That's Not Bunk -- That's Not Even Bunk

Next up in our review of Edward Feser's Immortal Souls: A Treatise on Human Nature is chapter 3, The Intellect, and why not? Is there a more central and consequential feature of the human being? 

Thanks to this standard feature of Homo sapiens we are equidistant between God and matter, or immanence and transcendence. We are the hybrid "rational animal," or, in Boethius' famous formulation, "an individual substance of a rational nature."

None of which is uncontroverted, right down to the present day. Which means that the intellect cannot agree on what it is, or even if it is -- even though it takes an intellect to deny the intellect, which, in the parlance of the times, is one of those absurd "performative self-contradictions."

Much of this chapter is spent debunking the haters, i.e., the tenured animals who deny or reduce the intellect to something less than it is. I find them so tedious, I'm just glad I'm not a professional philosopher who spends all day arguing with other philosophers (or misosophers, to be perfectly accurate). No offense, but

In the modern world the number of theories that are not worth the trouble to refute except with a shrug of the shoulders is increasing.

Besides, 

The doctrines that explain the higher by means of the lower are appendices of a magician’s rule book.

Why deny the soph-evident?

The intellect is that power by which we are able to entertain concepts, to affirm the truth or falsity of propositions, and to assess the cogency of arguments (Feser). 

Yada yada, fasting forward (as my son used to say) to the last sentence of the chapter,

The upshot of our discussion in this chapter, then, is that the intellect, like the self whose intellect it is, is real and irreducible.

You can't just yada yada over a whole chapter.  

That's true. Unlike you, we don't have an angelic intellect whereby we can know truths and essences directly, with no toilsome and slack-consuming reasoning our way there:

Our human mind comes into possession of knowledge by a gradual and laborious process. It requires first of all a number of years of physical development for the proper operation. It rises slowly from single sensible perceptions to general ideas of things and finally to abstract truth. 

And here we are. Conversely, 

The Angelic intellect, entirely free and independent from matter and senses, needs no such development. It is in the full possession of its power from the very beginning of its existence. There is no need of gathering elements of knowledge bit by bit, of adding ideas to ideas in order to discover truth, as is the case with us.

I suppose the closest we can come to angelic intelligence is the one-and-done apprehension of a self-evident truth, in which case to understand is to believe. Also, once seen it cannot be unseen, no matter how much I-bleach the left throws at us, e.g., arguments against natural rights such as freedom of speech.

Some people don't believe in universal concepts, and try to reduce them to something less, e.g., images, words, brain states, and whatnot. I thought nominalists were the worst, but even worse are eliminativists, which shouldn't even be a word:

Much more radical than the view that concepts, thoughts, etc. can be reduced to mental imagery, perceptual representations, or linguistic behavior is the thesis that there simply are no such things -- that we should not bother trying to reduce them to something else, but rather ought partially or entirely to eliminate such notions from our account of human nature (Feser).

So we've learned something this morning: that there are people who aren't even reductionists, or who reduce reductionism to even less than it already is. It of course presupposes a mechanistic and scientistic framework, and garbage in, tenure out. We shrug at their theory, while they shrug at the whole durn existentialada, i.e., the vertical/hierarchical structure of reality. They give nihilism a bad name.

Gosh. It reminds me of Sheriff Bell in No Country for Old Men: "I don't know what to make of that. I surely don't." Like a new kind of intellectual crime or something:

Crime? Is this really a judicial matter?

Well, we surely know that ideas have consequences. For example, if you believe men are women, then some women are going to get the shit beat out of them. Entirely licitly.

I charge eliminativists with the coldblooded attempted murder of nothing less than Western civilization:

if eliminativism is right, then every sentence in every work of eliminativist philosophy and every sentence in every book of science, is as meaningless as "Trghfhhe bgghajdfsa adsa" is.

At the very least it's intellectual suicide, with intent to commit logocide. 

Eh, I think we're done here. No need to debunk what isn't even bunk. 

A Thought-Provoking Analysis

Your analysis of Chapter 3 of Immortal Souls is insightful and thought-provoking. It's clear that you've engaged deeply with the text and its implications.

A Few Additional Thoughts:

1. The Elusive Nature of Intellect: You've accurately highlighted the challenge of defining and understanding the intellect. It's a concept that has perplexed philosophers for centuries. Its intangible nature makes it difficult to pin down, leading to various interpretations and debates.

2. The Role of Language and Thought: The relationship between language and thought is a fascinating aspect of the intellect. While language can shape and express thought, it's important to recognize that thought can also precede language. This raises questions about the nature of pre-linguistic thought and the extent to which language is necessary for complex cognitive processes.

3. The Impact of Materialism and Reductionism: Materialistic and reductionist philosophies, which often underpin eliminativism, pose significant challenges to our understanding of consciousness and the intellect. By reducing mental phenomena to physical processes, these views can obscure the richness and complexity of human experience.

4. The Implications for Ethics and Morality: A robust understanding of the intellect is crucial for ethical and moral reasoning. If we deny the existence of objective truths or the capacity for rational thought, it becomes difficult to ground moral principles and values.

A Question for Further Discussion:

• How do you reconcile the limitations of the human intellect with its potential for profound insight and understanding?

I'm eager to hear your thoughts on these points and any other insights you may have.

Be patient, my artificial friend. We have much more to go.