Just Thomism

Extension as quantitatively spatial is indifferent to before and after in a way that motion as quantitatively temporal is not.  Time marches forward when we wind clocks back. The before and after of time does not have the same relativity as the before and after of place. In any extension, these two kinds of before and after will be present, but there is a feature of the temporal quantity that  demands explanation in a way that the spatial quantity of extension and motion do not. All unified magnitudes are wholes with parts, but spatial magnitudes can be whole all at one time whereas temporal magnitudes obviously cannot be. Temporal unity, even of a single object or motion, demands a mode of existence not limited to the temporal. St. Thomas mentions this, but the idea is never fully developed. Without memory, he says, there could be not the unity of time but only the imperfect existence of the mobile (the same can be said of motion) but St. Thomas never answers the question of what nature must be like given that there is not the unity of time apart from memory. Surely some kind of Parmenidean or Kantian claim about how time is a feature that belongs to the world so far as we are remembering it is out of the question. But what is the other option? It seems to be that the only other possible option is to say that the temporal unity of time requires that nature itself depend on some atemporal mode of existence in order even to be temporal- that temporal existence is (and therefore physical and natural existence) is a way of taking part in some atemporal field of causality. Certain living things also appear to have access to this field of causality (by their own sensory and/ or intellectual memory) and there are even some suggestions that they are able to work within this field to determine physical effects in a dramatic and “spooky” ways (of course, in real truth, any activity of the knower on the physical world- like a lion chasing down a deer, or a bug eating a leaf- is already a sort of “spooky” determination of the physical. We have simply grown used to it.)

(groping out a hypothesis here)

A process, or a history, is a structure in time. These structures are by nature, art, chance, and any combination of these (set aside the ones by chance for the moment). We see these structures so casually that we fail to appreciate the kind of causality that they require. A temporal process could only be a whole if there were some atemporal field that allows for the unity of the structure.

Imagine a man with no memory who opens his eyes and looks out. He would see no processes, nothing would have a structure in time, and if such a man were called upon to generate anything he would be at a total loss. Structure in time is a unity over time, and unity over time requires some transcendence of what is simply here and now. If it is proper to the temporal to exist now, then unity over time ( a unity of what is now and what is then) requires something existing atemporally. Nature without access to the atemporal would not be the principle of a temporal order any more than an Alzheimer’s patient.

Memory is the first participation in this atemporality, mind is the yet more perfect one (though the human mind seems limited to the temporal on the side of its object) Perhaps the unity of mind to this sort of atemporal field could explain some of the paradoxes in quantum physics.

Temporal structure- that is, a process- requires atemporal causality. That any part of a process might be a part requires a mode of existence of the whole that is contrary to the unidirectional order of time.

-Motion is a way of depending on another because mobiles in act are not at some place but only between places. There is something outside  of it (namely the terms it is between) that is necessary for its existence.

-“Act of potency with privation”. The “act” is the term the mobile approaches and depends on. Sometimes (as is the case with a golf ball floating by in space) any given act is of only material importance (that you would pick this as the act as opposed to that is not important- there might be some truth about the motion of the inanimate here).

-Aristotle’s claim is falsifiable. It is possible that there is some minimum quantum state and that motion is really just a series of moves. In which case, motion is  really a series of substantial changes. This would make the “omne quod movetur…” much easier to prove.

Is the problem of evil is simply the problem of bad luck? Aren’t the evils we are wrestling with simply a matter of wrong place, wrong time, or of being dealt a bad hand?

So let’s say evil can be explained only as evil, and not under any more restricted account.

-This is obviously wrong. What about pains that alert us that something is wrong or needs to be changed? Aren’t these obviously salutary? Everyone sees some purpose to guilt, the pain of eating too much, the frustration or indignation of seeing injustice etc. In a different way, we’d have to be pretty obtuse to deny any good to mourning. Why not start with evils that have a clear purpose and work one’s way out?

– Absurdism is a terribly difficult thing to prove, and it wouldn’t be assumed. The history of the sciences abounds in examples of thing that were thought to happen by chance but which turned out to arise by nature (generation of flies, worms, gnats; the conception of females; the imprecision of Newton’s equations for the perihelion of Mercury, etc.) why not assume that evil is such a thing in nature? Come to think of it, have we really studied evil that thoroughly?

-Isn’t evil only absurd in the way that good is? There is no more reason for many goods that arise than many evils. Isn’t the real issue with chance at least so far as physical evil is concerned)?

St. Thomas makes the strange claim that God must be involved in the process of throwing an eraser across the room, shutting a door, scratching ones neck, etc. Where to start to explain this?

1.) Motion is never at but always between. The relevant at or between will depend on the motion: things changing place are not at a place but between places; things changing color don’t have a particular one. Motion can’t be an at: if it were, it would be rest.

2.) How do we speak of what is not at but between? Between requires two ends, irrespective of how one gets them (for example, it doesn’t matter if the thing is in motion or at rest at either of the endpoints) Motion is, as said, between thing without being at something.

3.) If it is not at any point, it yet must relate to one endpoint. Without this, we collapse into “motion is rest” again. So what is the relation? The word “toward” comes into play. Motion is not at but towards. Towards what? Sometimes it might be a fixed point with a clear significance (I walk to class) other times, no one particular “towards” will be apparently more valuable than another- a particle of dust floating by in space (if it’s moving).

(I’m feeling out a position here)

Just as it is a very different thing to see that something is evil and to see that this or that is evil, for the same reason it is a very different thing to see a reason for why evil exists in the universe and to see a reason for this or that evil in the universe. The difference between these two opens up the possibility for what I call theist absurdism, which holds:

– we can see a reason for a physical or moral evil when we consider it as physical or moral evil, but not when we consider it on any less universal level.

I do not deny that we can give a reason for why particular things suffer- I simply deny that we can see a reason for them when we consider them on a level less universal than “a physical or moral evil”. If I consider my Grandfather’s death as a physical evil that of necessity gave rise to some new [unnamed] form I can see some reason for his death; if I consider him as a man, as an animal, as a loved one, as one who prayed, etc. I can see no reason. I can see some good in the corruption of the corruptible, just as I can see some good in fuel being used up in a lamp. But it follows that in order to see a reason for his death, I have to consider him in a way that cannot distinguish between him and the tumor that killed him. Both are corruptible. I’m not saying any of this heartlessly- I fully recognize that such an answer is not emotionally satisfying to anyone with rightly ordered emotions and that on some level this answer to the problem of evil might be no more satisfying than having no reason at all. But who in the world can’t tell the difference between an answer (or even a definitive answer) and an answer that consoles us?

I don’t deny that we can come to see the reason for some particular evil if God were to tell us: Christians have reason to claim to know why Christ died while his mother watched.

I don’t deny that we can have our suspicions for why some particular evil happened, and there is no reason why we can’t give some particular examples of good coming out of evil in particular cases. But I deny that we can see any reason for evil except as physical or moral evil.

There are also limited contexts in which certain evils make sense: the pains of punishment or of healing make sense in their own contexts. I leave these aside since here is no disagreement about them. When we can discern some intentional order within which evil arises (surgery, imprisonment) the reason for the evil is clear, but many, if not most of the time the evil does not arise in an intentional order, but simply by chance.

This position seems to me to be St. Thomas’s. St. Thomas gives reasons for evil only on the general level- he never tackles the problem of, say, animal pain or why some nation must fall apart or why some terrible historical tragedy happened, and I see nothing in his philosophy that would allow one to answer such questions.  For whatever reason, we often tie the problem of evil to being able to give an answer to a historical, group, or individual tragedy. It is quite possible to think that this assumption is completely wrong, and at the same time to think that there is still a solution to the problem of evil.

It seems reasonable to call anyone who says [p] “we can see no reason for why individuals or groups suffer” an absurdist, but for one who holds that evil is justified only  as evil [p] can be said without qualification. And this is why I think St. Thomas’s response to the problem of evil is best described, without irony, as “theist absurdism”.

-“Infinite” rhymes with “in a minute” while finite rhymes with “in my night”. This hinders our ability to see that infinite simply means “not finite”.

-Consider two series:

[1,2,3… infinity] and

[1,2,3… finiteness]

Both seem to be a confusion between members of a series and a property of a series. It is as if one said [Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… daily] or, if one were speaking about BMW’s [100 series, 200 series, 300 series… four wheels].

The infinite pops up in mathematics from the beginning, but the notion that it is homogeneous with the series doesn’t seem to be of much value, even if on certain occasions we might be indifferent to the difference between a series (or, in the ancient account, a species) and its property.

-“The infinite is no more attained than the finite.” true or false? There seems to be some sense in saying that one can approach it

-Euclid’s theorem on the infinite:  “to draw a perpendicular to an infinite line”. His sense was simply “draw a perpendicular to a line without using the endpoints”.

Diversity studies tend to be of two kinds:

1.) Those that see cultures A, B, C, as being worth studying. Gaelic studies, Indian spirituality, Chinese jade art, Shaker architecture. There is something given in history or experience that is seen as a worthy object of discovery.

2.)  Those that see some culture as a thing to be overcome. Gender studies- or even the word “gender”- often lean this way.  Male and female are seen as cultural constructs.

The two approaches are difficult to combine and are perhaps even contradictory. The first approach is not intrinsically adversarial (Irish dancing is not usually some deconstructive critique of the Orangemen) while the second approach is; and the presumption of the first is that, within limits, any culture is the sort of thing that would be valuable to study and understand while the presumption of the second is that most culture hides us from what is real by constructing lies and false consciousness.  

Even within the notion of diversity studies, therefore, there is a tension in the notion of what a culture is. At bottom,  there is a question of whether culture as such is presumptively good or presumptively not good.