Maverick Philosopher

Just over the Transom from Malcolm Pollack

Hi Bill,

 

My neighbor didn't call me a Trumper to my face, but mentioned (back in April) to my wife that he had the impression that I was one. (I felt obliged to unpack the assertion in a post.)

 

The Cape has a lot of Dems, but most of the working people out here are what Zman calls "dirt people" (i.e., those who encounter actually existing reality in their work), and they are . . . well, Trumpers. They are also well-armed.

 

[. . .]

 

The post to which Malcolm links, from April,  is up to his usual high standard and is one you ought to read.  I agree with it in its entirety. As the political temperature rises, its relevance does as well. 

An Online Catalog of Theistic Arguments

Chad McIntosh writes,

I'd like to let you know about a project I've been working on for the past two years that I have just completed (for now): a fairly comprehensive, organized list and summary of theistic arguments. I hope it will be a useful resource.

https://www.camcintosh.com/theistic/index.html

I've also included at the very end (under META > Cumulative Case) a calculator that allows visitors to come up with their own estimate of the evidential power of the arguments.

The website is a little clunky, but serviceable (it is best as expanded window on desktop). Of course, I've included several of your arguments:

ONTOLOGICAL > Possibility Defenses > Kordig & Vallicella 
METAPHYSICAL > Facts
AXIOLOGICAL > Deontic Value > Modal Axiarchism 

I thought I should take a look at your book A Paradigm Theory of Existence with the intent to summarize it's main argument, but that's a hard book to get a hold of! There's also a similar argument just published by Christoph de Ray called "Existence Exists and it is God," in which he interacts with your book. I may integrate both yours and de Ray's arguments in a future update to the page. 

Great to hear from you, Chad. You've created an interesting and useful resource. The site is a bit clunky but it displays clearly and easily on my desktop and is easy to navigate. Thank you for your references to my work. As for my existence book, I'd send you a copy if I had one to spare. If someone reading this has a copy he would be willing to part with, please contact Chad. I don't recommend that you buy it; it is way overpriced, although on occasion the Amazon pricing algorithm goes haywire and the tome becomes relatively affordable.

Thanks also for referring me to Christophe de Ray, whose article I found here.  I will have to read it.

Let me make two minor comments on the material in the Prolegomena section. You define 'theistic argument' as follows:

Theistic arguments are arguments for (or the rationality of belief in or commitment to) the existence of a being with at least one God-like attribute, such as necessity, God-like power or knowledge, ground of morality, creator or designer of the natural world, and so on.

The first is that you need a second 'for' after 'or' in the parenthesis. The second is substantive. Suppose an entity has exactly one God-like attribute. I wouldn't call an argument for the existence of such an entity an argument for God given your definition of theism:

 Theism is the view that there is a personal God like that worshipped by Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

The Good of Plato, the One of Plotinus, the deus sive natura of Spinoza,  the objevktiver Geist of Hegel, and F. H. Bradley's Absolute, to mention just these five, are each such as to have one or more God-like attributes, but none of them are persons.  I have no objection to your definition of theism; my point is that it does not comport well with your definition of 'theistic arguments.' The latter is easily repaired, but I'll leave that to you.

Comments are enabled and invited.

From the Mail Bag: Tony Benvin on Need

On Aug. 7th you wrote ". . .the best response to the leftist who asks, "'Why do you need a gun?' is wrong question!"

 

I have been saying for years that debating that question is allowing the left to set the premise of the debate.

 

I also wanted to point out that questioning "need" is inherently a socialistic/communistic premise (". . . to each according to his need") which betrays the underlying nature of the gun controller's attack.  It's also an argument that is only ever selectively used. No one questions the need for air conditioning in a car (or an office for that matter), no one questions the need for a 75 inch OLED television, etc.  In fact, one of my touchstones for years has been asking would-be socialists to explain just why Leonid Breshnev NEEDED an antique car collection along with my offer to join their ranks if they could adequately respond.  

 

After years of making that offer I have still not needed to join, and thought you might enjoy my essay in American Thinker about deconstructing socialists and their ilk:

 

 Thanks for your blog.  Your observations and discussions often make my day.

 

UPDATE (8/11) Tony adds:

 

Wow!  A post!  I didn't expect that or I would have written a little less informally.  Thank you for the attention and citation.

 

You mention trying times; that they are, but I am also quite hopeful because I see success written in our national DNA.  My grandparents came to this country with little more than the clothes on their backs and to a language they didn't speak (I'll bet this applies to you, too).  Like Columbus, they set sail and took the chance that there be dragons out there, and now here we are two former professors (in my case, just the 2nd generation removed from the plow) with Ph.D.s and successful careers; we are the legacy of their bravery both personally and nationally.

 

BV: Yes, it applies to me as well. All four of my grandparents immigrated from Italy, and my mother as well, coming over at age ten.  All learned English and assimilated.  The children were given Anglo names and not just because of the prejudice against Italians, but out of respect for Anglo-American culture.  Before the rot set in in the 'sixties, it was understood that immigration without assimilation would lead to trouble of the identity-political and tribalist sorts we are now experiencing. It was also understood that the borders had to be enforced and that only legal immigrants were to be allowed in. What's more -- and this is also very important and now completely ignored -- it was  understood that there is no right to immigrate and that legal immigration was to be allowed from only some countries and that these countries were to be ranked in terms of the potential contributions of their citizens to the well-being of the host country.  It was understood that an immigration policy is not a suicide pact, and that ethnomasochists are to have no hand in its formulation. But now we must witness the spectacle of a destructive fool who calls himself ALEJANDRO Mayorkas, a brazen liar who heads the Orwellian Department of Homeland Security, who repeats against the evidence of the senses that the border is secure!  It is evident that he and the entire Biden Administration is working to destroy the United  States as she was founded to be. 

 

And so, Tony,  I am considerably less sanguine than you are. We are over-extended abroad and collapsing under the weight of our own decadence within. All of our institutions are being undermined by leftist termites. But we fight on, nonetheless, to the tune of 'It ain't over til it's over.' It will be very 'interesting' to see if the fight can be confined to the political sphere.

 

As I'm sure you know, good men create good times, good times create soft men, soft men create bad times, and bad times create good men.  We are in the latter stage of that cycle, but unfortunately for you and I, that can mean generational change.

 

UPDATE (8/12). Vito Caiati chimes in:

 

Your and Tony’s stories on immigrant ancestors brought to mind that of my maternal grandfather Giovanni, who arrived with my grandmother, Anna, and three very little daughters in New York City just after the turn of the last century. Giovanni, who was a skilled machinist, in the days when that meant literally making and assembling the parts of machines, leaves his job at the naval shipyard in Palermo, travels to Naples to board a liner, crosses the Atlantic with a wife and three children, arrives in New York, where he is met by a cousin, Fausto, who is employed in a company that makes machines to produce paper bags. The cousin leads the immigrants to a small apartment in the Bronx, which he has procured for them, and early the very next morning, Giovanni, who speaks no English, leaves with the cousin, descends into the subway, emerges in mid-Manhattan, and ends up in a factory adjacent to the West Side piers, where he is immediately hired by the company (no big state welfare with this crowd) and where he works more than fifty years, sitting alongside of immigrant German machinists, all of them fashioning parts for prototype machines.  Like your grandparents and mother, everyone learned to speak, read, and write English, although the girls were given Italian names and Sicilian, along with English, was spoken at home.

Another America, another New York, both of which I love dearly, now unrecognizable in my old age.