recognition by all. That can not be true for adherents of false religion.

If false religion is a moral vice, plainly no one has any natural right to practice it, for no one can have a right to do evil. Were there a natural right to do evil, there could not be a natural moral law that bound us to do good. We certainly are not naturally bound to do good if we have a natural right to do evil.

I would be grateful for feedback on my essay from readers.

Of course, you may query whether the "authentically Thomistic approach" to religious freedom is also the right approach. I would argue that it is and would be happy to pursue a discussion of its validity at some point in the future. No doubt there are also some who would wonder whether what I am calling the authentically Thomistic approach to religious freedom really is just that. I would welcome that discussion too.

Balthasar's interpretation of Aquinas

A few years ago I translated Angelo Campodonico's essay “Il pensiero filosofico di Tommaso d’Aquino nell’interpretazione di H.U. Von Balthasar” for the English edition of Nova et Vetera . It was published as "Hans Urs von Balthasar's Interpretation of the Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas" in vol. 8 of Nova et Vetera on pp. 33-53. I recently uploaded it to my Academia.edu page. You can find it here.

Since Thomists and Balthasarians often find themselves at odds, this makes Campodonico's essay all the more interesting, or so it seems to me. In fact, Campodonico argues that Aquinas had a profound influence on Balthasar's thought. He even makes the (in my view) provocative claim that...

[t]he influence of Thomas Aquinas on the formulation of Balthasar’s theology and philosophy is clear and shows that Balthasar regarded him with perhaps more esteem than any other theologian in history (33-34).

Balthasar the Thomist? Well, certainly not a Thomist of the strict observance. If he is a Thomist at all, he is probably what Fr. Weisheipl would call an "eclectic Thomist." (Perhaps some of my fellow Thomists would say that even that is going too far!)

A word about Campodonico. He teaches in the philosophy department at the University of Genova. To date Campodonico has written three books on Aquinas:  Alla scoperta dell'essere. Saggio sul pensiero di Tommaso d'Aquino (Milan: Jaca Book, 1986), Integritas: Metafisica ed etica in San Tommaso (Florence: Nardini, 1996), and La pretesa del bene. Etica e teoria dell'azione in Tommaso d'Aquino (Naples: Orthotes 2012). The last book was written with Maria Silvia Vaccarezza. You can find Campodonico's faculty page at the University of Genova here.