The Root of Error in the World Today

The intellectual culture of the West today--meaning not the culture of people who deem themselves intellectuals, but rather the set of assumptions that are shared among many people in the Western world--has at its heart a feeble and rotting philosophy which has somehow survived for nearly a thousand years, despite its sterility and vacuity. This is the philosophy of nominalism. Once I've explained to you what this philosophy is, I think you'll see just how widespread it is, and how much it's contributed to the inanity of public discourse.

Let's begin with the common-sense view. Consider a dog. We all can recognize that a dog is a dog. No matter the differences between different kinds of dogs, whether it's black or white, heavy or svelte, fluffy or sleek, long-tailed or short-tailed, we can still tell that they're all dogs, because these features are only accidental (being mere "attachments") to the critters; there is still something about each dog that makes it "doggy," that it has in common with all other dogs. Aristotle and the medieval philosophers who followed in his general line of thinking, like St. Thomas Aquinas, would call this "something that makes a thing what it is" that thing's "substantial form" or "nature" or "essence." We do still see this philosophy preserved in our everyday language, e.g. "Yeah, it may be missing a leg and been spray-painted bright green, but it's still essentially a dog." What makes a dog a dog, or a cat a cat, or a man a man, is its substantial form, its essence. When speaking of this in terms of how we know things, we would say that there is a universal concept of "dog" that can be equally said of all particular dogs; that is, all particular dogs have a participation in the universal concept of "dog."

But some later medieval theologians were dissatisfied with this notion of substantial form or essence, and they had problems with the notion of universal concepts. There were some who said that though we may use universal concepts as a way to talk about things more easily, this universal concept didn't point to anything real--that though we may talk about the concept of "dog," really, truly, in reality, there are only these particular things that share enough common features that we choose to call them all "dogs." There is no such thing as "dogginess," they would say, only things we choose to call "dogs" for the sake of convenience. Individual things are only collections of characteristics (the "accidents" mentioned above), but there's nothing that ties together all these different strands or "stands under" them (substance --> Latin substantia, sub+stantia = "to stand under"); we simply call things with similar characteristics by the same name. This is the philosophy of nominalism (Latin nomen, nominis, "name").

There is nothing that makes two things each "dogs" unless we choose to call them such. Do you see the consequences of holding this philosophical assumption? It would apply equally to everything that exists, including people: if nominalism is true, then there is nothing that makes two things each "human beings" unless we choose to call them such. There is nothing at the core of us all that makes us the same. "Humanity" becomes a useful fiction which can be discarded when it is no longer useful, an arbitrary category that can be filled with different members as it suits us. So an American plantation owner can declare by his fiat that Africans do not fit in the category of human, and he can enslave them. Nazis can pronounce Jews to be less-than, and exterminate them. Abortionists can term unborn children to be mere "products of conception" and kill them. Suddenly, your gender or sex is not a given, but an option, an "identity" you choose; in the nominalist mindset, there is nothing that makes a man a man or a woman a woman.

Or think of the effect of nominalism in this way. Moral laws can only be set in universal terms, e.g. "It is good for humans to do X, and not good for humans to do Y." "Humans" is a universal term; they are all those things which share "humanity," that is, the essence of what it is to be human. But if we deny that this essence, this nature, exists, we deny that there is anything intrinsically common to humans. If humans have no nature in common, if "humans" is a mere label attached to really distinct particular entities, then we cannot say that anything is universally good or bad for them on account of their "humanity;" we would only be able to say what is good or bad for each of the individuals that we label "human." And who else could determine that other than the individuals for themselves? The door is open for each person to make their own morality. 

Of course, we could not have a society in which everyone makes their own definitions of everything, especially of right and wrong. So who makes these determinations in a nominalist society? Whoever has power: physical might, or political sway, or financial backing. The one with power defines our terms, and shapes our reality. The one with power, for all intents and purposes, becomes God.

What a terrifying thought. Most terrifying of all that this is the world we find ourselves in today.

Everyday Philosophy

Previously in this space I have made the argument that we all employ philosophical reasoning every day without knowing it, because logic and demonstration simply are the way that human beings think. This extends, too, to phrases we use that assume a certain philosophical principle. Let me give you a few examples of what I mean...

"Information"

When we receive information, we gain new insight or understanding about the thing in question; we come to know it better. Have you ever considered what a funny sounding term this is, though? Compare it to the synonymous words I used a moment ago: "understand"--all right, this new knowledge now "stands under" me so that it lifts me up to new heights; "insight"--OK, this new knowledge allows me to "see into" this thing, to apprehend it more clearly. But what about "information"? Actually, this very word assume's an Aristotelian theory of how we come to know things. I've mentioned before Aristotle's theory of form and matter, that everything consists of the possibility-of-being (matter) and the essential what-it-is-that-makes-it-what-it-is (form). Aristotle said that when we perceive a thing, we come to know it so that the form of the thing is impressed onto our intellect; its essence, its form, becomes a part of us: that is, we are "in-form-ed" by the thing. Which connects to this phrase...

"Takes one to know one"

When your intellect receives the form of the thing, Aristotle concluded that it rightly can be said that in some way you become the thing that you know. If I know what a nightingale is, it's because the form of nightingale has been impressed upon my intellect, so that I participate in the form or essence of "nightingale-ness;" I cannot know it unless it's a part of me. For Aristotle, it really does take one to know one.

"Haters gonna hate"

A phrase used by the kids these days to mean "You have a prejudice or bias against my idea which is causing you to react negatively to it without considering its merits; that is, because you already hate it, you can do no other but hate." This (I say with tongue in cheek but hoping it can get the message across) is an example of the Aristotelian-Thomistic principle of agere sequitur esse, or "action follows being." A thing will behave according to its nature determined by its essence, its form, the sort of thing it is; and by looking at the actions of a thing, you can determine what sort of thing it is. Dogs bark and cats meow. Woodpeckers peck wood and woodchucks chuck wood (that is, if woodchucks could chuck wood). Human beings act rationally. (Well, some of them, anyway.) So, if you see someone hating, clearly they're a hater... 'cause haters gonna hate.

If you have ever used any of these phrases, congratulations: you're an Aristotelian!

Addendum: On Transubstantiation

Thank you to my two colleagues who have reminded me that I am but a probie in the philosophical guild, and as such still don't understand everything perfectly. I moved too quickly in my explanation and made a mistake at the end.

I said that transubstantiation was an example of substantial change. This is not quite correct.

Matter is what individuates particular things: while my dog and your dog may both have the form of "dog," they are not the same dog because those two forms do not stand in (i.e. are not instantiated in) the same primary matter. The form and the matter together make up the substance. In any substantial change, the form (that is, that which makes the thing to be what it is) of the new substance is educed from the matter (that is, possibility of being) of the old substance. This is what allows us to say that there is some sort of continuity of being when things change, that things don't just pop into existence out of nowhere. In my attempts to explain act-potency, form-matter, and substance-accident, my examples involved just such instances of a new substance coming into being.

But because in the mystery of transubstantiation we have, not a new substance coming into being, but rather one substance becoming another, already existing substance or exisiting thing, the change does not occur in the same way, and thus cannot properly be called "substantial change." In the Mass, the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ; they become Jesus. It's not that Jesus springs into being where He didn't exist before; but rather Jesus, already existing, now becomes present such that where the bread and wine once existed, He now exists--you can point to the species (appearances) and say, "That's Jesus."

The whole substance of the bread and wine becomes the whole substance of Christ: body, blood, soul, and divinity. And as we defined "substance" as "form plus matter," in order for the substance of the bread and wine to become the substance of Christ, that which was bread and wine must take on not only the form of Christ, but also the matter of Christ.

At best, we could say that transubstantiation is a very special and unique sort of substantial change that works very differently from any other instance.

Again, I reiterate that these philosophical explanations can be helpful in pointing us toward what happens in the mysteries of the faith, but they can never come close to exhausting them or wholly explaining them. Which is why it's so easy to get them wrong. :)

Aristotle's Three Pair

In poker, if you're holding three pair, there's a pretty good chance you're cheating. When it comes to Aristotle's philosophy, if you can get a hold of these three pairs, you'll go a long way toward understanding his system. And since Thomistic theology uses Aristotle's philosophy as a baseline, and since a lot of Catholic theology today still relies on the Angelic Doctor, it might be of use to be familiar with these terms.

From the time that the first inhabitant of Greece or its Mediterranean colonies began thinking about something other than his sheep herd and olive groves, philosophers have been racking their brains trying to philosophically account for the phenomenon of change. How is it that something that didn't exist before could exist now? And how can things undergo some alteration but remain the same thing? How is it that I'm still me even when I get my hair cut or my appendix removed? And how is it that when a fire burns a log, the log ceases to be log-ish and becomes ash? Why is it that in some cases of change, things continue to be, while in others, one thing goes out of existence and another arrives? What the heck is going on here!?

Philosophers tried different answers. Some took the view that what we see is an illusion. Parmenides said that all that is, is, and all that is not, is not, and anything that seems to be to the contrary is a mistaken perception on our part; for Parmenides, there is no change, only existing things. Heraclitus, on the other hand, took the exact opposite approach: there are no existing things, only change. The universe is in a constant state of flux, such that nothing can be said to endure; you can't step in the same river twice. (His student Cratylus corrected him: you can't even step in the same river once. Cratylus followed this to its logical conclusion, that all things, including all words, are meaningless, and he never spoke again, only moving his little finger to communicate with his friends.) Others tried to say that things kind of change, but not really, because everything is really made of the same stuff, just more or less condensed; for Thales, it was water; for Anaximenes, it was air, and so on. None of these answers proved satisfactory.

Then along came Aristotle, who made a very reasonable argument: we all can see as clear as day that it is the case both that things really exist and that they really change. There's no point in trying to talk your way around those facts; you're better served to explain them. He went on: if a thing changes, it must have within it the capacity to be that new thing. Aristotle called this potency. And if a thing really exists, it must have something within it that makes it to be what it is. Aristotle called this actuality, or act. Here's our first pair. Everything that exists has both the potential to be something else, and the particular determination that makes it what it is.

Closely related to this is the second pair. Every existing thing is basically a relation between the possibility-of-being, called matter, and the determining actuality, or form. Yes, these two pair are very similar conceptually, for good reason. Form is a type of act, and matter is a type of potency. Now, let's get a few things straight here:

1) When we hear "matter," we think "atoms, molecules, protons, neutrons, electrons, etc.," i.e. stuff. When Aristotle uses the term matter, he's not talking about stuff in this sense. When Aristotle uses the term matter, he's not talking about stuff in this sense. When Aristotle uses the term matter, he's not talking about stuff in this sense. When Aristotle uses the term matter, he's not talking about stuff in this sense. Yes, I just intentionally repeated myself, for the purpose of driving the point home. For Aristotle, matter is simply possibility-of-being, potential, potency. It's not stuff.

2) Form and matter never exist independently of each other. You while never find matter in the Aristotelian sense just floating around, waiting to be informed; nor will you find forms drifting like ghosts, seeking some matter to inhabit. The two never exist without the other. They only ever exist in some already existing substance.

And that introduces our third pair. Form and matter combine to make an existing thing, called a substance. The substance is that which "stands under" (substantia) all appearances as the real entity. This existing thing also has many qualities which are not essentially connected to the thing, but are only attached (accidens) to it by happenstance, and are thus called accidents.

Consider a piece of wood. It's substantially a piece of wood; that's what it is. It's accidentally green, or rough, or pine-fresh. If it were to sit out in the sun and turn white, it would still be wood; if it were smoothed off by an obsessive-compulsive beaver, it would still be wood; if it were sprayed by an ill-tempered skunk, it would still be wood. All of those would be accidental changes. The substance would lose the accidental form (that is, that by which the thing has that attribute) of greenness or roughness or freshness and take on the form of whiteness or smoothness or stinkiness.

Consider the same piece of wood, currently having the substantial form of "wood" and also having within it the potency to become ash; now it's burned by the fire; the fire thus educes from the matter (that is, the possibility of being something else) the form of ashes. The wood has undergone a substantial change. It is no longer the thing it once was. The wood's potency to become ash has now been put into act; a new form has arisen from the matter; the substance, along with its many accidents, has changed.

Aristotle accounts for all of the earlier questions we had about change while not violating our common perceptions.

OK, let's tie this all together by using another example we're all familiar with: bread and wine sit on the altar at Mass. By the ministry of the priest, through whom Christ works, the potency of the bread and wine to be something else is brought into actuality; the possibility-of-being (matter) receives a new form; the bread and wine lose the substantial form of "bread" and "wine" and gain this new substantial form of "Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ." The accidents remain the same--it is still soft and white and small and round--but remember we established above that the substance is separate from the accidents; one can change without the other being changed. Now, usually, in our experience, we see accidents changing and substances not changing, but philosophically, there's no reason a substance couldn't change without the accidents changing. This explanation for what happens at Mass by no means exhausts the mystery of the Eucharist, but the Church has said that it is a fitting way to describe the reality that what was bread and wine is bread and wine no longer, but rather it is Jesus Christ.

See, I told you philosophy comes in handy.