Other matters compete for my attention. Top of the season to all of you. I hope to be back on track in the New Year.
Author: Bill Vallicella
The Infirmity of Reason versus the Certitude of Faith
Substack latest. Some thoughts on Pierre Bayle.
Reason is infirm in that it cannot establish anything definitively as regards the ultimate questions that most concern us. It cannot even prove that doubting is the way to truth, “that it is certain that we ought to be in doubt.” (Pyrrho entry, Bayle’s Dictionary, tr. Popkin, p. 205) But, pace Pierre Bayle, the merely subjective certitude of faith is no solution either! Recoiling from the labyrinth into which unaided human reason loses itself, Bayle writes:
The Mark of a Weakling
Plato puts the following words into the mouth of Simmias in The Phaedo:
It seems to me, Socrates . . . that to know anything certain about such things [as the immortality of the soul] in this life is either impossible or exceedingly difficult, but to give up without completely testing the views on the subject and before you’re totally exhausted from examining them on every side is the mark of a weakling.
For we must accomplish one of the following: either learn the truth about this from someone else or find it out for ourselves, or if that’s impossible, at least catch the best most irrefutable human argument we can find and ride on it like a raft, sailing through life taking our chances on it, unless we can get safer, less dangerous passage on a securer vessel in the form of some divine explanation. (85c-85e, tr. Raymond Larson)
On Suspending Judgment Regarding the Big Questions
Does God exist? You can reasonably argue it both ways. The same goes for such other ‘big questions’ as whether there is personal survival of bodily death. Now on many other issues where the arguments and evidential considerations pro et contra are equally good and cancel out, it is reasonable to suspend judgment and unreasonable not to. But not with respect to the big or ultimate questions. Or so I shall argue. But first some terminological regimentation.
There are four different types of attitude one can take with respect to a proposition: Accept, Reject, Suspend, Bracket.
To accept a proposition is to affirm it. To reject a proposition is to deny it. One cannot on pain of embracing a contradiction accept and reject one and the same proposition. LNC rules the discursive plane.
To suspend a proposition is to take no stance with respect to its truth or falsity, its ‘truth-value’ as the philosophers say. It is neither to affirm it nor to deny it. One suspends judgment as to its truth-value. There is no doxastic commitment either by way of belief or disbelief.
What I am calling ‘bracketing’ is something different still. Consider the Trinitarian dogma, “There is one God in three divine persons.” Some will affirm, some deny, others suspend the proposition they take it to express; there is, however, a fourth possibility.
Here is a little speech someone might give.
“The Trinitarian sentence you uttered makes no sense; it is unintelligible, if not in itself then at least for me. It strikes me as self-contradictory and thus expresses no definite thought or proposition. I cannot accept or reject since I do not know what I would be accepting or rejecting. For the same reason I cannot suspend: with respect to what proposition would I be suspending judgment?”
The fourth stance, bracketing, is a sort of suspension, but not with respect to truth-value but with respect to propositional sense. The sense of a declarative sentence (a sentence in the indicative mood) is the proposition it is used to express. And so the bracketing stance or attitude amounts to a suspension of commitment to there being a proposition the sentence expresses.
“I cannot evaluate a thought unless there is a thought to evaluate, and the Trinitarian sentence does not seem to me to express a thought. The sentence, being self-contradictory, lacks a determinate propositional sense and therefore is unintelligible to me.”
That is surely a stance one can, and some do, take. Note that I mentioned the Trinity doctrine only as an example in order to explain bracketing. The topic is not the Trinity. So please no comments on the coherence or incoherence of that doctrine.
With the above as background, I advance to my thesis.
THESIS: With respect to many propositions, both the theoretically rational and the practically rational course is to suspend judgment; with respect to some propositions, however, it would be practically irrational to suspend judgment. It would be imprudent or pragmatically ill-advised. Among the latter: there is a God; the soul is immortal; we will be judged, rewarded and punished in the hereafter for some of what we have done and left undone here below. (I am presupposing a distinction between theoretical and practical (pragmatic, prudential) rationality.)
My point is that for beings of our constitution it would be practically irrational and highly imprudent to suspend judgment on the questions of God and personal immortality. For if one did so one would not be likely to live here and now in such a way as to assure a positive post-mortem outcome. After all, we do not know that the soul is immortal nor do we know that it is not. The questions are theoretically undecidable.
But man does not live by theory alone. We are not mere transcendental spectators but interested free agents, interested in the sense of embedded in real being. (inter esse) We have interests in this life and beyond it: we are concerned with our ultimate felicity, well-being, and continuance in being.
If we had no interests beyond this life, if we were pure spectators, we should suspend judgment on the ultimate questions and go back to the everyday and its proximate concerns. That would be the reasonable thing to do — if we were pure spectators and the big questions were of merely theoretical interest. Whether God and the soul are real or unreal would then be on a par with whether the number of electrons in the universe is odd or even. Since the latter question is theoretically undecidable, it would be practically irrational to waste any time on it.
This is essentially the attitude of the worldling when it comes to God and soul and the like. “Who knows?” “People say different things.” “The supposedly wisest among us have contradicted one another since time immemorial.” “Why waste time on this philosophy nonsense when you could be living to human scale by pursuing a profession useful to others, making money, buying a house, founding a family?” Remain true to the earth; make friends with the finite; don’t hanker after a hinter world; this world is all there is.
My thesis, however, is that while is is both theoretically and practically rational to suspend judgment on many questions, this does not hold for those questions pertaining to our ultimate felicity and well-being. My thesis presupposes the real possibility of ultimate felicity and well-being. And so, to appreciate my thesis you cannot have the mentality of a worldling. You have to have had the experience of the ultimate nullity of the proximate concerns I mentioned. You must have the sense that this world and this life are ‘vanishing quantities.’ You have to have been struck and troubled by the transience of life and the impermanence of things. You have to take that troubling impermanence as an indicator of the relative (not absolute) unreality of this life. You have to possess the Platonic sensibility.
Now I can’t argue you into that sensibility any more than you can argue me out of it. Argument comes too late. Or rather it comes too soon. What I mean is that argument and counter-argument disport upon the discursive plane which is foreground to the ultimate background, the Unseen Order. What breaks the standoff for some of us is a glimpse into the Transdiscursive, a peek behind the veil. But only some have had the Glimpse. It is a divine gift, a gratuitous granting ab extra. Others will say that the Glimpse experience has zero noetic quality; it is something on the order of a Spinozistic experientia vaga, or a random neuronal swerve, a ‘brain fart.’ There is no resolution to this dispute over noetic quality on the plane of theoretical reason. You will have to decide what you will believe and how you will live.
In sum:
You are violating no canon of theoretical or practical rationality if you decide to live as if God and the soul are real. And since the questions are theoretically undecidable, you will decide either by an explicit act of will or willy-nilly (nolens volens) how you will live. The will comes into it. Why do I say you will decide? Because if you don’t decide, that non-decision amounts practically to a decision for the other side of the question.
The atheist and the mortalist who abstain from taking a stand cannot help but take a stand, practically, though not theoretically, for atheism and mortalism.
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Varia
I have only recently come to appreciate what a great song this Jackson Browne number from 1976 is. After the ‘sixties faded, I gave myself an education in classical and jazz and lost touch with the rock scene. The video presents the thoughtful lyrics. The Gary U. S. Bonds cover from 1981 is also unbelievably good.
The Weight. Robertson sat down one day to write a song and peering into his Martin guitar read, “Martin Guitars, Nazareth, Pennslylvania.” This inspired the line, “I pulled into Nazareth, feelin’ about half-past dead.”
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Nothing hippy-trippy or psychedelic about these ’60s musicians. Pure Americana served up by Canadians. Rooted, autochthonic.
I Shall Be Released. Their synergy benefited both the Bard and the Band. They helped him move farther from the mind and closer to the earth.
I post what I like, and I like what I post. It’s a nostalgia trip, and a generational thing. There’s no point in disputing taste or sensibility, or much of anything else. It’s Saturday night, punch the clock, pour yourself a stiff one, stop thinking, and FEEL!
Traveling Wilburys, End of Line, Extended Version
Who, Won’t Get Fooled Again. Lyrics!
Gary U. S. Bonds, From a Buick Six. Sorry, Bob, but not even you can touch this version.
Bob Dylan, It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry. Cutting Edge Bootleg version.
Bob Dylan, Just Like a Woman. This Cutting Edge take may be the best version, even with the mistakes.
Bob Dylan, Cold Irons Bound. The Bard never loses his touch. May he die with his boots on.
Bob Dylan, Corrina, Corrina. And you say he can’t sing in a conventional way?
Bob Seger, Old-Time Rock and Roll
But does it really “soothe the soul”? Is it supposed to? For soul-soothing, I recommend the Adagio movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Adagio molto e cantabile.
The Flying Burrito Brothers, To Ramona. A beautiful cover of a song from Dylan’s fourth album, Another Side of Bob Dylan.
YouTuber comment: “I’d hate to think where we would be without Mr. Zimmerman’s songwriting. So many covers done by so many great artists.” And I say that if it weren’t for Zimmi, the Great American Boomer Soundtrack would have a huge, gaping hole in it.
An able cover of the Bobby Edwards cross-over hit from 1961.
The Springfields, Silver Threads and Golden Needles
Dusty Springfield before she was Dusty Springfield.
Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Roving Gambler. “Ramblin’ Charles Adnopoz” lacking the requisite resonance for a follower of Woody Guthrie, this Jewish son of a New York M.D. wisely changed his name.
Joan Baez, Rock Salt and Nails
The best rendition of the Utah Philips song..
On the banks of the river where the willows hang down
And the wild birds all warble with a low moaning sound
Down in the hollow where the waters run cold
It was there I first listened to the lies that you told
Now I lie on my bed and I see your sweet face
The past I remember time cannot erase
The letter you wrote me it was written in shame
And I know that your conscience still echos my name
Now the nights are so long, Lord sorrow runs deep
And nothing is worse than a night without sleep
I’ll walk out alone and look at the sky
Too empty to sing, too lonesome to cry
If the ladies was blackbirds and the ladies was thrushes
I’d lie there for hours in the chilly cold marshes
If the ladies was squirrel’s with high bushy tails
I’d fill up my shotgun with rock salt and nails
Patsy Cline, She’s Got You
Marianne Faithfull, Ruby Tuesday. Moodier than the Stones’ original. She does a great version of Dylan’s Visions of Johanna. But nothing touches the original. It moves me as much as it did back in ’66. YouTuber comment: “An early morning cup of coffee, smoking a fattie, listening to this insane genius . . . does it get any better? And if so, how?”
Tom Waits, The Ghosts of Saturday Night. One of the best by this latter-day quasi-Kerouac.
Marlene Dietrich, Die Fesche Lola. ‘Fesche’ means something like smart, snazzy.
Ich bin die fesche Lola, der Liebling der Saison!
Ich hab’ ein Pianola zu Haus’ in mein’ Salon
Ich bin die fesche Lola, mich liebt ein jeder Mann
doch an mein Pianola, da laß ich keinen ran!
Kinks, Lola. From the days when ‘tranny’ meant transmission.
Marlene Dietrich, Muss I Denn
Elvis Presley, Wooden Heart
Lotte Lenya, September Song
Lotte Lenya, Moon of Alabama
Doors, Alabama Song
Bette Midler, Mambo Italiano. Video of Sophia Loren.
Does the ‘Fixity of Death’ Extend to Thinking?
I cannot repent after death, or make moral progress; can I make intellectual progress post-mortem? Maybe Ed Feser can answer this question along Thomistic lines, assuming the question has a sense clear enough to answer. Aquinas takes no position on it, at least not in the sections of Summa Contra Gentiles where he discusses the will‘s fixity after death. See SCG, Book Four, sections 92-95.
Notes on Conscience
How explain conscience if the soul is a mere life-principle? To be alive is not the same as to have a conscience. There are plenty of living things that do not and cannot have a conscience, and there may be dead souls with a conscience. But even if the property of being alive and the property of having a conscience were co-extensional they would not be the same property.
Each living thing has its own life that it naturally affirms and protects. Although life is ceaseless self-assertion and self-protection, conscience may demand self-denial to the point of sacrificing one’s life for others or for one’s cause. A curious life-principle it would be that would preside over the death of the soul-body composite of which it is the animating principle.
Conscience reveals the discrepancy between what I am and what I ought to be. The awareness of this gap and its concomitants such as regret, remorse, desire to do better, and so on, is not reasonably ascribed to a mere life-principle. Thought, too, like moral evaluation, goes well beyond what a mere life-principle could deliver.
Animation, cogitation, evaluation. A soul worth its salt ought to be adept at all three. Whether one and the same item or ‘principle’ can fill the bill is a topic that needs careful thought with deep attention to the researches of the twin titans of our tradition.
In the Interests of Prandial Harmony
Some of you will be at table with relatives today. Experientia docet: Occasions of putative conviviality can easily degenerate into nastiness. A prophylactic to consider is the avoidance of all talk of politics and religion. But to paraphrase G. K. Chesterton, What else is there to talk about? An exaggeration, no doubt, but God and Man in relation to the State does cover a lot of ground.
And so I cannot recommend that you bring up the recent behavior of Arizona senator Mark Kelly unless you and your relatives and friends are all of the same mind.
Random Jottings on the Day before Thanksgiving
Sehnsucht. The far-off in time or space can arouse our longing for the metaphysical Elsewhere. A lonely saguaro standing sentinel on a distant ridge . . . .
When I met him, I was young and he was younger. Now I am old and he is dead. This life is too dream-like to be real, and too real to be a dream.
He died in a hospital bed, not with his boots on. “This is funny,” are said to have been Doc Holliday’s last words.
A race is not run all at once, but step by step. So too in life: it is lived day by day, hour by hour. This is a comforting truth. Can you get through the next hour?
For my kind of life, she’s been the right kind of wife: tamquam alter idem.
It takes a spiritual being to affirm that spirit is nothing but an efflux of brain chemistry and that what is ultimately real is matter alone.
Can there be moral seriousness without some doctrine of immortality? Yes? Are you serious?
Given that we are ineluctably both truth-seekers and moral strivers, could the world in itself be ultimately unintelligible and purposeless? If it is then man is no microcosm but a cosmic joke.
The ultimate joke would a joke without a teller.
If might makes right, then there is no right. To say that might makes right is to say that the notion of right is illusory.
If it won’t matter tomorrow, how much does it matter today? If it won’t exist tomorrow, how much does it exist today? Does existence come in degrees?
Is salvation of individuality or from individuality? Christian versus Hindu views. If the former, it ought to involve a transformation into a higher individuality and not a mere perpetuation of the petty earthly self.
Some friendships ought to be left in the boneyard of memory where they belong. “Let sleeping dogs lie.” But if the friendship was rooted in something deep, fruitful re-awakening may be possible.
UAP, NHIs, NHEs, AI, and Demons
Too many word slingers these days use abbreviations without explanation. Not me. UAP: unidentified aerial phenomena; NHIs: non-human intelligences; NHEs: non-human extraterrestrials; AI: artificial intelligence. As for angels and demons, should there be any, they would fall under NHIs.
You already know what UFO stands for. Many of you, however, fail to understand that UFO does not have the same extension as NHE. A UFO may or may not be a NHE
On 27 July 2025 I wrote:
You may remember our ‘demonic’ discussion from last summer. [The summer of ’24] See Reading Now: Demonic Foes. The comment thread runs to 61 entries, some of them excellent.
Bro Joe now wants us to read: Satanic AI: ChatGPT gives instructions.
Another topic we ought to explore is the possibility of demonic possession of AI systems.
According to Richard Gallagher, M.D., “The essence of a possession is the actual control of the body (never the ‘soul’ or will’) of a person by one or more evil spirits.” (Demonic Foes, p. 80). Now AI systems do not have souls or wills of their own (or so I argue), but they do have bodies, albeit inorganic. Might they then host demons?
Gallagher’s book is outstanding. So if you think demonology is buncombe, you should study his book and disembarrass yourself of your illusions.
I now draw your attention to Dreher who in a characteristically prolix recent entry refers us to a film on UAP:
The film’s focus is on science and national security. The only time religion and spirituality come up is briefly, early in the film, when several interviewees say there is a group of “fundamentalists” within the Deep State who try to discourage investigation into the UAP/NHI story, because they believe it’s all demonic, and we shouldn’t be messing with it. The movie gives you the sense that these crazy Christians are trying to inhibit progress.
They’re talking about the Collins Elite, about whom I wrote last year. I read a book about them last December, and wrote about it. From that newsletter:
After reading yesterday’s post here, a friend texted to suggest that the Collins Elite might be opposed to US Government engagement with these demonic entities not so much because they are afraid of the demons (though they are), but because they are more afraid of what we humans will do with the information we learn from them. This insight seems to be vindicated by what Redfern reports. Here Redfern quotes someone with experience of the Collins Elite:
“They came to believe that the NHEs were not extraterrestrial at all; they believed they were some sort of demonic entities. And that regardless of how benevolent or beneficial any of the contact they had with these entities seemed to be, it always ended up being tainted, for lack of a better term, with something that ultimately turned out to be bad. There was ultimately nothing positive from the interaction with the NHE entities. They felt it really fell more under the category of some vast spiritual deception instead of UFOs and aliens. In the course of the whole discussion, it was clear that they really viewed this as having a demonic origin that was there to simply try and confuse the issue in terms of who they were, what they wanted, and what the source of the ultimate truth is. If you extrapolate from their take that these are demons in the biblical sense of the word, then what they would be doing here is trying to create a spiritual deception to fool as many people as possible.”
More:
They were concerned that they had undertaken this initially with the best of intentions, but then as things developed they saw a very negative side to it that wasn’t apparent earlier. So, that’s what leads me to think they had a relatively lengthy involvement.” The story became even more complex when the reasoning behind, and the goals of, the project were revealed to Boeche:
“Most of it was related to psychotronic weaponry and remote viewing, and even deaths by what were supposed to be psychic methods.” Certainly, the NHEs, it was deduced by those attached to the DoD project, possessed extraordinary, and lethal, mental powers. And, as a result, deeper plans were initiated, using nothing less than ancient rites and black rituals, to actually try and contact the NHEs with two specific—some might say utterly crackpot—goals in mind: (1) controlling them and (2) exploiting their extraordinary mental powers in the form of devastating weaponry.”
“Boeche” is Ray Boeche, an Episcopal priest and theologian who had established himself as an investigator in the religious implications of UFOs. Two members of the Collins Elite — Defense Department physicists — approached him and shared with him their concerns:
The conversations [with Boeche] always followed broadly similar ground: namely, that the Human Race was being deceived into believing that it was receiving visitations from aliens, when in reality demonic forces were secretly squaring up for Armageddon and the final countdown. And, the DoD’s overwhelmingly reckless dabbling into occult-driven areas to try and make a bizarre-but-futile pact of some sort with these same forces was inevitably, and only, destined to make things much, much worse for each and every one of us.
One more:
With respect to his own views, as well as those of the two DoD physicists, Boeche added: “As a pastor and someone who’s trained as a theologian, I can’t come to any other conclusion than there is some sort of spiritual deception going on here. In so many of these kinds of alien contacts, the entities involved make a denial of Christianity; anytime the spiritual issues are addressed, there is always some sort of denial of the validity of Christianity and the validity of the Bible. And I find it interesting that these percipients are told that Jesus was a great guy, but you just misunderstood him. They say: he wasn’t really God’s son. You just don’t quite get it. But you never hear them say that about Buddha, or Krishna, or Mohammed. It always seems to come down to some sort of denial of Christianity. The percipients, whether you consider them contactees or abductees are engaged by the NHEs in spiritual discussions—but it’s always one-sided. “I would have a lot less suspicion of the potential of the demonic nature of these things if they were to say: ‘You guys are all screwed up; all of your spiritual leaders had some good ideas, but none of them really got it. It’s a big mess.’ But it seems to be so specifically pointed at the Judeo-Christian tradition. It certainly seems to me like it’s the two genuine forces squaring up against each other.”
Back to Dreher:
See, this is what I believe is probably the case. Someone who doesn’t turn up in the film is Jacques Vallée, who is the grey eminence of UAP studies. Vallée is in his eighties now, and is not a Christian, but has come to believe that whatever this phenomenon is, it is ultimately spiritual/non-material, and that these entities do not mean humanity well. Vallée has written a number of books; one of the most important is Passport To Magonia (1969); here is a link to read the entire text for free online. The book’s basic claim is that UAPs are not extraterrestrial visitors, but are probably interdimensional entities that have always been present among humans, but have manifested themselves in different ways, depending on the age and the culture.
For example, in a scientific-technological culture, these entities appear as creatures from space, because they can be understood within that paradigm. Vallée posits that these are the same entities that have in ages and cultures past have presented themselves as fairies, elves, and other paranormal or supernatural beings. He points out that many of the phenomena associated with so-called alien encounters and alien abductions, like time distortion, have also been reported in folklore across many cultures.
This seems entirely plausible to me. I know, call me crazy, but I think this is probably true. You new readers won’t know this, but I thought the whole UAP/UFO thing was … well, if not exactly nonsense, at least nothing I cared about. This was the case until around 2023, when a journalist friend in Rome, a Catholic, told me that he knows I think all this is fairly silly, but that I should give it a second look, because there’s a lot coming out about it — and there’s very much a religious and spiritual angle to it. I found out that this is actually true.
Gettier Cases and Epistemic Infallibilism
I wrote this a year ago, but never posted it. It is relevant to the preceding post. Epistemic infallibilism (EI) makes short work of Gettier cases. But is this a compelling reason to accept EI? You can guess what I will say: here we have another insoluble problem.
…………………………..
In an earlier thread, Elliot writes:
I’m inclined to agree with you and Butchvarov that [propositional] knowledge entails objective certainty. Why? For one thing, the thesis of epistemic infallibilism seems immune to the epistemic luck present in Gettier cases. Or as Socrates might put it, objective certainty tethers true belief so that it doesn’t run away (Meno) at the sight of epistemic luck. For another thing, epistemic infallibilism explains why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief.
The Gettier problem is old hat, and not just since 1963. The following from SEP:
Few contemporary epistemologists accept the adequacy of the JTB analysis. Although most agree that each element of the tripartite theory is necessary for knowledge, they do not seem collectively to be sufficient. There seem to be cases of justified true belief that still fall short of knowledge. Here is one kind of example:
Imagine that we are seeking water on a hot day. We suddenly see water, or so we think. In fact, we are not seeing water but a mirage, but when we reach the spot, we are lucky and find water right there under a rock. Can we say that we had genuine knowledge of water? The answer seems to be negative, for we were just lucky. (quoted from Dreyfus 1997: 292)
The above example comes from the Indian philosopher Dharmottara, c. 770 CE. The 14th-century Italian philosopher Peter of Mantua presented a similar case:
Let it be assumed that Plato is next to you and you know him to be running, but you mistakenly believe that he is Socrates, so that you firmly believe that Socrates is running. However, let it be so that Socrates is in fact running in Rome; however, you do not know this. (from Peter of Mantua’s De scire et dubitare, given in Boh 1985: 95)
A Chisholmian example from IEP:
The sheep in the field (Chisholm 1966/1977/1989). Imagine that you are standing outside a field. You see, within it, what looks exactly like a sheep. What belief instantly occurs to you? Among the many that could have done so, it happens to be the belief that there is a sheep in the field. And in fact you are right, because there is a sheep behind the hill in the middle of the field. You cannot see that sheep, though, and you have no direct evidence of its existence. Moreover, what you are seeing is a dog, disguised as a sheep. Hence, you have a well justified true belief that there is a sheep in the field. But is that belief knowledge?
A common objection to epistemic infallibilism is that it eliminates much of what we ordinarily take ourselves to know. For example, I justifiably believe that I am now looking at a lamp with a blue lampshade. But since it’s possible that I’m wrong, I don’t know that I’m looking at a lamp. Some will want to say that I know I’m looking at a lamp. The infallibilist can say that I know I’m having an experience as of looking at a lamp, or that I know I’m being appeared-to-lamp-bluely, but I don’t know (precisely speaking) that I’m looking at a lamp.
One point to discuss further: What is meant by “impossibility of mistake?” What sort of possibility is at work here?
Knowledge as Requiring Objective Certainty
Some brief Substack notes on Butchvarov for Elliot, our resident epistemologist.
Defining Lust
Aquinas and Hylomorphism Again
Over lunch on Sunday, Brian B asked me to explain my disagreement with Ed Feser and others over Aquinas’ hylomorphism. Here is a pithier statement than the ones I’ve already posted.
I will assume with Aquinas that human beings after death continue to exist as disembodied souls until the general resurrection. The question I and others have posed is how the persistence of individual souls after death is conceivable on the Aristotelian hylomorphic principles to which Thomas subscribes. Why should this be a problem? The problem is that the following propositions, each of which is a doctrinal commitment of Thomas, are collectively logically inconsistent: they cannot all be true.
a) Designated matter in material substances both individuates their forms and accounts for the substances’ numerical difference. Thus Peter and Paul are two and not one because of the difference in their designated matter. And their forms are individuated by designated matter as well. This implies that (i) Peter’s substantial form is numerically different from Paul’s, and that (ii) neither form is an individual form without the matter that individuates it.
b) The souls of living things are substantial forms of their bodies: anima forma corporis. Peter and Paul are living things; hence their souls are individual substantial forms of their bodies. To put it more precisely, Peter and Paul are form-matter composites. The psychic or soulic component in each is the individual substantial form, and the material component in each is the parcel of designated matter. Each component needs the other to be what it is: the psychic-formal component needs the material component for its individuation, and the material component needs the psychic component for its animation. And neither component can exist without the other: each exists only together with the other. Thus the whole of which they are proper parts is not a whole compounded of parts that can exist on their own, as substances in their own right, but a whole the parts of which are mere ‘principles’ in scholastic jargon and thus not substances in their own right. This implies that the hylomorphic whole, which is a substance in its own right, is ontologically prior to the morphic and hyletic parts which are not substances in their own right. Bear in mind that a primary substance, by definition, is a basic entity that is metaphysically capable of independent existence.
c) The souls of humans, unlike those of non-human animals, are subsistent: they are metaphysically capable of independent existence. So the souls of Peter and Paul will continue to exist after their bodily death in a disembodied intermediate state prior to their re-embodiment in the general resurrection.
The triad is inconsistent because (a) and (b) taken together entail the negation of (c). Indeed any two of the propositions, taken together, entails the negation of the remaining one.
In a nutshell: it cannot be the case that souls depend on material bodies for their existence and individuation but continue to exist as individual souls after bodily death in a bodiless state.
What Thomists want to say is that SOMEHOW a substantial form that achieves individuation ‘here below’ pre-mortem by marriage with a hunk of matter, thereby animating said hunk of matter, continues to exist as a disembodied individual soul ‘up yonder’ post-mortem AFTER the individuating factor has been removed. That makes no sense. What would make sense is that the individual soul cease to exist after the death of the body. Bear in mind that the soul on an Aristotelian hylomorphic mereological analysis is a mere ‘principle’ of the hylomorphic composite entity and not itself a substance.
The conclusion to be drawn from this is that despite the Angelic Doctor’s noble attempt to stay as close as possible to The Philosopher (philosophus), he is in the end a substance dualist of sorts, though not quite along Platonic, Augustinian, or Cartesian lines.
There was a time when I thought that, with respect to the soul, Thomas was an Aristotelian ‘on earth,’ but a Platonist ‘in heaven.’ (I may have picked up that line from Anthony Kenny.) But then the problem of the SOMEHOW, the problem of how a human soul can go from a mere non-subsistent ‘principle’ to a subsistent upon the removal of the soul’s individuating factor, becomes insoluble. I now think that it would be better to say that, with respect to the soul, the doctor angelicus was a Platonist in both the sublunary and superlunary spheres, both ‘on earth’ and ‘in heaven,’ and this in consequence of his Christian theological commitments which exercise ‘veto power’ over his philosophical assertions.
Disagreement in Philosophy
Substack latest.
That philosophers disagree is a fact about which there is little disagreement, even among philosophers. But what this widespread and deep disagreement signifies is a topic of major disagreement. One issue is whether or not the fact of disagreement supplies a good reason to doubt the possibility of philosophical knowledge. Czech philosopher Jiří Fuchs says it doesn’t. I say it does.
