Author: Bill Vallicella

The Lust of the Eyes and the Pride of Life

This just over the transom from T. O. with my responses:
I am wondering if you'd like to tackle this question prompted by your latest post on the sensus divinitatis. 
 
Suppose a man indulges his sensual desires and passions (especially sexual passion) without restraint when he is young. Then, as he ages, he realizes the folly of his ways and retrains himself. He trains himself to avert his eyes from beautiful women or lusty images, instead of simply soaking up the sensory delight unimpeded. He becomes chaste. He takes every lustful thought captive and refrains from sexual behaviour or activity that is inordinate or otherwise immoral. My question is, can this man ever fully escape the pull and attraction of sexual passion having so fully indulged it in his youth?
Thank you for asking such an easy question. The answer is No, based on my own experience, my observation of the lives of others, and wide reading in the wisdom literature of the East and West.
Even though he is now chaste and is more or less self-restrained, he still feels the intense pull of sexual desire from time to time, even if he doesn't entertain it. Will he always feel this pull? Will he always feel that pang within when he sees a beautiful woman, no matter how many years he cultivates a disciplined and chaste soul? Or, is this simply an idiosyncratic matter that is unique to everyone, regardless of how they have lived in the past? 
Yes, he will always feel it, with the exception of a very few spiritually advanced souls, the existence of whom is hard to verify in a critical way that avoids hagiographic excess.  The intensity of the allurement will diminish with time along with the means of acting upon it.  As we work to abandon our vices, they do their part by abandoning us.
 
But of course there are those fools who fail to make good use of their decline in vitality (the "pride of life") for spiritual advancement and try to keep their enslavement to the flesh going until death swallows them. Hugh Hefner is one example I have commented on. Jeffrey Epstein is another.
 
My title above is from 1 John 2:16: "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." (KJV)

Omne quod est in mundo, concupiscentia carnis est, et concupiscentia oculorum, et superbia vitae . . . .

The New Testament verse condemns the Roman Catholic Church in its current corruption.
 
The following two are probably my best entries on the topic:
 

The Sensus Divinitatis Waxes and Wanes

Our sense of the reality of the Unseen Order and the Unseen Other waxes in the measure that we detach our love from the objects of the senses and the pleasures they promise but never quite deliver. It wanes as we lose ourselves in the diaspora of the sensory manifold and its multiple temptations and dis-tractions.  There is a sense in which we 'realize' the mundus sensibilis by our spiritual attachment to it and 'de-realize' it by our spiritual withdrawal from it.

Traditional strictures against gluttony and lust have part of their origin here. The glutton and the lecher seek happiness where it cannot be found. It seems somehow fitting that Anthony Bourdain and Jeffrey Epstein should end their days in awful ways.

Simone Weil, and her master, Plato, approve of this message.

There is a Platonic problem of the reality of the external world. It is a problem not so much about the existence of sensible things as it is about their importance. But this is a large separate topic.

Two Ways into Philosophy

Among the riddles of existence are the artifacts of the attempts of thinkers to unravel the riddle of existence. What started G. E. Moore philosophizing was not so much the world as the puzzling things people such as F. H. Bradley said about it.  That too is a way into philosophy, if an inauthentic one. The authentic philosopher gets his problems from the world, directly.

Vito Caiati on the Tension between Corporate Capitalism and Conservatism

Dr. Vito Caiati by e-mail (emphasis added):

I am increasingly convinced that we on the Right are caught up in a set of contradictions of our own making, in that we wish to uphold, on the one hand, a particular political, social, and cultural inheritance and, on the other, an economic system, which in the past was largely supportive of or at least conducive to the former but which now, that is, in the form that it has attained in the last century, its principal solvent.  The capitalism of which we often so glowingly speak on the Right is long-gone, along with the social classes and modes of life tied to it. How do we not fall into the trap of denouncing the latter while upholding the former?  I see this as the hardest of puzzles to solve, and it may well mean that something is at work deep in the American social formation that deprives us on the Right of a firm footing in existing reality, which would explain why the Left has succeeded in conquering one political and cultural institution after another: The nature of contemporary capital, not merely its economic nature but the ways of life and cultural norms that arise from it, is inherently antagonistic to the nation state, classical liberal polities and rights, and traditional forms of civic society and belief systems. If this is so, then the Right has the unenviable task of opposing all forms of collectivist organization and control, public and private (that is, corporate), the latter of which is the inevitable form of corporate capitalist development today, while proposing some viable alternative, one that would inevitably result in a direct challenge to the dominance of the present ruling class. This is a very contradictory situation for the defenders of order, since we ordinarily do not seek to undermine the leading institutions of society. At best, we on the Right have so far only snipped at this dominance, speaking of outsourcing of manufacturing or corporate censorship, but all of these efforts leave the beast intact. What would a real assault from the Right look like, and how could it be mounted without giving up basic philosophical commitments to private property and initiative? For me, this is a real dilemma, but perhaps you disagree?

The following may serve as an illustration of Vito's dilemma.  Consider Amazon.com.

I love it and its fabulously efficient services. I fund it to the tune of about $100 per month buying books and other merchandise.  The company is a perfect example of how a man with an idea can make it big in America and enrich the lives of millions with his products. This is made possible by capitalism and the rule of law, not one or the other, but both in synergy. An enterprise like Amazon is unthinkable under socialism. The man in question, Jeff Bezos, is now the Croesus of the modern world. I have argued many times that there is nothing wrong with economic inequality as such. But money is translatable into power including the power to shape attitudes and work cultural changes.  Bezos' vast resources translate into formidable political and cultural clout. As you know, Bezos owns the left-leaning Washington Post.

By buying from Amazon, I support the Left nolens volens and its censoring of conservative books, not all of course, but many that only a hard-core leftist would think of censoring.  I also aid and abet the hollowing out of that buffer zone between the individual and the state apparatus that is called civil society. Amazon puts small book stores out of business which are not merely places of business but meeting places for citizens. But haven't I called repeatedly for the defunding of the Left? I have. Ought I not use Amazon? But that would be an impotent protest on my part. The company is a juggernaut that won't be stopped by any boycott or influenced in its corporate policies by any boycott.

There is a tension between advanced corporate capitalism and conservative values. The question I would have for Dr. Caiati, however, would be whether advanced corporate capitalism is inherently or essentially antagonistic to conservative values as he maintains. (See bolded sentence above)   Perhaps there is no necessity to this antagonism and that a sufficiently strong state headed by a nationalist such as DJT could rein in such corporate behemoths as Amazon. 

Augustine Against the Stoics

Today, August 28th, is the Feast of St. Augustine on the Catholic calendar.  In honor of the Bishop of Hippo I pull a quotation from his magisterial City of God, Book XIX, Chapter 4:

And I am at a loss to understand how the Stoic philosophers can presume to say that these are no ills, though at the same time they allow the wise man to commit suicide and pass out of this life if they become so grievous that he cannot or ought not to endure them. But such is the stupid pride of these men who fancy that the supreme good can be found in this life, and that they can become happy by their own resources, that their wise man, or at least the man whom they fancifully depict as such, is always happy, even though he become blind, deaf, dumb, mutilated, racked with pains, or suffer any conceivable calamity such as may compel him to make away with himself; and they are not ashamed to call the life that is beset with these evils happy. O happy life, which seeks the aid of death to end it? If it is happy, let the wise man remain in it; but if these ills drive him out of it, in what sense is it happy? Or how can they say that these are not evils which conquer the virtue of fortitude, and force it not only to yield, but so to rave that it in one breath calls life happy and recommends it to be given up? For who is so blind as not to see that if it were happy it would not be fled from? And if they say we should flee from it on account of the infirmities that beset it, why then do they not lower their pride and acknowledge that it is miserable?  

Companion posts: The Stoic Ideal and Christian Stoicism.

Secure Epistemic Foundations, Language, and Reality

This from Grigory Aleksin:

I have been doing some reading and thinking, and there are a few things that I cannot quite get my head around. I was wondering whether you could help me, or point me in the direction of some work on the issue. My somewhat naive task has been to try and find the most foundational and basic pieces of knowledge that are required by any worldview. 

It seems to me there are at least two things that are in some sense foundational:

(1) Something exists

(2) There are correct and incorrect inferences

(1) seems to follow from what is meant by a 'thing' and what is meant by 'exists'. However this is only the case, if there are correct and incorrect inferences. Therefore, (2) is in some sense prior to (1). Hopefully that makes sense.

BV: It does indeed make sense. But I would approach the quest for secure foundations more radically.  How do I know (with objective certainty) that something exists? I know this because I know that I exist.   'Something exists' follows immediately from 'I exist.'  To say that one proposition follows from another is to say that the inference from the other to the one is correct.  The correctness of the inference preserves not only the truth of the premise but also its objective certainty.  I agree that your (2) is in some sense prior to (1); it is a presupposition of the inferential move from 

(0) I exist

to

(1) Something exists.

My problem arises when I consider that both (1) and (2) are not actually part of reality: both are sentences or linguistic expressions.

BV: Here you have to be careful. Surely a sentence token is a part of reality, even if you restrict reality to the spatio-temporal. The truth that something exists is not the same as its linguistic expression via the visible string, 'Something exists.' That same truth (true proposition, true thought) can also be expressed by a tokening of the German sentence 'Etwas existiert' and in numerous other ways. This suffices to show that the proposition expressed is not the same as the material vehicle of its expression. And already in Plato there is the insight that, while one can see or hear a sentence token, the eyes and the ears are not the organs whereby one grasps the thought expressed by marks on paper or sounds in the air.

So we need to make some distinctions: sentence type, sentence token, proposition/thought (what Frege calls der Gedanke). And this is just for starters.

And should we restrict reality to the spatio-temporal-causal? Are not ideal/abstract objects also real?  The sign '7' is not the same as the number 7. A numeral is not a number. I can see the numeral, but not the number. I can see seven cats, but not the (mathematical) set having precisely those cats as members. I can see the inscription '7 is prime' but not the proposition expressed on an occasion of use by a person who produces a token of that linguistic type.  The ideal/abstract objects just mentioned arguably belong to reality just as much as cats and rocks. 

Thus I have come to consider the role of language. The issue is that language is just a way of mapping reality, and as such is disconnected from it. This raises the question of what 'truth' is, since on one hand we know that there are objective truths, yet truths are only expressed [only by] using language. My question is, then: how can the analysis of language be used to answer philosophical questions? I know that linguistic analysis plays a central role in analytic philosophy, but I cannot help by having [but have] doubts or suspicions that something is wrong. As you see, I cannot fully express what it is that causes me such a headache, but it stems from a suspicion with respect to the use and limits of language, and thus philosophical inquiry. 

BV: We do distinguish between WORDS and WORLD, between language and reality. But this facile distinction, reflected upon, sires a number of puzzles.  My cat Max is black. So I write, 'Max is black.'  The proper name 'Max' maps onto Max. These are obviously distinct:  'Max' is monosyllabic, but no animal is monosyllabic.  So far, so good. But what about the predicate 'black'?  Does it have a referent in reality in the way that 'Max' has a referent in reality?  It is not obvious that it does.  And if it does, what is the nature of this referent?  If it doesn't, what work does the predicate do? And then there is the little word 'is,' the copula in the sentence.  Does it have a referent? Does it map onto something in reality the way 'Max' does? And what might that be?  The transcendental unity of apperception?  Being?  If you say 'nothing,' then what work does the copula do?

One can see from this how questionable is the claim "that language is just a way of mapping reality . . . ."  We don't want to say that for each discrete term there is a one-to-one mapping to an extralinguistic item.  That would be a mad-dog realism.  (What do 'and' and 'or' and 'not' refer to?) Nominalism is also problematic if you hold that only names refer extralinguistically.  And you have really gone off the deep end if you hold that all reference is intralinguistic.

Here is another ancient puzzle.  A sentence is not a list. 'Max is black' is not a mere list of its terms. There is such a list, but it cannot 'attract a truth-value.' That is a philosopher's way of saying that a list cannot be either true or false. But a sentence in the indicative mood is either true or false. Therefore, a sentence in the indicative mood is not a list.  Such a sentence has a peculiar unity that makes it apt to be either true or false. But how are we to understand that unity without igniting Bradley's regress?

And then there is the question of the truth-bearer or truth-vehicle. You write above as if sentences qua linguistic expressions are truth-bearers.  But that can't be right. How could physical marks on paper be either true or false? 

My question is, then: how can the analysis of language be used to answer philosophical questions?

It is not clear what you are asking. You say that there are objective truths. That's right. Your problem seems to be that you do not see how this comports with the fact that truths are expressed only by using language.  The source of your puzzlement may be your false assumption that sentence qua linguistic expressions are the primary vehicles of the truth-values.

Combox open.

Mysticism with Monica

OstiaSt. Monica's feast day is today; her son's is tomorrow. Of the various mystical vouchsafings, glimpses, and intimations recorded by St. Augustine in his Confessions, the vision at Ostia (Book 9, Chapter 10) is unique in that it is a sort of mystical duet. Mother and son achieve the vision together. Peter Kreeft does a good job of unpacking the relevant passages.

Kreeft in Is Stoke a Genuine Mystical Experience? lists fourteen features of mystical experience which comport well with my experience.

Surfers take note.

Related: Philosophy, Religion, Mysticism, and Wisdom

A Facebook Post

Here

I was misinformed. I was told that individual FB posts could be read by people without FB accounts if they were provided with the URL of the post.  Well, click on the link and see what happens. You will see the post for a second or two, sans comments, and then you will be directed to a page that has a fabulous picture of some handsome dude taking a selfie before the Coliseum in Rome.

I fully understand why people hate FB and refuse to sign up, and also why many are leaving for other social media sites.

The assault on free speech by the Left and their party here in the USA, the Democrats, is becoming intolerable. 

A writer at Crisis Magazine opined that conservatives should boycott FB. That makes no sense to me. Better to speak the truth on FB in public posts until we get de-platformed.

…………………………….

UPDATE 7:25 PM.  I tried it again. Click on the link above. If you are quick on the trigger, you will be able to click on 'Comments.'  They will appear.  You will then be sent to the dude on Roman holiday. You should be able to close that window. Now you can read the whole post with the comments.  So I wasn't misinformed  after all. My mistake.  You can read FB posts even if you are not on FB if you have been provided with the URL.  What you can't do is read the whole site.

Alles klar?

 

The Stove Dilemma and the Lewis Trilemma

This from R. J. Stove, the son of atheist and neo-positivist David Stove:

When the possibility of converting to Catholicism became a real one, it was the immensity of the whole package that daunted me, rather than specific teachings. I therefore spent little time agonizing over the Assumption of Mary, justification by works as well as faith, the reverencing of statues, and other such concepts that traditionally irk the non-Catholic mind.

Rather, such anguish as I felt came from entirely the other direction. However dimly and inadequately, I had learnt enough Catholic history and Catholic dogma to know that either Catholicism was the greatest racket in human history, or it was what it said itself that it was. Such studying burned the phrase "By what authority?" into my  mind like acid. If the papacy was just an imposture, or an exercise in power mania, then how was doctrine to be transmitted from generation to generation? If the whole Catholic enchilada was a swindle, then why should its enemies have bestirred themselves to hate it so much? Why do they do so still?

This reminds me of the famous 'trilemma' popularized by C. S. Lewis:  Jesus is either the Son of God, or he is a lunatic, or he is the devil. This 'trilemma' is also sometimes put as a three-way choice among lord, lunatic, or liar.  I quote Lewis and offer my critical remarks here.

Stove R. J.Just as I cannot accept the Lewis 'trilemma' — which is not strictly a trilemma inasmuch as not all three prongs are unacceptable — I cannot accept the Stovian 'dilemma' which strikes me as a text-book case of the informal fallacy of False Alternative.  ". . . either Catholicism was the greatest racket in human history, or it was what it said itself that it was."  Why are these the only two alternatives?  The Roman Catholic church claims to be the one, true, holy, catholic (universal), and apostolic church.  One possibility is that the Roman church was all of these things before various linguistic, political, and theological tensions eventuated in the Great Schism of 1054 such that after that date the one, true, etc. church was the Orthodox church of the East.  After all, both can and do trace their lineage back to Peter, the 'rock' upon whom Christ founded his church.  That is at least a possibility.  If it is actual, then the present Roman church would be neither a racket nor what it claims to be.  It would be a church with many excellences that unfortunately diverged from the authentic Christian tradition.

Or it could be that that true church is not the Roman church but some Protestant denomination, or maybe no church is the true church: some are better than others, but none of the extant churches has 'cornered the market' on all religiously relevant  truth.   Perhaps no temporal institution has the hot line to the divine.

I get the impression that Stove has a burning desire to belong to a community of Christian believers, is attracted to the Roman church for a variety of reasons, some of them good, and then concocts an obviously worthless argument to lend a veneer of rationality to his choice.

My point is a purely logical one.  I am not taking sides in any theological controversy, not at the moment, leastways.

The Pleasures of the Mountain Bike

What follows is from my first weblog, and is dated 4 May 2004. The photo was taken this morning by Dennis Murray, fellow aficionado of strenuous pursuits.

…………………

Time was, when running was my exercise, the daily bread of my cardiovascular system. But then the injuries came: chondromalacia patellae in both knees, shin splints, plantar fasciitis, you name it. So I took up the bike, and eventually the mountain bike. Now I run just once a week, on Sunday mornings, for about 75 minutes. The other days I either hike or ride the mountain bike, mostly the latter. I like to be on the road before sunrise, and catch old Sol as he rises over the magnificent and mysterious Superstition Mountains. There is nothing like greeting the sun as he greets the mountains, bathing them in the serene light of daybreak. It is an appropriate moment for gratitude, gratitude for another day on which to bang my head against the riddle of existence. Riding into the rising sun, I sometimes recall Nietzsche’s words from Thus Spoke Zarathustra: “O you overrich star, what would you be except for those for whom you shine?”

The beauty of the mountain bike is that you can get off the roads, away from cars and people, and onto trails and jeep tracks. I’d rather dodge rattlesnakes than cars any day. I have even been known to strike out cross-country across open desert. I’ve got kevlar-reinforced tires, with thick tubes, and a strip of plastic betwixt tube and tire as prophylaxis against cactus spines and other impregnators. No need for slime, and no flats for going on two years. My bike is an old Trek 930, a modest mid-range hard-tail – having been called a hard-ass, I suppose this is appropriate – with front-end suspension. As every Thoreauvian knows, one doesn’t have to spend a lot of money to have fun and live well.

Still, nothing in my experience beats running for the endorphin kick. ‘Endorphin’ is a contraction of ‘endogenous morphine.’ The adjective means originating from within, in this case, from within the brain. You know what morphine is. The brain of a body under athletic stress seems to produce these endorphins the existence of which, I understand, is more scientific postulation than verified fact. Endorphins manifest themselves at the level of consciousness in rather delightful sensations. When conditions are auspicious, and I am about 45-50 minutes into a run, I enter a phase wherein I apperceive myself as merely riding in my body as a pure spectator of a pure spectacle. I become a transcendental onlooker, and the world becomes George Santayana’s realm of essence.

“I become a transparent eyeball: I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature.”)

BVMTBike24Aug2020

 

Trotsky’s Faith in Man

On this date in 1940, the long arm of Joseph Stalin finally reached Trotsky in exile in Mexico City when an agent of Stalin drove an ice axe into Trotsky's skull. He died the next day.  The Left eats its own.

Read the rest.

The tragedy of Trotsky is that of a man of great theoretical and practical gifts who squandered his life pursuing a fata morgana.  His was not the opium of the religionists but the opium of the intellectuals, to allude to a title of Raymond Aron's. The latter species of opium I call utopium.