Status Updates From Scholastic Metaphysics: A C...

Essences can be either immanent or abstracted. Phantasm = mental image. Concepts are different than mental images. Property = proper accident. Properties flow from a thing's essence and are distinct from essence. The unborn are still rational animals even if their properties have not fully manifested due to immaturity.

Finished the first section on essence. Example, rational animal is the essence of the human being. That things have natures/essences is something obvious to the scholastic as alternatives lead to absurd conclusions. Moreover, the world operates as if essences were true i.e. unity and uniform predictable behavior of things. Science reinforces the idea of real essences. The conventionalist position leads to incoherence

Finished substance and accidents section.

Finished sections on hylomorphism vs atomism and the anti-reductionism in contemporary analytic metaphysics. Moving on to the section regarding substance vs accidents.

Finished section on Matter and Form. Matter is always accompanied by some form, it cannot be otherwise. However, some forms can exist without matter (ex. Angels). Started and finished section on substantial form vs accidental form. Learned about natural objects vs artifacts. Started section on Prime matter and secondary matter.

Read about the Principle of Proportionate Causality. Rejecting PPC means rejecting PC and PSR which would be an absurdity. Evolution does not refute PPC. Those who claim to use science to deny metaphysics are, ironically, using metaphysical assumptions. Started the chapter on Substance which began by recapping potency and then explaining matter and form.

Finished reading about series of efficient causes per se vs per accidens. This idea serves as the basis for the argument from motion which, contrary to popular objections, is immune from objections from infinite chains. Those objections are committing a category error which misses the point of the argument. This section also clarifies what is meant by First Cause and what God as first cause means.

Read about: Rationalists vs Scholastics on possibility. Absolute necessity → essence = existence (ipsum esse subsitense). No potency → pure act. Possible worlds are not necessary to defend PSR. The world behaves as if PSR were true. You can defend PSR with reductio ad absurdum. Rejecting PSR is self defeating. Rational/scientific inquiry presupposes PSR but PSR entails PC.

Read about: The Principle of Non-contradiction is not a good argument for the Principle of Causality. The Principle of sufficient reason is a good argument for the PC. For aquinas, metaphysics is grounded in concrete existents apprehended by the senses. The PSR can be reformulated to sound less rationalistic but still mean the same thing. Examples of transcendental notion are Being and Truth.

Read about: Newton vs Scholastics on "motion." Newton's mechanics does not and cannot refute the principle of causality. Some methods of understanding reality by their nature exclude certain aspects of reality. Aristotle's matter = modern physics energy. Causation is not essentially a relation between temporally separated events. The PC is the best explanation for why the world works the way it does.

Read about: Bertrand Russell's objection to the law of causality. Funnily enough, he himself implicitly concedes what practically amounts to the scholastic concepts of act and potency.

Read about: How God satisfies the PSR. All causes are reasons but not all reasons are causes. Causation is ontological, explanation is epistemological. Imagine ≉ conceive, intellect ≉ imagination, concept ≉ mental image.

Read about: the relationship different kinds of things have to their end. Efficient causes always actualize some potency. Principle of causality = actual comes before actualized potential. Potential cannot actualize itself. What a contingent thing is. Every composite has a cause and contains both actual and potential. Scholastics do not believe everything has a cause, that's an atheist strawman of first c. arguments

Read about causation. Efficient cause = agent cause. Final cause = Teleological cause. Intrinsic vs extrinsic finality (ex. acorn vs watch parts). Platonic vs Aristotelian teleology. Thomistic teleology rests between the two and utilizes both in a way. Immanent vs transient causation. All 4 of Aristotle's causes presuppose final causality. What chance is and why it not only cannot replace finality but presupposes it.