Just Thomism

Ode IV no. 2 (for a sense of the meter, stretch out the bolded syllables and trip lightly though the others. Pause at the slashes.)

Pindarum quisquis // studet aemulari,
Iulle, ceratis // ope Daedalea
nititur pinnis, // vitreo daturus
nomina ponto.

The sense, though not the letter:

Julius,

Whoever tries to emulate Pindar

strives with wax wings of the sort Daedalus made

And his words will drop upon the glassy surface of the ocean.

The best short description of the moment of realization that one actions will never be equal – never even be comparable to – the persons that inspired him to act in the first place. Morever, it is not vanity or even pure naivety that makes us want to attain the heights we see in the masters – all eros is a desire for the immortal, viz. an acorn would not drop except for a desire to be an oak tree. Still, it is better for the order of things that almost none of them become so.

One  version of Christian Philosophy is negative and critical, and stresses the likeness between metaphysics and paganism. Just as paganism, though it had the benefit of concrete expression in sublime poetry and ecstatic rites, also had the downside of caring little about the truth of the things it was doing, so too metaphysics has the benefit of concern for the real natures of things but the downside of having no concrete objects manifest make it manifest to sensation. This is Chesterton’s critique (though it as clear biblical and patristic precedents) only the Incarnation can preserve the benefits of paganism and philosophy while providing the remedy for their defects.

At times it seems like the thrill of the modern sciences is that they have found a new way to affect this Incarnational synthesis: for they seek the natures of things through the collection of precisely defined facts in opposition to the metaphysical emphasis on generalization. But a little refection shows that this is not a new mode of synthesis but (what is also interesting) a sort of third area in opposition to both paganism and philosophy, taken as a single set. The art and ritual of paganism and the abstraction of metaphysics both humanize knowledge in a way that sciences cannot – which is why we lump together epic poetry and philosophy as “humanities” in spite of the fact that, say, Homer and Karl Marx don’t seem to share a lot of common conceptual space. This humanizing  vision is essentially a vision of a totality, whether through the manifestation of the ideal in a concrete image, sound, performance or ritual or through a conceptual abstraction that serves as a standard for and thus an anticipation of an infinitude of concrete experience. The accumulation of facts can never have this humanizing vision of the totality – all scientific wholes  (laws) are essentially provisional and rest on a finite collection of facts within the sphere of infinite possible facts. Indeed, even the finite collection of facts is infinite in a practical sense – no one can ever succeed in knowing all the concrete facts in even a subset of scientific knowledge. Who has ever done all the relevant experiments in chemistry, or even the most refined and specialized area in physics? These double infinities put something inhuman at the heart of the sciences: we continually act for something that cannot be attained either speculatively or practically. Here too Christian philosophy has a negative and critical role to play by pointing to the balance that needs to be struck between the sciences and the humanities. The Christian simply cannot say we were not meant to see the whole – this is the same as to say that the Incarnation is not a vision of God.

The debate between Philip Clayton and Dan Dennett has two parts: the second, which is far too painful for anyone to watch, begins with Dennett’s claim that, in effect, scientists are critical of establishment science while religious persons are not critical of establishment religion. That he could say this to Philip Clayton without the latter falling out of his chair was embarrassing enough (Clayton’s critique of establishment religion and his desire for religious revolution make Luther look as Catholic as the pope).

The first part of the debate was more interesting. In it Dennett concludes to the idea that non-naturalist accounts of truth and intention  invoke “spook stuff” or “ectoplasm” or “mind stuff”. Tendentious, to be sure, but there is an element worth paying attention to. Truth or falsity, intention, or even objectivity are not explained by positing some additional object or determination of an object. One cannot appeal to an object as given to account for why there are objects, which is why neither the animal nor intellectual soul explain intellection in the mode of a scientific or causal explanation. Soul does not explain objects the way that energy explains motion or a thief explains why there is no bike in your garage. The intellectual soul is a condition for the possibility of objects;  Kant, in fact, can be read as taking this as the very reason why we can say nothing objective about the soul, and irrespective of what we think of this, without some critique of what “object” means we end up thinking of the soul as ecoplasm or spook stuff. Knowledge of soul requires a different mode of knowledge than the objective mode modeled on the relation of a sense organ to an object: it requires a reflexive action that is impossible for a sense organ.

“What children?” Anna said, not looking at Dolly, and half closing her eyes.

“Annie and those to come . . .”

“He need not trouble on that score; I shall have no more children.”

“How can you tell that you won’t?”

“I shall not, because I don’t wish it.” And, in spite of all her emotion, Anna smiled, as she caught the naive expression of curiosity, wonder, and horror on Dolly’s face.

“The doctor told me after my illness . . .”

* * * * * * * * *

“Impossible!” said Dolly, opening her eyes wide.

For her this was one of those discoveries the consequences and deductions from which are so immense that all that one feels for the first instant is that it is impossible to take it all in, and that one will have to reflect a great, great deal upon it.

This discovery, suddenly throwing light on all those families of one or two children, which had hitherto been so incomprehensible to her, aroused so many ideas, reflections, and contradictory emotions, that she had nothing to say, and simply gazed with wide-open eyes of wonder at Anna. This was the very thing she had been dreaming of, but now learning that it was possible, she was horrified. She felt that it was too simple a solution of too complicated a problem.

“N’est-ce pas immoral?” was all she said, after a brief pause.

Part VI, c. 23.

Kyle Cupp argues that most Catholics do not believe that contraception is a sin because sin has to harm human life and solidarity and few believe that contraception does this. For my own part, I’m convinced that it is a sin, though I don’t know that I could ever come up with an argument that would be as convincing as I am convinced. But here it goes:

1.)  All human happiness and solidarity will ultimately be in the Church, and contraception separates one from the Church. The argument will obviously only convince already convinced Catholics, but this was Kyle’s target audience. Human solidarity is not national or tribal or sectarian, but rather is only actual to one who is actually incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ, which Catholics identify with the Church. This does not give any reason why the Church thinks that contraception is a sin – it doesn’t even require that they have any reasons of the sort that could be given in philosophical argument, and given the intimacy and profundity of the sort of desires and we are dealing with here it is not obvious that philosophy is the best tool to reach them – but it does draw a connecting line between separating oneself from the Church and the rejection of ultimate human happiness and solidarity.

This solidarity if the Church is not simply eschatological, as though we did not have some participation in it even now. The Church has proved itself a uniquely well-suited instrument to affect solidarity among peoples and nations. One would be hard pressed to identify any institution that has proved itself as good at maintaining a uniform character while managing to adapt to different nations, races, cultures, ways of life, and diverse eras spread over centuries.

2.) One cannot have solidarity with something while crippling and frustrating the source of its continued existence. One who  contracepts differs from those who abstain* and/or are infertile in that he actively cripples and frustrates the source of continued human existence. Human existence isn’t maintained by storks, after all, and even if it were it would be pretty easy to see the act of shooting storks or clipping their wings as an act against the source of human life.

This argument more suggests the direction of critique rather than taking one all the way – to keep up the stork metaphor, one might object that shooting a few might make good prudential sense, something like a controlled hunt or a pruning of an overgrown ecosystem. I don’t dispute that this is necessary, I only think that abstinence as opposed to contraception is the morally preferable way to do so, not just for the reason just given, but also because contraception is a degraded and inhuman way to deal with the problem. We spay and neuter pets because we take it as given that they don’t have the power to control their desires, still less that, like human beings, they can come to take pleasure in controlling them. But even though contraception is in some sense a control of ones fertility, it is not a control of desire – contraception, in fact, is an obstacle or impediment to learning to control desire and so an obstacle to the virtue that alone makes for human happiness. Chesterton’s observation still bears repeating: “the problem with birth control is that there’s no birth and no control”.

3.) Contraception frustrates and cripples sexual unity between spouses.  All solidarity is a sort of unity, but sex only unifies by joining two persons into a single reproductive entity.  This single entity might happen to be unable to reproduce, but there is all the moral difference in the world between being infertile and causing infertility - the two are as different as someone dying and causing someone to die.

4.) My experience. Even after I try to correct for my own confirmation bias and the limits of my own experience, I’m still pretty convinced that contraception and surgical sterilization warp and wound ones character.  The contraceptors I know tend to betray a horror and disgust with children. This does not mean they fail to love their own kids, but I’m uncomfortable with the number of times I hear them talk about escaping from childbearing as though they narrowly escaped from some terrible catastrophe.  There is something grotesque in the couple saying “Oh, we’re done” without a hint of sorrow and without even a thought for what they passed up on. Maybe it’s true that it would be imprudent to have more, but why no sadness about it? Do you really think that if you could meet and live with the children that you are passing up that  you would be so emphatic about making sure they could never exist? Why is it that it is so common for people to look at a large family as though it were an oppressive burden resulting from bovine stupidity about “where they come from” and not as a group of endlessly fascinating different personalities whose presence gives one so much to live for?

_____

*Throughout the post, this refers both to those who abstain continuously or periodically.

Suppose we tried using the principle of causal closure to critique a very basic non-naturalist claim:

1.) All physical effects can only have physical causes

2.) The motion of fundamental particles is a physical effect

3.) God is not a physical cause

4.) Therefore, God cannot move fundamental particles.

Here, it’s hard to give a briefer response than Plantinga’s: conservation laws presuppose closed systems, but if God acts on a system, it’s by definition not causally closed. If one is basing hos account of closure not on conservation laws but on Einstein’s solid block universe, that too presupposes that all agents are natural (i.e. unable to send information or move faster than light, etc.)

So what if we took this even more fundamental application of the principle of causal closure?

1.) All physical effects have physical causes.

2.) The existence of fundamental particles is a physical effect.

3.) God is not a physical cause.

4.) Therefore, God does not cause the existence of fundamental particles.

Voilà - physicalism proves creation is impossible. The problem is that 2.) is false by the very definition of causal closure. One cannot find existence treated in the enumeration of fundamental particles (for all the problems existence has caused metaphysics, the particle physicist ought to be happy he doesn’t study it). One can, of course, simply stipulate as an axiom that  only fundamental particles exist, but then the whole argument becomes question begging and superfluous.

But what if we ran the first argument through using soul instead of “God”? Here again, soul simply does not fall under the causal closure principle. Soul explains actions so far as a thing is responsible, is a self, can act in light of principles not given to it by nature etc..  Positing soul does not explain physical action in relation to another physical action, simply because any physical action is an object for soul and thus distinct from it.

Given Papineau’s own definition of the causal closure thesis, what we we to make of his various critiques of “non-physicalism”? His first critique G.E. Moore can serve as a paradigm. Here’s the objection and response:

G.E. Moore’s famous ‘open question’ argument is designed to show that moral facts cannot possibly be identical to natural facts. Suppose the natural properties of some situation are completely specified. It will always remain an open question, argued Moore, whether that situation is morally good or bad. (Moore 1903.)

Moore took this argument to show that moral facts comprise a distinct species of non-natural fact. However, any such non-naturalist view of morality faces immediate difficulties, deriving ultimately from the kind of causal closure thesis discussed above. If all physical effects are due to a limited range of natural causes, and if moral facts lie outside this range, then it follow (sic) that moral facts can never make any difference to what happens in the physical world (Harman, 1986)

But in order for the causal closure thesis to have any bite, Papineau has to claim that moral facts are found among the various effects on a list of physical forces – a claim which is both obviously false and, at any rate, begs the question.

David Papineau’s account of Naturalism in the SEP bases the whole doctrine on the “causal closure principle”, that is:

[A]ll physical effects can be accounted for by basic physical causes (where ‘physical’ can be understood as referring to some list of fundamental forces).

He further claims that “Scarcely any contemporary philosophers are prepared to query this thesis, even those who wish to resist the apparent physicalist consequences”.

One would certainly hope that no one doubts the thesis, since, when we substitute Papineau’s own definition of the physical, the principle is this:

All the effects found on some list of fundamental forces can be accounted for by causes found on a list of fundamental forces.

Stephen Barr describes scientific materialism in a way that seems both obviously true and yet evokes several further questions (sentence numbering my own):

(1) Scientific materialism claims that everything that exists and everything that happens is ultimately reducible to the behavior of particles, fields, energy, forces, and the other kinds of entities posited by theoretical physics… (2) [Its] success has been based on a form of reductionism that explains physical systems by analyzing them in terms of their fundamental constituents and how those constituents are organized and interact with one another… (3) Most physicists (myself included) think it highly implausible that there is anything about the nature or properties of a chunk of iron, say, or a drop of water, or a star, or an atom that is not explicable in this way. (4) This kind of reductionism has been extended with increasing success to biology. Molecular biology and related disciplines are giving us an ever greater and more detailed understanding of the processes of life.

My note numbers refer to Barr’s sentences:

(1) On  this view of materialism, what place can we carve out for the mathematical quantities and relations that make “particles, fields, energy, forces,” intelligible? “E”, for example, is just as much a number of joules as a thing we reduce motion to, since without the number and the ability to enter into an algebraic relation, none of the things Barr mentions would be of any use to the physicist – they would not even be intelligible to him. The vague (but completely certain) awareness of force we have from carrying an anvil does not suffice to make anything intelligible in the way that makes for physics.

(1) Again, the historical progression of physics begins with directly sensible things (Democritus thought the atoms of life were dust motes; Aristotle thought all elements were macro-sensible, etc.) it then moves on to things only perceivable by an abstraction of the imagination (like space, mathematical time, point particles) and now it seems to have pushed beyond even what can be an object of the imagination. Thus, the mathematical formalism becomes much more important to account for. 

(2) The assumption that the fundamental constituent of these sensible things is matter raises Berkeley’s questions, which are never quite taken seriously enough. What is the matter in material reductionism?  Do we know anything more about it than that it is some support system for the sensible that is utterly non-mental? But what evidence do we have that we are approaching the non-mental? The question of whether the substrate is mental or not does not seem to put old physics (Aristotle/Newton) in opposition to newer sorts,  it only puts materialism in opposition to Berkeley. But how, again, does the advance of the sciences show that  Berkeley is wrong?

(2-3) Given the progression of physics from the directly sensible to the internally sensible to the more or less purely mathematically formal, doesn’t the direction of physics point towards nature being something only knowable by supra-human or supernatural intelligence? Briefly, if the progression of physics has been away from the lower sense powers towards purely intelligible ones, isn’t a better account of the success of reductionism that we are approaching the moment when nature shows itself as a creature, i.e. something whose being is only intelligible in relation to supernatural mind?

(4) It’s absolutely explained a great deal about life, but not life as a source of responsibility or self-action. What the ancients and Medievals were trying to explain by soul is not of any interest to the biologist. Since I have no interest or ability to force people to take an interest in things, I clearly have no bone to pick with the modern biologist. But he isn’t replacing an idea of soul or even competing with it any more than an autopsy of a murder victim is replacing or competing with the legal definition of murder. We didn’t reduce souls to anything else, we simply lost interest in them, or (alternately) we decided we would rather consider the soul in its somatic presentation.

Plato makes the authorship of texts and the production of art a stage in erotic development, i.e. something that we human beings have in place of immortality, and which is therefore an approximation of immortality. We couldn’t write anything apart from a concomitant desire that it should at least deserve to survive, and so far as this is true we design anything with an eye that it should be adapted to survive in future conditions, at least so far as these are agreeable to the sort of beauty we are trying to bring forth.

This aspect of authorship or artistic production might serve as an analogue to an intention in universal nature within the process of natural selection. The authorship of any of the parts arises from a sort of eros – a seeking of immortality – that seeks to make something that will survive, but only so far as its survival is agreeable to the particular beauty that nature sought to bring forth. Selection negates whatever is no longer adapted to the environment – but the artist too would want his work to disappear when it could no longer speak to the environment. Just as we desire immortality through children, but not so far as the children would ruin our name, so too we want immortality through authorship and art, but not so far as it no longer has anything to say to the environment.

Natural selection is a purely instrumental or mediating mechanism: given something alive and reproducing, selection can do its work. biology will no doubt someday hit on some other process to account for the living thing as such. But at such a point, and at any other such point in the unfolding where something new arises, we can overlay a Platonic eros in universal nature analogous to the sort we experience in authorship and artistic production.