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Objections to the Grim Reaper Kalam Argument: Responses, Part II

I have a developed a suite of arguments, based on the Grim Reaper paradox of Jose Benardete (Infinity, 1968) for two related conclusions: the impossibility of infinite causal regresses and the necessary finitude of the past. (See my related posts: The anti-regress argument and the unsatisfiable pair diagnosis. In my last post, I dealt withContinue reading “Objections to the Grim Reaper Kalam Argument: Responses, Part II”

“Body, blood, soul, and divinity”

This is the second in a series on the doctrine of transubstantiation. Here I want to focus on further theological reasons for preferring Aristotelian hylomorphism to any kind of substance dualism (like Cartesianism). Here is what the Council of Trent taught about the Eucharist: “In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist ‘the body andContinue reading ““Body, blood, soul, and divinity””

Social Choice and Defeasible Reasoning

I’m the author of the article on “Defeasible Reasoning” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In revising my entry this month, I came across a fascinating idea proposed in 1991 by Sten Lindström (in an article first published in Theoria in 2022). As I argue in my article, the best approach to formalizing a defeasibleContinue reading “Social Choice and Defeasible Reasoning”

Voting and Epistemology

Voting and Epistemology Voting to Track the Truth (Wisdom of Crowds) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Voting Methods,” Eric Pacuit, 2019 The most well-known analysis comes from the writings of Condorcet (1785). The following theorem, which is attributed to Condorcet and was first proved formally by Laplace, shows that if there are only two options, thenContinue reading “Voting and Epistemology”

Arrow’s Theorem and Democracy

Importance of Arrow’s Theorem Does Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem (Kenneth Arrow 1960) challenge the value of democracy? First, we have to ask: Is democracy an end in itself or a means to an end? For Locke: “For when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby madeContinue reading “Arrow’s Theorem and Democracy”

Against the New Natural Law: Theoretical Knowledge of the Good

If my account of normative normality is roughly correct, then we can see that the human good is something that belongs, both semantically and metaphysically, to the domain of the objects of theoretical knowledge (in contradiction to proposition 5 of the NNL). It is possible for God or an angel to know the human goodContinue reading “Against the New Natural Law: Theoretical Knowledge of the Good”

Normative Normality: An Aristotelian Account

Happiness consists, for Aristotelians, in the actualization of all of our unconditional and essential causal potentialities. But none of our powers are absolutely unconditional. They all depend on two things: on our internal constitution being in a healthy and intact state, and on our being located in a normal environment (that is, an environment thatContinue reading “Normative Normality: An Aristotelian Account”

Aristotle vs the New Natural Law

Traditional Thomists (like Steve Jensen) and “new natural law” theorists (like Chris Tollefsen) differ radically on the nature of intentional action. For new natural lawyers, I intend to do something only if the thing in question is entailed by some description of my action that figures as such in my practical reasoning. For Aristotelian Thomists,Continue reading “Aristotle vs the New Natural Law”