A philosophical musing that came to mind earlier today:
Everything we know or believe in is based on faith, the main difference is the former category is based on faith we don't question. I think that's why Socrates could say he knew nothing, since he questioned everything.
I wonder if that means that Socrates would have said that he believed in certain things but that he just couldn't know for certain? In the same way, I wonder if that means faith passes from belief to knowledge once we cease to question it?
Any thoughts?
- Posted by at 2:51 PM
The metaphysics instructor seems to be taking an approach I can live with - not presenting us with a fixed metaphysical point of view but rather trying to instruct us on what metaphysics is and how to engage in metaphysical thinking. I think that it will be useful as a result, although I will be dreading the later foray into some of the really whacked out philosophies of recent times.
On a positive note, however, the professor seems highly critical of post-modernism, empiricism, and positivism, which earns him some respect from me. Most of his comments regarding religion I could live with as being accurate.
More to come from this angle as the class progresses.
- Posted by at 9:38 PM
I hadn't thought any ancient thinker - or any other system of modern times - had come close to the idea of the Holy Trinity. However, in reading the introduction to St. Augustine's Confessions this weekend, I found out that the idea of a triune divinity had been surmised before in Greek thought - which looking back on it makes sense because the Trinity is the truth regarding God.
Plotinus, a neo-platonist of the 3rd century AD, had the idea of a divine triad, of which the first hypostasis is the father - good, absolute, and simple. The father's act is pure thought, which is the divine mind, or second hypostasis. This second hypostasis contains all the ideas of the first, is good, and is creative. It also contemplates the father. The third hypostasis is the all-soul, the image of the divine mind, which contemplates the divine mind and generates lower beings. (adapted from Confessions, translated by John Ryan, 1960 ed., p. 22)
This struck me as very similar to Frank Sheed's explanation of the Trinity in Theology and Sanity, in which the Father produces an idea of Himself (the Son), and that both the Father and Son in a combined act of love of each other produce the Spirit as a state of lovingness. (See chapters 3 through 9 and especially 6 and 7 of his book for a full fleshing out of this idea).
It would be nice to see the Unitarians be able to stumble upon something that the pagan Greeks were able to come up with through the natural light of reason.
- Posted by at 8:40 PM
Today's homilist decided to cover Positivism. While it is a good topic to cover, and certainly never one any priest has specifically touched on before to me, the priest stumbled toward the end and decidedly muddled what was otherwise a good bit of preaching. This wasn't entirely surprising since he was kind of loose with the liturgy, but I really thought he was going well at least halfway through the homily.
Positivism is a philosophy where the only things which matter are things which can be sensed. The priest talked about how we are all affected by this error to an extent by noting our great devotion of time and energy to things which are tangible to us - like material goods, passions, comforts, and so forth. So far, so good.
Where the foul up started is when he began to turn this around into practical advice. Instead of doing something like reminding us of God's hidden action in the world, the actions of demons and angels, or the intercessions of the saints, the main thrust was trying to see what the Holy Spirit's hidden actions were calling our consciences to do. Ugh!
Back to Positivism, a major logical reason against it is that it assumes our senses are perfect. A blind person cannot see the sun or inspirational paintings or the allure of women. A deaf person cannot hear music, appreciate powerful speakers, or know some of the more terrifying sounds of this world. Yet, these things which they individually cannot sense do matter. The major failure of Positivism is that it cannot prove that sense experience is the sole object of human knowledge.
It is plain our senses cannot detect everything. Satelite signals, certain frequencies of sound, infrared, and radiation are just some things we can't sense. Yet our knowledge greatly relies on them just the same. Even if the principle is extended to what can be observed, it would be necessary to prove that everything of importance can be observed. It can't be accomplished without proving there are only 5 senses, which no one can really do. It is always possible to notice a person who lacks one, but to one who lacks, they cannot understand what they are lacking.
Supposing someone had a 6th sense, say the sense of the holy, they could not explain or prove it to any of us 5-sense people. We would not understand what they would try to tell us, since we could not sense what they sense, any more than a blind person could understand sight or a deaf person could understand music.
Of course, I would much rather just state that there are forces at work which we cannot sense, and their impact on us is more important than we know.
- Posted by at 1:06 AM
Real Name: Rob
Age: 23
E-mail: justice (at) justiceknight (dot) com
AIM: StBlogsCrusader
Residence: Steubenville, Ohio
Currently: Studying for an MA in Theology
Welcome to my blog! My posting is often erratic and unpredictable, but I hope you find something worth reading here. Feel free to leave me comments.
