Book released in the UK

Just got an email telling me that the book is released in the UK today.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Divine-Production-Medieval-Trinitarian-Theology/dp/0199646376/

Some random thoughts about Scotus's notion of Powers

In Rep. 2.16, I don't think Scotus is drawing a distinction (rational or formal) between bases and dispositions. Instead, I think he's drawing a distinction between different bases. He's saying something like this: "intellectual and voluntary activity have different bases. The basis for Intellectual activity is a part of the soul that we call 'intellect', and the basis for voluntary activity is a part of the soul that we call 'will'. But these are just two parts of the soul --- two things, so to speak, that are stuck together to make up the soul." It's almost as if we're talking about the right and left halves of the soul, except there are no right and left sides to the soul, since it's immaterial. But we are talking about absolute things/parts/constituents of the soul. 

Of course, Scotus goes on to insist that these two parts are formally distinct from each other, seeing as they are "unitatively contained in the soul." But by that, I think Scotus just means that those two parts are joined so tightly together that the soul wouldn't survive if they were pulled apart. 

So all of that distinction talk in the 2.15 passage is, as I read it, just talk about the distinction between the categorical bases for different activities. Nothing about a distinction between dispositions. It's a little tricky because Scotus _talks_ about powers rather than bases, but as he likes to point out, when he talks about powers in this context, he's really talking about absolute bases (or "immediate bases" I think is how he puts it in Rep. 2.16).  

As for dispositions, I think Scotus rules them out as things or entities of any kind. On his view, there's just no such thing or entity or being as a "power" or "disposition." Of course, we can _ascribe_ powers and dispositions to things. We can say "I have the power to think, raise my arm, and whatnot," and all of that is true. But that's on the level of linguistic/propositional ascription. If we lay ascriptions aside and turn our attention to the things themselves, to the ontology, then we see a different picture. 

On my reading, Scotus would say there's just the categorical basis, i.e., the absolute parts or constituents in the thing we are ascribing the power to. When we say "X has the power P to do Y," that's true if X has the right kind of absolute parts/constituents to do Y. But there's nothing that P would refer to over and above that. So an ascription like "I have the power to raise my arm" is true not because there's me, the right kinds of bones and muscles, and _some other thing/mode_ called a power. The ascription is true simply in virtue of me having the right kind of bones and muscles. 

I think that's the point of Scotus criticizing first Giles/Aquinas and then Henry in the 2.16 passage. He first rules out the view of Giles/Aquinas. Their view is that powers/dispositions are things (qualities) that are really distinct from their absolute bases (soul). As Scotus sees it, powers/dispositions just can't be distinct things over and above their bases. 

"Okay," one might think, "that's fine. So maybe powers/dispositions are somehow _the same_ as their bases. Rather than being distinct entities in their own right, maybe they are the same as their bases, but a different mode of them or something." That's the view of Henry: a power/disposition is really the same as its basis (call the basis X), just in a relative mode. So taken absolutely, X is just the absolute thing (a bit of heat, a substantial form, a lump of matter, or whatever). Taken relatively (with respect to the relevant activity), it is a power. Henry's view is similar to one that's somewhat popular today: all properties are _both_ categorical and dispositional in nature. Henry would probably fall into that camp: parts and constituents are both categorical (when considered in themselves) and dispositional (when considered with respect to the activities that are based on them). 

But Scotus rules out that too. He says: no, a power/disposition can't even be a different _mode_ of the absolute part/constituent. On the contrary, it has to be just the absolute part/constituent. Nothing more. And that, I take it, essentially rules out the reality of dispositions altogether. Scotus is what we might today call a categorical realist: he thinks there really are powers (at the level of ascription), but on the ontological level, there's really nothing more than the categorical bases. To use a modern example: what is the fragility of a wine glass? A categorical realist would say it's really nothing more than the molecular structure: the molecules are made up and joined together in a certain way, and that's all it is to be fragile. 

Report on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion

It's been a while since this came out, but still interesting.

Report on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion:

'via Blog this'

Lecturing proves ineffective

Interesting stuff here:

Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool : NPR

Beginning to think about the Trinity

Why should anybody study the Trinity academically? Isn't the Trinity really just a particular belief that belongs to one particular religious group, namely Christians?

Well, I certainly understand that perspective. Indeed, for many people, the idea that God could be three and one just seems bogus and crazy (and I am very often one of those people). Who in their right mind would ever think: "Oh I know! Let's say that the most supreme being, if there is one, is really tri-personal! Yeah, that'll probably make sense."

But, for whatever reasons, the Trinity ended up as a fundamental piece of the West's intellectual history. More specifically, Christianity ended up as a fundamental piece of the West's intellectual history, and the Trinity ended up as a fundamental piece of Christian thought. Ergo, the Trinity ended up as a fundamental piece of the West's intellectual history. Boring as that may be, it is a fact.

So, whether we like it or not, if we want to understand western intellectual history, we should study the Trinity.

Given that, here's how one could look at it. Let's assume for the sake of the argument that God (if there is one . . . or three . . . or one-three . . . or whatever) --- let's assume that God is triune. Once we grant that for the sake of the argument, then the really interesting stuff shows up. For now we can look at all the different ways that clever people throughout history have tried to make sense of it.

Here's another way to think about it. Think of the Trinity as a little math or logic puzzle. Lots of clever people who like to solve problems are drawn to that sort of thing. So, lots of people throughout history have tried to solve the puzzle. We can study that; we can look at the various ingenious attempts to formulate a solution to the puzzle.

Grading philosophy

Some people have the impression that philosophy is just a matter of one’s own personal opinions, and so there really are no “right” or “wrong” answers. I do not share that view. I treat philosophical issues more like math problems, where there really are “right” and “wrong” answers.

That being said, philosophical problems are rarely as simple as “what is 2+2?” Philosophical problems are more like those complicated word problems we all did in school (“Frank travels north west at 40mph, Sally travels north east at 65mph, . . .”). Like complicated math problems, philosophical problems require that we work carefully and systematically through a number of interwoven steps.

Math teachers can grade word problems in (at least) two different ways. One way is simply to check if the student gets the right answer. After all, one might think, if the student gets the right answer, then surely they took all the right steps.

But that seems insufficient because it seems entirely possible for a student to take all the wrong steps, but yet by sheer accident end up with the right answer. For instance, a word problem might require that the student subtract 5 from 10 to get the right answer, but an erring student might add 2 and 3, giving her the "right" answer anyway.

Another, and probably better way to grade word problems is to look at the student’s reasoning process, i.e., to check whether the student tried to work carefully through the various steps that are required to get to the final answer. This makes it easier to detect students who simply misunderstand the whole thing altogether (or perhaps are just too lazy to put in the requisite time and effort), and it makes it easier to award points for those who may not end up with the right answer, but certainly were on the right track.

Surely we can grade philosophy like this, no? The problem is, I don't think my math teachers ever taught me how to solve word problems, and I don't think my philosophy teachers ever taught me how to work through problems either. Instead, I was given a bunch of incomprehensible pages to read and then write an essay or two (which were evaluated according to some criteria that I still don't think I understand).

Aquinas on Powers --- One Interpretation (3)

In the last post, I tried to buttress Aquinas's (alleged) argument that the soul and its powers cannot be one and the same because I always have a soul, whereas I do not always exercise my soul's powers (there are times when I sleep, for instance, when I do not think). I further pointed out in the last post that each of the soul's powers require different circumstances for their actualization, and that provides another reason to say that the soul's powers must be distinct from each other (and, consequently, from the soul itself).

Now, suppose that we grant this. Still we might wonder: what sorts of things are the soul’s powers? According to Aquinas, they are qualities of the soul, perhaps similar to the way that a pale skin color is a quality of Socrates.

Of course, to compare the soul’s powers to the color of Socrates’ skin might suggest that the soul’s powers can be gained and lost, just like the color of Socrates’ skin. After all, Socrates’ skin color can change --- as would happen, say, if he went to the beach and got a tan. So surely the soul’s powers can change too.

But Aquinas rejects this, insisting instead that although the soul’s powers are qualities of the soul, they cannot be gained and lost in the way that Socrates’ skin color can. On the contrary, the soul’s powers are not the sorts of features that can ‘come and go’. Rather, they are permanently attached, so to speak, to the soul itself (so long as the soul exists).

I should note that Aquinas does not, so far as I know, ever offer an argument for the claim that the soul’s powers are qualities. But he did make this claim more than once throughout the course of his career, so I think we can safely assume that Aquinas is firmly committed to the idea that every human soul is accompanied by a set of distinct powers (qualities) that are permanently attached to it (so long as that soul exists).

One could easily take these ideas from Aquinas and generalize them. That is, one could easily insist that any power must be distinct from its basis when the thing that has the power in question also has its basis for any period of time when that power is not exercised. So, that is one interpretation of Aquinas's theory of powers.