I'll buy you a beer if you can remember this 1960 crossover hit from Bob Luman (1937-1978). A period piece offering wry commentary on the music business of the day.
Augustine and the Epistemic Theory of Miracles
In The City of God, Book XXI, Chapter 8, St. Augustine quotes Marcus Varro, Of the Race of the Roman People:
There occurred a remarkable celestial portent; for Castor records that, in the brilliant star Venus, called Vesperugo by Plautus, and the lovely Hesperus by Homer, there occurred so strange a prodigy, that it changed its colour, size, form, course, which never appeared before nor since. Andrastus of Cyzicus, and Dion of Naples, famous mathematicians, said that this occurred in the reign of Ogyges.
The Bishop of Hippo comments:
So great an author as Varro would certainly not have called this a portent had it not seemed to be contrary to nature. For we say that all portents are contrary to nature; but they are not so. For how is that contrary to nature which happens by the will of God, since the will of so mighty a Creator is certainly the nature of each created thing? A portent, therefore, happens not contrary to nature, but contrary to what we know as nature. (Modern Library, p. 776, tr. Dods, emphasis added.)
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Swinburne on Miracles: Quotes and Notes
Herewith, a bit of commentary on R. G. Swinburne's "Miracles" (Phil. Quart. vol. 18, no. 73, October 1968. Reprinted in Rowe and Wainwright, pp. 446-453) To be fair, I should consider what Swinburne says in his later publications on this topic; perhaps in subsequent posts.
1. What is a miracle? Swinburne writes,
I understand by a miracle a violation of a law of Nature by a god, that is, a very powerful rational being who is not a material object (viz., is invisible and intangible). My definition of a miracle is thus approximately the same as Hume's: "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity or by the interposition of some invisible agent." (446)
Three Senses of ‘Law’ Distinguished
1. There is a distinction between a law of nature and a law of science. If there are laws of nature, they have nothing to do with us or our theorizing. They are 'out there in the world.' For example, if we adopt a regularity theory of laws, and I am not saying we should, the regularities, and thus the laws, exist independently of our theorizing. Surely, if there are physical laws at all, and whatever their exact nature, their existence antedates ours. Laws of science, on the other hand, are our attempts at formulating and expressing the laws of nature. They are human creations. Since physics is a human activity, there were no laws of physics before human beings came on the scene; but there were physical laws before we came on the scene. Physics is not the same as nature; physics is the study of nature, our study of nature. It is obvious that physics cannot exist without nature, for it would then have no object, but nature can get on quite well without physics.
The Supernatural and the Miraculous
I think it is important to distinguish the supernatural from the miraculous especially inasmuch as their conflation aids and abets the 'Dawkins Gang.' (That's my mocking moniker for Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, and their fellow travellers.) Let's briefly revisit Daniel Dennett's definition of religions as
. . . social systems whose participants avow belief in a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought. This is, of course, a circuitous way of articulating the idea that a religion without God or gods is like a vertebrate without a backbone.(Breaking the Spell, p. 9, emphasis added)
Two Aspects of Miracles
What makes a miracle a miracle? Is it the type of causation that issues in the miraculous event? Or is it the fact that the miraculous event fails to fit an expected pattern? Suppose God parts the Red Sea in the manner depicted in the movie "The Ten Commandments." Does the miraculousness of this event reside in the fact that this TYPE of event does not occur (except for the one miraculous occasion on which it does occur) and so constitutes an exception to a regularity? Or does the miraculousness of the event reside in the fact that a supernatural cause brings about this event TOKEN? Or both? My claim is that both are involved. A miracle is both a violation of a law of nature and something whose cause is supernatural.
Are Miracles Logically Possible? Part II
The problem raised in the first post in this series is whether we can make logical room for miracles, specifically, divine interventions in, or interferences with, the natural course of events. Now nature is orderly and regular: it displays local and global ('cosmic') uniformities. If that were not the case, it would not be possible to have science of it. (But we do have science, knowledge, of nature, ergo, etc.) For example, it is a global uniformity of nature that any two electrons anywhere in the universe will repel each other, that no signal, anywhere, can travel faster than the speed of light, etc. Here is the form of a global uniformity, an exceptionless regularity:
1. Wherever and whenever F-ness is instantiated, G-ness is instantiated.
Now for various reasons which we may consider later, a law of nature cannot be identified with an exceptionless regularity. (For one thing, law statements support counterfactuals while statements of global uniformity do not support counterfactuals.) But laws manifest themselves in global uniformities. (This talk of 'manifestation,' which I find felicitous, I borrow from D. M. Armstrong.)
Are Miracles Logically Possible?
John Earman, Hume's Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles (Oxford 2000), p. 8:
. . . if a miracle is a violation of a law of nature, then whether or not the violation is due to the intervention of the Deity, a miracle is logically impossible since, whatever else a law of nature is, it is an exceptionless regularity.
According to a standard way of thinking, miracles are violations of laws of nature. This approach has an impressive pedigree. Thus Thomas Aquinas writes, in the Summa Theologica (Q. 110, art. 4, respondeo), "A miracle properly so called takes place when something is done outside the order of nature." Thomas makes it clear that by 'nature' he means the whole of created nature, and not just physical nature. He concludes that God alone can work miracles.
Thomas also alludes (in Reply Obj. 2) to a distinction between miracles ontically and epistemically construed. This is not his terminology. He speaks of miracles "absolutely" considered and miracles "in reference to ourselves." Something that occurs by a power unknown to us may appear miraculous to us and yet not be miraculous absolutely. We could call that an epistemic miracle: an event which does not contravene a law of nature, but appears to do so due to our ignorance. Genuine miracles, events that in fact do contravene laws of nature, we could call ontic miracles. But don't be misled by the terminology: the suggestion is not that there are two kinds of miracles, epistemic and ontic, but two senses of 'miracle.' 'Epistemic' in 'epistemic miracle' is an alienans adjective.
Now consider:
1. A miracle is an exception to a law of nature.
2. Every law of nature is an exceptionless regularity (though not conversely).
Therefore
3. A miracle is an exception to an exceptionless regularity.
Therefore
4. Miracles are logically impossible.
This argument seems to show that if miracles are to be logically possible they cannot be understood as violations of laws of nature. How then are they to be understood? Please note that (2) merely states that whatever a law of nature is, it is an exceptionless regularity. Thus (2) does not commit one to a regularity theory of laws according to which laws are identified with exceptionless regularities. The idea is that any theory of (deterministic) laws would include the idea that a law is an exceptionless regularity.
Travesty in New York
Will there be no end to the idiocies perpetrated by the Obama Administration? The latest is the absurd decision to give Islamic terrorist Khalid Sheik Mohammed a civilian trial in New York City. As usual, Charles Krauthammer cuts to the nerve of the matter:
So why is Attorney General Eric Holder doing this? Ostensibly, to demonstrate to the world the superiority of our system where the rule of law and the fair trial reign.
Really? What happens if KSM (and his co-defendants) "do not get convicted," asked Senate Judiciary Committee member Herb Kohl. "Failure is not an option," replied Holder. Not an option? Doesn't the presumption of innocence, er, presume that prosecutorial failure — acquittal, hung jury — is an option? By undermining that presumption, Holder is undermining the fairness of the trial, the demonstration of which is the alleged rationale for putting on this show in the first place.
See also Mona Charen's Holder's True Motive for some incisive analysis.
A Note on Into the Wild, the Movie
Into the Wild, the movie, impressed me and held my attention for its two and a half hours. But I'm understating: it moved me and ought to be added to my list of most memorable movies, there to rub shoulders with the likes of Zorba the Greek and La Strada. Not that I would rate it as high as those two classics. Here is a reviewer who didn't get it:
Krakauer and Penn see themselves as kindred spirits to McCandless, rugged individualists seeking the fullness of life in nature. And that probably explains why they both attribute McCandless' reckless adventures to a philosophical quest rather than to what appears to be an obvious act of youthful rebellion.
No doubt McCandless was reckless, and his recklessness got him killed. But only someone who is spiritually dead could dismiss McCandless' quest as a mere act of youthful rebellion. The jaded, the security-obsessed, and those devoid of all idealism will find it easy to mock as hyperromantic and melodramatic the posturings of "Alexander Supertramp." But unlike them, the living dead, he was searching for something more, for the Real, for the truth of his existence. Life without a quest for the Real beyond the sham taken-for-real of one's society is just not worth living. Either you see that or you are spiritually blind.
Only someone who, like Krakauer, sees a bit of himself in McCandless will be able to appreciate what was genuine and worthwhile in him. That is one reason why Krakauer's book is so good. I was pleased to see that the movie stays very close to the book.
Most Memorable Movies
Here are my selections. But before I begin, I'll relate a retort of Michael Medved's. Hearing that Roger Ebert had awarded "two thumbs up" to some piece of trash, Medved quipped, "Two thumbs up what?"
1. Casablanca
2. The Seventh Seal
3. La Strada
4. Zorba the Greek
5. Lawrence of Arabia
6. Dr. Zhivago
7. Persona
8. Closely Watched Trains
9. Triumph des Willens
10. Crimes and Misdemeanors
11. Aguirre the Wrath of God
12. The Man Who Wasn't There
13. Blue Velvet
14. Barton Fink
15. Mulholland Drive
How many can you identify by dates, actors, directors?
Faith and Prayer: The Case of Ron Franz
One of the minor characters of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild is the old man to whom Krakauer gave the name 'Ron Franz.' He was 80 years old when his and Christopher McCandless's paths crossed. McCandless made indelible impressions on the people he met, but he affected Franz more than anyone else, so much so that the old man with no surviving next of kin wanted to adopt the 24 year old as his grandson. The story of their encounter is recounted in the chapter entitled 'Anza-Borrego' and is also well told in the movie version of Krakauer's book. Franz came to pin his hopes on the remarkable young man and longed for his return from Alaska. When he heard from a hitchhiker that McCandless had died, he and his faith were shattered:
The Strange Case of Gene Rosellini
Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild is not just about Chris McCandless and the people he met during the two years he was incarnating 'Alexander Supertramp.' It also about other oddballs such as Gene Rosellini. The term 'oddball' is not necessarily one of disapprobation in my mouth: most of the people I remain in contact with I would classify as oddballs. And of course it takes one to know (and appreciate) one. Here is a passage about Rosellini lifted from the essay Anarchism Versus Primitivism:
Czeslaw Milosz on Simone Weil and Albert Camus
Czeslaw Milosz, "The Importance of Simone Weil" in Emperor of the Earth: Modes of Eccentric Vision (University of California Press, 1977), p. 91:
Violent in her judgments and uncompromising, Simone Weil was, at least by temperament, an Albigensian, a Cathar; this is the key to her thought. She drew extreme conclusions from the Platonic current in Christianity. Here we touch upon hidden ties between her and Albert Camus. The first work by Camus was his university dissertation on St. Augustine. Camus, in my opinion, was also a Cathar, a pure one, ['Cathar' from Gr. katharos, pure] and if he rejected God it was out of love for God because he was not able to justify Him. The last novel written by Camus, The Fall, is nothing else but a treatise on Grace — absent grace — though it is also a satire: the talkative hero, Jean-Baptiste Clamence, who reverses the words of Jesus and instead of "Judge not and ye shall not be judged: gives the advice "Judge, and ye shall not be judged," could be, I have reason to suspect, Jean-Paul Sartre.
Simone Weil and the Illusoriness of Worldly Goods
A correspondent, responding to Weil's Wager, has this to say:
[. . .] What worries me when I turn to Weil’s argument is that she seems to be trying to replace Pascal’s serviceable scale of goods with a dichotomy of illusory and absolute goods. I have no idea what it means to say ”health and fitness are illusory goods” or “only God is absolutely good.” The former seems to me just some metaphysically tricked-out term of abuse. I have no idea at all how to unpack “God is the absolute good” (despite your remarks in Part IV ). Pascal at least talks about salvation and an eternal afterlife. Is that what is supposed to be absolutely good for me? And so God as the provider is somehow also valuable or “absolutely good” for me? All of this dark and murky to me in Weil’s argument, while I think I understand what Pascal is proposing.
I agree that the whether-or-not version of (7) is incompatible with (1), but otherwise I remain lost at sea in her attempt to argue that I must pursue the only thing that is “absolutely good” whether or not it really exists. [. . .]
Central to Weil's thought is the notion that the goods of this life are unreal: "Things of the senses are real if they are considered as perceptible things, but unreal if considered as goods." (Gravity and Grace, p. 45) To understand this one must see it in the light of Plato, Weil's beloved master. It has been said with some justice that every philosopher is either a Platonist or an Aristotelian, and there is no doubt that Weil is a Platonist and was hostile to Aristotle. My correspondent, however, is an Aristotelian (to force him into our little schema) and so it comes as no surprise to me that he is at a loss to understand what it could mean to say that such things as health and fitness, food and drink, property and progeny, are illusory goods.
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