I’m thinking my way towards the sort of intentional view of moral nature pioneered by St. Thomas Aquinas. There is a clear explanation of intentionality, a biological concept to match our biological natures, in How Brains Make Up Their Minds by the neuroscientist Walter J. Freeman. Sticking strictly to the empirical aspects of this concept, … [Read more…]
The claim in the title of this entry is currently a vague idea, one based on a recent reading of Time and Free Will and a currently ongoing reading of Creative Evolution — I’m about halfway through. A little intellectual history: Etienne Gilson studied under Henri Bergson. At some point, perhaps after finishing his studies … [Read more…]
[Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World, Gerd Gigerenzer, Oxford University Press, 2000] Professor Gigerenzer starts off the introduction to Part IV with a strong claim: The study of human thinking is deeply suspicious of introducing anything genuinely social into the world of “pure” rationality. As in much of cognitive science, most researchers have fallen … [Read more…]
[“Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World”, Gerd Gigerenzer, Oxford University Press, 2000] In part III (chapters 7-8), Professor Gigerenzer tells us: “To understand the power of human intelligence, one needs to analyze the match between cognitive strategies and the structure of environments. Together they are like a pair of scissors, each blade of little … [Read more…]
I seem to have spoken of Creation is two ways. There’s no real inconsistency but I was confused myself for a while a few days ago. In my most recent posting, What is Mind?: Part 4. What Does God Know?, I spoke as if the Primordial Universe, the stuff underlying all of Creation, is analogous … [Read more…]
Reductionism is often seen as explaining something away and, unfortunately, that’s often the goal of those doing the reducing. This isn’t a new development in modern thought. When St. Augustine explained the mind in terms of three components — intellect, memory, and will — he was reducing a complex entity to three components he felt … [Read more…]
I’ve argued that moral reasoning has the nature of narrative, a story, rather than being reasoning about axiomatic principles. This is certainly the most reasonable standard for Christians who accept the reality of the Incarnation. The Son of God didn’t come in glory carrying books on systematic theology and other supporting works in logic and … [Read more…]
What’s it like to be a bat? That question was a matter of debate in certain philosophical circles a decade or two ago. I read a some contributions to that debate and remember at first feeling sympathy for the arguments of those who were considered champions of the mind as something that is independent of … [Read more…]
[Part 4: Continuation of my comments upon reading Barth’s “The Epistle to the Romans”, Oxford University paperback, 1968] On page 437, Barth claims: “As an act of thinking [thinking of eternity] it dissolves itself; it participates in the pure thought of God, and is therefore an accepted sacrifice, living, holy, acceptable to God.” Barth — … [Read more…]
[Part 3: Continuation of my comments upon reading Barth’s “The Epistle to the Romans”, Oxford University paperback, 1968] As a passing matter, I noted a hint of modal logic in a passage beginning around the middle of page 324 with: “Thus, before every moment in time, God foreordains… Here is it that we encounter the … [Read more…]