Dr. John Cuddeback - What's In A Name? The Errors of Nominalism

our speaker this evening received a PhD in philosophy from the Catholic University of America in 1997 dr. John Cuddeback writes and lectures on various topics including virtue culture natural law contemplation and friendship a third-order lay dominican he currently teaches in the philosophy department at Chrisman college his book true friendship where virtue becomes happiness was republished in 2010 dr. Cuddeback also writes for his blog titled bacon from acorns in which he publishes his own reflections on philosophy and the household I like the skip past the Acorn to go straight to the bacon but I'm not as civilized as dr. Qaeda by Dodge Dakota back in avid gardener and hunter lives with his wife and six children in the Shenandoah Valley he's a frequent speaker for the ICC as well as one of our Magdalo apostle the professors please join me in giving a warm welcome to dr. John Carter back ready I have to say that there is nothing like walking into an ICC events i I it's it's - what can I compare it it's it's like it's like coming home I mean we're truly you all are so welcoming and just alive with the spirit it is in times where there's a lot to be discouraged about it's nice to keep a perspective there's always more to be encouraged about then there is to be discouraged about and that's that's that's good for us to bear in mind well we what in the worlds brought you I don't think you came to hear about nominalism I really don't I think I think I think the word about that lasagna got out and and free lasagna at that and they were free lasagna like that near my home I'd probably sit through a lecture on nominalism also so I I'm gonna ask you two to be patient be patient with me and be patient with yourselves we have before us a tough topic and I so I have to try to make some judgments as to what to try to do here a danger in studying and teaching is to is to pretend that you understand something when you don't and before talking about the errors of nominalism it's important that we make a shot at trying to understand something about what it is and and I have a very deep conviction that sometimes it's a little bit too easy I'll just say in our situation to kind of fall into pointing fingers at bad guys and saying okay you know there's there's the problem or these are the people whose fault it is kind of approach and of course we do have to try to find there is there is a kind of order to error and there is a causality that has brought us in various ways to where we are although it's almost always more complex than we realize so let's let's just try to moderate our expectations here I hope that we get some sense of what this philosophical school all nominalism s and some sense of what's that stake in it alright if interestingly I'll say a little bit more about this later you you're not going to bump into in general people who now say well I'm a nominalist what do you think of that it's it by and large those that went by the name lived a very long time ago so we're really we're going back to something that fascinatingly arose in a context to where Christian philosophy was very much alive and so that there's a it's a I struggle to understand this one of the most famous nominalist in history was a Franciscan friar and so it's important that you not think that okay when you say nominal s you're you're thinking these are people that were trying to destroy your worldview although I think that you can say in many ways nominalism had an important hand in destroying your worldview and so it's it's it's it's a serious matter but we're going to try not to jump to conclusions what I like to do is start with one teacher we're going to use tonight is etsion Jill song he was one of the great medieval Asst the 20th century and it begins with a very beautiful statement here about st. Thomas Aquinas and what made him be such a great thinker and I just I want to open with that and then we're and then we're going to move on and look at the problem so a couple opening thoughts we're going to look at the problem of universals to which nominalism is one answer and then we're going to look at a couple other answers to the problem of universals and then we're going to talk about various consequences of nominalism and what it might mean for us and why we might want to be aware of it I apologize that I did not bring enough handouts if there's someone nearby who could you can share with great otherwise I'm always going to read out loud what it is in any case this is my first quotation st. Thomas Aquinas was clear-sighted enough to know the truth when he saw it humble enough to bow to it in its presence his holiness and his philosophy sprang from the same source more than human eagerness to give way to truth thing that I particularly loved about this beautiful point is it's it's pointing to a fundamental insight if I'm mental truth about human nature it's the humble person and the humble person alone who's gonna see the truth it's so easy for us to say that it's another thing to do it what what does humility in action mean I just want to kind of throw the challenge at you how often in reality if we are self reflexive God grants us the ability to understand ourselves better give me a man who understands himself was really able to look at himself and see this is it this is it this is a rare in powerfully beautiful thing if we're really able to look at ourselves and understand how often we are not willing to see things as they are and we modify how we see things through how we want things to be and so the beautiful thing that Jill saw was capturing about st. Thomas is what it took to be clear sighted was the amazing clarity of a rectified appetite of good desire of the willingness to always say I will want what I should want I will change what I want when I see the truth of what I should want that's what I'll want and then you have the clarity to be able to see the Joseph peeper another great 20th century telomere sort of book called The Silence of st. Thomas word silence is a very beautiful rich term it captures a lot of rich things but but part of the silence I dare say essential to the silence of st. Thomas is the silence of having ordered desires of having ordered desires that you're able to humbly see things as they are including ourselves often we don't see ourselves for who we are because we don't really want to know that that doesn't sometimes even comes the level of consciousness so how few in the history of thought have been like a st. Thomas Aquinas there's this amazing connection there's plenty of people who are brilliant the world has a large large number of people who are brilliant it has there's a real shortage of people who are humble who really then have insight that what we really need there's a great place in the church for the likes of as Thomas Aquinas who was brilliant brilliant beyond most a thing you'll ever see and combined without this astounding humility so we go to him as a particular teacher still it doesn't mean that he that he always got it right but in case he is gonna be our teacher here tonight and just so you know by my saying that I'm not implying that the nominalist weren't humble enough this is all this is all part of God's providence there are many thinkers that in various ways we all fall short it's something is another reason to always come back to humility always always be careful about assuming that you've got it just right I'm not so I'm not I'm not suggesting a skepticism here there's always this incredible balance have confidence in what we in what we do know don't become a skeptic at the same time always humility always be careful always be willing to see that haven't seen well enough so when we talk to you about the error of errors of nominalism another quick distinction I want to point out not necessarily the errors of nominal lists sometimes thinkers have a world view where they themselves don't see the logical consequences of their own world view so at times you don't want to blame someone for certain consequences that come from his thought for at times he didn't see that that was a consequence can we all see that in our own lives that sometimes we didn't realize there's certain consequences to things that we were holding so when you hear oh my goodness one the main anomalous was this Franciscan friar I mean how could he have done this to us that's that's that's that that you're barking up the wrong tree I our interest is not to judge persons our interest here ultimately is to look at the logical consequences of the thought but always be prepared to separate the thought from the thinker right because you never know exactly what's going on subjectively in the thinker so be very slow to condemn thinkers but we do sometimes have to condemn certain thought all right so here what I'm saying I'm starting that because what about the errors of nominalism glad we're talking but the errors of nominalism not necessarily of nominal lists all right without is a little bit of background let's jump in the first thing I'm going to do in here the song aside be patient with yourself be patient with me I mean really to do this right we'd we'd be taking a of hours to try to set this problem up I'm going to so I'm going to I'm gonna give you whatever it's gonna be a 10 or 15 minute sketch just to try to give you a sense of what's going on and then again we're gonna we're gonna turn from there we're gonna want to do our best the next quotation here from Joel song sets the tone here and gives you a sense of how big this is it has often been said by historians and not without good reason but the whole philosophy of the Middle Ages was little more than an obstinate endeavor to solve one problem the problem of the universals universals are but another name for what we call concepts or general ideas alright so here he's setting up for us this really was at the center of one of the greatest if not the greatest ages of Christian thought they were great thinkers trying to solve the problem them about to present it to you but frankly it gives you a sense of how hard it is to come to the right answer it's very hard to see what the problem is and of course you're never going to get the right answer if you haven't first scene with the problem is I'm gonna try to say a little bit about what the problem is give you a sense to the different answers and then we're gonna go from there so next I'm gonna reach to you Jill songs shot at setting up what the problem itself is so it's being called the problem universals again the name nominalism is gonna name one school of thought in giving an answer to this problem first I'm gonna try to tell you what the philosophical problem is my next quotation what relation is there between thought and things more particularly and to ask the same question in specifically medieval terms how is it that in a world where all that is real is a particular and individual thing the human mind is able to distribute the manifold of reality into classes in which particular things are contained that such an operation as possible is an obvious fact man is constantly thinking in terms of genera and species as just broad kinds of things but how it is possible always was and still remains for us a very intricate problem the great significance we're not going to particularly talk about Peter Abelard there's a very famous thinker as regards this problem the great significance of Peter Abelard in the history of medieval philosophy is due to the fact that he was the first to deal length with the central problem what is a class of things or in other words what is the essence of universality all right now I'm gonna I'm gonna drive my try my best to kind of put that in my own words give you an example or two the first often to see a problem you have to say alright given this and given this we've got a problem so we start with something that basically everybody on all sides of answering the problem agrees with and that's this first statement what exists in the real world our particular individual substances and their parts and their principles so this is kind of a neat point there isn't anything out there that exists other than individual particular thanks all right so you've you've got a door you've got a table you've got a window you've got a person you've got the floor you've got the air you've got the water and your cop you've got the whatever just the world is peopled with individual substances now there's parts of those substances my hands my foot part of the door part of the water you can also refer to principles in those substances we're not gonna sweat this right now principle and part don't always mean the same thing we'd call my soul a principle of me but you wouldn't really call it a part of me and the way that you would my foot in any case the first point here is the world is made up of individual particular substances there isn't anything else but that alright now the next thing is concepts are universal so what you're gonna see here's the word universal in general is the opposite of particular particular universal so if the world is made up of particular things how are there going to be universals already here you're starting to see what's the problem of universals well it's obvious from experience that we have would have called universals or concepts but how can there be Universal or concepts given that the world is made up simply of individual things here's the logical definition ladies and gentlemen of a universal what can be predicated of many and we try to keep the terminology as simple as I can what can be predicated of many you could scratch out the word predicate and say what can be said of many the verb predicate just means to say something it comes it's like the predicate in a sentence so if I say this is a tree I am predicating tree of this alright so universal is what can be predicated of many so watch the term tree is a universal why because you can say this is a tree and this is a tree and this is a tree the term tree is a universal it is said of or predicated of many things so right off the bat part of the problem here is what exactly is tree it's very easy to point to trees but can you point to tree what is a universal we use them all the time there are these terms terms are closely connected to concepts I have a concept of tree so here's a little logic for you given I have a concept of tree I can then according to that understanding I have of the tree way of being I can say that's a tree that's a tree that's a tree let's take another one man man is a universal I have a concept of may and so I can say here's a man here's a man here's a man here's a man but what is man there in reality what you have are a bunch of individuals that you are taking one name and applying the identical name to all of them so this is the big crush again you take this so much for granted remember philosophers take things that you take for granted and they turn it into a problem all right I wish I could say they were paid a lot to do it but they're not they're paid something to take what you take for granted and then turn it into a problem all right so we all know that we have all these universal terms that you apply to many individuals but what is B what allows you to use one term of all those same things so watch we take this term man and we apply it I'm using men in the old fashioned way that can be predicated of a woman all right all right so you can you can say men of whatever a hundred and seventy-five people in this room why do we use the same term for all these individuals what there are in this room are a whole bunch of individuals but we've taken this term and we're applying the same term to all of them what is it pointing to it would seem that it's pointing to something that is the same between them all something that is in common between them all but what exactly could possibly be in common between all the things in this room indeed it should it would have to be in some sense some one thing what one thing captured by that term man could possibly be in common to all these things in the room all right I'm just trying to set up the problem for you so we first have that first proposition that what the world is made up of a bunch of particular individual things but we have these concepts that are universal it's obvious that we use them so the universal can be predicated of many the question is why can it be predicated of many now for starters it seems we can say this the universal doesn't name something as a particular unique individual as for instance the name John Cuddeback does John Kotter back is not a universal right you can't predicate it of many even if there's another John Kutta back in the world and there's a few that does not make it be a universal because you don't predicate it of us all in the same way what it this is why we try to all have different names as individuals so when you point to someone as an individual you do not use a universal term right so our our names George Sam even if there's more than one George you know then you'll throw in a middle initial or whatever those are not universals those are not universal all right but Universal terms are pointing to something not as an individual the way the name John cutter back points to me as an individual but rather we take it name like tree or man what's it pointing to rather those things as sharing something in common so it seems by common sense it would seem that there must be something real in common between all these many different things but what exactly is that I'm back on the handout right now so one seemingly obvious answer would be where to where does the generality where does the generality of the universality of your concept come from the generality of the concept comes from our minds so how do you get it how do you get a concept how do you get the term man that can be applied to many well because your mind is able to do that your mind can take one term and say you know what I'm going to use this same term for all those things out there so it seems that the universality of your universals comes from the mind I'm back on the handout but if this is simply so that the generality of concepts is only from the mind then it would follow that there's nothing in reality that corresponds to those concepts why they're generalities simply fabricated but by the mind but there's no generality in reality right now we're moving towards what nominalism is going to say now a possible answer to this further problem the mind makes general ideas in order more conveniently to refer to individual things by grouping them together so why does the mind make universal terms well for the sake of convenience not because necessarily that there's something in the things that the same but we just like to group things together because that's more convenient but this leaves unanswered is there a basis in reality for that grouping the fundamental realist conviction now I'm starting to set up there's gonna be two main ways to answer it and you're gonna see this as we flip over that the pager the fundamental realist conviction is that there must be some basis in the reality for these groupings there must be something real in common between all the individuals of a kinds Jill song expresses this nicely next quotation I put here since the human minds so here he's starting to say the realist conviction realism ladies and gentlemen is gonna be the opposite of nominalism since the human minds is able to apply a single concept to two different objects indeed many different there must be something in those objects that makes it possible for us to conceive them as one there must be something real in common that's the same I'm going on here on the handout the big question is what is it in those objects that makes it possible for us to group them together to conceive them as one porphyry of your local tation here the very early commentator on Aristotle on Aristotle's logic this was in 3rd century AD he made the following remarkable comment I shall refuse to say concerning genera and species and things like man bird animal living nonliving these are all Universal terms right you can you can imply living this is living this is living this is living living is a universal term it's a broad genus all right I shall refuse to say concerning Jaina and species whether they subsist or whether they are placed in the naked understanding alone or whether subsisting they are corporeal or incorporeal questions of this sort or most exalted business and acquire very quick great diligence of inquiry so what is the reality of a universal the universal itself seems to not be an individual thing what is this thing called tree what is living what is human this great he was a great logician porphyry said said that's a deep metaphysical question a logician can do his whole logic thing and not have to answer that question that's a very deep philosophical question well as the Middle Ages went on they came to see this this is going to have this is going to require a great answer and this will the big this was the big fight what is the reality behind these universal terms any universal term whatsoever that you use alright so what I've done here on the back side some major answers to the problem number one and number two all right if you don't have a handout I apologize I'm reading I'm reading word-for-word what's there the first major position is there is in fact nothing real in things themselves that is a basis for universals there's in fact nothing real in common between all those individual things that we take some universal term and apply that term to that is nominalism nominalism at least in its strongest most pure form holds that that there's nothing real in things that is the basis for universal naming naming an extreme novelist when the earliest alms a man named Ruslan in the in the late 11th and early 12th centuries before Saint Thomas Aquinas he's a contemporary of the aforementioned Abelard who's also going to be a nominalist universals rustling holes are merely spoken words which are applied to many so what's the Rosslyn Saint the Turk the term tree all it is is a word that we say that we then apply to many but term man all it is is a word that we say that we apply to a bunch of men all of the exists in reality are individuals with all of their individuality yes we use universals nobody denies that there are terms that humans use as universals the question is does anything in reality correspond to it Rosslyn here is an extreme of saying absolutely not that is the extreme of nominalism note I go on there are more moderate forms of nominalism but seek to give some account for why the same term can be applied to many the immediate question that you if you're if you're following I know it's tough if you are with me there you're saying what well how would Rasul an answer this question why do you take the term man and only apply it to these individuals and not those individuals if it's not naming something specific in them did that make sense did you did you okay so so Rosslyn does not have a good answer to that question he simply doesn't so the extreme form of nominalism is it's kind of a rather extreme silliness of we use these universal terms but there's no basis in reality for doing so which just well then why why we do it well just for convenience sake to group them together but to group them together why would you group these together not those together there are more subtle more subtle forms of nominalism lasers I might go on note there are more moderate forms of nihilism that seek to give some account for why the same term can be applied to many holding for instance that it is because a there is a real resemblance between things though not a sameness so some nam lists will hold okay the these all these things that you call men they're kind of like one another there's nothing absolutely the same between them they're just kind of like one another so we use the same term for them there's still not something in reality that absolutely corresponds to the term man do you see you take that Universal term man and you apply it to all these things that are kind of like one another so you've put them together in the same group or put them together in the same set because it was convenient to do so not because there's something in reality that actually makes them be one in some sense be closely related to that these things differ from each other less than from other things that's kind of a clever one right there all men differ from one another less then they differ from other things it's kind of a clever way of saying you know there's a reason that you use the same term for all of them but it's a way of avoiding saying that there's something really the same in them and now right now this is what you start to ask yourself why are they trying so hard to avoid saying that there's something real in common between them well let me tell you something I mean when you get to this level the point it's because it's extremely difficult to say what it is that in reality is the same between them what would the metaphysical status be of this sameness between individuals so I'm going to go let me just say there was a couple more lines over it there are numerous positions the Sikhs are given account of why we can use universal terms while still ultimately holding there can be no common reality no common nature this is a term I'm gonna start using a lot natures it's natures particularly ladies and gentlemen that are going to go out the window with nominalism the human nature is the name for something that the realists are going to hold is the same in reality between all men that the term man is referring to when you predicate the term man of somebody so fundamentally in any anomalous is is going to ultimately hold that there can be no common reality no common nature in things that share the same nature all right second position the universe another way the fundamental other way of answering the question the universal terms refer to something real and thinks something that is somehow common to many there is something real that is the same that's shared by the many individuals this position is called realism when you're speaking the problem of universals now the term realism can show up and other things you can talk about a realist versus an idealist that's a different use of the terms when you refer to a realist in the context of the problem of universals it's a realist versus a nominalist all right so Plato Plato ladies and gentlemen is a realist he's an all flags flying realist universals he goes so far as to say this here's I mean if you ever read plenty Plato I love playdough I mean he's a player certainly has some issues but what was Plato's fundamental what was Plato's fundamental insight there are these unchanging natures that are the that are always there that all humans have in common he indeed he holds this so strongly he holds them that they exist in a separate world of forms there they are those are the universals this this this great man at the beginning of philosophy very strongly holds you bet there are these unchanging natures that the intellects can fasten upon these are the great unchanging forms of things the form of man the form of water the form of Justice the form of good these are the things that are the basis for your using any of these terms they exist in a separate world where they are unchanging now here's the thing you're kind of like ohoo good thing that someone like Plato realized that there are these things that give the basis for your using these terms but look what Plato had to do to be a realist Plato what's human nature well it's that unchanging human nature out there in the separate world where then it's just kind of out there and there's human nature as though you could kind of go and bump into it oh there's human nature that's realism right there that's not novel ism folks but that's a big fat problem because common sense is going to say ultimately there's not human nature sitting out there somewhere it's true it's not just sitting out there somewhere because what was our first point all it exists are individuals you don't have human nature sitting out there so Plato's a realist all right William of shampo died 1121 he held that universals are substances that are common to many individuals right here's the thing he takes the key arrested turned turned substance now you know gyro saab since i'm a substance the trees a substance bloom of shampo good Aristotelian he's solve the problem of universes he wants to be a realist so what's he do he says well what what does my term man corresponds to in things well it's it's it's it's got to be a substance so there's some substance that's the human substance that's in common to all human beings all I'm going to say right now ladies and gentlemen is that's catastrophic it doesn't work you're because substances are always individuals so he actually Abelard came along right at this point and in any here's shampo thinking is that what you have to do to be a realist what is going to be your accounts for what it is in reality that's the same between all these individual things now this is where I'm gonna ask you to give the Philosopher's credit there has to be an answer to this question and I'm gonna leave this go right now I'm gonna tell you what st. Thomas's answer isn't you're kind of gonna go whoa and we're gonna leave it at that but all I want to say to you is this this is just one of those moments where you just say to yourself okay not everyone needs just not everyone needs to see this but somebody does need to see it because if you have if you have people over here who are saying if you want to hold that there are real nature's you have to be able to give some type of rational accounts of how that so and then and then we over here are just kind of saying well no we're sure but we don't have any rational account we just really want to hold this and that just doesn't that just doesn't cut it there's gonna have to be some type of rational accountant the likes of as Thomas Aquinas are very well aware of that all right so ladies and gentleman I'm gonna read you a sentence this is my one sentence summary of how st. Thomas answered this question because we've spent enough time in this we have to start to talk about what what difference it makes anyway I hope you've gotten a little taste of the issue a little taste the problem a little taste of how great men you know so easier smarter as we look back on people the middle age in the Middle Ages and how many moderns might tend to go this they were really worried about that like wasn't their poverty or something to worry about you know opposed to the problem of universals homeland state ladies and gentlemen Asst if there's no answer to the problem of universals we've got much bigger problems than poverty and it's just so here's st. Thomas's answer the essence that's that nature that all share in common of whether it's the humankind the tree kinds the animal kinds the justice kinds quick well done to you this example yeah love Plato the the realist spent so much time on there's some what's piety one of his great dialogues called youthful for what is piety the Republic what is justice what in every instance of justice is the same there must be something the same between all instances of justice otherwise your the word justice is meaningful meaningless and how would you ever be able to determine what is just or not just if there's not something that's the same between every instance of justice and you've got to figure out what that is or there'll be no justice right Plato saw that but again so he popped justice out there in the separate world of forms what what for st. Thomas is any universal essence the essence exists in the individual as a real principal key term principle it's not a substance it can't be a substance the essence exists in the individual as a real principle which is individuated by matter all instances of this principle in things are specifically the same well numerically different ladies and gentlemen there is a boatload of wisdom in that sentence I just read you and I'm not going to ask you to take it on faith the neat thing is I'm just telling you st. Thomas understands what he's saying when he says those words and the rest of us just kind of go but I'm just gonna I'm just gonna say this much this whole beautiful thing of there is something real in me that is specifically the same as something in you while being numerically different meaning it's different instances so it is the same but it is different human nature is something real you and I are the same if we're not the same then we're not the same and that makes all the difference in the world if as a result of evolution we've just kind of come along where we're just kind of our own little individual thing that's kind of like the others around us but we aren't the same then you're not going to have a morality ladies gentlemen you're not going to have the teleology of things having a purpose where they fulfill their nature and become what they were designed to be you're not going to have an order of the universe at which to wonder if there's not something the same real in you and in me and between all other kinds of things between this instance of justice and that instance of justice and this instance of hatred and that instance of hatred this instance of love and that instance of love all of these things there must be a scent a sameness does love name something real love is a universal it's just every instance of it absolutely different than every other instance of it then what exactly are you trying to cultivate in yourself so there has to there has to be some realness all right sorry I'm just got myself a little work up there all right so now what we're gonna do this gentleman is go on - what's that state and it's our last it's our last section it's hard to convey there's and gentlemen what is lost when we lose confidence in the intellects ability to fasten on the nature's of things this is so foundational nominalism in fact pulls the carpet out of everything and so it's difficult to start to point to little particular things I'm gonna try to I'm gonna try to capture for you what's that stake and say a couple things about human nature the very intelligibility and tell us what it means no ability the intelligibility of the world and our life in it is at stake there is not an accidental connection ladies and gentlemen between broadly a nominalist approach to reality and that absolute confusion and purpose purposelessness that we find ourselves in now consider Aristotle sees us humans as rational animals that's his definition of human nature rational animals the term rational and the term an animal are both themselves universals that have to point to something the same together they constitute what it's a man all right aerosol ceases as rational animals our rationality that someone is not only what sets us apart from other animals it's also what gives meaning to our existence according to Aristotle here a couple of fundamental points about human nature I want you to bear in mind for us to see the points here the lower in us humans serves the higher the lower in us humans serves the higher there is a teleological ordering teleology means acting towards an end acting towards the fulfillment there's a teleological ordering we're in lower powers find their fulfillment and higher powers I love to say this to my students in the human nature course you don't understand all the powers you have as a human being until you understand how they all ultimately find their meaning in your rationality I'll put it to you this way ladies don't there's no reason to be able to walk if you're not rational there's no reason to be able to eat if you're not rational there's no reason to be able to hear if you're not rational the meaning of everything in your life all the lower powers of human nature come from our orders to your ability to be a rational person so rush with rationality ladies and gentlemen is threatens boom who you are is profoundly threatened another quick point on human nature our highest powers then are our intellect and our will our will which flows from our intellect basic basic Aristotelian tal mystic point to eyes powers intellect and will but your will is your rational apathetic it flows out from your intellect I'm pointing that out here because if we're going to undermine the intellect we're gonna undermine the will and I'm gonna move quickly to try to try to show you that at the end of the day ladies an gentlemen what does our intellects do here's just kind of a straight beautiful insight of the philosophical and theological tradition that we stand in what does our intellect do it must be conformed to reality your intellect is made to be conformed to reality it comes to know the truth by being conformed to reality by being formed by what is out there in a sense then says Aristotle so wonderfully beautiful leap by our intellect we can become all things by our intellect being conformed to what is out there we can in a sense take everything out there in and have it and be it here's a beautiful point from from st. Thomas that I love it's worth meditating on he says God couldn't make you so that you had the perfection of all things in your nature only he can have all perfections in himself by his nature but he can give you an intellect whereby in a sense then you can have all things by knowing them can I can I say again did you kind of feel that he can't give you he can't give you all perfections in your nature only he could have all perfections in his nature but he can give you an intellect and by having an intellect you are in a sense able to have all things by knowing them let me think I think go right to the top go right to the top layers and down to think think ultimately what what is what's our Christian understanding of what the perfection of human nature is when you will see the greatest as st. Gregory the Great says what do you not see when you see him who sees all things so in a sense you become like unto God himself by you're having this intellect that can be conformed to the way things are taken the way things are alright so bottom line here natures these stable ways of being that are shared by many individuals they are what the intellect most of all grasps this is how we know what things are later on what an incredible joy it is I just found a whole semester of my freshman Christum studying human nature we spent the whole semester studying something that if nominalism is true is not there we were studying precisely and only something that everybody in this room absolutely has in common and is the same in all of us and must be the same in all of us otherwise we are not human together that's what we've been studying this is the type of thing that the intellect must be able to fasten itself upon but it must be conformed to the way things are out there our intellect works by discovering those things and forming universal concepts that corresponds to them what happens ladies and gentlemen if you can't have confidence that there's a real distinction between birds and bees between living things and nonliving things between rational things and non rational things agent number you're losing these distinctions look at the world around us those who claim that we aren't different from the animals these things start to all meld together note I don't think there is anybody who can actually consistently live as though there's no such thing as human knowledge nominalism ultimately is not can't really be consistent because you can't really live as though the intellect doesn't know anything but then again ladies and gentlemen many of us live a kind of pseudo human life wherein yes we're using knowledge all the time but the same time we're living as though we don't really know certain unchanging truths don't we in a sense all do that every time that we sin if I may put it this way we're acting as though we don't know that certain things are universally and always and everywhere wrong we do know that but we act as though we don't know that let's back up to just see a key point and this is my kind of final wrap-up I think I've gone a little bit long if I take five minutes are we is that are we all right all right great thank you nominalism undercuts ladies and gentlemen the human vocation of discovering and living according to an objective good and that's gonna be my main point tonight nominalism in this Dominque connection to the world we live in nominalism undercuts the human vocation of discovering and living according to an objective good how does it do that what is good ladies and gentleman how do we come to a concept of good it's rooted in knowing that there are certain nature's certain nature's that are designed a certain way for certain kind of fulfillment think how we come to the notion of goodbye friends just looking at apple trees and seeing certain apple trees are becoming themselves they're living according to Appletree nature they're succeeding in being themselves goodness ladies and gentlemen is succeeding in being what you are according to your nature this is what goodness is it's succeeding in being what you are according to your nature so what happens if there's no nature in a word less than we tend to get a couple of results what do you get when the most obvious results that council nominalism ladies and gentlemen is skepticism often those who first and word nominalist they what they didn't necessarily intend this to come but the history of philosophy bears this out very strongly ladies and gentlemen that if you if your the NAM less route as opposed to the realist route you basically end up denying that the human intellect can really know anything other than just little passing individual things allow the most famous names in philosophy we're naming them something like a David Hume I mean they end up holding it you can just have kind of picture succeeding picture this is a profound skepticism the human intellect loses its very stuff in these great minds these philosophers who end up being skeptics that tends to follow upon anomalous of why because those nature's are the very food of the intellect they're gone but the next major result is done is that the will then once you have once you have neutered the human intellect right this is my big one once you neuter the human intellect which is what nominalism does the human will tends to take over the human will tends to take over this a rather complex philosophical and theological story that I'm not particularly going to tell you but the early nominalist tended to be voluntarist s-- the dame voluntarist comes from the will they gave a primacy to the will they gave a primacy to the will going all the way up and into God according to them God's will comes first God's will can do anything that it wants God's will just freely created whatever it wanted if there are no set nature's and things because God's will just just painted whatever this voluntourism holds that there are no set ways in God's own being that our nature's are an imitation of I'm gonna fast forward then from that volunteerism back there they still in general still had an ethics those Christian nominalist because they still hold that God taught you what was right and wrong but they had cut out any real foundation for that so now I'm going to fast forward to what has tended to happen since the Middle Ages now we have no knowledge of nature's as providing a basis for Ethics so we no longer have a reality to look to to which to conform our wills so just as the intellects no longer ladies and gentleman has those natures it must conform to I keep using the word conform numberless um undercuts your intellect having something to discover and to be conformed to well guess what now the will has nothing that it must conform itself to your will has nothing an absolutely demands that you will in accordance with it well that's exactly ladies and gentlemen what your concupiscence and Mike and Cupid sense was looking for I will now tends to take over it was it was looking to have that kind of freedom so what is the dominant theme in all almost all of modern thought the completely free and autonomous human will that can choose anything that it wants to because there is no objective reality that that will must be conformed to its moorings have been lost nominalism fundamentally undercut that there's an objective truth those natures to which first of all the intellects must conform and that then your will must conform quick quotation for you of Sartre twentieth-century existentialist I say this is this is this ultimately is nominalism having having gone to its to its worst but somewhat logical conclusion thus there is no human nature so start until the second page since there is no God to conceive it not only is man what he conceives himself to be he is only what he will will himself to be ladies and gentlemen in many ways this is the world in which you live where now you can be anything you will yourself to be for your fundamental human calling is no longer to discover the truth the to which you must conform yourself but note how it's dressed up and it can seem very appealing now the human vocation is that you define yourself the free autonomous will that must define itself very quickly very quickly just just just look at I'm just gonna read you st. Thomas Aquinas here from was commenting the gospel st. John and reach a Genesis and give you my my concluding statement here's here's the other side of the picture here's the exact opposite of nominalism this is where you have in God himself these unchanging ways of being that are what we were made according to real quick if we carefully consider this descent was a common turn in the beginning of st. John's Gospel if we carefully consider the words all things were made through him right that's right in the beginning chapter 1 all things were made through him the word we can clearly see that the Evangelist spoke with the utmost exactitude for whoever makes something must pre conceived it in his wisdom which is the form and pattern of the thing made as the form pre conceived in the mind of an artisan and artists had called that with you is the pattern of the cabinet to be made so God makes nothing except through the conception of his intellect which is an eternally conceived wisdom that is the Word of God the Son of God accordingly it's impossible that he should make anything except through the Sun and so Agustin says and on the Trinity that the word second person eternity is the arts full of the living patterns of all things astoundingly beautiful notion the second person eternity the word is the arts full of the patterns of all things it is clear that all things which the father makes he makes through him another line right after that he says so the word who is the art of the Father full of living archetypes quickly Zaman look at this cool notion if if you have an artisan who makes the cabinet so all cabinets have something in common with one another ladies and gentlemen yes they have something common with one another what most obviously do they have in common with one another they have common with one another that they all correspond to the understanding in the in the mind of the cabinet maker right he got the cabinet maker he makes all these cabinets according to his understanding so what do they have in common with one another they all corresponds to that understanding that he has was st. Thomas's understanding of the natural world here referring back to the Word of God everything in the natural all those nature's a tree originally is true ladies and gentlemen because its nature is according to the pattern in the mind of God the second person to Trinity by which it was made and so that is the ultimate basis Plato in certain ways came close to that but when your mind then is conformed to knowing a tree knowing human nature its conforming to a pattern there was ultimately there in the mind of God look at Genesis and God said let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds and it was so and God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the cattle according to their kinds and everything that creeps upon the ground according to its kinds and God saw that it was good isn't that remarkable of this how important it is there are certain kinds Universal kinds according to which God made things that was key in his gift of creation to us all right then what do we have now coming to know the natures of things Thais and gentlemen is a way of coming ultimately to know about the divine nature he has given us an intellect that in our humble trying to grasp the truths of reality to the extent that we can we are on a project ultimately to have insight into the mind that is the archetype the pattern from which these beautiful unchanging patterns came so our discovery of them is ultimately a way through to God and then further the entire moral life ladies and gentlemen our entire project of the moral life is nothing more or less than of humbly trying to bring our life into conformity with the truth of who we are that has been given to us a truth that we all share and so if realism is true as opposed to nominalism what we are doing here together ladies and gentlemen what we are always doing at the ICC is trying to come to know certain truths about who we are about the universe all these rooted in God himself which truths are the fulfillment of who we are and when we will in accordance with them we become ourselves thank you for your attention [Applause] hi dr. Goodman I'm really not trying to cause trouble go ahead yeah I I know that Pius the tenth saw that there this wasn't being taught or there was other other philosophies being taught in seminaries and that he tried to say that the scholasticism isn't that Tom from Thomas Aquinas should be the main philosophical area that the church teaches in seminary and and so I'm wondering is that is that being held is that still the case in seminary that this because it seems like this nominalism thing would would cause a bunch of issues with a humanism and and religious freedom and things like that so well you asked a great question I mean I'm just gonna note a couple quick things in the old canon law it was in the old canon law that seminary education had to be according to the basic principles of st. Thomas Aquinas I don't understand it's not in canon law anymore but it still is is very much encouraged by the church there's a great there's a great line of popes emphasizing how important it is to use st. Thomas Aquinas is the kind of foundation of the of of of a formation of the mind to think clearly about reality both philosophically and theologically doesn't mean the st. Thomas has all truths it doesn't mean there's nothing can be learned from other wisdom traditions so I think that it is commonly still done and in fact I think in many ways there's been an improvement of seminary education since things kind of fell apart somewhat in the immediate aftermath of vatican ii and all the problems they're not being implemented the way we're supposed to be and so forth and so on i think that there's a lot of seminary formation that is going on according to this the thought of st. thomas and so i mean so the there and is the good news of course you know the flip side is the the philosophy that is being taught more broadly right or the implicit because in general philosophy itself is not studied very much but implicit and often unfortunately implicit in a lot of scientific approaches is the nominalism a lot of modern science not all of modern science but much of modern science is fundamentally nominalist and that and so so there's there's there's a lot of influences towards the nominalism in the intellectual atmosphere right now we have our question coming online from David in Orlando who asks what were the theological disputes in the Middle Ages that concern nominalism versus realism well I'm not exactly sure how to answer that and I might be missing something there I mean the fundamental dispute was that issue itself in other words if one is going to develop and hold the fundamental tradition that had been coming from the main teachers Plato and Aristotle moving through the early theologians the likes of San Agustin I mean this type of thing was simply going to have to be answered and so if the question means what other issues are connected to it I've just say most all issues will immediately be connected to it it provides a kind of foundation of the worldview that would be connected to everything else ok here we go yeah is this who are we here or crow choice for abortion a change in terms for the same thing that's a it's a very reasonable question got you know I take that as is as connecting to the whole I mean there's the whole pro-life the whole abortion question and then we can connect that's the marriage question gender I mean I I put it this way and I think it's I think it's important I mean first Garland was joking when he said you know the gonna say there's nominalism of course but what he means is we'd recognize in our mind there's a failure here to understand certain basic things I think it's critically important apologetically passed orally to understand this there's so often a reason that when young people now have a question well could I perhaps change my gender it we need to understand that we need to be understanding of how such a thing can happen the the basic intellectual atmosphere is so bad that there isn't an understanding the basic principles of human nature and of the ethics that's connected to this and so we shouldn't be surprised in shocked that people who have not had the formation that we've had are are on a very very different playing field and just in fairness to them we need we need to understand that let me put this we have to be careful how we reach out so I'm just going to put it to you to you this way I think we often do have to go back to basics and and say something like can we talk about it can I try to reach out to here to help you think in terms of you and I share something very important in common you have a human dignity just as I have a human dignity we all have a human dignity we have to be able to go back and and and try to share our conviction in these things and I think we should think more in terms of trying to share those insights that undergird then our response to the moral issues is fear it otherwise this I think this is part of the reason we don't make much progress in the pro-life thing because we're not realizing that the the difference we have with them is is rooted in the difference way back down under here and so how are we going to address the the more root things I think is something that's worth are thinking about is the Plutonian theory related the Demiurge related to what you were talking about the truth dr. Kovak the truths of phone to the truth regarding philosophy and he talked about that our democracy based on the Demiurge I mean did God takes care of us God means work and demo I look it up means the people in Greek is it this related to what he's talking about forgive me to be I have a long question the first words you said I didn't understand French they say theory plutonium of Plato Plato is this related to what you were talking about the truth to conform to the truth it certainly yes I mean platonic truth is one of the great instances of their being of realism right and there's been a fundamental rejection of the realism all across the board and so it absolutely is related yes absolutely going a little bit further about I'm trying to relate with other people if somebody tries to bring forth the idea that not only is there not even a sense of universal but the even act of seeking one is just a pseudo intellectual way to hide somebody's personal prejudices and bigotry how do you try to diffuse that that clash of conflict and to say that there is more than just personal preferences that is more than just the truth is just what I say it is that's you're pointing someone the deepest deepest problems that there is how to do that my main answer is going to be there it's by it's gonna be by setting a good example I mean there's a number of directions we could go my quick quick thought is going to be this to show them that it's not a matter of personal preference now I think how to do that there is no magic argument here I mean that it's always a very I want to say it's a strong argument but people it's an often used argument by people who who finds a position like yours and mind be very threatening and just say well that that's just your opinion there is no immediate obvious response to the way you're just saying that because you want to I mean interestingly many people do just say things because they want to that actually is in fact the fruit of nominalism right it lays the groundwork for people to be able to just say things are as they want them to be and that's fundamentally Sarge you're going to construct yourself so interestingly we are holding for a position that is the humble position that is the position of our places to discover the truth so I'm just going my main suggestion here is I mean I mean yes look there are there are arguments the one could make like look in all these other areas of your life you don't that you are willing to grant that there's certain objective things that you need to conform yourself to so why would there not be objective truth here I mean there are things that we can do like that but fundamentally I'm going to say I want us to take the approach of trying to set a good example and trying to have a kind of as it were and then put it this way the kind of community spirit of we are gonna reach out to you and invite you to join us in a difficult project that we're on we can we show ourselves to be like st. Thomas we show ourselves to be to a certain extent still searching we're not just parachuting in with this kind of bomb of truth that we're gonna drop on them we are also on on a search and we have a fundamental conviction that all of us together are called to discover this truth which will be our own fulfillment our own but it's a film we share I mean I wish I had have said a little bit more in how I ended I mean the great thing is when when we're studying this truth we're studying something that is true about all of us this is what most of all unites us life ultimately is about relationship and communion this these are the things that unite us so in any case again particularly I think in this day and age it's going to be by our living that way dr. Kennebec we've said that speaking of Plato's universals obviously they don't exist in another world at the same time we're saying that all things were made through Christ right isn't he the model of all things and in a sense that universal in a nun in another world in our world but separate apart and distinct really existing square this tooth I say yes and not in other words imagine imagine the early Christians coming upon Plato who says that there are these unchanging ways of being that everything in our world is an imitation of an a participation of and it's and it's out there and I mean I mean this is one of those things where because Plato is in so many ways a sympathetic thinker and someone who is trying to go the right direction you want just kind of say oh my goodness you were just so close because it's just if you just take his forms and you put it in the mind of God then then all of a sudden that there are amazing kind of whoa he was he was profoundly right and so I mean we don't want to pretend of well that's what he meant anyway I mean no I mean he didn't see it and so I mean we have to be honest it's it's different and it is a pretty big difference you can say all astir will just kind of fix that we'll just airbrush it into Christianity because it is a difference but the same time particularly given this such a good thinker I think it's very fair to say he was he was coming in his own humility because in many ways he was like aerosol he's like st. Thomas in that way again it's only made mistakes but he had discovered something that was fundamentally right they've got to be kind of unchanging secure somewhere and he's right they are unchanging and secure in the mind of God in which everything participates which makes us be what we are so that that's why I say yes thank you very much dr. Kovak

Channel: Institute of Catholic Culture

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Keywords: Philosophy

Id: WCyS2pMFUPo

Length: 76min 2sec (4562 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 23 2017