Civilization, in every generation, must be defended from barbarians.
The barbarians outside the gate, the barbarians inside the gate, and the barbarian in the mirror...
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Spelled Out Nicely
Tom Gilson politely explains why the anti-ID Thomists (who, let's face it, haven't accomplished thing one to discomfit the atheists in the last 15 years) need to simmer down.
"All of this might be true. I know very little of Aquinas. Thomistic language of final causes and natures and etc. remains rather opaque to me. I’ll have to keep working at it. But unless I’m severely mistaken in what I do understand, all that is beside the point anyway, because it misconstrues who ID is for and what ID is for. Intelligent Design, as I understand it, starts from a different place altogether and has different purposes. Its argument (as I understand it; I speak for myself) has a form similar to a reductio ad absurdum. If it allows naturalistic assumptions into the picture, so what? That’s how reductio arguments are conducted: by starting with the opponent’s assumptions, and in the end showing they fail."
Indeed. I've tried to make much these same points to, for instance, Edward Feser, to no avail.
One of the ways I have tried to get Feser to understand is by telling him something my father (who has a total of 19 months of formal schooling in his entire life) taught me: "You have to talk to your audience in the language/concepts that they understand (and accept)."
3 comments:
"All of this might be true. I know very little of Aquinas. Thomistic language of final causes and natures and etc. remains rather opaque to me. I’ll have to keep working at it. But unless I’m severely mistaken in what I do understand, all that is beside the point anyway, because it misconstrues who ID is for and what ID is for. Intelligent Design, as I understand it, starts from a different place altogether and has different purposes. Its argument (as I understand it; I speak for myself) has a form similar to a reductio ad absurdum. If it allows naturalistic assumptions into the picture, so what? That’s how reductio arguments are conducted: by starting with the opponent’s assumptions, and in the end showing they fail."
Indeed. I've tried to make much these same points to, for instance, Edward Feser, to no avail.
One of the ways I have tried to get Feser to understand is by telling him something my father (who has a total of 19 months of formal schooling in his entire life) taught me: "You have to talk to your audience in the language/concepts that they understand (and accept)."
Thank you for the kind mention, Matteo.
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