Chapter 3: Aquinas’s logical reasoning Eventually, Feser settles down to tell us a bit about Aquinas. In particular, his method of reasoning: What Aquinas is doing can be understood by comparison with the sort of reasoning familiar from geometry and mathematics in general. Take the Pythagorean theorem, for example. Once you understand the axiomatic method, … Continue reading “The Last Superstition: Reasoning With Aquinas”
Chapter 3: Getting Medieval Having laid the groundwork in Chapter 2, Feser now moves on to the star of the show, Thomas Aquinas. He opens the chapter with a story of Aquinas overlooking a woman’s achievements, and instead interrupting her with a comment about her body: he once came upon “a holy nun who used … Continue reading “The Last Superstition: Let’s Meet Aquinas”
Chapter 2: Aristotelianism recap As you may have noticed by how long that last post was, I can’t seem to go more than a few pages without stumbling on something illogical, or nonsensical, or just plain wrong. It’s not because I’m trying to be picky or combative; it’s just that I keep trying to apply … Continue reading “The Last Superstition: Aristotelianism Recap”
Chapter 2: Greeks Bearing Gifts, Aristotle’s metaphysics We now come to Aristotle, and one of Feser’s central points (emphasis in the original): How significant is Aristotle? Well, I wouldn’t want to exaggerate, so let me put it this way: Abandoning Aristotelianism, as the founders of modern philosophy did, was the single greatest mistake ever made … Continue reading “The Last Superstition: Aristotle’s Metaphysics”
Chapter 2: Greeks Bearing Gifts, continued. Continuing his discussion of Platonic Forms, Feser introduces this example (bold added): [A] squirrel who likes to scamper up trees and gather nuts for the winter (or whatever) is going to be a more perfect approximation of the squirrel essence than one which, through habituation or genetic defect, prefers … Continue reading “The Last Superstition: Toothpaste and Universal Concepts”
Chapter 2: Greeks Bearing Gifts is a recap of the history of Greek philosophy that led to Thomas Aquinas, which he’ll talk about in chapter 3. This is, in my opinion, the best chapter in the book. I’ll skip over the first section, From Thales to Socrates because although it’s interesting, from a historical perspective, … Continue reading “The Last Superstition: Plato’s Forms”
Chapter 1 This chapter can safely be skipped. It’s equal parts complaining about The New Atheists and insulting them, making big claims, and giving Aristotle and Aquinas loving tongue-baths. He yearns for the good old days when people kept their atheism to themselves. In this introductory chapter, Feser makes a number of big promises for … Continue reading “The Last Superstition: Skip Ahead”
I don’t remember where or how I ran across Edward Feser, a philosopher at Pasadena City College, but at some point I was told that he was a Serious Theologian, one of those people whose arguments atheists allegedly ignore. So I got his book The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism at the … Continue reading “The Last Superstition: Preface”
Well, duh, yes. But is symmetry a thing? Well, no. Again, duh. The reason I bother to bring this up in the first place is that I’ve stumbled on the festering swamp of pretentiousness that is Edward Feser’s blag One thing that annoys me is the way he constantly reifies ideas, and acts as though … Continue reading “Does Symmetry Exist?”
tl;dr summary: a ranty rant about theology.
Epsilon Clue 