Intellectual Vice

A good habit is a virtue, while a bad habit is a vice; we know about physical and moral vices, but today we want to discuss intellectual vices and virtues, and the habits that dispose us one way or the other. 

Of note, only intellectual beings can have intellectual vices. Come to think of it, only human beings can have vices at all, as these presuppose both a telos and the freedom to reach it. 

Therefore, we must first establish the telos of the intellect, which is -- wait for it -- knowledge of truth. In particular, speculative knowledge exists for its own sake, and is thus objective and disinterested. Like this blog. 

If truth is relative, then there can be no such thing as intellectual vice, and voila!, you are cured. Thus the perennial appeal of relativism, subjectivism, and sophistry more generally, since these cure the spiritual disease by denying its existence. The rest is tenure.

I know you don't need examples, and if you do, then no amount will suffice. Nevertheless, here you go (https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=18773): 

Gender Professor Says Biological Sex is a 'Social Construct'

I will resist the temptation to read the article, and just rewrite the headline to say: 

'Gender' 'Professor' Denies Principle of Contradiction, Thereby Nullifying Anything Else He Says

Specifically, he denies the principle of contradiction -- which is only the foundation of the possibility of logical thought -- by affirming that biology both exists and doesn't exist, or that biology is just "biology." The rest is tenure.

This is what happens when an intellect descends into vice. Truly, the (intellectual) vice that justifies (physical or moral) vice is more vicious than the vices it normalizes. 

They used to say that "modernism is the sum of all heresies." Analogously, relativism must be the substance of all intellectual vices, heresies, and academic clown shows. That sounds about right, but check back with me at the end of the post. 

Meanwhile, Ripperger notes that psychiatry at least has "a sound basis as a science," since it has a well-defined material object, i.e., the brain and its electrochemical activity. 

Granted, it doesn't have a very good understanding of this inconceivably complex object -- in my opinion because if it could understand the object, the object would be too simple to host the consciousness of the psychiatrist. Nevertheless, at least in theory it recognizes the brain as brain.

Not so psychology, which violates the principle of noncontradiction before it even begins. After all, "psyche" is Greek for soul, which modern psychology denies. Oh sure, there are new age types that blabber about the soul, but in an entirely frivolous and ad hoc manner, not in any consistent scientific way rooted in ultimate metaphysical causes and the nature of things.

Now,

any valid psychology must recognize that its object is not merely material. Rather, man's intellect has three parts, two of which are immaterial and perform their functions independently of the body (Ripperger).

The material part is, of course, the senses; to be perfectly accurate, the senses are part material and part spiritual, but they are obviously not fully intellectual as they cannot reflect upon themselves -- in other words, the eye sees light but doesn't know it is seeing light. Rather, it is the task of the immaterial intellect to know such abstractions.

There are two parts of the intellect that transcend matter, these being what is called the "agent intellect" and the will, the latter being our freedom to rationally choose between alternatives. The will is subordinated to the intellect, in that in its absence there can be no real freedom, just arbitrary or predetermined movement.

If you are a modern sophisticate, then you know the immaterial may be reduced to the material. But if you are a deplorable rube like me, then you are under the delusion that 

the mere fact that man contemplates the nature of truth is a sign that he is different from animals.... For one cannot point to a physical instance of truth, for truth is not a material thing and cannot be grasped by a material thing.

In a very real way, in order to believe the fantasy of materialism, one must reduce oneself to matter, and then it all makes sense. In other words, one must kill or at least numb the soul.

But you can't kill the soul, since it is both immaterial and immortal. It always comes back, usually with a vengeance. Consider the joyless, puritan religiosity of the anti- and irreligious Woke. 

We'll conclude with this controversial claim:

No psychology can treat the individual without recognizing that he gains his knowledge by means of reality (ibid., emphasis mine).

This claim doesn't apply to the vice of modern "psychology." The rest is tenure.