The Underground Thomist
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Question for Grad StudentsFriday, 08-29-2014You propose to become a professional scholar. Unless you are independently wealthy, your ability to do so will depend on the expenditure of other people’s wealth (in the form of tuition, taxes, or patronage) to pay your salary. What reason can you sincerely give for what you want to do, sufficient to justify such expenditure? Consider possible objections. Discuss thoroughly. |
Universities as Money LaunderersThursday, 08-28-2014
Universities are converting themselves from institutions of learning into money launderers. As conduits for grants and endowments, and as honeycombs of “centers” and “institutes” where activities are conducted which cannot be carried out in conventional departments organized by discipline, they offer both Left and Right a thousand ways to transfer wealth while hiding the precise nature of who and what is getting it. Liberals, working mostly through the crumbling shell of what used to be the liberal arts, use universities to transfer wealth to unpopular left-wing causes which would have a hard time sustaining themselves on their own. Conservatives, working mostly through the sciences, use universities to enable business enterprises to reap the benefits of new technology without having to invest as much in research and development. And then there are those who don’t really care who gets the benefit, as long as the Great Nile of other people’s money is diverted from other regions and universities into their own. |
Clean, Obvious, Cold, Superficial, and WrongWednesday, 08-27-2014
Clean, Obvious, Cold, Superficial, and Wrong"Everything in that old [pagan] world would appear to have been clean and obvious. A good man was a good man; a bad man was a bad man. For this reason they had no charity; for charity is a reverent agnosticism towards the complexity of the soul.” -- G.K. Chesterton, Heretics, Chapter 12 |
The Aim of the WorldTuesday, 08-26-2014
The Aim of the World“The world has done its best to secure repose without relinquishing evil.” -- Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Egotism” |
Student Surveys, RevisitedMonday, 08-25-2014
Student Surveys, Revisited
On August 10th in this blog I quoted Avicenna’s comment, “Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned,” remarking that this was obviously written before student surveys. Following up a hint in Fr. Z’s blog, I now find that things have changed less than I thought. They had something like student surveys after all. The martyr, St. Cassian of Imola, was a teacher at the Forum of Cornelius. We read that when he refused to sacrifice to the Romans gods, the judges reflected that “the weaker the hand, the more painful was the sentence of martyrdom.” Therefore they commanded, "Let the scourger, that is, the schoolteacher, be pricked, cut, and stabbed to death by his own scholars, with styles, awls, pens, penknives, and other sharp instruments such as children make use of in school." According to tradition, the pupils were only too happy to help out.
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A WonderSunday, 08-24-2014A WonderI mentioned in the previous post that philosophy begins with experience. This claim is often misunderstood. For instance, some people draw the mistaken conclusion that since we have not experienced all beings, we cannot possibly know that nothing can both be and not be in the same sense at the same time. But one of the wonders of the created human mind is that the experience of even a single thing is sufficient for the mind to grasp not just that this thing cannot both be and not be, but that nothing can both be and not be – that the principle of contradiction is necessarily true of all things whatsoever. It is implicit in the form or pattern of being itself. Astonishing: For this shows that the mind is so fit to engage reality that it grasps not only the sensible qualities of the things that it experiences, but also their forms. |
How Philosophy GoesSaturday, 08-23-2014
How Philosophy GoesSound philosophy originates in common experience and opinion. It is futile to seek proofs of such things as that we exist; that time passes; that I remain myself even if my hair changes color; that some things are good; or that good is to be pursued. But if philosophy draws itself from common opinion, then it is not at first clear how philosophy can go beyond it. Why not just bring in the man on the street and ask him what he thinks about things? In a way, that is exactly what philosophy does. Look how Aristotle investigates happiness, beginning with the common recognition that every act is undertaken for the sake of some end, and then asking questions about this end. Even his scrutiny of common opinions depends on common opinions, for he doesn't simply shoot arrows at them from on high. He makes them interrogate themselves. For example, one common opinion is that happiness is honor, the praise of other people. Do you say happiness is sought for its own sake? Yes. Then if happiness is honor, honor would be sought for its own sake, correct? Yes. Then would you be satisfied if other people praised you for qualities you knew you did not have? No; that sort of praise has no savor. But in that case, you don’t consider praise worth having for its own sake after all, do you? More fundamental is praiseworthy qualities. That is how philosophy goes. It can elicit what we didn’t know we knew – but we must already have known it. It can draw inferences -- but we must already grasp the consequence relation. It can call attention to inconsistencies – but we must already realize that contrary views cannot all be true at once. The idea is not to destroy common opinion, but to cleanse, extend, and ennoble it, by forcing it, through dialogue, to be honest with itself. |
