Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains
The National Review has an editorial in support of Judge Kavanaugh. What's rich, however, is that the same cruise-ship conservatives refused their support to Donald Trump the conditio sine qua non of both the Gorsuch and the Kavanaugh nominations. Jeb! would not have beaten Hillary.
Democrats are willing to use any tactics to block conservatives from the Supreme Court and seat their own ideologues. The question is not “Fair or unfair?” It’s “Will it work?” Republicans always seem flat-footed in response because they underestimate how far Democrats are willing to go to win, how willing they are to destroy people’s reputations if that’s what it takes. Republicans keep thinking it’s 1987 and the Bork debacle was the worst of it; in reality, we’re 30 years on, and the Bork debacle was just the beginning of it.
I learned this in terrorism cases. Radical left-wing attorneys, who style themselves “political lawyers,” try to turn the proceedings into a zoo, chaos being the weapon of those for whom the rules assure defeat. Either the judge takes control of the courtroom with a firm hand, enforces the rules, and penalizes the antics, or there are interminable delays, baseless smears, and general bedlam.
That's right. Take control and muzzle or remove the transgressive punks. I'll leave it to you to ponder whether these people are fellow citizens or domestic enemies out to destroy our system of government which enshrines such principles as the presumption of innocence.
By traditional metrics, Barack Obama’s presidency was mostly a failure.
[. . .]
Yet in terms of culture, Obama clearly won.
“White Privilege” Goes Mainstream
He institutionalized radical cultural shifts by creating entirely new rubrics of privileging race and gender. The old idea of due process and the rule of law were subordinated to identity politics, whether in matters of sanctuary cities and non-enforcement of immigration law or campus charges of sexual assault. The larger culture made the necessary adjustments and followed suit.
Related:
Here at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical
The guy has amazing staying power, and in his 70s he still looks and sounds damn good in live performances. Here he is in 2004 singing I Wonder Why.
How can an old man still sing a heart-felt Teenager in Love? Because some of us old men still have young yearning hearts.
In an interview he said something like, "You need to marry a girl who will take you to heaven." Good advice; men need no assistance moving in the opposite direction.
Every red-blooded American male of a certain age can relate to his signature number, The Wanderer, which rose to the number #2 slot in 1961. Wikipedia:
Dion said of "The Wanderer":[2]
At its roots, it's more than meets the eye. "The Wanderer" is black music filtered through an Italian neighborhood that comes out with an attitude. It's my perception of a lot of songs like "I'm A Man" by Bo Diddley or "Hoochie Coochie Man" by Muddy Waters. But you know, "The Wanderer" is really a sad song. A lot of guys don't understand that. Bruce Springsteen was the only guy who accurately expressed what that song was about. It's "I roam from town to town and go through life without a care, I'm as happy as a clown with my two fists of iron, but I'm going nowhere." In the Fifties, you didn't get that dark. It sounds like a lot of fun but it's about going nowhere.
The song may be superficial in its nonchalant machismo, but the man is not. He managed to negotiate the snares of stardom and wander back to the faith of his childhood via a Protestant detour thanks mainly to his religious experiences:
I was the first rock and roll artist signed to Columbia Records and naturally, expectations ran high. No expense was spared and no excuses accepted. This was the big time. I was getting $100,000 a year guaranteed — whether I sold a record or not. “Ruby Baby” and “Donna the Primadonna” were a great down payment: they went Top 5.
Still, even with that success, I was at an all time mental and spiritual bottom. Out of depression, we moved to Miami, looking for a fresh start. There, I would have the surprise of my life: I got to see God work through my father-in-law, Jack. Jack helped fan into flames the gift of God that was in me through the laying on of hands at my confirmation. I said a prayer one night there in Jack’s home: “God I need your help.” I was delivered from the obsession to drink and drug; it was just lifted off me like a weight. On that day, April 1, 1968, I became aware of God’s power, even before I became aware of His reality.
I entered a spiritual-based 12-step program and grew in these disciplines. Six months later, at the age of 28, I released one of the biggest records of my career — “Abraham, Martin and John.” It became an anthem.
But my biggest moment was to come. On December 14, 1979, I went out jogging, like I did every morning. It was a time when I could be alone with my thoughts — thinking about the past, thinking about the future. There was a lot going on in me then, a mid-life crisis, or something. My emotions were everywhere. In the middle of that confusion, all I could pray was “God, it would be nice to be closer to you.” That’s all it took.
I was flooded with white light. It was everywhere, inside me, outside me — everywhere. At that moment, things were different between me and God. He’d broken down the wall. Ahead of me, I saw a man with His arms outstretched. “I love you,” He said. “Don’t you know that? I’m your friend. I laid down My life for you. I’m here for you now.” I looked behind me, because I knew I’d left something behind on that road. Some part of me that I no longer wanted. Let the road have it; I didn’t need it anymore.
God changed my life that morning, and things have never been the same.
Rest of the story here. Here he is not with the Belmonts but with some female back-up singers in a tune from 1960 that is ignored by the oldies stations. I heard it from the radio of a '56 Ford when I was ten and I loved it. My mother hated it.
Recently, Dion has been digging back into the roots of rock and roll.
If I had Possession over Judgment Day. Robert Johnson did it first in 1936. A Clapton version.
UPDATE 9/22. Vito Caiati writes,
I loved your post on Dion, who grew up in the same neighborhood, the Belmont Avenue section of the Bronx, and parish, Our Lady of Mount Carmel (I was born next door to the church), as me. When I was entering my teens, he was already a success, and my girl cousins were crazy about him. He was sometimes spotted driving some sporty car, which was enough to send them into ecstasy. Many of my male cousins shared his early views on religion: "Catholicism seemed suited for old women and sissies. Real men didn’t need it." I was an oddity, since I took it so seriously. His story of finding faith is moving. He ended up in a good place.
And now we know why the Belmonts we so-called.
As for religion, I am always surprised at how readily and uncritically people accept the superficially plausible view that religion continues to exist only because of old ladies, children, sissies, and the crafty priests who get hold of gullible children and stuff their heads with superstitious lore in order to keep afloat their organizational hustle.
I am reminded of Jesse Ventura who some years ago offered that "Religion is for the weak." Many took umbrage and contradicted him.
But of course he was right. Religion is for the weak. Ventura merely failed to note the obvious: we are all weak and need help that we cannot provide for ourselves.
I develop the thought in Is Religion for the Weak?
Leftists are scum. Here's Rod on Marine Le Pen:
Absolutely: Solidarity with Marine Le Pen! You do not have to agree with her politics to be revolted by what the French state is trying to do to her, and why. Even Jean-Luc Melenchon, the far-left French politician, is defending her here. Le Pen posted documentary evidence of actual ISIS atrocities, in an attempt to demonstrate that there is no comparison between ISIS and her political party. So now, in France, simply posting images of actual, real-life events may be evidence of criminal insanity. (emphasis added)
Do you not see where this is going? Do you not see why it must be stopped cold?
The Soviet Union used to declare dissidents criminally insane and imprison them in psychiatric units. And now the same sort of thing is manifesting in the West, by those who want to preserve liberalism at all costs. Those who challenge the regime, even with facts and images, will be taken to court and forced to submit to tests to prove that they are not criminally insane.
A breathtaking irony: the French state is doing this to silence those who criticize barbarians who would destroy liberalism.
It 's coming to our shores. Mark my words. Is that an alarmist thing to say? I sincerely hope so! But just look at the behavior of our own leftist scum in the Democrat Party. They are now hard at work undermining the presumption of innocence, a bedrock principle of Anglo-American law and morality.
If you tell one lie, are you a liar? I should think not. A liar is one who habitually lies. Otherwise, we would all be liars and the term 'liar' would perish from lack of contrast.
If you have been seriously drunk a time or two, are you a drunkard? I should think not. A drunkard is one who habitually gets drunk. Otherwise we would damn near all be drunkards, and the term 'drunkard' would perish from lack of contrast.
This rumination is iterable across thief, lecher, glutton and other terms of moral disapprobation.
But if a man commits murder just one time, we call him a murderer and we feel justified in so doing. We would find it ridiculous were he to complain, "I shot man in Reno just to watch him die, but I am no murderer; a murderer is one who regularly and habitually does the deed."
How about rape? Does one rape a rapist make? I think we would say yes.
So what is the difference between murder and rape and the other cases? The gravity of the crimes would seem to be one factor and the relative rarity another.
More grist for the mill.
It is not easy to think clearly and deeply about moral questions. Few even try.
The quality of the first will affect the quality of the second. An evening of drinking and dancing is no preparation for a morning of thinking and trancing.
Related: Suggestions on How to Study
Fr. Aidan Kimel wants me to comment on his recent series of posts about divine simplicity, freedom, and the contingency of creation. In the third of his entries, he provides the following quotation:
As Matthew Levering puts it: “God could be God without creatures, and so his willing of creatures cannot have the absolute necessity that his willing of himself has” (Engaging the Doctrine of Creation, p. 103). That is the fact of the case, as it were. Granted the making of the world by a simple, immutable, and eternal Deity, we have no choice but to accept the apparent aporia:
Indeed, there is no ‘moment’ in God’s eternity in which he does not will all that he wills; there is no God ‘prior’ to God’s will to create. In this sense, God can be said to will necessarily everything that he wills. The potency or possibility stems not from God’s will, but from the contingent nature of the finite things willed; they do not and cannot determine the divine will. (Levering, p. 103)
The problem is to understand how the following propositions can all be true:
1) There is no absolute necessity that God create: "God could be God without creatures."
2) God created (better: ongoingly creates and sustains) the universe we inhabit.
3) God, being simple or metaphysically incomposite, is devoid of potency-act composition and unexercised powers: God is pure act.
4) The universe we inhabit, and indeed any universe God creates, is modally contingent: it does not exist of metaphysical necessity.
The problem, in brief, is to understand how a universe that is the product of a divine act of willing that is necessary (given God's simplicity) can yet be contingent. Levering's answer does not help at all. In fact, he seems to be confusing two senses of contingency when he says that "the contingent nature of the finite things willed" does not determine the divine will. That's right, it doesn't and for the simple reason that the finite things willed depend entirely on the divine will and are in this sense contingent upon the divine will; but this is not the relevant sense of 'contingency.' Let me explain.
In the modal sense, a contingent item is one that is possible to be and possible not to be, as Aquinas says somewhere. In 'possible worlds' jargon, x is modally contingent =df x exists in some but not all metaphysically (broadly logically) possible worlds.
In the dependency sense, x is dependently contingent =df there is some y such that (i) x is not identical to y; (ii) necessarily, if x exists, then y exists; (iii) y is in some sense the ground or source of x's existence.
It is important to see that an item can be (a) modally contingent without being dependently contingent, and (b) dependently contingent without being modally contingent.
Ad (a). If the universe is a brute fact, as Russell (in effect) stated in his famous BBC debate with Copleston, then the universe exists, exists modally contingently, but has no cause or explanation of its existence. If the universe is a brute fact, then of course it does not depend on God for its existence. Its existence is a factum brutum without cause or explanation. It is contingent, but not contingent upon anything. It is modally but not dependently contingent.
Ad (b). Not all necessary beings are "created equal." That is because one of them, God, is not created at all. The others are creatures, at least for Aquinas. (A creature is anything that is created by God.) The number 7 serves as an example, as does the proposition that 7 is prime. That proposition is a necessary being. (If it weren't it could not be necessarily true.) But it has its necessity "from another," namely, from God, whereas God has his necessity "from himself." The doctor angelicus himself makes this distinction.
These so-called 'abstract objects' — not the best terminology but the going terminology — are creatures, and, insofar forth, dependent on God, and therefore contingent upon God, and therefore (by my above definition), dependently contingent. They are dependently contingent but modally necessary.
Now let's apply the distinction to our problem. The problem, again, is this: How can the product of a necessary creating be contingent? One might think to solve the problem as follows. God necessarily creates, but what he creates is nonetheless contingent because what he creates is wholly dependent on God for its existence at every moment. But this is no solution because it involves an equivocation on 'contingent.'
The problem is: How can the product of a modally necessary creating be modally contingent?
Think of it this way. (I assume that the reader is en rapport with 'possible worlds' talk.) If God is simple, and he creates U in one world, then he creates U in all worlds. But then U exists in every world, in which case U is necessary. But U is contingent, hence not necessary. Therefore, either God does not exist or God is not simple, or U is not a divine creation.
Fr. Kimel wanted me to comment on his posts. One comment is that they are top-heavy with quotations. Quote less, argue and analyze more.
Now I would like the good padre to tell me whether he agrees with me. I think he just might inasmuch as he speaks of an aporia. We have good reasons to believe that God is simple, and we have good reasons to believe that the created universe is modally contingent. Suppose both propositions are true. Then they must be logically consistent. But we cannot understand how they could both be true. So what do we do?
One way out is to jettison the divine simplicity. (But then we end having to say that God is a being among beings and neither I nor Kimel will countenance that, and for good reasons.) A second way is by denying that the created universe is contingent, either by maintaining that it is necessary or by denying that there is any real modality, that all (non-deontic) modality is epistemic. The second way leads to a load of difficulties.
A third way is by arguing that there is no inconsistency. But I have argued that there is both above and in other recent posts dealing with the dreaded 'modal collapse.' And it seems to me that my argumentation is cogent.
Well suppose it is. And suppose that the relevant propositions are all true. There is yet another way out. We can go mysterian. The problem is a genuine aporia. It is insoluble by us. God is simple; he freely created our universe; it is modally contingent. How is this possible? The answer is beyond our ken. It is a mystery.
Now if Fr. Kimel is maintaining something like this, then we agree.
Corrigendum (9/25). A reader points out, correctly, that in the above graphic the gentleman on the left is not Fr. Copleston, but A. J. Ayer.
President Trump says a lot of things that are not true and says a lot of other things that are foolish and unsavory. But his supporters are drawn to him, in large part, because he is willing to get into the muck with Democrats, fight them on their own demagogic terms — especially on things he cares about, like his nominees. They are tired of Republicans’ being caught flat-footed, continually underestimating how low Democrats are willing to go, how much they are willing to destroy reputations, institutions, and traditions in order to win.
Quite right. Trump won in 2016 because he showed that he has the courage to battle the destructive hard-Left Dems with their own weapons, something that a milque-toast pol like Jeb! Bush could not bring himself to do because his mommy taught him that he must always behave in a gentlemanly and civil manner even when one's opponents represent an existential threat.
100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School is now at reason #98. Despite its unrelenting negativity, prospective applicants to graduate programs will find the site useful. I cannot criticize it for being negative since that is its implied purpose: to compile 100 reasons not to go. But there is something whiny and wimpy about it.
Suppose you are paid to spend five years, from age 22 to age 27, studying in depth a subject you love and have an aptitude for in the idyllic environs of a college campus. You have been give tuition remission and a stipend on which to live. You really enjoy reading, writing, thinking, and studying more than anything else. You have good sense and avoid the folly of assuming debt in the form of student loans. You live within your very modest means and have the character to resist the siren songs of a society bent on crazy consumption. You understand that a little monkishness never hurt anyone, and might even do your soul some good.
You spend five years enjoying all the perquisites of academic life: a beautiful environment, stimulating people, library privileges, an office, a flexible work schedule, and the like. At age 27 you are granted the Ph.D. But there are few jobs, and you knew that all along. You make a serious attempt at securing a position in your field but fail. So you go on to something else either with or without some further training.
Have you wasted your time? Not by my lights. Hell, you've been paid to do what you love doing! What's to piss and moan about? You have been granted a glorious extension of your relatively carefree collegiate years. Five more years of being a student, sans souci, in some exciting place like Boston. Five more years of contact with age- and class-appropriate members of the opposite sex and thus five more years of opportunity to find a suitable mate. (But if you marry and have kids while a grad student, then you are a fool. Generally speaking, of course.)
Of course, if your goal in life is to pile up as much loot as possible in the shortest possible time, then stay away from (most) graduate programs. But if the life of the mind is your thing, go for it! What's to kvetch about? Are you washed up at 27 or 28 because you couldn't land a tenure-track position? You have until about age 40 to make it in America.
In the interests of full disclosure, however, I should say that I was one of the lucky ones. I spent five years in graduate school and received my Ph.D. at age 28. In the same year I accepted a tenure-track appointment and six years later I had tenure at age 34.
For more on this and cognate topics, see my Academia category.
Jonathan V. Last. Essential reading.
The following taken verbatim from Appeared-to-Blogly.
Well, the Society of Christian Philosophers had a good run, celebrating its 40th anniversary at a vegan-catered conference this past weekend. Like the American Philosophical Association, the SCP is a shell of its former self, having been soul-sucked by political activists on the left. Compare Alvin Plantinga’s vision of nearly 40 years ago, as detailed in his “Advice to Christian Philosophers,” to the SCP’s vision today as 
summarized by one of the conference organizers:
The future is about teaching philosophy better, engaging in community outreach, rethinking “the cannon”, willing to think about mental illness, seeking to be compassionate and caring, promoting diversity and inclusion, and working to be less white. And it includes children.
This vision, relayed in typical Orwellian code, could just as well be that of any other progressive, secular organization’s. Hence, the Society of Christian Philosophers can no longer be said to exist as a distinctively Christian or philosophical organization. Its acronym should henceforth be understood to stand for the Society of “Christian” Progressives. I’m sure Uncle Al and Sr. Swinburne are proud of this bold, counter-cultural direction.
…………………………………..
According to Chelsea Clinton, who is self-avowedly "deeply religious," to stem the slaughter of the pre-natal would be "unchristian." But of course one cannot expect the child of Bill and Hillary to have a functioning moral compass.
Mockery and derision are essential weapons in modern political warfare for the simple reason that our enemies, bereft of moral sense, cannot, most of them, be engaged on the plane of reason. We do well to turn their Alinskyite tactics against them.
But if there are a few lefties still in possession of a modicum of moral sense, I offer the following argument, sincerely meant and free of invective.
Suppose I want to convince you of something. I must use premises that you accept. For if I argue from premises that you do not accept, you will reject my argument no matter how rigorous and cogent my reasoning.
So how can we get through to those liberals who are willing to listen? Not by invoking any Bible-based or theological premises. And not by deploying the sorts of non-theological but intellectually demanding arguments found in my Abortion category. The demands are simply too great for most people in this dumbed-down age.
Liberals support inclusivity and non-discrimination. Although contemporary liberals abuse these notions, as I have documented time and again, the notions possess a sound core and can be deployed sensibly. To take one example, there is simply no defensible basis for discrimination against women and blacks when it comes to voting. The reforms in this area were liberal reforms, and liberals can be proud of them. A sound conservatism, by the way, takes on board the genuine achievements of old-time liberals.
Another admirable feature of liberals is that they speak for the poor, the weak, the voiceless. That this is often twisted into the knee-jerk defense of every underdog just in virtue of his being an underdog, as if weakness confers moral superiority, is no argument against the admirableness of the feature when reasonably deployed.
So say this to the decent liberals: If you prize inclusivity, then include unborn human beings. If you oppose discrimination, why discriminate against them? If you speak for the poor, the weak, and the voiceless, why do you not speak for them?
I made a bold claim earlier:
If I am right, the patois of possible worlds is a dispensable manner of speaking: we can make every [modal] point we want to make without engaging in possible worlds talk. What I just said is not perfectly obvious and there may be counterexamples.
Here is a candidate counterexample that I borrow from Barbara Vetter, 'Can' Without Possible Worlds, 22:
(CC) Someone can see us.
This is an alethically or as Vetter would say "dynamically" modal statement. It is modal but not expressive of either epistemic or deontic modality. Interestingly, (CC) is susceptible of being read either de re or de dicto:
(DR) There is a person who can see us.
(DD) It is possible that someone see us.
(DR) commits us to an actual person who is able to see us. (DD) does not. The first entails the second, but the second does not entail the first. So the two readings are non-equivalent. Suppose that no actual person can see us. Suppose, that is, that no actual person has both the ability to see us and is positioned in such a way that he can exercise his ability. Even so, it is 'surely' possible that there be such a person. There could have been a person, distinct from every actual person, who sees us.
So (DD) is a true alethically modal statement whose truth is not grounded in, or made true by, a power or ability of any actual item.
(DD) would thus appear to be a counterexample to Vetter's "potentiality semantics" according to which "all dynamic modality is de re . . . ." (22) It seems that (DD) expresses a 'free-floating' possibility, one not grounded in any actual concrete thing's power or potentiality. If so, then 'possible worlds' talk might not be wholly dispensable.
One response to the putative counterexample is rejectionist: Vetter toys with simply rejecting (DD) as a statement of dynamic modality by suggesting that it is really an example of epistemic possibility (23).
I fail to see, however, how (DD) could be construed as epistemic. The idea is not that, for all we know, someone can see us, but that it is really possible, apart from our knowledge and ignorance, that there be someone who can see us. In the actual world, no one can see us now. But 'surely' there is a possible world, very much like the actual world, in which someone can see us now. If there is this possibility, it is real, not epistemic.
But there is another line of rejection that Vetter does not clearly distinguish from the first. And that is simply to say that her topic is dynamic modality, the sort of real modality that we encounter in actual changing things, and not real modality in general. 'Dynamic' is from the Greek dynamis which in Latin is potentia, whence our 'potency' and 'potentiality.' The second way of rejection, then, is to dismiss (DD) as simply off-topic.
But then her thesis is less interesting: it is not the thesis that all alethic modality is de re, but that only the modality of actual concrete things subject to change is de re. If this is her thesis, then it seems we need possible worlds to accommodate such de dicto possibilities as (DD).
Lotte Lenya sings September song, very smokily: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdc4oBnu_fw&list=RDrdc4oBnu_fw&start_radio=1
Yes, and I think I’m using in roughly the same sense that Jaspers means, which is why reading a work…
And then there is the Sermon on the Mount. Here is a list of 12 different interpretations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sermon_on_the_Mount
Vito, The monastery in question is located in a canyon accessible only by a 13-mile dirt road. Unsecured, anyone could…
Vito, Very stimulating comments, but I am pressed for time. The trouble with the scriptures is that you can find…
Your use of ‘cipher’ struck me. It is a key term in Karl Jaspers.
Bill, Gravity’s Rainbow was fascinating. I read it at a time when I was preeminently fascinated by works that had…
Hi Bill, Thanks so much for the references to work by Cheever’s daughter and the Lucas Thorpe article on Kant…
Excellent comments, Vito. Will try to respond tomorrow.
Bill, One final complicating observation: The pacifist interpretation of Matt 5:38-42 has been contested in light of Lk 22: 36-38…
10 responses to “God, Simplicity, Freedom, and Two Senses of ‘Contingency’”