Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Naturalism

  • Naturalism, Ultimate Explanation, and Brute Facts and Laws

    Malcolm Pollack solicited my comments on an article by Tomas Bogardus that appeared in Religious Studies under the title, If naturalism is true, then scientific explanationis impossible. Malcolm summarizes: I’ve just read a brief and remarkably persuasive philosophical paper by Tomas Bogardus, a professor of philosophy at Pepperdine University. In it, he argues that, if…

  • The Problem of Consciousness: Galen Strawson’s Non-Solution

    Top o' the Stack. Strawson beats Dennett, but not by much.

  • Nagel on Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion

    Substack latest.

  • On ‘Materialize’ and Materialism

      It is interesting that 'materialize' is often used in ordinary English as an intransitive verb to mean: come to be real.  "Rain clouds materialized on the horizon." "The Hezbollah counterattack never materialized." A thing or state of affairs is real if and only if it exists independently of (finite) mind. To be real is…

  • J. P. Moreland on Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism

    Substack latest. Apart from what Alvin Plantinga has called creative anti-realism, the two main philosophical options for many of us in the West are some version of naturalism and some version of Judeo-Christian theism. As its title indicates, J. P. Moreland’s The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism (SCM Press, 2009) supports the…

  • Norms in Nature? Some Doubts

    Substack latest. It opens like this: Our friend Malcolm Pollack, riffing on some complaints of mine about Michael Anton's talk of natural rights, wrote the following: Rights are normative in their essence, while Nature simply is. Therefore, I see only two possibilities: 1) “Natural” rights flow from an intrinsic source of normative authority. Since brute and indifferent Nature…

  • Debate, Disagreement, and the Limits of Rational Discourse

    I wrote a few months back, . . . the wisest policy is not to debate leftists. Generally speaking and admitting exceptions, leftists need to be defeated, not debated. Debate is worthwhile only with open-minded truth seekers. Truth, however, is not a leftist value. At the apex of the leftist's value hierarchy stands POWER. That…

  • Consciousness is an Illusion . . .

    . . . but truth is not?  An inconsistency in Dennett. Over at the Stack.

  • A Sketch of Armstrong’s Naturalism

    And some reasons to question it.  Top of the (Sub)stack. ……………………… Expositing Armstrong, I wrote   The exclusion of so-called abstract entities or abstract objects such as mathematical sets, unexemplified universals, and numbers from the roster of the real is because of their lack  of causal power.  What causal role could they play?    And…

  • Does the Demonic Play a Role in the Politics of the Day?

    This just in from Vito Caiati: Your thought provoking post An Oligarchic Pathocracy and in particular the twenty characteristics of this collective psychological derangement, each of which is an absolute inversion of the natural, the good, and the rational, leads me to consider whether potent demonic (Satanic) forces are at work here and now, either…

  • Would Naturalism Make Life Easier?

    Substack latest, for popular consumption, sans technical minutiae. Do I imagine that what I serve up at Substack will improve the world? I am none too sanguine about that, but if it brings a bit of light into a few heads, then it is worth doing. Perhaps it will distract you from your silly distractions…

  • Catholicism as a Literary Affair?

    William Giraldi in Commonweal: Because I want nothing to do with hocus-pocus, because dogma and decrees are closed to real contest, and because corporations make me glum (the Vatican is, among other things, a corporation), Catholicism is for me a literary affair: drama, poetry, myth, tradition. Homilies and hymnals, liturgies and sermons done right, the Benedictus,…

  • The Paradox of the Misanthropic Naturalist Animal Lover

    In the Judeo-Christian tradition, man and man alone among living things has a higher origin and a higher destiny. Made in the image and likeness of God, and the only creature so made, he comes from God and is called to return to God for his ultimate felicity and fulfillment. He is, to be sure,…

  • Strawson’s Vacuous Materialism

    Jacques and Malcolm are currently fired up and doing battle over qualia. To stoke the fire further, here is post from a couple of years ago, from 15 September 2015, to be exact.  It strikes me as beautifully written, rigorous, and true.  (Surprise!) ………………. In Does Matter Think? I wrote: . . . I don't dogmatically claim…

  • Thinking Meat?

    Question: Is it my brain that feels and thinks when I feel and think?  Argument A.  Meat can't think.  My brain is meat.  Therefore, what thinks in me when I think is not my brain. A in Reverse: What thinks in me when I think is my brain.  My brain is meat. Therefore, meat can…