Just Thomism

Sophistical Arguments

1.) The most common- continually changing the point. Bring up something vaguely related to the particular dispute, and shift the whole conversation that point. Any time the discussion appears to be reaching a term, change the topic again. Do not recognize anything your opponent is actually saying, do not attempt to articulate his position, do not attempt to seek out some common principle that both of you agree on.

2.) Require your opponent to prove something that is self evident. He will either try to do this, which requires him to try to found something more known on the less known, or he will refuse to do this, and you can call him a “dogmatist”.

3.) Describe anything your opponent says as “a theory” or an “-ism” or a “system of belief”. This will lead you to think that you are simply struggling with a set of obscure/ clear facts, whereas he is simply mouthing pre-fab answers that he has never thought about.

4.) One word: Pottymouth.

(Oftentimes, you can jump to this right away, but sometimes it helps to fire off a witty quip or two. Imply your opponent is hypocritical or silly.)

5.) Make liberal use of the phrases “well, we’re never going to solve this problem” or variations on the theme of “moving on”. In order to achive this state, employ tricks 1-3.

6.) Never concede anything, and make no qualifications. If you lose any part of the argument, you will loose everthing that makes you what you are. Besides, if you were to concede anything or qualify something, you must be stupid and not understand your position, right? Remember, every disputed argument is a personal critique of your own worth as a person. Don’t you understand that truth is all about you?

7.) Continually give negative and critical arguments, and never give positive ones. The purpose of philosophy is to leave yourself with nothing, right? If we rip up all the weeds, the crop will just take care of itself, right?

8.) Whenever two philosophers describe anything, they are either saying the same thing, or different things. Assert whichever one helps your position. One of the said philosophers, of course, can be you.
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Hedonism Hits a Dialectical Impossibility

If pleasure is the greatest good, then anyone experiencing pleasure is a good person.

the same, contrariwise:

If pain is the greatest human evil, then anyone who is in pain is a bad person.

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What Material Is.Let’s start with what we know. “Material” means “something that can make something”. When my Mom goes to Jo Ann Fabrics to get material, she buys cloth so she can make into quilts. When I go to Home Depot to get material, I get boards so I can make crown molding.

Distinction 1.

When I’m at Home Depot, I might also buy a hammer, finishing nails, and a DeWalt compound mitre saw (someday…). but I call the saw or the hammer “tools” and not “materials”- but yet I do say that a hammer or a saw is “something that can make something”, so have to make a qualification to my original account of “material”. It seems enough for now to point out that “materials” become the thing that is made, whereas tools don’t.

distinction 2.

Materials become what is made, but not always in the same way. Cloth becomes clothing by being cut up and given a new shape, as do my moulding boards. Nails and paint and thread, however, aren’t given a new shape so much as they are put in a certain place (give a nail a new shape when you pound it, and you’re usually in trouble). Now the first kinds of things tend to be called “materials” more readily, even though the second kind are also so called. Again, the first kinds of things undergo a certain change in shape, and so the things that undergo this are most properly “material”. What is common to both the first things and the second things is that some process or activity has to be put upon them, some process to which they are passive.

Distinction 3.

Materials become something else, and so considered as material they are indeterminate. The degree of this indetermination is not always the same. A crown moulding board is more or less only good to be turned into crown moulding, although it could become something else. An eight-foot two by four, however, can become a great many things. This determination must come from another (the carpenter, etc.)- and so we may say that in a certain sense material is wholly indeterminate, since it does not get determination to something from itself, but from another

Distinction 4

Material is capable of being regarded in two ways: per se and per accidens. We have dealt with material per se up until now. Per accidens, however, we may look at material as having a certain determination. The two by four can be regarded not as an undetermined thing that becomes a something else, but rather simply as a two by four. It is a thing which we buy for X number of dollars and load into a truck. When we consider it in this way, however, we are not considering it as material, but rather as a determinate thing with certain properties. In fact, the two by four might be viewed as the thing that came to be from a certain kind of material, namely the tree, or simply from wood.

Distinction 5

We can also distinguish among material something persistent and something non-persistent. A two by four might be said to come to be from either a tree, or from wood. The frame of the house might be said to come to be either from the a.) an eight foot two-by four, or b.) from wood, or c.) from the two by four as cut and/ or positioned and fastened or d.) from the tree.

a.) may remain or may not remain, depending on whether we identify it with c.)
b.) remains simply speaking.
c.) c remains simply, although in a way that can be distinguished from b.)
d.) does not remain.

Distinction 6

What comes to be from art must presuppose some given quality of a natural thing- wood is firm and keeps its shape, yet soft enough to take a nail. In other words, some quality of things occurring naturally is presupposed to all of the things we use as material. We encounter certain natural givens and use these givens to our advantage. Yet these things we take as givens could not be givens to the nature from which they come to be- otherwise they would have to exist before they came to be. What our art takes as a given is term from which we work- but it is a term to which the nature of the thing works. This terminal point is the dividing line between our art, and the work of nature. We are simply incapable by definition of ever having our art pierce through to the other side of this term.

We are, therefore, incapable of making something that “has a nature” in the same sense as natural things have a nature. What we make will always carry with it certain natural givens- i.e. the nature of something that is not reachable by our art. What comes to be from us is incapable of being one in the same way that natural things are one- or of “having a nature” in the same exact way that natural things have a nature.

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Solutions to Apparent Difficulties in the Philosophy of Parmenides

The primary objection to the Philosophy of Parmenides is that it denies distinction and coming to be in any way. If the thesis of this paper holds, however, and Parmenides is treating in his “way of truth” all things as one, or being as such, etc. the objection has a hard time finding a proof text in Parmenides. The closest thing to a proof text is 11.8, 23-35:

Nor is it divided since it is all like…
But unchanging in the limits of great bonds,
is without start of finish, since coming to be and destruction
were banished far away, and true conviction drove them off…
Thinking and the thought that it is are the same.

If we read the “it” as we have suggested it be read, as opposed to seeing “it” as being the same as this or that being, or as a mere collection of this and that, taken diversely, then the objection vanishes.

The difficulty is with Parmeides’ characterization of things that at least appear t come to be and pass away- for he treats of these things in “the way of mortal opinion” about which the narrating goddess says:

listen to the deceitful ordering of my words
for [mortals] made up their minds to name two forms,
of which it is not right to name one- in this they have gone astray-
and they distinguished things opposite in body, and established signs-
the one apart from the other.

If one takes the above quotation as meaning “mortals confuse the sheerly many with being as such, and in this they err” or said another way, “mortals mistakenly think that ‘IT’ (being as such) is the same as this being + this being + this + that etc, then the above quotation is both true and perfectly in keeping with the reading of Parmenides set down here. If the passage is read to say “there is no such thing as coming to be, or distinction in any way” then Parmenides’ philosophy becomes problematic. It’s clear as day that “being as such” is different from “this being”- otherwise the entire universe would disappear with the death of a sparrow. It seems hard to believe however, that Parmenides would have missed this objection, and since there is a coherent account of the passage that does not degenerate into monism, we will take it.

A similar non- absurd reading can be given to this passage:

That which is there to be spoken and thought of must be
for it is possible for it to be,
but not possible for nothing to be.

If one reads this fragment in as following on and explaining the previous fragment, then there is a ready explanation of an apparent difficulty, for the previous fragment reads:

For me, where I am to begin from is the same,
for to there I will come back again.

Now we argue here that Parmenides sees the way of truth as beginning in the principle of contradiction, and so it would make sense to see fragment 11.6 is a correct explanation of the principle of contradiction, not simply any old thing that is thought of. Even if one denied that fragment 11.6 was an explanation of the “first thing thought of” mentioned in 11.5, there is still reasonable reading of 11.6, simply as a part of the way of truth, for on our reading of “the way of truth”, the way concerns “being as such”, as opposed to “this being”. It certainly seems inarguable that I can’t make a dodo bird or a donut by simply thinking of them, but the objection is irrelevant since the way of truth doesn’t concern itself with “this or that being” but rather being as such.

Neither is it unfitting for Parmenides to deny us knowledge of “the things distinguished as opposite in body”. After all, if we mean by knowledge the sort of knowledge that we have of the principle of contradiction, then it is true to say that we don’t know particular things like “dense and heavy body” or “aetherial fire” or the embryology of male and female persons. Contradiction, after all, evinces truth by nature, but these other things do not. Compared to this higher knowledge, the things treated of in the second half of the poem deserve to be called “opinion”. Even if we were to call our sciences of these things “knowledge” we would have to keep in mind that the word was not being used in the same way as we use it in the way of truth.

Conclusion

Parmenides give a definitive answer to the problem of skepticism, i.e. the problem of whether the human mind knows truth. He does so by harnessing the power of contradiction as such, i.e. contradiction not as it is understood in any particular set of beings, but in being a such. In being the first to turn his mind to being as such, Parmenides deserves to be called the Founder of Metaphysics, and in showing the first truth he deserves to be called the founder of that part of metaphysics that deals with human knowledge: epistemology. All objections to the philosophy of Parmenides can be reduced to a failure to understand “being” as he accounts for it his way of truth- in other words, the objections confound the distinction between the ‘it’ as Parmenides understands it, and the many particular ‘its’ or the ‘these’/’those’ that we see around us. There is a certain reading of Parmenides that claims that he himself confounds this distinction, but this reading does not seem to be demanded by the text. The philosophy of Parmenides, therefore, still remains as a necessary foundation for metaphysics. Unlike other foundations-say, the foundation of a house- the philosophy of Parmenides is worthwhile to contemplate in itself; but similar to other foundations, his philosophy was meant to be built on.

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Parmenides as the Refutation of Skepticism

Parmenides is the first philosopher to take explicit notice of contradiction. His realization is at the same time breathtakingly simple and fundamental. The power of his realization is easy to miss. The argument will proceed in five parts:

A.) A general account of contradiction, and its reation to truth.
B.) How Parmenides uses contradiction in his philosophy.
C.) What “the principle of contradiction” is.
D.) Answers to some objections to the formulation given of the Principle of contradiction.
E.) Parmenides’ response to the problems of skepticism.

Part A.) Contradiction is a species of contrariety. Contrary things are such that only one can be true, and in strict contraries, the truth of one will assure the falsity of the other; e.g. “I’m going to get either a tie or a shirt for our anniversary”. It is possible, however, for neither one of the contraries to be true, because whenever one is confronted with contraries they can never be certain if they have exhausted all the possibilities. Since both possibilities can be false, one can never be certain from a given set of contraries alone, that there is a truth to be discerned. Contradictories are more strict than this, and more powerful. In any set of contradictories, one is true, the other false; e.g. “I’m either going to get a tie for our anniversary, or I’m not”. Here we know that one of the options is true.

Contradictories, then, evince truth by their nature. Asking a question like “when do contradictories require truth?” is like asking “when do squares have four equal sides?” It can be helpful to look at the three possible answers that one might give to these questions.

1.) One could point out that the question was meaningless:squares and contradictories (hereafter, “s/c”) don’t lack the properties spoken of at one time, and then acquire them at another. To ask about “when” they pick up these properties is a meaningless question.

2.) One could say that the question should be answered “always”. We need to make a distinction, however, in this answer. S/c do not have the said properties always in the same sense that the earth is always spinning. In the case of the Earth, its spinning is a contingent fact- it is quite possible for it to stop doing so, which is to say that this could always happen in fact. The said properties of S/c use a stronger sense of “always”, it is not simply that they always are, but also that they cannot not be.

3.) One could say that the question should be answered “as soon as s/c exist”. In this response, we are making a distinction between the nature of the thing and whether the nature exists. At this point, we must divide the question about square from the question about contradictories. In the case of the square, we prove that it exists by actually making one- as happens, or example, in Elements 1.46. We do not prove that contradictories exist, or at least not in the same way. If one were to try to “prove” that a square exists by simply pointing to various examples of it, they would be guilty in the eyes of the geometer of begging the question, but pointing out or thinking about a few examples of contradiction is sufficient to show that contradiction exists. Even if, per impossibile, someone were to say “contradiction does not exist”, this denial would still require that the contradiction of contradiction (whatever that is) is necessarily the case. This argument is not question begging, as though we are assuming something that is hypothetically denied- it is rather to simply notice what the impossible premise means; for since the terms of the proposition are both used universally, the form of the impossible premise is either “Every ______ is not ______.” or “No _______ is _______” and the terms are convertable. It makes no difference how we choose to phrase it, for makes no difference to the truth of the matter whether we affirm the denial (is not) or deny the affirmation (is).

Contradiction, then, both is knownto be, and it requires that some known truth to be. The skeptic, however, has recourse to one last distinction that might save his skepticism, because even though for any set of contradictories there must be one option that is true, it does not follow from this that we are able to discern which of the opposites is the true one. It may be true enough that I must either get a tie for my anniversary or not- but how does this noting this get me ay closer to knowing which of the opposites will happen?

Part B.) The genius of Parmenides was that he did not speak about this or that particular contradiction, but rather that he spoke of contradiction as such. When he lays out what he calls “the path of persuation” he says that we know “that it is, and that it is not possible for it not to be” and that it is opposed to “the path of mortal opinion” which “is not…and it is necessary for it not to be”. Formally, then, these two ways are distinguished by contradiction, the one being wholly opposed to the other. But what sort of thing does the first way deal with? We note at this point that the two ways Parmenides lays out are not wholly distinguished by the sort of things they treat of: for he says that the way of mortal opinions will be taught because “the things that appear must genuinely be, being always, indeed, all things.” It seems then that Parmenides treats of “all things” in the path of persuation, not in the sense that he treats of a collection of particulars, but rather that he treats of all things as all, i.e. all things inasmuch as they are all “one, and continuous”. Parmenides thus avoids the last objection of the skeptic, for he is not speaking about this or that contradiction, but rather contradiction as it is manifest in the all taken as all.

As my last argument is not only controversial, but also the heart of my argument about how one should read Parmenides, I’ll sketch it out in detail:

1.) Parmenides desires to found a philosophy that is irrefutably true. He may do this because he is aware of the problem of skepticism, either from learning it from another, or by thinking it through for himself.

2.) Parmenides comes to understand that there is a peculiar power to contradiction- namely that by nature it requires the existence of a truth. This is to say that contradiction, taken generally, requires that we know something to be true, even though it does not require us to know the truth of this or that particular contradiction.

3.) Since Parmenides realizes that contradiction need not give us knowledge of a truth in any particular instance, he makes his philosophy treat of all things as all, as opposed to treating of any particular contradiction as such.

4.) Because he seeks to have a philosophy that treats of all things as all, but to give a name to this is to leave oneself open to the objection that they are really treating of some particular thing (like “being” or “whatever is” or “all corporeal things” etc..) Parmenides intentionally leaves the subject matter of his philosophy nameless. It makes no difference whether one describes the thing that Parmenides is speaking of as “being” or “whatever is, inasmuch as it is” or “all things as one” or “the cosmos taken as one thing” sapiens non curat de nominibus. What matters is that we see him as speaking about things on a general enough level to be to admit of contradiction generally, for contradiction in general requires the existence of some known truth.

Part C.) Again, even if we were ambivalent or skeptical about whether this or that being existed (say a man, a triangle, or even a cosmos), when we ascend to the level of being as such, we know that being is, and cannot not be. This statement, when taken as a principle (i.e. when taken as a thing from which something else proceeds), is called the principle of contradiction.

To call this the principle of contradiction may raise some hackles, as this principle “being is, and cannot not be” seems different from the more known formulation of the principle of contradiction, namely “Nothing can both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect”, but these two formulations of the principle amount to the same thing. The most apparent difference is that the second formulation includes “at the same time and in the same respect”. This addition, however, is not an addition that is necessary to the principle as such, but only for our first understanding of the principle. For if these additions were necessary to the principle as such, then it would follow that we necessarily knew that being as such was both temporal and distinguishable in different respects. We clearly do not know this, and even if we knew it, it would not be known from the nature of contradiction as such. In other words, it does not matter to contradiction as such, or the articulation of contradiction as such, whether being is temporal or distinguishable in different respects. It is quite possible for being to be atemporal, and absolutely one without distinguishable parts. We add this addition “in the same time and in the same respect” not because it is necessary for the truth of the principle, but rather because it is necessary for our first understanding of the principle, which will be grounded in an understanding of particular temporal things with distinguishable parts.

Said another way, to say “being cannot both be and not be, at the same time and in the same respect” is the same as saying “being cannot both be and not be, unqualifiedly“. But the very reason why we are speaking of “being” (or its contradictory, nothing) is that we desire to speak of things unqualifiedly, that is, not as any separate modality of what is, or as something divided from all things as one, but rather as they are known to us prior to any particular qualification. When one unerstads what is meant by “being is and cannot not be”, they see any addition made to it as superfluous and redundant to the principle itself.

All that remains of the more well known principle of contradiction is “Nothing can both be and not be”, but this is the same as saying (broken up for easier following)

a.) “what is not nothing cannot both be and not be”
b.) but this is the same as saying “what is cannot both be and not be”
c.) but since what is, obviously is, then the principle amounts to “what is, is, and cannot not be”
d.) But “what is” is used as a synonym here for “being”.

and so the principle ends up as “being is, and cannot not be.”

Again, if one wanted to add to this principle “at the same time and in the same respect” we have no objection, we only ask that in this case they realize that they are adding to being the qualification of “being as temporal” and “being as distinguishable into parts”. We may allow this addition to make clear a particular instance of being which is more known to us; but the principle of contradiction, which is also known, transcends any particular instance of what is.

Even though we can cut the temporal and distinguishable qualification of being from the principle of contradiction, we are not able to go futher and reduce the principle to “being is”. The obvious reason for this is that to do so would be to loose contradiction as such, and it is though knowledge of contradiction that we come to know that we we must have knowledge of some truth. “Being is” is an affirmation, and an affirmation as such is not necessarily related to some truth, whereas cotradiction by nature is. It follows from this that our awareness of truth, of that thing that is and must be, is an awareness of what is, inasmuch as it is opposed to what is not and cannot be.

Part D.) If one were to say that this articulation of the principle could not be true, for any particular temporal being, say “Caesar” at one time was but at other time was not, we answer that Caesar is not the same as “being”. This or that being might pass away or come to be, but this or that being is not the same thing as being as such, and it is only on the level of being as such that the principle of contradiction yields a necessarily known truth- hence it is the only level at which Parmenides becomes interested. As it happens, Parmenides does also seem to think that the principle of contradiction proves that no particular being can either come to be or pass away, but we will deal with this particular argument in the next part of this essay.

While it is self evident that what is is, the skeptic might object to saying that the principle of contradiction requires that being cannot not be. Is it not possible that all being is contingent, and thus able to be to not be? We resolve this by noting that every contingent thing can in one sense become another, and in another sense cannot. For whatever becomes another must, by definition, be other than what it is- if this becomes that, then it must cease being this. This change either happens because something that is different from the thishas been added to it, or because something has been taken away (a tree becomes a bowling pin by ceasing to be a tree, while wood becomes a bowling pin by gaining a signification that was not present in wood as such). But “being as such” or “all things as one” does not admit of a difference, for nothing is different from being taken as such. Even if we were to note that “being” or “all things as one” have as their opposite the something called “nothing”, how could this “nothing” be added to what we start with? To add or take away “nothing” would be to change nothing. Those who would say that being as such could be changeable, therefore, are confounding the distinction between “being as such (or, being taken generally)” and “this or that particular being”. They are confouding “wha it is to be” with “this thing that is”, which makes no more sense than confonding “what a man is” with “this guy, say, Joe” Again, Parmenides himself may confound this distinction, but it makes no difference to the general truth of his philosophy, as will be dealt with in the next part. The particular problems with Parmenides’ philosophy do not affect his refutation of skepticism.

Part E.) Parmenides’ philosophy, when seen as pertaining to being as such, provides an absolute refutation of skepticism. For it the claim of skepticism that knowledge of the truth is denied in principle human beings; but the principle of contradiction, rightly understood, proves that truth must be knowable to human beings- since we know contradiction (i.e. contradiction as it is in being as such), and so we must also know truth as such, for contradiction cannot be known apart from truth, any more than “triangle” can be known apart from “three” or “side”.

We are now in possession of an account that can answer the particular claims of the skeptic. The skeptic, remember, said that belief goes over all things. But belief is the holding of something that can either be or not be. To hold such a thing, however, obviously requires a posterior awareness that “something can either be or not be” but this posterior awareness is founded on an awareness of contradiction, such that if contradiction were denied, then the very idea of belief must be denied, and if belief is affirmed, then contradiction must be affirmed as prior to it. Belief, then, far from being an alternative to truth as known, is actually founded on the truth given as known by contradiction.

There is also a fundamentl flaw in the skeptic’s understanding of the distiction between subject and object. The skeptic takes the distiction between subject and object as primary, such that this distinction divides two classes of being in a way that cannot be transcended. Any distiction or qualification of what is, or the all, however, presupposes some awareness the distiction between what is and what is not, which are manfest to human knowledge through the principle of contradiction. The skeptic makes something primary which simply is not primary- he posits a non-transcendable distinction that can only be posited if it has already been transcended. This is not to say that skeptics do not continually appeal to the principle of contradiction- quite the opposite. Experience shows that skeptics invoke contradiction continually, and (in fact) they can do no other. The fault, however, is that the skeptic’s understanding of the principle ofcontradiction is shallow and unreflective- and most often dismissive. The skeptic fails to appreciate the way in which the principle of contradiction establishes transcendental objectivity; for as far as the principle of contradiction is concerned, “subject” and “object” are one and undistinguished, since both are merely further determinations of all things as one, or all being, or the cosmos as one.

And what of the skeptic’s claim that to seek knowledge is in some way impious to the gods? We may see Parmenides addressing this concern by presenting his philosophy itself as a revelation from a nameless goddess, but it ay be better to see him answering the skeptic’s claim in this fragment: