Having had my appetite for the Middle Ages whetted by Edward Grant’s excellent book A History of Natural Philosophy: From the Ancient World to the Nineteenth Century, I recently read Edward Feser’s Aquinas (A Beginner’s Guide). And, on the back of that, his book The Last Superstition. If I ever work out what a formal cause is, I might post a review.
In the meantime, I’ve quite enjoyed some of his blog posts about the philosophical claims of Lawrence Krauss. This is something I’ve blogged about a few times. His most recent post on Krauss contains this marvellous passage.
Krauss asserts:
“[N]othing is a physical concept because it’s the absence of something, and something is a physical concept.”
The trouble with this, of course, is that “something” is not a physical concept. “Something” is what Scholastic philosophers call a transcendental, a notion that applies to every kind of being whatsoever, whether physical or non-physical — to tables and chairs, rocks and trees, animals and people, substances and accidents, numbers, universals, and other abstract objects, souls, angels, and God. Of course, Krauss doesn’t believe in some of these things, but that’s not to the point. Whether or not numbers, universals, souls, angels or God actually exist, none of them would be physical if they existed. But each would still be a “something” if it existed. So the concept of “something” is broader than the concept “physical,” and would remain so even if it turned out that the only things that actually exist are physical.
No atheist philosopher would disagree with me about that much, because it’s really just an obvious conceptual point. But since Krauss and his fans have an extremely tenuous grasp of philosophy — or, indeed, of the obvious — I suppose it is worth adding that even if it were a matter of controversy whether “something” is a physical concept, Krauss’s “argument” here would simply have begged the question against one side of that controversy, rather than refuted it. For obviously, Krauss’s critics would not agree that “something is a physical concept.” Hence, confidently to assert this as a premise intended to convince someone who doesn’t already agree with him is just to commit a textbook fallacy of circular reasoning.
The wood floor guy analogy is pretty awesome, so be sure to have a read.
Feser is great – my other favourite blogger. The recent Krauss series was excellent reading.
I’ve not read his Aquinas book but have The Last Superstition, which I devoured. Slightly put off by his spurious anti- gay marriage rant at the beginning; ok the guy’s a conservative but it seemed very partisan to present that as if it was the pinnacle or summation of Aristotelian philosophy.
On 4 causes I recall his ‘four causes of a rubber ball’ example:
Material cause = rubber
Formal cause = round, the form that makes rubber into a ball
Efficient cause = making the ball: melting rubber, pressing it into a ball shape etc
Final Cause = why is it being made? e.g. for kids to play with
I guess that is it on a very simple level. What’s your difficulty with formal causes?
I guess formal causes also can be compared to the “composition”. How does the combination of matter and energy give the object different “potentialities”. For example how the mixture of 2 portions of hydrogen and 1 portion of oxygen gives the object (water) different potentialities (e.g. vaporize), even though they may never be exploited.
Feser’s “sweep it under the rug” analogy to satirise naturalist responses to the chalenge of consciousness is terrifically sharp: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/nagel-and-his-critics-part-vii.html#more
I feel it is disturbing that Krauss can keep saying this stuff after he seems to have been clearly refuted, and people keep buying it. Of course there will always be people who ignore evidence and good argument, but you wouldn’t think such an otherwise capable guy would be among them. There are other areas of human thinking and knowledge (mostly related to religion, but not always) where this seems to be happening, making a disturbing trend.