Chemotherapy for History

It's Friday, when we play fast and loose with the associations. But they are free.

Before wandering off track, yesterday's post was touching on the question of why we can't all agree to agree on certain basic philosophical propositions, principles, or axioms "expressive of rational necessity." Why are people so argumentative and contrarian? Why can't they just bow before truth? Or even just bow? 

But not only do people refuse to yield to common sense, in so doing they are conferred a certain status out of defying it. For example, no one pays a fortune just to learn common sense in college. Rather, to unlearn it. Which is why the class of College Educated White Women now poses the greatest threat to the nation. 

For this reason, not a few people believe the 19th amendment should be repealed, but this would be an overreaction. Rather, I would tie it to education, such that the right to vote would only be denied to women of both sexes possessing a degree in the subhumanities, or anything ending in the word "studies." This alone would probably be sufficient to neutralize the baleful effect of widespread indoctrination of the softheaded.

Simon observes that

the social environment may be so saturated with error that common sense is at a disadvantage in holding its own in the face of overwhelming opposition. Experience... fights an unequal battle when it comes into contact with ideology. The proponents of ideology, when challenged by experience, have no reluctance in characterizing experience as nothing but an illusion.

For example, the experience of witnessing a senile president ask a dead woman to reveal herself at a political gathering. This is not because her non-existence slipped Brandon's decroded mind, rather, because it was TOP OF MIND. This was sufficient to tamp down the temporarily piqued curiosity of the media gaslight gang. End of issue. Stop pouncing, fascist!

Now, honesty compels me to acknowledge that among intellectual sinners, I am the chief, for back when I was an adultolescent Man of the Left, I was even more bobnoxiously certain of my correctitude than I am today. I won't say I was as belligerent as, say, Keith Olbermann or Lawrence O'Donnell. Rather, only my friends would say that.

But in my defense, although I didn't have an advanced degree in the humanities, I did have one in a "soft science," and therefore a mind that was even softer on the inside but hard on the outside: a carapace of rigid and self-righteous certitude protecting an inner core of unexamined and indefensible mush. So I know of what I speak, since I myself am a cancer survivor. Cancer of the intellect.

If there is a cancer of the intellect, what is the chemotherapy? Good question. I can think of a number of aspects, but do these reduce to a single trait or principle? Probably just vertical openness, which comes down to humility + Truth, this being the very opposite of the diabolical prideology of the left. A reminder that 

The intelligence that walks proudly is inviting to the one who soaps the floor. 

I now understand that there are problems and there are mysteries, the latter being questions

of such a character that an answer unqualifiedly true and sound and appropriate not only admits of but demands further inquiries into inexhaustible intelligibility.

So, it's not as if the mystery is unintelligible. Rather, the opposite: there's too much intelligibility for our little minds! But there's a paradox here, in that the same people who tend to downplay the miracle of the human subject are the ones who try to fob it off with a simplistic ideology that can never account for the complementary infinitude of human intelligence and cosmic intelligibility.

On the other (our) side is an orthoparadox that simultaneously exalts man over everything else in creation while emphasizing his utter contingency and nothingness. We can express this polarity in quasi-mythopoetic terms as "image of God" at one end, and "fallen" at the other; or a foundation of theomorphism disfigured by original sin, which (in salvation history) takes the form of good news --> bad news --> even better news.

Conversely, ideology takes the form of bad news --> great news, or in other words, "there is no God, and I am Him." You can appreciate how that would lead to... problems. One of which goes by the name of history:

Modern history is a dialogue between two men: one who believes in God and one who believes he is a god.

This is because 

Men are divided into two camps: those who believe in original sin and those who are idiots.

I want to say there are nominal definitions and explanatory definitions. The former simply involve the proper use of language, whereas the latter provides additional insights into the nature of the thing defined. 

For example, a nominal definition of original sin is the loss of sanctifying grace as a consequence of defying God. Now, what does this mean? For one can use the term in a proper semantic sense, but in a way that doesn't really deepen our philosophical understanding. 

Here's another way of expressing it: original pride results in separation from the Principle. Now, how to repair and restore wayward human nature to this Principial Father, or Father Principle? Anyone? Nicolas?

If history made sense, the Crucifixion would be superfluous.

 No, this post didn't end, we just ran out of time.

Chemotherapy for History

It's Friday, when we play fast and loose with the associations. But they are free.

Before wandering off track, yesterday's post was touching on the question of why we can't all agree to agree on certain basic philosophical propositions, principles, or axioms "expressive of rational necessity." Why are people so argumentative and contrarian? Why can't they just bow before truth? Or even just bow? 

But not only do people refuse to yield to common sense, in so doing they are conferred a certain status out of defying it. For example, no one pays a fortune just to learn common sense in college. Rather, to unlearn it. Which is why the class of College Educated White Women now poses the greatest threat to the nation. 

For this reason, not a few people believe the 19th amendment should be repealed, but this would be an overreaction. Rather, I would tie it to education, such that the right to vote would only be denied to women of both sexes possessing a degree in the subhumanities, or anything ending in the word "studies." This alone would probably be sufficient to neutralize the baleful effect of widespread indoctrination of the softheaded.

Simon observes that

the social environment may be so saturated with error that common sense is at a disadvantage in holding its own in the face of overwhelming opposition. Experience... fights an unequal battle when it comes into contact with ideology. The proponents of ideology, when challenged by experience, have no reluctance in characterizing experience as nothing but an illusion.

For example, the experience of witnessing a senile president ask a dead woman to reveal herself at a political gathering. This is not because her non-existence slipped Brandon's decroded mind, rather, because it was TOP OF MIND. This was sufficient to tamp down the temporarily piqued curiosity of the media gaslight gang. End of issue. Stop pouncing, fascist!

Now, honesty compels me to acknowledge that among intellectual sinners, I am the chief, for back when I was an adultolescent Man of the Left, I was even more bobnoxiously certain of my correctitude than I am today. I won't say I was as belligerent as, say, Keith Olbermann or Lawrence O'Donnell. Rather, only my friends would say that.

But in my defense, although I didn't have an advanced degree in the humanities, I did have one in a "soft science," and therefore a mind that was even softer on the inside but hard on the outside: a carapace of rigid and self-righteous certitude protecting an inner core of unexamined and indefensible mush. So I know of what I speak, since I myself am a cancer survivor. Cancer of the intellect.

If there is a cancer of the intellect, what is the chemotherapy? Good question. I can think of a number of aspects, but do these reduce to a single trait or principle? Probably just vertical openness, which comes down to humility + Truth, this being the very opposite of the diabolical prideology of the left. A reminder that 

The intelligence that walks proudly is inviting to the one who soaps the floor. 

I now understand that there are problems and there are mysteries, the latter being questions

of such a character that an answer unqualifiedly true and sound and appropriate not only admits of but demands further inquiries into inexhaustible intelligibility.

So, it's not as if the mystery is unintelligible. Rather, the opposite: there's too much intelligibility for our little minds! But there's a paradox here, in that the same people who tend to downplay the miracle of the human subject are the ones who try to fob it off with a simplistic ideology that can never account for the complementary infinitude of human intelligence and cosmic intelligibility.

On the other (our) side is an orthoparadox that simultaneously exalts man over everything else in creation while emphasizing his utter contingency and nothingness. We can express this polarity in quasi-mythopoetic terms as "image of God" at one end, and "fallen" at the other; or a foundation of theomorphism disfigured by original sin, which (in salvation history) takes the form of good news --> bad news --> even better news.

Conversely, ideology takes the form of bad news --> great news, or in other words, "there is no God, and I am Him." You can appreciate how that would lead to... problems. One of which goes by the name of history:

Modern history is a dialogue between two men: one who believes in God and one who believes he is a god.

This is because 

Men are divided into two camps: those who believe in original sin and those who are idiots.

I want to say there are nominal definitions and explanatory definitions. The former simply involve the proper use of language, whereas the latter provides additional insights into the nature of the thing defined. 

For example, a nominal definition of original sin is the loss of sanctifying grace as a consequence of defying God. Now, what does this mean? For one can use the term in a proper semantic sense, but in a way that doesn't really deepen our philosophical understanding. 

Here's another way of expressing it: original pride results in separation from the Principle. Now, how to repair and restore wayward human nature to this Principial Father, or Father Principle? Anyone? Nicolas?

If history made sense, the Crucifixion would be superfluous.

 No, this post didn't end, we just ran out of time.

Insight into Insight

Not much time this morning, but perhaps enough to review some of the insights provoked upon reading An Yves Simon Reader: The Philosopher's Calling, lest I forget them.

Here's a conundrum about the possibility of a universal philosophy, one I often ponder: 

No doubt, any proposition which expresses a rational necessity is, in terms of logical nature, capable of winning universal assent. There is no reason why it should not determine consensus.

BUT 

there are many accidental reasons why certain propositions, though expressive of rational necessity, do not have the slightest chance of being assented to.  

Why should this be? Why can't we agree to agree on simple, rational, necessary, and universal propositions? 

Nor is the trend going in a positive direction, for now we can't even agree that men who pretend to be women are nevertheless men, that free speech is necessary to a functional republic, that mutilating children is evil, that we are entitled to equal protection under the law, etc. 

Philosophically, it is as if we're back to square one. Not even square one. Say what you want about the pre-Socratics, at least they had an ethos. But now our struggle is with eight-year olds, Dude. Amateurs. Nihilists.

This is going to be a brief sidetrack, but I'm trying once again to tackle Bernard Lonergan's monumental Insight, this time with an introductory guide by another author. Apparently Lonergan was up to something important, but twice I have given up before finding out what it is. The book attempts to look into every field of cognitive endeavor and demonstrate that the unifying thread is... insight. 

I believe what he wants to say is that if you can understand understanding, then you understand everything. Not sure I agree with that, but I've only just begun, and as the Aphorist says, 

Comprehending a philosopher is being momentarily swayed by him.

There's a willing suspension of disbelief, just as when one enters a novel or film. After it's done, then you can evaluate it in a disinterested way. 

Come to think of it, with regard to art, you evaluate both the aesthetics and the meaning. A film can be beautiful but meaningless, or meaningful but hamhanded in terms of the meaning, and both are considered failures.

I think the same should apply to philosophy, albeit with the accent more on the meaning than the form. Still, I can't help noticing that Lonergan is not a felicitous writer. In contrast, one of the reasons why people still read Plato is for the beauty of expression. 

In my cosmos, truth and beauty converge. Not that I can claim to be an artist with the keyboard, which, come to think of it, is probably why I substitute humor for beauty. The former comes naturally, while the latter is a stretch for the likes of me.

Still, there can be a kind of beauty in humor. I know it when I see it, which goes to the point I was about to make regarding insight. I don't know if Lonergan deals with humor, but the moment you get the joke is a quintessential moment of sudden insight. It is insight accompanied by a physical reaction called laughter. When it is a metaphysical insight expressed in a humorous fashion, we call the result a guffaw-HA! experience.  

Humor, like music, is so universal that it must mean something beyond just a diversion. We've posted before about our suspicion that music as such conveys something important about the structure of reality, and now we're wondering if humor might do the same. Insight into humor must convey an insight into insight. 

Now, the main point I was thinking about was on what Lonergan calls "inverse insight." This is essentially an insight that there is no insight to be had -- for example, when reading the New York Times. Not only is there no insight, there's not even inverse insight, rather, anti-insight, such that they are actively trying to force you to have a bogus insight and call it "sophistication" or "progress" or "compassion." The left is full of such truly ridiculous intellectual, moral, and aesthetic insights.

But they're not even really in the form of insight at all, because an insight can only be had on a personal basis. No one can have the insight for you, any more than they can get the joke on your behalf.

I suppose someone somewhere must have had the "insight" that biological reality has no bearing on sexual identity, but everyone else is just imitating a fad. For one thing, that "insight" is inaccessible to anyone who is in touch with reality. One could say the same about progressive insights into the 1619 Project, or black criminality, or the existential threat of climate change, which are again anti-insights.

I sometimes leave comments here and there on the internet, but only in the form of gags. In so doing, I've noticed an interesting phenomenon, that there is some cognitive power that tells me whether or not there is a potential joke. My point is that the recognition that there is No Joke Ahead is what Lonergan means by inverse insight: no potential joke = no insight to be had.

But this is precisely the form of scientific insight. As the mathematician David Hilbert said, 

A branch of science is full of life only as long as it offers an abundance of problems. 

How can we know if a theory has fruitful problems? Insight. Conversely, when someone tells you THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED, that is neither funny nor insightful.

Out of time.

Insight into Insight

Not much time this morning, but perhaps enough to review some of the insights provoked upon reading An Yves Simon Reader: The Philosopher's Calling, lest I forget them.

Here's a conundrum about the possibility of a universal philosophy, one I often ponder: 

No doubt, any proposition which expresses a rational necessity is, in terms of logical nature, capable of winning universal assent. There is no reason why it should not determine consensus.

BUT 

there are many accidental reasons why certain propositions, though expressive of rational necessity, do not have the slightest chance of being assented to.  

Why should this be? Why can't we agree to agree on simple, rational, necessary, and universal propositions? 

Nor is the trend going in a positive direction, for now we can't even agree that men who pretend to be women are nevertheless men, that free speech is necessary to a functional republic, that mutilating children is evil, that we are entitled to equal protection under the law, etc. 

Philosophically, it is as if we're back to square one. Not even square one. Say what you want about the pre-Socratics, at least they had an ethos. But now our struggle is with eight-year olds, Dude. Amateurs. Nihilists.

This is going to be a brief sidetrack, but I'm trying once again to tackle Bernard Lonergan's monumental Insight, this time with an introductory guide by another author. Apparently Lonergan was up to something important, but twice I have given up before finding out what it is. The book attempts to look into every field of cognitive endeavor and demonstrate that the unifying thread is... insight. 

I believe what he wants to say is that if you can understand understanding, then you understand everything. Not sure I agree with that, but I've only just begun, and as the Aphorist says, 

Comprehending a philosopher is being momentarily swayed by him.

There's a willing suspension of disbelief, just as when one enters a novel or film. After it's done, then you can evaluate it in a disinterested way. 

Come to think of it, with regard to art, you evaluate both the aesthetics and the meaning. A film can be beautiful but meaningless, or meaningful but hamhanded in terms of the meaning, and both are considered failures.

I think the same should apply to philosophy, albeit with the accent more on the meaning than the form. Still, I can't help noticing that Lonergan is not a felicitous writer. In contrast, one of the reasons why people still read Plato is for the beauty of expression. 

In my cosmos, truth and beauty converge. Not that I can claim to be an artist with the keyboard, which, come to think of it, is probably why I substitute humor for beauty. The former comes naturally, while the latter is a stretch for the likes of me.

Still, there can be a kind of beauty in humor. I know it when I see it, which goes to the point I was about to make regarding insight. I don't know if Lonergan deals with humor, but the moment you get the joke is a quintessential moment of sudden insight. It is insight accompanied by a physical reaction called laughter. When it is a metaphysical insight expressed in a humorous fashion, we call the result a guffaw-HA! experience.  

Humor, like music, is so universal that it must mean something beyond just a diversion. We've posted before about our suspicion that music as such conveys something important about the structure of reality, and now we're wondering if humor might do the same. Insight into humor must convey an insight into insight. 

Now, the main point I was thinking about was on what Lonergan calls "inverse insight." This is essentially an insight that there is no insight to be had -- for example, when reading the New York Times. Not only is there no insight, there's not even inverse insight, rather, anti-insight, such that they are actively trying to force you to have a bogus insight and call it "sophistication" or "progress" or "compassion." The left is full of such truly ridiculous intellectual, moral, and aesthetic insights.

But they're not even really in the form of insight at all, because an insight can only be had on a personal basis. No one can have the insight for you, any more than they can get the joke on your behalf.

I suppose someone somewhere must have had the "insight" that biological reality has no bearing on sexual identity, but everyone else is just imitating a fad. For one thing, that "insight" is inaccessible to anyone who is in touch with reality. One could say the same about progressive insights into the 1619 Project, or black criminality, or the existential threat of climate change, which are again anti-insights.

I sometimes leave comments here and there on the internet, but only in the form of gags. In so doing, I've noticed an interesting phenomenon, that there is some cognitive power that tells me whether or not there is a potential joke. My point is that the recognition that there is No Joke Ahead is what Lonergan means by inverse insight: no potential joke = no insight to be had.

But this is precisely the form of scientific insight. As the mathematician David Hilbert said, 

A branch of science is full of life only as long as it offers an abundance of problems. 

How can we know if a theory has fruitful problems? Insight. Conversely, when someone tells you THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED, that is neither funny nor insightful.

Out of time.

Release the Undines!

Continuing with yesterday's theme of the possible, impossible, and necessary, a being of reason 

is an object, which neither does nor can exist except in the mind in the capacity of object. You have in this definition all you need in order never to do what has been done by so many people: to confuse a being of reason with a psychological reality.

Really? I would qualify this to say "all you need" logically. The will, of course, doesn't care about this constraint on existence; the first and last question of the left is always, What does impossibility have to do with it? 

Or, to paraphrase Bobby Kennedy, Some people see things as they are and ask why. I dream of things that can never be, and say, why not? As long as it's not in my backyard, and besides, it's not my money.

Progressivism either runs roughshod over logic or confines itself to logic (AKA rationalization), depending on the needs of the moment. 

Many examples come to mind -- say, if a woman aborts a viable fetus, it's a victory for Choice, whereas if she is murdered along with the baby, it's a double homicide. Logic, of course, demands a single definition, but if the left obeyed this principle, it would be suicidal to their cause. And suicide is wrong!

I'm thinking too of how Brandon pretends to reduce inflation by printing more money. Or fight street crime by not prosecuting it. Or conjure an insurrection by prosecuting one. Or eliminate racism by engaging in it, or  address "climate change" by making it more difficult to survive the climate. The list goes on.

Logic is surrounded by neighbors that have absolutely no scruples.... These neighbors of logic are always ready to swallow it up (Simon).

Like a bad neighbor, state harm is there. 

Has your logic ever been devoured by a being of reason? Of course it has. None of us is exempt from Genesis 3. I remember back in the '80s, being passionately "anti-nuclear." What was that all about, really? 

Whatever the case may be, it "succeeded" here in California, which once again demonstrates how unreality has very real effects. 

Say what you want about the Impossible, its impact on reality is undeniable, especially when taken up by a collective. Delusions in individuals are relatively harmless, but a state motivated by one is a Monster. I don't believe in Orcs. I only try to avoid them. They won't let you ignore them.

Back to those beings of reason per se. Again, they represent an ambiguous category, since they are obviously real -- they exist -- only not in the external world; they aren't contradictory as such, although it would be contradictory to suppose them capable of existence in the world.

Ignoramuses may take it to designate psychological realities, but a psychological reality is a real being of a particular kind that is just as real as anything else.

I suppose one of the problems is that you can't really destroy a being of reason. For example, you can't burn down pi, or an inch, or a syllogism; but nor can you burn down Marxism, feminism, or queer theory. You can't even touch them, since they aren't things, only objects of thought.

Yesterday we brought Hayek into the discussion, and the following passage might have been written by him:

Between physical and social causality the difference is such that the concept of social engineer simply does not admit of being transferred from the physical to the social order. The undine, the zombie, and the social engineer are so many beings of reason with no foundation in the real world (Simon).

Note that the same sort of person who puts his faith in top-down social control is likely to dismiss the reality of free will, which is grounded in our transcendent capacity to choose between good and evil, truth and falsehood -- or what Eliot described as people who dream of systems so perfect that no one needs to be good.

Just waiting for global warmists to tell us Gaia is very angry with Governor DeathSantis, and has released the undines. 

  

  

 

  

Release the Undines!

Continuing with yesterday's theme of the possible, impossible, and necessary, a being of reason 

is an object, which neither does nor can exist except in the mind in the capacity of object. You have in this definition all you need in order never to do what has been done by so many people: to confuse a being of reason with a psychological reality.

Really? I would qualify this to say "all you need" logically. The will, of course, doesn't care about this constraint on existence; the first and last question of the left is always, What does impossibility have to do with it? 

Or, to paraphrase Bobby Kennedy, Some people see things as they are and ask why. I dream of things that can never be, and say, why not? As long as it's not in my backyard, and besides, it's not my money.

Progressivism either runs roughshod over logic or confines itself to logic (AKA rationalization), depending on the needs of the moment. 

Many examples come to mind -- say, if a woman aborts a viable fetus, it's a victory for Choice, whereas if she is murdered along with the baby, it's a double homicide. Logic, of course, demands a single definition, but if the left obeyed this principle, it would be suicidal to their cause. And suicide is wrong!

I'm thinking too of how Brandon pretends to reduce inflation by printing more money. Or fight street crime by not prosecuting it. Or conjure an insurrection by prosecuting one. Or eliminate racism by engaging in it, or  address "climate change" by making it more difficult to survive the climate. The list goes on.

Logic is surrounded by neighbors that have absolutely no scruples.... These neighbors of logic are always ready to swallow it up (Simon).

Like a bad neighbor, state harm is there. 

Has your logic ever been devoured by a being of reason? Of course it has. None of us is exempt from Genesis 3. I remember back in the '80s, being passionately "anti-nuclear." What was that all about, really? 

Whatever the case may be, it "succeeded" here in California, which once again demonstrates how unreality has very real effects. 

Say what you want about the Impossible, its impact on reality is undeniable, especially when taken up by a collective. Delusions in individuals are relatively harmless, but a state motivated by one is a Monster. I don't believe in Orcs. I only try to avoid them. They won't let you ignore them.

Back to those beings of reason per se. Again, they represent an ambiguous category, since they are obviously real -- they exist -- only not in the external world; they aren't contradictory as such, although it would be contradictory to suppose them capable of existence in the world.

Ignoramuses may take it to designate psychological realities, but a psychological reality is a real being of a particular kind that is just as real as anything else.

I suppose one of the problems is that you can't really destroy a being of reason. For example, you can't burn down pi, or an inch, or a syllogism; but nor can you burn down Marxism, feminism, or queer theory. You can't even touch them, since they aren't things, only objects of thought.

Yesterday we brought Hayek into the discussion, and the following passage might have been written by him:

Between physical and social causality the difference is such that the concept of social engineer simply does not admit of being transferred from the physical to the social order. The undine, the zombie, and the social engineer are so many beings of reason with no foundation in the real world (Simon).

Note that the same sort of person who puts his faith in top-down social control is likely to dismiss the reality of free will, which is grounded in our transcendent capacity to choose between good and evil, truth and falsehood -- or what Eliot described as people who dream of systems so perfect that no one needs to be good.

Just waiting for global warmists to tell us Gaia is very angry with Governor DeathSantis, and has released the undines. 

  

  

 

  

Social Justice and Antisocial Injustice

• Modern stupidities are more irritating than ancient stupidities because their proselytes try to justify them in the name of reason. --Dávila

Woke up wondering about the relationship between things that can't be and things that can and must be, i.e., the impossible, possible, and necessary, respectively.

In particular, I wonder if impossibilities can nevertheless yield positive metaphysical knowledge. Bear in mind that we don't yet know the answer, but I suspect there's something to my suspicion.

Among the most consequential impossibilities are called beings of reason. A being of reason is a rational concept that nevertheless cannot properly exist; it is essence deprived of existence, for example, a unicorn. We can describe what the word means, even though it has no referent in the real world. In fact, even "triangle" or "circle" are beings of reason, since we never find a perfect example in the real world.  

Circle and triangle are formal beings of reason, but there are also purely logical or mathematical examples, such as, say, the square root of negative one. 

So, some things that really exist can exist only in the head, hallucinations being another example. But if there are hallucinations and beings of reason, this is only because there is Being, full stop. If this weren't the case, then we could never distinguish between existence and fantasy, reality and tenure.

The Yves Simon Reader has a helpful chapter on The Distinction of Thing and Object. In the parlance of our times, these two are used synonymously, but in reality, things come first, objects second. In other words, things have to first exist before we conceptualize them as objects of thought. For example, a woman must exist before a man can pretend to be one. 

Now, some objects relate to things, others only to other objects. I don't yet want to descend into the insultainment portion of our program, but consider "the patriarchy," "white privilege," or "equity." Each of these is a being of reason -- an object of thought -- which refers only to other objects within a certain ideological framework, but not to actual things, AKA reality (the same goes for "trans" man or woman).

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that ideology as such is a complex being of reason with more or less tenuous relations to the Thingdom of Reality. Many more such examples come to mind, and you could say that this is one Hayek's biggest big ideas -- that the term "social justice" isn't even wrong, just nonsense:

Look, I've got certain information, certain things have come to light, and uh, has it ever occurred to you, man, that given the nature of all this new shit, that, uh, instead of running around blaming me, that this whole thing might just be, not, you know, not just such a simple, but uh -- you know?

Wait. Wrong nonsense. That sounds like Biden's babbling spokestoken, who is Diversity Hire Incarnate. 

All three volumes of Hayek's Law, Legislation and Liberty are on the permanent syllabus, so it's difficult to narrow it down. Volume 2 is called The Mirage of Social Justice, and it is indeed a mirage because it is an ideological being of reason with no connection to the real world. It is an idea, and may even be a beautiful idea, but it

is simply a quasi-religious superstition of the kind which we should respectively leave in peace so long as it merely makes those happy who hold it, but which we must fight when it becomes the pretext of coercing other men.  

But progressives always exempt themselves from the separation of church and state. 

Bottom line: social justice "does not belong to the category of error but to that of nonsense, like the term 'moral stone.'" 

Moreover, it is used as a pretext to impose an order from on high, so it is neither social nor just. "Antisocial injustice" is more like it. And if you don't have time to read Hayek, just reach for this aphorism when they try to bash you over the head with their idea of Justice, and you won't go wrong:

“Social justice” is the term for claiming anything to which we do not have a right (Dávila).

In case you were wondering how Biden, the Obamas, the Clintons, et al, became wealthy. It certainly wasn't by creating anything of value, least of all justice! 

Social Justice and Antisocial Injustice

• Modern stupidities are more irritating than ancient stupidities because their proselytes try to justify them in the name of reason. --Dávila

Woke up wondering about the relationship between things that can't be and things that can and must be, i.e., the impossible, possible, and necessary, respectively.

In particular, I wonder if impossibilities can nevertheless yield positive metaphysical knowledge. Bear in mind that we don't yet know the answer, but I suspect there's something to my suspicion.

Among the most consequential impossibilities are called beings of reason. A being of reason is a rational concept that nevertheless cannot properly exist; it is essence deprived of existence, for example, a unicorn. We can describe what the word means, even though it has no referent in the real world. In fact, even "triangle" or "circle" are beings of reason, since we never find a perfect example in the real world.  

Circle and triangle are formal beings of reason, but there are also purely logical or mathematical examples, such as, say, the square root of negative one. 

So, some things that really exist can exist only in the head, hallucinations being another example. But if there are hallucinations and beings of reason, this is only because there is Being, full stop. If this weren't the case, then we could never distinguish between existence and fantasy, reality and tenure.

The Yves Simon Reader has a helpful chapter on The Distinction of Thing and Object. In the parlance of our times, these two are used synonymously, but in reality, things come first, objects second. In other words, things have to first exist before we conceptualize them as objects of thought. For example, a woman must exist before a man can pretend to be one. 

Now, some objects relate to things, others only to other objects. I don't yet want to descend into the insultainment portion of our program, but consider "the patriarchy," "white privilege," or "equity." Each of these is a being of reason -- an object of thought -- which refers only to other objects within a certain ideological framework, but not to actual things, AKA reality (the same goes for "trans" man or woman).

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that ideology as such is a complex being of reason with more or less tenuous relations to the Thingdom of Reality. Many more such examples come to mind, and you could say that this is one Hayek's biggest big ideas -- that the term "social justice" isn't even wrong, just nonsense:

Look, I've got certain information, certain things have come to light, and uh, has it ever occurred to you, man, that given the nature of all this new shit, that, uh, instead of running around blaming me, that this whole thing might just be, not, you know, not just such a simple, but uh -- you know?

Wait. Wrong nonsense. That sounds like Biden's babbling spokestoken, who is Diversity Hire Incarnate. 

All three volumes of Hayek's Law, Legislation and Liberty are on the permanent syllabus, so it's difficult to narrow it down. Volume 2 is called The Mirage of Social Justice, and it is indeed a mirage because it is an ideological being of reason with no connection to the real world. It is an idea, and may even be a beautiful idea, but it

is simply a quasi-religious superstition of the kind which we should respectively leave in peace so long as it merely makes those happy who hold it, but which we must fight when it becomes the pretext of coercing other men.  

But progressives always exempt themselves from the separation of church and state. 

Bottom line: social justice "does not belong to the category of error but to that of nonsense, like the term 'moral stone.'" 

Moreover, it is used as a pretext to impose an order from on high, so it is neither social nor just. "Antisocial injustice" is more like it. And if you don't have time to read Hayek, just reach for this aphorism when they try to bash you over the head with their idea of Justice, and you won't go wrong:

“Social justice” is the term for claiming anything to which we do not have a right (Dávila).

In case you were wondering how Biden, the Obamas, the Clintons, et al, became wealthy. It certainly wasn't by creating anything of value, least of all justice! 

Original Sin for Thee, Progressive Sanctity for Me

This will be a short post, or rather, one that lasts as long as this here cup of coffee, then it's off to the land of errands. Lucky -- or unlucky, depending -- for you, it's a pretty big cup. 

One of the problems of living in Christendom -- AKA western civilization -- is that its underlying concepts and principles are so pervasive that they either become saturated with meaning (thereby losing their capacity to shock) or are unconsciously assimilated and taken for granted. 

This results in even the enemies of civilization arguing from ideas appropriated from Christianity (e.g., freedom, transcendent and pre-poltical human rights, anti-racism, etc.) and which their own metaphysic can in no way support or defend. Hence the intrinsic absurdity of the left.

But absurdity isn't just absurdity, rather, it's diabolical. This is because absurdity is a sundering and scattering of the links of intelligibility; it is an attack on meaning that pretends to be meaningful. 

The other day we mentioned one such example, the use of the word "progress" for its systematic undermining. You tell me: how can progress exist in a universe drained of its transcendent absolute? Absent the latter, there can be only random agitation, fluctuation, and repulsion, in a kind of ontological Brownian motion.  

A Thought of the Day from Chesterton, by way of PowerLine:

When a religious scheme is shattered... it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. 

Note the themes of dismemberment and scattering: again, diabolical. Dávila makes the same point with the usual brevity and flair:

The devil can achieve nothing great without the careless collaboration of the virtues.

Oopsie! Sorry about all the broken eggs.  

About their intrinsic absurdity, you will have noticed that the left is incredibly adept at slamming on the brakes just sort of the reductio ad absurdum:

The theses of the left are rationalizations that are carefully suspended before reaching the argument that dissolves them.

Now in reality, everything is connected: after all, it's why we call our home a universe. And the universe is not merely an "object," nor the sum of all objects. 

Rather -- and this should be self-evident -- a kind of symphony with both interior unity and exterior order. Analogously, there is the melody which can only reveal itself in time, and a chordal structure that is hierarchical and present in every moment.  

Truth Itself is indeed symphonic, and in addition to the more complex chordal structure, there's a kind of immediately present timbral structure that is accessible to even the musically unschooled: bass, drums, and cello down there, flutes and violins up there, piano holding things together in the middle of it all, etc. Principles above, facts below, and a mind in between linking the two.

Speaking of which, what or who is it that holds everything together? Where or what is the Unity? It is present, there's no doubt about that (barring psychosis). But what is it, and by virtue of what principle? This has been a long strange argument: water? Fire? Air? Many? One? Geometry? Math? Clock? Machine? Matter? Idea? Organism? Reason? The dialectic of class? 

How about all of the above. Except for the last, which is too stupid for anyone short of tenure:

Two contradictory philosophical theses complete each other, but only God knows how.

Among race realists there's a saying that evolution doesn't stop above the neck. Nor does ontology. For there are plenty of real things in this universe, and not all of them are material, that's for sure.

About the left stealing their ideas from superior minds. One of them is the notion of "original sin." For

Socialism is the philosophy of the guilt of others.

In other words, everyone is born into sin -- sins of whiteness, private property, masculinity, heteronormativity, etc. -- except for the leftist. Therefore, the goal is always to reform everyone else. The leftist is not in need of reform, which is why whole categories of humanness are off limits to critique: women, blacks, homosexuals and perverts of various kinds, but only so long as they are creatures of the left. Absurd but effective.

Also, regarding metaphysics more generally, if you think there are no absolutes on the left, you've never spoken to a leftist. Not only are they everywhere, but if you find yourself on the wrong side of one, you are committing idolatry and taking the name of the Lord in vain. For

The progressive believes that everything soon turns obsolete except his ideas.

Which means that their metaphysic is necessarily relative and yet magically elevated to absoluteness, such that (paraphrasing Dávila) they defend their convictions by accusing those who challenge them to be out of date. Or -- bringing it back to Chesterton -- as if truth can be discerned with reference to clock or calendar. Nevertheless, this is the original meaning of political correctness: today's truth, or else!

Which makes "truth" a function of force, and therefore no truth at all. But you knew that already.

Original Sin for Thee, Progressive Sanctity for Me

This will be a short post, or rather, one that lasts as long as this here cup of coffee, then it's off to the land of errands. Lucky -- or unlucky, depending -- for you, it's a pretty big cup. 

One of the problems of living in Christendom -- AKA western civilization -- is that its underlying concepts and principles are so pervasive that they either become saturated with meaning (thereby losing their capacity to shock) or are unconsciously assimilated and taken for granted. 

This results in even the enemies of civilization arguing from ideas appropriated from Christianity (e.g., freedom, transcendent and pre-poltical human rights, anti-racism, etc.) and which their own metaphysic can in no way support or defend. Hence the intrinsic absurdity of the left.

But absurdity isn't just absurdity, rather, it's diabolical. This is because absurdity is a sundering and scattering of the links of intelligibility; it is an attack on meaning that pretends to be meaningful. 

The other day we mentioned one such example, the use of the word "progress" for its systematic undermining. You tell me: how can progress exist in a universe drained of its transcendent absolute? Absent the latter, there can be only random agitation, fluctuation, and repulsion, in a kind of ontological Brownian motion.  

A Thought of the Day from Chesterton, by way of PowerLine:

When a religious scheme is shattered... it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. 

Note the themes of dismemberment and scattering: again, diabolical. Dávila makes the same point with the usual brevity and flair:

The devil can achieve nothing great without the careless collaboration of the virtues.

Oopsie! Sorry about all the broken eggs.  

About their intrinsic absurdity, you will have noticed that the left is incredibly adept at slamming on the brakes just sort of the reductio ad absurdum:

The theses of the left are rationalizations that are carefully suspended before reaching the argument that dissolves them.

Now in reality, everything is connected: after all, it's why we call our home a universe. And the universe is not merely an "object," nor the sum of all objects. 

Rather -- and this should be self-evident -- a kind of symphony with both interior unity and exterior order. Analogously, there is the melody which can only reveal itself in time, and a chordal structure that is hierarchical and present in every moment.  

Truth Itself is indeed symphonic, and in addition to the more complex chordal structure, there's a kind of immediately present timbral structure that is accessible to even the musically unschooled: bass, drums, and cello down there, flutes and violins up there, piano holding things together in the middle of it all, etc. Principles above, facts below, and a mind in between linking the two.

Speaking of which, what or who is it that holds everything together? Where or what is the Unity? It is present, there's no doubt about that (barring psychosis). But what is it, and by virtue of what principle? This has been a long strange argument: water? Fire? Air? Many? One? Geometry? Math? Clock? Machine? Matter? Idea? Organism? Reason? The dialectic of class? 

How about all of the above. Except for the last, which is too stupid for anyone short of tenure:

Two contradictory philosophical theses complete each other, but only God knows how.

Among race realists there's a saying that evolution doesn't stop above the neck. Nor does ontology. For there are plenty of real things in this universe, and not all of them are material, that's for sure.

About the left stealing their ideas from superior minds. One of them is the notion of "original sin." For

Socialism is the philosophy of the guilt of others.

In other words, everyone is born into sin -- sins of whiteness, private property, masculinity, heteronormativity, etc. -- except for the leftist. Therefore, the goal is always to reform everyone else. The leftist is not in need of reform, which is why whole categories of humanness are off limits to critique: women, blacks, homosexuals and perverts of various kinds, but only so long as they are creatures of the left. Absurd but effective.

Also, regarding metaphysics more generally, if you think there are no absolutes on the left, you've never spoken to a leftist. Not only are they everywhere, but if you find yourself on the wrong side of one, you are committing idolatry and taking the name of the Lord in vain. For

The progressive believes that everything soon turns obsolete except his ideas.

Which means that their metaphysic is necessarily relative and yet magically elevated to absoluteness, such that (paraphrasing Dávila) they defend their convictions by accusing those who challenge them to be out of date. Or -- bringing it back to Chesterton -- as if truth can be discerned with reference to clock or calendar. Nevertheless, this is the original meaning of political correctness: today's truth, or else!

Which makes "truth" a function of force, and therefore no truth at all. But you knew that already.

The Endless Beginning

The usual Friday free association. Or at least it always seems to happen at the end of the week. 

Back to the questions at hand: 

Should we suppose that God accepted some limit on his freedom when he created man, by whom his world could be brought either to perfection or destruction? Is he powerless in the face of autonomous man's "No"?

And how is this divine powerlessness related to the Godforsakenness of his Son on the Cross?

Revelation only gives us what happened, and it is up to us -- if we are so inclined -- to puzzle out the hows & whys of it, that is, to deepen our understanding and to seek the principles by which it is both possible and necessary. In so doing, there are clearly a lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-yous, and certainly a lotta strands.

To be perfectly accurate, Christ founds a church and promises it a means of assistance -- a power from on high -- to both guide us to all truth and to pass it along. This is just my opinion, but I suspect this friendly vertical helper is given corporately, not individually per se; or rather, individually to the extent that the individual is part of the body.

Now, before modern science elbowed itself above the epistemological pack and elevated itself to the now discredited metaphysic of atheistic scientism, theology was considered a science. Back in the day, science referred to any organized body of knowledge, with its conclusions susceptible to demonstration via causes and principles. 

Indeed, principles themselves are causes, in that they are that from which other things come to be. In the Catholic philosophical view, this is how God is to be regarded: as the first principle from which creation -- AKA everything -- flows. This principle is, among others, first cause, unmoved mover, necessary being, the Intelligence of intelligibility, the Person of personhood, the Giver of law, the Reason of reasons. Logos for short.  

But this understanding has an objective and a subjective side. Knowing it is not the same as assimilating and understanding it, which of course takes a lifetime & thensome. Knowing is comparatively rapid and easy, while understanding is -- curiously-- a never-ending & ever-deepening process. 

This is because the Absolute Principle is of necessity Infinite (you could say that Infinitude is the first entailment of Absoluteness, even though they are only separable in the abstract). While we can conform ourselves to the latter, we can never do so completely, since we are finite.

Somewhere Schuon reflects upon the above in terms of a or the Trinity; can't remember the details, but let's say the Absolute is Father. If so, then Infinitude is the Son. In between is Perfection of every kind. Whatever the case may be, I don't think the Creator goes to all the trouble of revealing himself as Trinity, only to leave it as his own Personal Mystery completely inaccessible to us.

Again, from our side of manifestation, it isn't all that difficult to reason ourselves up to the First Principle. But it is very much as if this Principle comes down to correct us and let us know that He is actually a Three. (I want to say that God's pronouns are I, Thou, and Perfection.)

That's not something we could have worked out on our own, at least with certitude, but once given, not only does it make more sense than the alternatives, but it resolves a lot of absurdities and enigmas that arise if we regard the Principle of principles as an absolute monad. 

Among other things, if that is the case, then it is very difficult to figure out where we fit into the cosmic picture. My son and I enjoy watching Cops on TV. Whenever the Cops roll up on some crazy situation, they separate the parties and question them. Inevitably the question arises: Okay, who is he/she to you? 

In the ultimate cosmic context, I suppose this is the Question of questions, or certainty one of them: Okay, who are you to God? Now, every philosophy or theology or science asks precisely this question, and probably even exists to answer this question, whether explicitly or implicitly. 

For example, the village atheist will say, There is no principle and I mean nothing to it. But without nonlocal principles, nothing means anything to anybody, nor can there be anybody to know it. 

However, it is self-evident to me that everything means something, and I mean this literally. Some things admittedly don't mean a lot, but they are certainly not without meaning, because otherwise we couldn't even know of their existence. In other words, an "unknowable object" is strictly unthinkable -- which shows the close relationship between being and knowing.

This is one of the first things that will strike the curious primate: whence this infinite intelligibility? By virtue of what principle is it entailed?   

To be continued... because there can be no end. For

Religious thought does not go forward like scientific thought does, but rather goes deeper.

And

Every beginning is an image of the Beginning; every end is an image of the End (Dávila).

The Endless Beginning

The usual Friday free association. Or at least it always seems to happen at the end of the week. 

Back to the questions at hand: 

Should we suppose that God accepted some limit on his freedom when he created man, by whom his world could be brought either to perfection or destruction? Is he powerless in the face of autonomous man's "No"?

And how is this divine powerlessness related to the Godforsakenness of his Son on the Cross?

Revelation only gives us what happened, and it is up to us -- if we are so inclined -- to puzzle out the hows & whys of it, that is, to deepen our understanding and to seek the principles by which it is both possible and necessary. In so doing, there are clearly a lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-yous, and certainly a lotta strands.

To be perfectly accurate, Christ founds a church and promises it a means of assistance -- a power from on high -- to both guide us to all truth and to pass it along. This is just my opinion, but I suspect this friendly vertical helper is given corporately, not individually per se; or rather, individually to the extent that the individual is part of the body.

Now, before modern science elbowed itself above the epistemological pack and elevated itself to the now discredited metaphysic of atheistic scientism, theology was considered a science. Back in the day, science referred to any organized body of knowledge, with its conclusions susceptible to demonstration via causes and principles. 

Indeed, principles themselves are causes, in that they are that from which other things come to be. In the Catholic philosophical view, this is how God is to be regarded: as the first principle from which creation -- AKA everything -- flows. This principle is, among others, first cause, unmoved mover, necessary being, the Intelligence of intelligibility, the Person of personhood, the Giver of law, the Reason of reasons. Logos for short.  

But this understanding has an objective and a subjective side. Knowing it is not the same as assimilating and understanding it, which of course takes a lifetime & thensome. Knowing is comparatively rapid and easy, while understanding is -- curiously-- a never-ending & ever-deepening process. 

This is because the Absolute Principle is of necessity Infinite (you could say that Infinitude is the first entailment of Absoluteness, even though they are only separable in the abstract). While we can conform ourselves to the latter, we can never do so completely, since we are finite.

Somewhere Schuon reflects upon the above in terms of a or the Trinity; can't remember the details, but let's say the Absolute is Father. If so, then Infinitude is the Son. In between is Perfection of every kind. Whatever the case may be, I don't think the Creator goes to all the trouble of revealing himself as Trinity, only to leave it as his own Personal Mystery completely inaccessible to us.

Again, from our side of manifestation, it isn't all that difficult to reason ourselves up to the First Principle. But it is very much as if this Principle comes down to correct us and let us know that He is actually a Three. (I want to say that God's pronouns are I, Thou, and Perfection.)

That's not something we could have worked out on our own, at least with certitude, but once given, not only does it make more sense than the alternatives, but it resolves a lot of absurdities and enigmas that arise if we regard the Principle of principles as an absolute monad. 

Among other things, if that is the case, then it is very difficult to figure out where we fit into the cosmic picture. My son and I enjoy watching Cops on TV. Whenever the Cops roll up on some crazy situation, they separate the parties and question them. Inevitably the question arises: Okay, who is he/she to you? 

In the ultimate cosmic context, I suppose this is the Question of questions, or certainty one of them: Okay, who are you to God? Now, every philosophy or theology or science asks precisely this question, and probably even exists to answer this question, whether explicitly or implicitly. 

For example, the village atheist will say, There is no principle and I mean nothing to it. But without nonlocal principles, nothing means anything to anybody, nor can there be anybody to know it. 

However, it is self-evident to me that everything means something, and I mean this literally. Some things admittedly don't mean a lot, but they are certainly not without meaning, because otherwise we couldn't even know of their existence. In other words, an "unknowable object" is strictly unthinkable -- which shows the close relationship between being and knowing.

This is one of the first things that will strike the curious primate: whence this infinite intelligibility? By virtue of what principle is it entailed?   

To be continued... because there can be no end. For

Religious thought does not go forward like scientific thought does, but rather goes deeper.

And

Every beginning is an image of the Beginning; every end is an image of the End (Dávila).

What's Your Superpower?

We're still on the subject of relationship between divine and human freedom. We've dismissed the easy answers (no God / all God), so now we'll widen our scope and consider some other possibilities.

Here's a question: what is your superpower? If you're reading this -- let alone understanding it -- you no doubt have more than one. But let's just suppose you are an animal endowed with reason. This being the case, then your superpower is rationality.

But even such a seemingly modest claim involves a host of presuppositions and entailments. It's not at all obvious how it got here -- that is, by virtue of what principle(s). Things have their reasons, and we are owed a rational explanation for our rationality.

Owed? How did this verb find its way into the cosmos? For it is an obvious departure from the natural world of mere isness, and implies the complementarity of freedom <---> obligation, in short, the supernatural world of ought. Thus, supposing you are a moral agent, then that is another literal superpower. 

Backing up for just a moment, this line of thought was provoked by a passage I read about Tolkien, to the effect that The Lord of the Rings involves a "triple conflict" of "grace against nature and nature against anti-nature" -- or "between the supernatural, natural, and unnatural." 

So, three levels. Everything that defines man qua man is supernatural, although obviously not "outside" nature. We're still animals, but not only animals, or we could never know it. There is no merely scientific explanation for how this can be the case, because the very conduct of science presupposes what is in need of explanation: the rational, truth-seeking scientist. The practice of natural science is already supernatural.

But for this very reason it can also be subnatural -- for example, the Nazi physician Josef Mengele, or the diabolical surgeons who are at this veery moment castrating and mutilating children a result of their own perverse ideology.

Say what you want about gender ideology, it isn't remotely natural but explicitly anti-natural, a clear example of the vertical realm that bisects the horizontal: it has an up and a down, not only vis-a-vis truth, but beauty and goodness as well. 

And the superpower of freedom is precisely what allows us to ascend or descend on this scale. It is the ground of the very notion of "progress," for if one denies supernature, then progress reduces to will. Which reminds me of a tweet at Happy Acres:

How can there even exist judgmental relativists, e.g. progressives?

This is not a trivial question but a deeply metaphysical one, for it goes to the heart of progressive ideology. It is the first principle they need to defend: if there is no supernature, then why are you so agitated, insistent, and authoritarian about your imaginary "ought"? By virtue of what principle is one ought distinct from another? Supposing I am a fascist, or racist, or homophobe, why are these bad, if there is no objective truth or morality?

Me? I think racism is immoral because I believe in an objective morality that transcends nature. It's also why I know it is wrong to cut off a man's -- let alone child's -- johnson. I'm not a nihilist. 

Now, way back at the top of this post we alluded to the definition of man as an animal endowed with reason. Not only does this make man supernatural, but it presupposes the supernatural ability to know abstract and immaterial essences. To put it conversely, the world is not intelligible, nor are we intelligent, if we can't know essences. But we can, and now we have to explain how this can be so.

Let's say, for example, "natural selection" is true. What is natural selection? It is essentially

Bing! Stop right there: get your own essences, because no naturalistic or materialistic metaphysic can account for them. 

Once again you are presupposing what is at issue. You're begging the question. You need to demonstrate how demonstration is possible, and then how a chance animal can know necessary truth. In short, how on earth are you able to transcend natural selection and discern its essence from above? Magic?   

This whole discussion is very much tied into our first -- and essential -- definition of man, that he is an animal endowed with reason. We know what animals are. What is reason? 

I don't know how it happens, but the right book is always falling into my hands, in this case one called The Yves Simon Reader: The Philosopher's Calling.    

We all know what "responsibility" is. Animals, for example, are not responsible for their actions, which is why we don't put them on trial for pooping on the rug. Conversely, everyone knows man is responsible for his actions, unless he is asleep or insane. But if man is responsible, it presupposes that he is free to choose between alternatives. 

Now, reason as such is always tautological: premises in, conclusions out. Therefore, man is not "merely" or only rational, if only because he is free to be irrational. Which again points to the verticality of human transcendence: we can only choose rationally if we are free to do so, and we are only free to the extent that we can choose the true and good. 

About this superpower of freedom. Again, what exactly is it, and how does it get here?

I have to run, so we'll continue this tomorrow, but here are a few helpful aphoristic hints. Although Dávila came up with them, credit Bob for putting them in an ascending order that even tells a kind of story (and implies the ideological anti-story):

If determinism is real, if only that can happen which must happen, then error does not exist. Error supposes that something happened that should not have.

The stone is right, wherever it falls. Whoever speaks of error postulates free actions.

To admit the existence of errors is to confess the reality of free will.

In any proposition about man its paradoxical fusion of determinism and freedom must emerge.

Determinism is ideology; freedom is experience.

The permanent possibility of initiating causal series is what we call a person.

Freedom is not the goal of history but the material that it works with.

The free act is only conceivable in a created universe. In the universe that results from a free act.

The prestige of freedom in a society that professes scientific determinism is a Christian holdover.

What's Your Superpower?

We're still on the subject of relationship between divine and human freedom. We've dismissed the easy answers (no God / all God), so now we'll widen our scope and consider some other possibilities.

Here's a question: what is your superpower? If you're reading this -- let alone understanding it -- you no doubt have more than one. But let's just suppose you are an animal endowed with reason. This being the case, then your superpower is rationality.

But even such a seemingly modest claim involves a host of presuppositions and entailments. It's not at all obvious how it got here -- that is, by virtue of what principle(s). Things have their reasons, and we are owed a rational explanation for our rationality.

Owed? How did this verb find its way into the cosmos? For it is an obvious departure from the natural world of mere isness, and implies the complementarity of freedom <---> obligation, in short, the supernatural world of ought. Thus, supposing you are a moral agent, then that is another literal superpower. 

Backing up for just a moment, this line of thought was provoked by a passage I read about Tolkien, to the effect that The Lord of the Rings involves a "triple conflict" of "grace against nature and nature against anti-nature" -- or "between the supernatural, natural, and unnatural." 

So, three levels. Everything that defines man qua man is supernatural, although obviously not "outside" nature. We're still animals, but not only animals, or we could never know it. There is no merely scientific explanation for how this can be the case, because the very conduct of science presupposes what is in need of explanation: the rational, truth-seeking scientist. The practice of natural science is already supernatural.

But for this very reason it can also be subnatural -- for example, the Nazi physician Josef Mengele, or the diabolical surgeons who are at this veery moment castrating and mutilating children a result of their own perverse ideology.

Say what you want about gender ideology, it isn't remotely natural but explicitly anti-natural, a clear example of the vertical realm that bisects the horizontal: it has an up and a down, not only vis-a-vis truth, but beauty and goodness as well. 

And the superpower of freedom is precisely what allows us to ascend or descend on this scale. It is the ground of the very notion of "progress," for if one denies supernature, then progress reduces to will. Which reminds me of a tweet at Happy Acres:

How can there even exist judgmental relativists, e.g. progressives?

This is not a trivial question but a deeply metaphysical one, for it goes to the heart of progressive ideology. It is the first principle they need to defend: if there is no supernature, then why are you so agitated, insistent, and authoritarian about your imaginary "ought"? By virtue of what principle is one ought distinct from another? Supposing I am a fascist, or racist, or homophobe, why are these bad, if there is no objective truth or morality?

Me? I think racism is immoral because I believe in an objective morality that transcends nature. It's also why I know it is wrong to cut off a man's -- let alone child's -- johnson. I'm not a nihilist. 

Now, way back at the top of this post we alluded to the definition of man as an animal endowed with reason. Not only does this make man supernatural, but it presupposes the supernatural ability to know abstract and immaterial essences. To put it conversely, the world is not intelligible, nor are we intelligent, if we can't know essences. But we can, and now we have to explain how this can be so.

Let's say, for example, "natural selection" is true. What is natural selection? It is essentially

Bing! Stop right there: get your own essences, because no naturalistic or materialistic metaphysic can account for them. 

Once again you are presupposing what is at issue. You're begging the question. You need to demonstrate how demonstration is possible, and then how a chance animal can know necessary truth. In short, how on earth are you able to transcend natural selection and discern its essence from above? Magic?   

This whole discussion is very much tied into our first -- and essential -- definition of man, that he is an animal endowed with reason. We know what animals are. What is reason? 

I don't know how it happens, but the right book is always falling into my hands, in this case one called The Yves Simon Reader: The Philosopher's Calling.    

We all know what "responsibility" is. Animals, for example, are not responsible for their actions, which is why we don't put them on trial for pooping on the rug. Conversely, everyone knows man is responsible for his actions, unless he is asleep or insane. But if man is responsible, it presupposes that he is free to choose between alternatives. 

Now, reason as such is always tautological: premises in, conclusions out. Therefore, man is not "merely" or only rational, if only because he is free to be irrational. Which again points to the verticality of human transcendence: we can only choose rationally if we are free to do so, and we are only free to the extent that we can choose the true and good. 

About this superpower of freedom. Again, what exactly is it, and how does it get here?

I have to run, so we'll continue this tomorrow, but here are a few helpful aphoristic hints. Although Dávila came up with them, credit Bob for putting them in an ascending order that even tells a kind of story (and implies the ideological anti-story):

If determinism is real, if only that can happen which must happen, then error does not exist. Error supposes that something happened that should not have.

The stone is right, wherever it falls. Whoever speaks of error postulates free actions.

To admit the existence of errors is to confess the reality of free will.

In any proposition about man its paradoxical fusion of determinism and freedom must emerge.

Determinism is ideology; freedom is experience.

The permanent possibility of initiating causal series is what we call a person.

Freedom is not the goal of history but the material that it works with.

The free act is only conceivable in a created universe. In the universe that results from a free act.

The prestige of freedom in a society that professes scientific determinism is a Christian holdover.

Little Big Metaphysic

I was just now flipping through the Theo-Drama, trying to decide if I need to read the whole thing again, when I was arrested by the following passage on p. 50:

What is the relationship between divine and human freedom? Should we suppose that God accepted some limit on his freedom when he created man, by whom his world could be brought either to perfection or destruction? Is he powerless in the face of autonomous man's "No"?

Awkward questions without facile answers. Or rather, I can think of at least two very easy answers: 1) It's not even a meaningful question, just silly; and 2) God is by definition omnipotent, so our so-called freedom doesn't enter into it. 

Wait, there's more:

And how is this divine powerlessness related to the Godforsakenness of his Son on the Cross?

Again, two easy answers, 1) What Godforsakenness? It's just an executed criminal, and 2) What powerlessness? It was the plan all along!

Now, exactly no one up to the moment of the Resurrection -- and even for some time thereafter -- would have called this a great plan, ingenious, a Swiss freakin' watch, because, for one thing, no one understood the plan. 

Rather, the narrative is simply given to us raw and undigested, at least in the first three Gospels, where the facts are seemingly less conditioned by theological reflection than in John, where the relation is clearly reversed. Still, the synoptics do not pretend to be biography in the modern sense. Rather, they convey an understanding that only occurs later, and is retroactively poured back into them, so to speak. 

As a matter of fact, I was just reading about this in a personally helpful book called The Shape of Catholic Theology. It was helpful to me for reasons mentioned the other day -- that I am hardly a trained philosopher or theologian, rather, just a lapsed psychologist with too much time and too many tomes in his hands. 

No one would ever think of just diving into, say, physics, without a guide or textbook to narrow the search, define terms, differentiate the settled from unsettled, mark out fruitful from unfruitful paths, etc. 

Come to think of it, there's a paradox at work, in that I never stop learning, but know far less than when I began blogging 17 years ago. I know all the hard stuff. It's the basics I keep learning.

You could say I jumped into post-graduate work before mastering the fundamentals, or really, even graduating from elementary school, so there's been a lot of remedial work along the way: bonehead theology, so to speak. 

On the other hand, sometimes it takes an idiot. In other words, there are times that fresh and untrained eyes can see a problem from a perspective the expert can't. Aphorisms:

Philosophy gives up when one stops asking simple questions.

Or sometimes just one:

In philosophy a single naïve question is sometimes enough to make an entire system come tumbling down.

Thaaat's right, reader. The beauty is its simplicity. If your philosophy gets too complex, something always goes wrong. Therefore,

Common sense is the father’s house to which philosophy returns, every so often, feeble and emaciated.

Back for a moment to the "simple" narrative of the Gospels. Obviously, they embody both a letter and a spirit. If there is only the former, then the first question that arises is, Nice story, but what does any of it have to do with me? And if only the latter, the question is Why not just give it to me straight instead of clothing it in a fairy tale?  

But it turns out there are more than just two meanings, for there is the literal, the allegorical, the moral, the anagogical, the metaphysical, the mystical, etc., all at once. 

But enough about The Big Lebowski. Let's get back to those two tricky questions raised at the outset. Now, what I would say is that if a simple question is enough to blow up your metaphysic, then either metaphysics is impossible, or you need a bigger metaphysic. The modern belief is that grand philosophical narratives are strictly impossible, and are just the superstitious residue of a less enlightened age. 

Actually, these narratives are worse than that, for they are just an oppressive tool of some power-wielding minority. So long as this minority is white, male, and Christian. All others may control the Ring, e.g., women, blacks, homosexuals, etc. So long as they're leftists. In other words, just hand the Ring over to the progressive Orcs, or else!

This hypocrisy reminds me of an aphorism, that

Philosophers often start from their conclusions in order to invent their principles.

Now, no one would accuse the left of engaging in serious philosophy as opposed to spinning out fairy tale narratives for the most childish among us. 

As it applies to the question of whether God is powerless in the face of autonomous man's refusal, one approach begins with the conclusion that God does not exist, therefore it's a silly question. 

The other side begins with the conclusion that God is omnipotent, therefore, of course our No! doesn't enter into it, and is part of the plan.

But I say, get a bigger metaphysic, one that can reconcile divine and human freedom.