Category: Metaphilosophy

The Ashtray Has Landed: Errol Morris versus Thomas Kuhn

Talk of philosophy being a blood sport is usually and rightly metaphorical. But on occasion, actual weapons are brandished even if not deployed. You will recall Wittgenstein's poker. But perhaps you haven't yet heard of Thomas Kuhn's ashtray.   Curiously, pokers and ashtrays have something to do with fire and smoke, devilish elements.  A philosopher's devil, say I, is his own ego.

Philip Kitcher: 

Almost half a century ago, as a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin fascinated by the history of science, the young Morris was rejected by some of the most prestigious graduate departments. Thanks to the efforts of one of the field’s major stars, Thomas Kuhn, he did eventually find his way to Princeton’s program in the history and philosophy of science. But his time there did not go smoothly. Matters came to a head in a one-on-one discussion of a paper he had written for Kuhn’s seminar. The emotional temperature rose. And then rose some more, until the tête-à-tête was ultimately punctuated by an overflowing ashtray. Launched from Kuhn’s hand, the ashtray hurtled across the room.

Read the rest.

Kuhn ashtray

Time Apportionment as between Athens and Benares

If a philosopher who meditates spends five hours per day on philosophy, how many hours should he spend on meditation?  One correspondent of mine, a retired philosophy professor and Buddhist, told me that if x hours are spent on philosophy, then x hours should be spent on meditation.  So five hours of philosophy ought to be balanced by five hours of meditation.  A hard saying!  I find it very easy to spend five to eight hours per day reading and writing philosophy. But my daily formal meditation sessions are almost never more than two hours in duration.  There is also mindfulness while hiking or doing other things such as clearing brush or washing dishes, but I don't count that as formal meditation.

What are the possible views on this topic of time apportionment?

1. No time should be wasted on philosophy. Pascal famously remarked that philosophy is not worth an hour's trouble.  (I am pretty sure he had his countryman Renatus Cartesius in mind.) But he didn't proffer his remark in defense of Benares, but of Jerusalem.  Time apportionment as between Athens and Jerusalem is a separate topic. Note that Pascal made an exception in his own case.  He left behind a magnificent collection that comes down to us as Pensées.  So no philosophy is worth an hour's trouble except Pascal's own. It would have shown greater existential consistency had the great thinker devoted himself after his conversion to prayer, meditation, and charitable works.  But then we would have been the poorer for it.

2. No time should be wasted on meditation.  Judging by their behavior, the vast majority of academic philosophers seem committed to some such proposition.

3. Time spent on either is wasted.  The view of the ordinary cave-dweller or worldling.

4. More time ought to be devoted to philosophy.  But why?

5. The two 'cities' deserve equal time.  The view of my Buddhist correspondent.

6.  More time ought to be devoted to meditation than to philosophy.

What could be said in defense of (6)?  Three quotations from Paul Brunton (Notebooks,  vol. II,  The Quest, Larson, 1986, p. 13):

  • The intuitive element is tremendously more important than the intellectual . . . .
  • The mystical experience is the most valuable of all experiences .  . . .
  •  . . . the quest of the Overself is the most worthwhile endeavour open to human exertions.

Philosophy between the Impersonal and the Personal

Philosophy aspires to the impersonal truth but, like a rocket that fails to achieve escape velocity, it remains forever in orbit around the personal, tied to it, expressive of it.  This ineluctable tie-in to the personal works against philosophy's pursuit of the universal. And so, while in aspiration one, in execution philosophy is many, which is to say that there is no philosophy, only philosophies. There is no philosophy except in aspiration and in the drive to the truth that breaks free from the personal. In execution, philosophy does not break free; it breaks apart into philosophies.

And so I cannot disagree with Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) who, in Part One of Beyond Good and Evil, "On the Prejudices of the Philosophers," tells us that "every great philosophy" has bisher, hitherto, been eine Selbsterkenntnis ihres Urhebers, a confession or self-cognition of its author, and eine Art ungewollter und unvermerkter mémoires, a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir.

That's right. But what did old Fritz mean by 'hitherto'? That he was an exception? But he was surely no exception. His philosophy was just  another confession of its author, just another rocket aimed at truth that failed to achieve escape velocity and fell back into orbit around the personal-all-too-personal.

What a rich specimen of humanity he was. He did a lot of damage, but he dug deep and he dug fearlessly and at personal cost. We honor him for that.

Seriously Philosophical Theses and Argument Cancellation

Reader C. P. inquires,
Do you think that the arguments for and against every substantive philosophical thesis are equipollent [equal in force], or do you think only that we can never be certain about the truth of the theses? In some of your posts, you suggest that you think the former (e.g. here); but in others, you suggest that you think we can determine some theses as more likely true than others.  I'm fairly sure that you hold the former, but I thought I should make sure.
The question, as I would formulate it,  is whether every substantive philosophical thesis is such that the arguments for it and the arguments against it are equally plausible and thus 'cancel out,'  or whether some substantive philosophical theses are rationally preferable to their negations.  I begin by explaining my terminology.

D1. An argument for a thesis T cancels out an argument for the negation of T just in case both arguments are equally plausible, or not far from equally plausible, to the producers(s)/consumers(s) of the arguments, assuming that these individuals are 'competent practitioners.'

Plausibility is relative to an arguer and his audience, if any.  With respect to propositions, plausibility is not the same as truth.  A plausible proposition needn't be true, and a true proposition needn't be plausible. With respect to arguments, plausibility is neither validity nor soundness as these are standardly defined.  Validity and soundness are absolute, like truth herself. Plausibility is relative.   There cannot be sound arguments both for a thesis and its negation. For if there is a sound argument for T, then T is true. And if there is a sound argument for ~T, then ~T is true. This is logical fallout from the standard definition of 'sound' according to which a sound argument is one that is deductive, valid, and has only true premises.  If there are sound arguments for both a thesis T and its negation ~T, then (T & ~T) is true which violates the Law of Non-Contradiction.  Therefore, there cannot be sound arguments for a thesis and its negation.

So I am envisaging situations in which argument and counter-argument are equally plausible or nearly so but only one is sound.  Equally plausible to whom? It could be one and the same philosopher. Preston, for example, finds the arguments for and against a regularity theory of causation equally plausible. For him the arguments cancel out and he ends up in a state of doxastic equipoise with respect to the issue. From there he might go on to suspend judgment on the question, or he might investigate further.  A third option for one who ends up in doxastic equipoise is to leap to one side or the other.  Suppose, after canvassing the arguments for and against the existence of God, or those for and against the immortality of the soul, you find that the cumulative case for and the cumulative case against are equally plausible.  You might leap to one side for prudential or pragmatic reasons.  You would have no theoretical reason for the leap, but also no theoretical reason against the leap. But the leap might nonetheless be prudentially rational and the refusal to leap prudentially irrational. 

Or the plausibility could be to a group of philosophers.  Suppose the group has ten members, with five finding the arguments for more plausible than the arguments against, and five taking the opposite stance.  I will then say that argument and counter-argument are equally plausible to the group.  As I set up the example, none of the members of this group are in a state of doxastic equipoise. But I will make bold to claim that each of them ought to be, assuming that each of them is a competent practitioner. This claim is controversial, and needs defending, but I must move on. 

A competent practitioner is not the same as an epistemic peer.  A number of individuals may be epistemic peers, but all incompetent. I won't try for a crisp definition of 'competent practitioner,' but if one is a competent practitioner,  then he is a sincere truth seeker, not a quibbler or a sophist; he knows logic and the empirical disciplines that bear upon the arguments he is discussing; he is familiar with the relevant literature; he embodies the relevant intellectual virtues, and so on.

The answer to the reader's question will depend on what counts as a substantive or seriously philosophical thesis (SPT).  Such theses cannot be denials or affirmations of Moorean facts. Such a fact is roughly a deliverance of common sense. STPs are not at the level of data, but at the level of theory. The distinction between data and theory is not sharply drawn. Border disputes are possible. The theoretical bleeds into the datanic and vice versa. Theories are data-driven, but some data are theory-laden. But I don't believe one can get on without the data-theory distinction.

For example, it is a Moorean fact that some things no longer exist.  This cannot be reasonably disputed. Affirm the datum or deny it, you are not (yet) doing philosophy.  That Boston's Scollay Square no longer exists is not a philosophical claim, but a proto-philosophical or pre-analytic datum. But if you maintain that what no longer exists does not exist at all, then you go beyond the given to affirm a controversial philosophical thesis known as presentism.  Roughly, this is the thesis that, with respect to  items in time, only what exists at present exists, period.  (It implies that the Wholly No Longer and the Wholly Not Yet are realms of nonexistence.) This is hardly common sense despite what some presentists claim.  If Scollay Square is now nothing at all, then how could it be the object of veridical memories and the subject of true predications? A predicate cannot be true of an item unless the item exists.

If, on the other hand, you maintain that what no longer exists does exist, albeit tenselessly, then you are affirming a controversial philosophical thesis known in the trade as eternalism.  Eternalism will enable you  to explain how a wholly past item can be the object of veridical thoughts and the subject of true predications. But if you try to explain what 'tenseless' means in this context, you will soon entangle yourself in difficulties.  Both presentism and eternalism are examples of what I am calling seriously philosophical theses, they cannot both be true, and neither records a Moorean fact.

For a second example, consider the claim that consciousness is an illusion. This is not an SPT, despite its having been urged by philosophers of high repute.  It is either beneath refutation or is quickly refuted by a simple argument: illusions presuppose consciousness; ergo, consciousness is not an illusion.  There are any number of eliminativist claims that are not SPTs.   The claim that there are no claims, for example, 'sounds philosophical' but cannot be taken seriously: it is not an SPT.    On the other hand, there are eliminativist claims that are SPTs, for example, the claim that there is no such person as God, or that continuants such as tables and trees do not have temporal parts. 

In sum, if you affirm what is obvious or deny what is obvious you are not making a seriously philosophical claim even if what you affirm or deny is highly general and is apt to ignite philosophical controversy when brought into contact with other propositions. For example, if you affirm that some events are earlier than others, you simply a record a datum that no sane person can deny.  If, on the other hand, you affirm that everything that people believe is true then you affirm what is datanically false and no object of rational controversy. 

I consider all of the following examples of SPTs:

  • There are no nonexistent objects.
  • There are uninstantiated properties.
  • There are no modes of existence.
  • The properties of particulars are tropes, not universals.
  • God exists.
  • The soul is immortal.
  • The human will is libertarianly free.
  • Each of us is numerically identical to his living body.
  • I am not my living body; I merely have a living body.
  • Anima forma corporis.
  • Die Welt ist meine Vorstellung.
  • Laws of nature are just empirical regularities.
  • Truths need truth-makers.
  • Only facts could serve as truth-makers.
  • There are no facts.
  • Relations reduce to their monadic foundations.
  • There are no properties, only predicates.
  • The predicate 'true' serves only as a device for disquotation.
  • Social and economic inequalities are justified only if they benefit the worst-off.

There are many more examples, of course. Now what do the above  examples have in common? None of them records a Moorean fact. That is, none of them, if true,  is obviously true or datanically true.  Example.  There are two tomatoes on my counter, both ripe, and both (the same shade of) red.  That is a given, a datum, not subject to philosophical dispute, certain hyperbolic forms of skepticism aside.  But it is not a datum, phenomenological or otherwise, that the redness of the tomatoes is a universal, a repeatable entity, whether a transcendent universal (a one-over-many) or an immanent universal (a one-in-many).   For there is an alternative theory according to which the properties of particulars are themselves particulars (unrepeatables). On this theory each tomato has its own redness. Accordingly, there are two rednesses in the example, not one.  Both theories explain the data, but they cannot both be true. Phenomenology does not suffice to decide between them; dialectic must be brought in.  Once you get the dialectical ball rolling, you will have a hard time stopping it. It will roll down a rabbit hole that opens out into a labyrinth . . . .

Having clarified what I mean by a substantive or serious philosophical thesis, I now state two  meta-philosophical theses that I am considering. 

The strong thesis is that every SPT is such that the arguments for it and against it cancel out in the sense defined in (D1) above. This implies that no SPT is rationally preferable to its negation. I have my doubts about the strong thesis.

The weak thesis is that a proper subset of SPTs are such that the arguments for and against cancel out. I strongly suspect that the theses that most concern us belong to the proper subset, the hard core of insolubilia.

On the weak thesis, some SPTs will be theoretically-rationally preferable to others.

Is the Philosophical Life the Best?

This from a reader:
I have a concern about the philosophical life. While I do think philosophy is intrinsically valuable, and while I do deny that one is obligated to "do the most good" with one's life (I'm not a consequentialist), I wonder if there are better ways to live than to devote one's life to philosophy. Prima facie, devoting one's life to solving global poverty or curing cancer seems better than focusing on philosophy. If so, then even if one isn't obligated to solve global poverty or cure cancer, why not devote one's life to these causes instead?
 
Perhaps the philosophical life is better than these other options, but that isn't clear to me. It seems more plausible that, all things being equal, a life that saves countless lives is better lived than a life that doesn't save a single life. Again, I'm not saying we're obligated to save lives, I'm just making a comparative judgment.
I can't refute what you say, but I can offer an alternative point of view.  If you consider it, it may help you better understand your own point of view even if it does not motivate any modification of it.
 
One question concerns the best life humanly possible.  Aristotle discussed it in his Nicomachean Ethics. He considered lives devoted to pleasure, material acquisition, politics, and philosophy. I set forth his answer here.
 
But the best life possible for humans might not be the best life  for a particular human.  Whether or not the best life is the philosophical life, not everyone is 'philosophy material.'
 
Philosophy is a vocation, and only some are called to it. (I am speaking in ideal terms here: what passes for 'philosophy' in the 'universities' falls far short of the ideal.)
 
The best life for you will depend on your aptitudes, values, and worldview.   Everyone has a worldview of sorts even if unexamined and unarticulated.  Suppose your outlook is broadly secular.   And suppose you find secularism obvious.  Then you will not be inclined to question it and will have no need for philosophy.  You have 'your truth,' a worldview you believe is true, and therefore feel no need to investigate whether it is true in whole or in part.  Doubt is the engine of inquiry, but you have no doubts. For you philosophical inquiry would be idle.  You would be left cold by the Socratic, "The unexamined life is not worth living."
 
And if the people you associate with share your tacit worldview, then you will have no need to articulate and defend it.  The existence of competing worldviews might trouble you or then again it might not. You might be the sort of person who is not disturbed or given pause by the disagreement of others.
 
For me, disagreement is a goad to inquiry. I have a consuming need to know. And a life lived without examination is definitely worth little or nothing. Such a life remains on the animal level. A human life, speaking normatively, is a transcending life, a life of self-transcendence and aspiration.
 
Primum vivere deinde philosophari.  I agree. We must live and live fully to gather the grapes of experience from which to press the wine of wisdom.  We don't gather grapes to gather grapes, but for the wine. The vita activa subserves the vita contemplativa.
 
You say it is not clear to you that the philosophical life is superior to, say, cancer research.  Then I say you should leave philosophy alone.  The quest for the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters is the highest calling and it demands total commitment.  I can argue for this conviction, but I can't prove it, and I will persuade only those who already sense its truth.
 
In the early '80s I heard a speech by the American politician, Mario Cuomo, in which he touted the political life as the highest life. I thought to myself: "He can't really believe that!"  But I soon concluded  that he did believe it.  I can give my reasons why Cuomo is wrong, but these reasons, which suffice for me, will make no impression on those who think the political life the highest. (To me, politics is like taking out the garbage or unplugging the toilet: it's a dirty job and it has to be done and done properly; in an ideal world, however, there would be no State and no need for politicians. As things are, our fallen predicament makes the State  practically necessary, a necessary evil, along with its agents.)
 
My advice is, first of all, know thyself.  Having honestly assessed your abilities, do with your life what you think is the best, and what you are fit to do.
 
I realize that this advice is of very little practical value.  Listen to others, but keep your own counsel, and follow the urgings vouchsafed to you in the highest moments of existential clarity and discernment.

Is the Unexamined Life Worth Living?

Written in October of 2004.

Norman PodhoretzI recently read Norman Podhoretz's Ex-Friends: Falling Out with Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer (The Free Press, 1999). It is an enjoyable and stimulating analysis of the breakdown of friendship in the crucible of political disagreement. I recommend it.

But an early passage inspired me to fire up the old Pentium II. Describing "most people," Podhoretz says that "The ideas that underlie their way of life are mostly taken for granted and remain unexamined – luckily for them, since the biggest lie ever propagated by a philosopher was Socrates’ self-aggrandizing assertion that the unexamined life is not worth living." (p. 4)

Can a philosopher let this passage pass unexamined? The first thing that raised my critical hackles is the irresponsible use of the word ‘lie,’ a use that is unfortunately widespread these days. Does Podhoretz really mean to suggest that Socrates was lying when he made his famous statement at his trial? Does he mean to imply that the great Athenian knew the truth, but was bent on deceiving us? Of course not. Podhoretz knows that one can utter a falsehood without lying, as when one says what one believes to be true but is not true, and I am sure that he appreciates that Socrates was sincere in his belief that the unexamined life is not worth living. Charitably interpreted, Podhoretz is opining that Socrates was wrong in his belief, not that he was lying.

A second thing to question is whether the Socratic assertion is "self-aggrandizing." If I praise a certain way of life that happens to be my way of life, it does not follow that I praise this way of life simply because it happens to be mine. For there is also the possibility that I praise this way of life because I have objective reasons to believe that it is a good way of life, and that I have chosen it for these objective reasons. In the second case, the life is mine because I have objective grounds for praising it, not praised because it is mine. Only in the first case would we speak of Socrates’ assertion as self-aggrandizing. Given that Podhoretz has provided no evaluation of the Socratic reasons for the Socratic assertion, he is not justified in describing the latter as "self-aggrandizing."

But the main issue is this: Is an unexamined life worth living? If my way of life happens to be good, then one might argue that it is good whether I examine it or not, whether I can give objective reasons for its goodness or not. (Compare: if my roof is in good condition, it is so whether I examine it or not. It is no part of my roof’s being in good condition that it, or someone, know that it is in good condition or that it, or someone, raise the question of its condition.) In this sense, an unexamined life could very well be worth living. But a human life is not merely a biological process, but essentially involves the exercise of (not merely the capacity for) emotion, will, and reason. Thus no ‘fully human life’ (an unabashedly normative phrase used unabashedly!) is possible without the exercise of reason upon the ultimate objects, among which is one’s own life, its whence, whither, and wherefore. A fully human life, as a life necessarily involving the exercise of reason, requires the examination of such questions as how we should live. To live thoughtlessly, uncritically, without consideration of ultimates and without consideration of alternative ways of living – there is indeed something  contemptible about this,assuming that the person is in a position to conduct the examination. To that extent, Socrates was surely right, and Podhoretz is surely wrong.

But Socratic self-examination implies no rejection of traditional ways of life. Perhaps lurking in the background of Podhoretz’s mind is some such argument as this: (1) Socratic self-examination leads to the rejection of traditional mores; (2) traditional mores are sound; ergo, (3) Socratic self-examination is a mistake. I hope this is not the way Podhoretz is thinking, given the falsity of (1). Socratic examination may lead to the rejection of traditional mores, but it might also lead to their rational defense.

Rationalistic Fideism, Mysterianism, Misology, and Divine Simplicity

I want to thank the perspicacious Lukas Novak for helping me in my endless quest to know myself.  Professor Novak comments:

Is Bill a Gnostic?

Well, I am not sure about the precise meaning of this epithet, but to me Bill appears as a strange amalgam of a rationalist and a fideist. The rationalist comes first and sets up certain rather strict requirements on the contents of faith — so that everything that does not fit in comes out as "incoherent" or "incomprehensible". Then, entre fideist and says that we nevertheless are still justified in believing these contents because we can justifiably assume that our intellect is so incompetent.

To me, this puts too much confidence in our reason in the first stage and too little in the last. It seems to me that Bill is always too eager to conclude that there is an impasse, an insoluble problem, a contradiction etc. in a given particular case. In this, he seems to be putting way too much confidence in his reasonings. The overall, habitual outcome of this is, however, the exact opposite: a significantly diminished confidence in the competence of our intellect as such. (This reminds me of the mechanism of how "misology" is generated, in Plato's Phaedo.)

Lukas Novak Prague white shirtWe were discussing ecclesiology and the Incarnation, but at the moment I am revising my Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy  Divine Simplicity entry, so I want to shift over to this topic since similar structural patterns emerge.  What follows is a section I will add to the entry, one on a recent paper by Eleonore Stump of St. Louis University. Professor Stump is a distinguished Aquinas scholar and defender of the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS).

4.4 Stump's Quantum Metaphysics

Like Dolezal, Eleonore Stump thinks of God as self-subsistent Being (esse). If God is absolutely simple, and not just simple in the uncontroversial sense of lacking material parts, then God must be self-subsistent Being. God is at once both Being and something that is. He has to be both. If he were Being (esse) but not a being (id quod est), he could not enter into causal relations. He could not do anything such as create the world, intervene in its operations, or interact with human persons. Such a God would be "religiously pernicious." (Stump 2016, 199) Indeed, if God were Being but not a being, then one could not sensibly maintain that God exists. For if Being is other than every being, then Being is not. (It is instructive to note that Martin Heidegger, the famous critic of onto-theology, who holds to the "ontological difference" of Being (Sein) from every being (Seiendes) ends up assimilating Being to Nothing (Nichts).) On the other hand, if God were a being among beings who merely has Being but is not (identically) Being, then he would not be absolutely transcendent, worthy of worship, or ineffable. Such a God would be "comfortingly familiar" but "discomfiting anthropomorphic." (Miller 1996, 3)

The problem, of course, is to explain how God can be both Being and something that is. This is unintelligible to the discursive intellect. Either Being is other than beings or it is not. If Being is other than beings, then Being cannot be. If Being just is beings taken collectively, then God is a being among beings and not the absolute reality. To the discursive intellect the notion of self-subsistent Being is contradictory. One response to the contradiction is simply to deny divine simplicity. That is a reasonable response, no doubt. But might it not also be reasonable to admit that there are things that human reason cannot understand, and that one of these things is the divine nature? "Human reason can see that human reason cannot comprehend the quid est of God." (Stump 2016, 205) As I read Stump, she, like Dolezal, makes a mysterian move, and she, like Dolezal (2011, 210, fn 55), invokes wave-particle duality. We cannot understand how light can be both a wave phenomenon and also particulate in nature, and yet it is both:

What kind of thing is it which has to be understood both as a wave and as a particle? We do not know. That is, we do not know the quid est of light. [. . .] Analogously, we can ask: What kind of thing is it which can be both esse and id quod est? We do not know. The idea of simplicity is that at the ultimate metaphysical foundation of reality is something that has to be understood as esse —but also as id quo est. We do not know what this kind of thing is either. (Stump 2016, 202)

Stump, E., 2016, “Simplicity and Aquinas's Quantum Metaphysics” in Gerhard Krieger, ed. Die Metaphysik des Aristoteles im Mittelalter: Rezeption und Transformation, Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 191–210.

Dolezal, J. E., 2011, God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness, Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications.

Miller, B., 1996, A Most Unlikely God, Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press.

Now for my apologia.

Novak's characterization of me as both a rationalist and a fideist is basically accurate.  And yes, the rationalist comes first with exacting requirements. Let me try to illustrate this with DDS.  God is the absolute reality, a stupendously rich reality who transcends creatures not only in his properties, but also in his mode of property-possession, mode of existence, mode of necessity, and mode of uniqueness. God is uniquely unique. Such a being cannot be a being among beings. He is uniquely unique in that he alone is self-subsistent Being. Deus est ipsum esse subsistens.

One can reason cogently to this conclusion. Unfortunately, the conclusion is apparently self-contradictory.  The verbal formula does not express a proposition that the discursive intellect can 'process' or 'compute.' It is unintelligible to said intellect.  For the proposition the formula expresses appears to be self-contradictory. Stump agrees as do the opponents of DDS.

Now there are three ways to proceed. 

1) We can conclude, as many distinguished theists do, that the apparent contradictions are real and that God is not absolutely simple, that DDS is a 'mistake.'  See Hasker, William, 2016, “Is Divine Simplicity a Mistake?” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 699-725.  For Hasker, DDS involves category mistakes, logical failures, and a dehumanization of God.  (One mistake Hasker himself makes is to think that a defender of DDS can only tread the via negativa and must end up embracing radical agnosticism about the nature of God. Stump has some interesting things to say in rebuttal of this notion. See Stump 2016, 195-198.)

In short: God is not reasonably believed to be simple.

2) A second way is the mysterian way.  The conjunction of God is esse and God is id quod est is an apparent contradiction.  But it is not a real contradiction. Characteristic of the mysterian of my stripe is the further claim that the structure of the discursive intellect makes it impossible for us to see that the contradiction is merely apparent.

In short: God is reasonably believed to be simple despite the ineliminable apparent contradictions that this entails because, as Stump puts it, "Human reason can see that human reason cannot comprehend the quid est of God." (Stump 2016, 205) To put the point more generally, it is reasonable to confess the infirmity of human reason with respect to certain questions, and unreasonable to place an uncritical faith in its power and reach.  This is especially unreasonable for those who accept the Fall of man and the noetic consequences of sin.

Besides, if God is not a being among beings, then one might expect the discursive intellect to entangle itself in contradictions when it tries to think the Absolute Reality.  God, as Being itself, cannot be subsumed under any extant category of beings. 

3) A third way is by maintaining that the apparent contradictions can be shown to be merely apparent by the resources of the discursive intellect. In short: God is reasonably believed to be simple, and all considerations to the contrary can be shown to rest on errors and failures to make certain distinction.

What is my argument against (3)? Simply that the attempts to defuse the contradictions fail, and not just by my lights.  Almost all philosophers, theists and atheists alike, judge the notion of a simple God to be contradictory.

What is my argument against (1)? Essentially that those who take this line do not appreciate the radical transcendence of God. This point has been argued most forcefully by Barry Miller (1996).  Theists who reject divine simplicity end up with an anthropomorphic view of God.

As for Novak's charge of misology or hatred of reason and argument, I plead innocent. One who appreciates the limits of reason, and indeed the infirmity of reason as we find it in ourselves here below, cannot be fairly accused of misology. Otherwise, Kant would be a misologist.  I will turn the table on my friend by humbly suggesting that his doxastic security needs sometimes get the better of him causing him to affirm as objectively certain what is not at all objectively certain, but certain only to him.  For example he thinks it is epistemically certain that there are substances. I disagree.

But I want to confess to one charge. Lukas writes, "It seems to me that Bill is always too eager to conclude that there is an impasse, an insoluble problem, a contradiction, etc."  It may be that I am too zealous in my hunt for aporiai.  But I am deeply impressed by the deep, protracted, and indeed interminable disagreement of philosophers through the ages over every substantive question.  My working hypothesis for the metaphilosophy book I am trying to finish is that the core problems of philosophy are most of them genuine, some of them humanly important, but all of them insoluble by us.  And then I try to figure out what philosophy can and should be if that is the case, whether it should end in mystical silence — that is where Aquinas ended up! — or fuel a Pyrrhonian re-insertion into the quotidian and a living of life adoxastos, or give way to religious faith, or something else.