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On Modern Science and Sacred Traditions

“Religion is anti-science.”  Jerry Coyne, Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, once wrote the following:

I’ll construe “science” as the set of tools we use to find truth about the universe, with the understanding that these truths are provisional rather than absolute.  These tools include observing nature, framing and testing hypotheses, trying your hardest to prove that your hypothesis is wrong to test your confidence that it’s right, doing experiments and above all replicating your and others’ results to increase confidence in your inference.

And I’ll define religion as does philosopher Daniel Dennett: “Social systems whose participants avow belief in a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought.” Of course many religions don’t fit that definition, but the ones whose compatibility with science is touted most often – the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam – fill the bill.

“Yes, there is a war between science and religion”, The Conversation, 21 December 2018

These two definitions, as Coyne puts it, construe incompatible ways of viewing the world.  Arguably, however, these are very bad ways of defining both religion and science.  Neither gets after something essential, but aims, instead, at a kind of generalized amalgamation.  Coyne goes on from these dubious definitions to argue that religion provides no good reasons or evidence for its claims, but requires unreasoning faith, whereas science employs an empirical method of inquiry that can result in “confident inferences”.

1. Reconciling Sources

Debating Coyne’s unserious and weak assertions (and understanding) is not our purpose, here, however.  His—and generally other “new atheist” objections (which smack of intellectual insecurity; what else could so philosophically-bereft minds feel, when facing philosophically-dependent questions?)—instead serve to raise a point: how should we understand science, and, with that, its compatibility with religion and sacred traditions?

The hermeneutic question of interpreting different sources for truth—the books of nature and of revelation—has long been asked by none other than religiously-minded figures themselves.  On its own, asking this hermeneutic question is itself a kind of scientific inquiry.  For we must recognize that what often goes by the name “science” today—or “modern science”—is but one dependent branch on the tree of human understanding.  To this end, Jeremy Bentham (of all people!) once felicitously proposed the terms “idioscopic” and “cenoscopic” to distinguish between the methods used in “modern science” and the philosophically-geared methods of discovery.  Fr. Scott Randall Paine has an extensive and wonderful essay on the distinction available here.  In short, the idioscopic specializes its vision to discern things indiscernible otherwise; while the cenoscopic utilizes the common reasoning capacities of the human being to resolve discoveries into a coherent whole.  Regarding idioscopy as alone the tree upon which knowledge grows (cutting that branch off and sticking it in the ground, as it were) has borne sickly intellectual fruits.  “Modern science”, divorced from the humanities, arts, philosophy, religion and theology—all the domains of cenoscopic inquiry—leaves us with an unresolved picture of the world.

But modern science alone does not cause this separation.

1. Scripture and Science

Commenting upon the modern philosophical rejection of the textually-commentarial tradition of Scholasticism, John Deely writes in a lengthy footnote:

Although sometimes I wonder to what extent this objection of the times, apparently directed against the Aristotelian philosophers, a safe target, is not the more intended for the unsafe target of the theologians, who in fact have always been the far more culpable in this area from the earliest Christian times.  I think of such examples as that of Cosmas Indicopleustes with his Christian Topography (Alexandria, i.535–47ad), “in which he refutes the impious opinion that the earth is a globe”, for “the Christian geography was forcibly extracted from the texts of scripture, and the study of nature was the surest symptom of an unbelieving mind.  The orthodox faith confined the habitable world to one temperate zone, and represented the earth as an oblong surface, four hundred days’ journey in length, two hundred in breadth, encompassed by the ocean, and covered by the solid crystal of the firmament” (Gibbon 1788).  But examples of equal or greater offensiveness can easily be culled from every tradition of sacred, “revealed” texts, both before and outside of the Christian development.  Surely, within the Christian era, one of the more outstanding examples of hermeneutic abuse is the career of the “blessed” Robert Cardinal Bellarmine (1542–1621) who, well in advance of the most famous trials over which he held sway (in 1600 that of Bruno, in 1616 that of Copernicus’ work, laying the ground for the 1633 condemnation of Galileo), had arrived through scriptural study at a detailed cosmology which he regarded as “virtually revealed”.  These astonishing results he recorded between 1570 and 1572 in his unpublished Commentary on Qq. 65-74 of Aquinas c.1266 [Summa theologiae, prima pars], autographs which we may hope will one day be brought to full publication (Baldini and Coyne 1984 [“The Louvain Lectures of Bellarmine and the Autograph Copy of his 1616 Declaration to Galileo”] is barely a start) to add to the many object-lessons still resisted that make up the ending of the “Galileo Affair”: see Blackwell 1991 [Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Church] esp. 40–45, 104–06 (on the truth of the Bible even in trivial matters being guaranteed as Bellarmine put it, ex parte dicentis – “because of God being the one who says so”).  Too bad Galileo, writing in 1615 with Bellarmine in mind as well as still alive (see Blackwell 1991: 274), felt constrained to leave unpublished his observation that “those who try to refute and falsify [propositions about the physical world] by using the authority of… passages of Scripture will commit the fallacy called ‘begging the question’.  For since the true sense of the Scripture will already have been put in doubt by the force of the argument, one cannot take it as clear and secure for the purpose of refuting the same proposition.  Rather one needs to take the demonstrations apart and find their fallacies with the aid of other arguments, experiences, and more certain observations.  And when the truth of fact and of nature has been found in this way, then, but not before, can we confirm the true sense of Scripture and securely use it for our purposes.  Thus again the secure path is to begin with demonstrations, confirming the true and refuting the false”.  This lesson applies across the cultures to every group that draws upon texts deemed revealed, not in every case, indeed, but wherever arise questions that can be investigated and resolved by means of natural investigations, scientific or philosophical.

Deely 2002: What Distinguishes Human Understanding, 57-58n13.

While I generally agreed with my mentor on many things, I find his objections (and dismissive attitude) toward Bellarmine problematic.  Yet—I must admit a hesitation here.  There seems to be a valid objection to the hermeneutic used often still today by Biblical literalists; one which attempts to conform an understanding of the physical world to an already-determined interpretation of Scripture’s meaning, rather than to understand Scripture’s revelations about the natural world through an understanding of that world itself.  Study of the natural world responds to our human thirst for knowledge, and, nourished in the proper context of a holistic human learning, enlivens the soul.  To constrain it under the bounds of a Scriptural interpretation itself question does, indeed, beg the principle.

3. Universal Hermeneutics of Continuity

Can we resolve the diverse sources of knowledge into a coherent whole?  How?  How should we interpret Scripture and science as parts of one continuous whole for human knowledge?  Join us this evening (and perhaps again in the future!) to discuss.

Philosophical Happy Hour

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Come join us for drinks (adult or otherwise) and a meaningful conversation. Open to the public! Held every Wednesday from 5:45–7:15pm ET.

A Philosophical Inquiry into Facts

What is a fact? The English word, used so commonly throughout the modern world, comes from its Latin cognate, factum: an event, occurrence, a deed, an achievement. But since the mid-17th century, under the auspices of the Enlightenment’s so-called “empiricism”, the word has been taken to be a “reality” known as independent of observation. The fact is Absolute. Facts, therefore, are discovered by and studied within “science”. They are “objective”. They are “verifiable”. That water at sea level boils at 212° Fahrenheit; that Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492; that Chicago is west of New York: most people regard these as facts.

Other claims may be disputed, such as that Jesus Christ rose from the dead; or that Domingo de Soto was the first to introduce the distinction between formal and instrumental signs. These disputes hinge upon the evidence: given the right data, it is thought, we could decide definitively one way or another. Other claims are not disputed as to their factuality, but regarded as irresoluble to facts. For instance, the claim that socialism is evil, or that capitalism drives moral flaw; that Aquinas was a better philosopher than Wittgenstein, or that a particular pope has undermined the Catholic faith.

Pseudo-Philosophical Presuppositions

This bifurcation into what is or is not a fact, however, presupposes much. Arguments often appeal to facts (or “evidence”). Arguments structured through or upon factual bases typically appear stronger. Contrariwise, if someone lacks a factual basis for his argument, others will regard that argument as “subjective”, a matter of opinion, and therefore as weak. To give an example, consider the claim that socialism is evil. The commonest way to defend this claim consists in examining facts about the Soviet Union. We advance the argument by pointing to the number of people killed, or the churches destroyed. We look at the facts of the Gulag. The Soviets themselves did all they could to hide these facts from much of the world.

Curiously enough, however, the Soviets (at least those making the decisions), despite their efforts to hide the facts did not seem overly troubled by them. Indeed: commonly, “facts” seem themselves always embedded in social contexts of interpretation. Bruno Latour has argued that what we regard as “facts” are not mind-independent truths discovered through science but socially-constructed fictions premised upon some observation. That is: circumstances and instruments, as well as often-tacit social agreements, contextualize every purported discovery of “fact”.

Discussing the Philosophical Reality of “Facts”

Yet the idea of the “fact”, despite such challenges, remains powerful in our contemporary social imaginary. Facts, as oft-repeated by a certain fast-talking pundit, do not care about your feelings.

But, we have to ask—we ought to ask—is there even really such a thing as a “fact”? What makes something to be a fact? How do we discover them, share them, interpret them? Can we gain “factual knowledge” without interpretation?

Join us this evening to discuss facts—and philosophy!

Philosophical Happy Hour

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Come join us for drinks (adult or otherwise) and a meaningful conversation. Open to the public! Held every Wednesday from 5:45–7:15pm ET.

On Education and Its Institutions

The contemporary controversy concerning education centers around the institutions tasked with providing it.  We ask ourselves what curricula should be implemented, what teaching methods are most effective, and how governmental agencies can assist in the growth of educational institutions—we debate the morality of teachers and their influence, the rights to speech and questioning, the difficulty of grading and assessment and so on and on.  All too rarely, especially as these disputes intensify, do we pause to question our presuppositions concerning the true nature and purpose of education itself.  Indeed: long is it overdue that we turn our gaze away from the institutional structure and instead towards the individual, the family, and especially the parents who themselves are not only the first teachers of their children, but who ought to teach them always—who ought to be models from which their children learn throughout life.

This is not to deny the necessity of educational institutions—not only as pragmatic necessities for parents who cannot afford to homeschool but also for higher learning of every kind.  Yet, though necessary, institutions will always be insufficient.  We cannot outsource or offload the responsibility for education to any institution or collection of institutions.  Institutions are lenses that help bring clarity and focus; but they are not the light.

Real Education

Education, as any experienced educator knows, consists in guiding rather than informing; in fostering the right questions rather than the correct answers.  Intellectual nourishment, however, requires a holistic approach.  Going to the gym five days a week will do relatively little for one’s health if all other hours of the day are marked by constant consumption of junk food and buttery baked goods.  So too, the best teaching in school cannot eradicate contrary examples given at home—nor, for that matter, should this be required.  For the student to see his parents’ leisure hours consumed whole by television or distractions encourages inheritance of the same infertile habit.  Every human being signifies to every other not only through words and actions, but by the virtues and vices cultivated in one’s person.  We not only think through signs; we are ourselves symbols, signifiers of the truths and goods in which we believe, shown through our actions.

Thus, we must reorient our perspective on education: the foundation—the first symbol by which its merit is conveyed to the child and spread throughout the culture—cannot be found in the institution but rather only within the household and particularly in parents aflame with their own love for wisdom and learning.  This love becomes a first spark in the lives of children—to be focused and brightened by the lenses of educational institutions.  But they can neither start nor maintain that fire.

Communal Lights

This love of learning and discovery passed from parent to child need not be of abstruse topics—neither metaphysics nor science, theological controversy nor philosophical dialectic—but can be rooted in the very life of the home: in the tradition of family, in the cultivation of land, in the play of language through story and invention.  Principally, this love must kindle the natural desire to know, that sits at the heart of every human being.  That parents may seek development of their own higher education, of course, serves all the better, for this demonstrates that learning not only satisfies curiosity or amusement, but that it requires discipline, and that this discipline earns the soul richer rewards. 

By showing this intellectual discipline to children—and, indeed, one’s whole community—the parent (or even the unmarried and childless adult) exposes the lie that education after childhood constitutes a mere hobby or pastime.  At the Lyceum Institute we aim to provide a digital community which supports this continued pursuit of learning—as, indeed, education always is enriched by being shared with others.  In fact, no education occurs alone; it is handed down by ourselves and by others and flourishes thereby, through books and records of findings and thought.  But a living engagement takes it further: brings it into the life possible only through conversation, through disputation, through real questioning. Community, structured by an institution, helps shape the lens through which the lights of learning shine brighter.

We would love for you to join us.

Art of Rhetoric I: Discovery of Arguments

“…it is strange if it is a shameful thing not to be able to come to one’s own aid with one’s body but not a shameful thing to do so by means of argument, which is to a greater degree a human being’s own than is the use of the body.”

Aristotle, Art of Rhetoric, 1355a 40—1355b 3.

The nature and function of rhetoric have both long been matters of controversy, even among classical and like-minded authors. We find the reason for this controversy in the complex relationality of orator and audience: for each is ordered to an object, and the correspondence of such order a matter necessarily complex. That is, persuasion—with which rhetoric is concerned—concerns a myriad of relations. The rhetorician aims to bring these relations into alignment. Rhetoric as a study concerns first the discovery of the means of such alignment and, second, their application.

Discovering the means requires keen awareness of the instruments suitable for this task. In persuasion, we attempt to change another’s beliefs. That is, we attempt to convince another of the truth of some proposition so as to act in accordance with that truth when the occasion occurs. If we are corrupt, we will do so with disregard to that propositions’ truth ourselves. If we are righteous, we will seek the clear exposition of that truth. But before we can affect such exposition, we must be clear-sighted ourselves. Attaining such clarity is the goal of this, the first of two Art of Rhetoric courses offered at the Lyceum Institute.

Overall Course Structure

This course—as but one of eight courses in our Trivium program—is not intended to be taken as a standalone pursuit but integrated with the other arts. There are no prerequisites to our study of Rhetoric I: Discovery of Arguments, although it is encouraged that students begin with Grammar I: Foundations and Logic I: Basics of Argumentation.

The Art of Rhetoric I: Discovery of Arguments is 8 weeks long, with one brief recorded lecture and two recorded discussion sessions each week.  Each discussion session is structured around readings of Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric, Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria, and Edward Corbett’s textbook, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student, with supplements and examples drawn from elsewhere in the tradition.  Our study within discovery will attend primarily to the works of Aristotle and Corbett.  Participants are expected to have read the assigned reading and listened to the lecture prior to the session, so that they may engage in a semi-structured discussion directed and moderated by the instructor and ask insightful questions about language and its use.  Moreover, continual discussion will foster that participation and engagement throughout the week.  Participants will be expected to partake in these discussions on a regular basis and will be challenged to do so directly.

Weekly Structure

Each week there will also be a 15 to 45-minute audio or video lecture, posted to Teams at the beginning of the week.  This lecture will be based upon the assigned reading, but will also stray into related topics, or may use the reading as a launching point for addressing some related issue (perhaps one more general, or perhaps one more specific). 

Though elements of the study of rhetoric can occur asynchronously—there being countless examples wherein we may encounter it on our own—discussions are nevertheless crucial for rightly directing our attention to the most salient points of expressing ourselves persuasively through language.  Accordingly, two discussion sessions per week (with a midway break) will be held on Mondays from 6:00-6:45pm ET and Thursdays from 12:00-12:45pm ET, beginning on 4 September 2023 and ending on 2 November 2023,

Required Texts

  • Edward P.J. Corbett’s Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (in first or second editions; PDF provided though purchase strongly recommended).
  • Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric, translated by Robert C. Barlett (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019).
  • Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria in the Loeb edition (Latin-English facing; PDFs provided).
  • Some additional readings will also be required (PDFs to be provided).  Readings are subject to change.

Enroll Today

Study Rhetoric at the Lyceum

All Trivium courses are included in every level of Lyceum Institute enrollment. Sign up or take a Tour today to begin your mastery of language and deepening of thought.

John Poinsot – Cursus Theologicus

Cursus Theologicus

The work of John Poinsot, also known as Joannes a Sancto Thoma (though as John Deely noted, his name has often been given in many other variations, across English, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, French, and Latin), has long been the victim of great neglect. His Cursus Philosophicus was critically-edited and published in the 1930s under the blessed endeavor of Beatus Reiser, O.S.B., and reprinted in 2008 by Olms Verlag. Currently, his Cursus Theologicus is undergoing a similar critical evaluation and re-publication.

Though the facsimile reprint volumes here are taken from the non-critical and therefore somewhat unreliable Latin text Vives edition of the 1880s, they are presented in full and affordably. The far superior critical Solesmes edition has thus far reached only the fifth volume (in 2015) and sits outside the price-range of many.

However, in the meantime and in an effort to promote the study and understanding of Poinsot, these ten volumes (the tenth being the index to the whole series) are presented as-is, in a reasonably durable, reasonably affordable set. All the volumes are entirely in Latin. Note that only the first four volumes were completed in Poinsot’s lifetime. The rest were compiled and edited by followers of his posthumously after his sudden death in 1644, drawing from notes he had left behind.

The total cost for all 15 printed volumes (10 tomes), before tax, is $261. They are also available here to download free in PDF. Please consider donating if you do! (If anyone tried downloading before, I had uploaded the wrong Zip file! Apologies! Corrected now.)

Brief Table of Contents

  • Tomus Primus – Summary of the Sentences of Peter Lombard; introduction to and approbation of St. Thomas; Sacred Theology; God’s existence and nature.
  • Tomus Secundus – Attributes of God; the Work of the Six Days.
  • Tomus Tertius – I – The Ideas, Truth, Life, and Will of God.
  • Tomus Tertius – II – God’s Love, Justice, Mercy, Providence, etc.
  • Tomus Quartus – I – Mystery of the Sacred Trinity; Creation.
  • Tomus Quartus – II – Treatise on the Angels.
  • Tomus Quintus – I – Ultimate End of Humans; Human Acts.
  • Tomus Quintus – II – Human Acts; their Goodness and Evil.
  • Tomus Sextus – I – Good and Evil of Human Acts; Passions, Habits, Virtues.
  • Tomus Sextus – II – Effects of the Holy Spirit, Grace, Justification.
  • Tomus Septimus – I – Faith, Hope, Charity, Authority of the Pope; Homicide.
  • Tomus Septimus – II – Irregularity; Religion, Devotion, Prayer, Miscellaeny.
  • Tomus Octavus – The Incarnation.
  • Tomus Nonus – Sacraments in general; the Eucharist; Penance.
  • Tomus Decimus – Indices.

cursus theologicus – complete volumes

CURSUS THEOLOGICUS – TOMUS PRIMUS

In this first volume of his Cursus Theologicus, John Poinsot summarizes the four books of Peter Lombard’s Sentences, gives an introduction to the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, explains the connection and order of the whole Summa Theologiae, provides a treatise lauding and defending the authoritative teaching of St. Thomas, and exposits the first seven questions of the Prima Pars of the Summa Theologiae.

CURSUS THEOLOGICUS – TOMUS SECUNDUS

In the second volume of his Cursus Theologicus, Poinsot continues his commentary on the treatise concerning the divine nature, from question eight through fourteen, before turning to the work of the six days of creation, in questions sixty-five through seventy-four, all of the Prima Pars in the Summa Theologiae.

CURSUS THEOLOGICUS – TOMUS TERTIUS I

In the first of two parts in volume three of his Cursus Theologicus, Poinsot discusses the ideas of God, truth and falsity with respect to Him, and pursues the questions of God’s life and will.  Here he follows and exposits the wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae Prima Pars.

CURSUS THEOLOGICUS – TOMUS TERTIUS II

In the concluding part of volume three in his Cursus Theologicus, Poinsot discusses many more topics concerning God: His love, justice and mercy, providence, potency, and beatitude. He also takes up here the questions of predestination—not only expositing St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae Prima Pars, but responding also to a pressing concern of his own age.

CURSUS THEOLOGICUS – TOMUS QUARTUS I

In this, the first part of the fourth volume in his Cursus Theologicus, Poinsot provides two treatises commenting upon the Prima Pars of the Summa Theologiae: first concerning the mystery of the sacred trinity, and second, concerning creation.

CURSUS THEOLOGICUS – TOMUS QUARTUS II

In this, the second part of the fourth volume in his Cursus Theologicus, Poinsot delivers a thorough treatise concerning the angels, commenting upon the corresponding part in the Prima Pars of the Summa Theologiae.

CURSUS THEOLOGICUS – TOMUS QUINTUS I

This, the first of two volumes in the fifth tome of Poinsot’s Cursus Theologicus, covers the first nine questions in the Prima Secundae of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, comprising the treatise on the ultimate end for human beings, and the beginning of the treatise on human acts.

CURSUS THEOLOGICUS – TOMUS QUINTUS II

The second of two volumes in the fifth tome of Poinsot’s Cursus Theologicus, this volume completes the treatise on human action and considers the goodness and evil of human acts, continuing to build our understanding of the Prima Secundae in Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae.

CURSUS THEOLOGICUS – TOMUS SEXTUS I

The first of two parts in volume six of his Cursus Theologicus, here Poinsot completes his discussion of the goodness and evil of human acts and takes up also the passions, habits, and virtues, expounding upon the insights of St. Thomas Aquinas in his Prima Secundae of the Summa Theologiae.

CURSUS THEOLOGICUS – TOMUS SEXTUS II

In this, the second of two parts in volume six of his Cursus Theologicus, Poinsot continues examining and expositing the Prima Secundae of Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, taking up the topics of gifts, blessings, and fruits of the Holy Spirit, before turning to grace and justification.

CURSUS THEOLOGICUS – TOMUS SEPTIMUS I

Here, in the first of two parts in the seventh volume of his Cursus Theologicus, and acting as commentary upon the Secunda Secundae of Aquinas’ Summa Theologia, Poinsot treats of faith, hope, charity, the authority of the pope, and dedicates a question specifically to homicide.

CURSUS THEOLOGICUS – TOMUS SEPTIMUS II

In the second of two parts in volume seven of the Cursus Theologicus, John Poinsot discusses canonical impediments to holy orders (irregularity), the nature of religion, devotion, prayer, and various other questions pertaining to the conduct of spiritual life, following prompts from the Secunda Secundae of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae.

CURSUS THEOLOGICUS – TOMUS OCTAVUS

In this eighth volume of his Cursus Theologicus, Poinsot takes up commentary on the Tertia Pars of Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, discussing the many nuances which follow upon the Incarnation.

CURSUS THEOLOGICUS – TOMUS NONUS

In this, the final substantive volume of the Cursus Theologicus, Poinsot completes his consideration of the Tertia Pars of Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, with treatises concerning the sacraments in general, the sacrifice of the mass, the Eucharist, and of penance.

CURSUS THEOLOGICUS – TOMUS DECIMUS

This volume contains an invaluable set of indices to all ten tomes, including all citations of Sacred Scripture sorted by book, and a general, analytic index sorted alphabetically.

Sample Views

Video: https://twitter.com/LyceumInstitute/status/1672792840538054656/video/1

Trivium: The Art of Logic 2023

On 1 May 2023, we will begin our second Trivium course of the year: The Art of Logic. Our first discussion session will take place on 8 May 2023 at 6:00pm ET. This course is open to all enrolled Lyceum Institute members; having taken Grammar is not a prerequisite. If you would like to sign-up and take this course, enroll here. You can find out more about our approach to studying logic here.

In brief, however: is there right reasoning concerning reasoning itself? Can we reason rightly about other things if we are misled as to the nature of reasoning itself? Of course we can; but incidentally, rather than properly, and in a manner not precisely under our own control. Without having successfully undergone training in logic, we are much more likely to go awry in the formation of our beliefs—holding things untrue or unfitting to reason, that is—than otherwise. Thus, even though it is quite difficult, Thomas Aquinas rightly says that we ought to begin our learning from logic:

And for this reason it is necessary in learning to begin from logic, not because it is easier than the other sciences—indeed, it has the greatest difficulty, since it concerns second intentions—but because the other sciences depend upon it, insofar as it teaches the mode of proceeding in all the other sciences.

c.1257-59: In de trin., q.6, a.1, p.2, ad.3: “Et hac ratione oportet in addiscendo a logica incipere, non quia ipsa sit facilior ceteris scientiis, habet enim maximam difficultatem, cum sit de secundo intellectis, sed quia alia scientiae ab ipsa dependent, in quantum ipsa docet modum procedendi in omnibus scientiis.”

In our course, we will concern ourselves not only with learning to analyze propositions and syllogisms of both categorical and hypothetical structure, to parse prose writing for its logical structure (and errors therein), and to illuminate the illative relation which ties together all our reasoning, but also situate logic both historically and as it fits within the broader tradition of the Trivium.

Again, this seminar is open to all Lyceum Institute members, at every level of enrollment. Our primary (required) textbook is R.E. Houser’s Logic as a Liberal Art.

On Analogy

A Brief Primer on the Doctrine’s Confusion

Few topics have brought as much consternation to Thomists than that of analogy; not only those living and writing in the contemporary period (subsequent, that is, to the Leonine revival initiated in 1879), but stretching back to the first fluorescence of Thomism begun in the late fourteenth century, the question of analogy has wrought the wringing of hands.  In this earlier Thomism, two names stand out with particular importance: namely, Thomas Cajetan and Sylvester of Ferrara, authors notable not only for their independent contributions, but as those whose commentaries were included in the Leonine editions of the Summa Theologiae (Cajetan) and the Summa contra Gentiles (Sylvester).  Cajetan shifted the discourse on analogy, however, through an independent work of his own (De Nominum Analogia), often thought to be an indirect elaboration and commentary on Thomas Aquinas’ own doctrine of analogy, but well-demonstrated in recent years to be his own relatively original teaching.[1]

Largely because of Cajetan’s interjection (and the mistaken interpretations of its intent), the twentieth century saw an explosion of treatments concerning analogy.  Not only did monographs on the topic proliferate, but nearly every book of Thomistic philosophy, it seems, at least adverted to the integral importance of analogy—while few did little to clarify precisely what it was, even those monographs dedicated to the question.  Indeed, it seems that these works not only failed to bring clarity, but instead stirred up even worse yet the mud.

But what, we must ask, makes this doctrine so contentious?

Origin of Controversy

To provide the briefest summary possible: Aristotle twice in his Metaphysics (a name not chosen by his own volition) makes the assertion that “being is said in many ways.”  More literally translated into Latin, this would be rendered multiplicter dicitur, and such is a formulation we find Aquinas using often.  However, by a conflation of translations, the term analogia—despite in Aristotle’s Greek being reserved to the proportion of mathematical relations—was transferred into Latin as synonymous with the multiplicter dicitur, and thus rendered by Aquinas occasionally with the phrases analogia or analogice dictum (“analogically said”).[2]

When Aquinas refers to analogy, we see he does so as a way of naming through a kind of relation to something understood according to the perfection which we are able to grasp.  Thus, when we say that exercise is “healthy”, this is because we know the perfection of a healthy body, and that exercise is healthy because it has a relation to making bodies healthy.  Somewhat similarly, when we say that God is “good”, we do this not by knowing the goodness of God directly, but because we know the goodness of things God has created and can therefore infer logically that the goodness belonging to finite perfections has an infinite (and therefore incomprehensible) existence in the Divine Creator.  Unlike the predication of “healthy”, we do not in the case of “goodness” know the greater perfection, but only the lesser and the derivative.  Nevertheless, though our knowledge of the greater perfection remains incomplete, we can nevertheless hold it as true, albeit necessarily mediated through the lesser perfections which we do comprehend (as, indeed, we would not know the healthiness of exercise if not for knowing the health of bodies).

The diverse kinds of analogy presented in Aquinas, however, gives rise to the question: what exactly is it that differentiates the kind of analogy employed in speaking of “health” as opposed to speaking of “good”?  It does not seem unfair to claim that, even though Cajetan was not intending to provide an expository commentary on Aquinas’ teaching, he does take this question as his point of departure.

Cajetan’s Confusion

For the sake of brevity, I will not here elaborate on these distinctions (which provide an interesting cognitive exercise but which, I think, will ultimately dissipate through disuse).  Instead, we should attend to one of the principal terms, central to discussions of analogy, upon which Cajetan attempted to shine a light: namely, being.  Here, Cajetan seems to re-center the discussion on the idea of proportionality, drawing upon the original meaning of the Greek term analogia.  Certain terms, and most especially that of being—ens, in Latin—were proposed by Cajetan to be significative of concepts which were themselves analogical, in contrast to those which are univocally predicated (that is, said with one meaning in every instance).  I have criticized this view at some length elsewhere.[3]  Summarily, it is a strange shift to take a property of linguistic signifiers, namely their univocal or analogical mode of predication, and attribute this to the concept.  There are many problems this causes for knowledge.[4]

To leap ahead more than five hundred years, we find the Thomists of the twentieth century, whose concerns were shaped by the need to respond against the faults of modern idealistic philosophy, themselves deeply dissatisfied with Cajetan’s doctrine (most especially when mistaking it to be an interpretation of St. Thomas).  In part, it seems, their dissatisfaction was spurred by the failure of Cajetan’s doctrine to answer the objection, propagated largely by Immanuel Kant, that “being” (and all forms of the verb to be) constitute naught but an empty predicate: that saying “there are” of “a hundred dollars” adds nothing conceptually (let alone to our bank accounts).  Thomists were—rightly, but undoubtedly excessively—concerned to defend the reality of esse (the infinitive of “to be” and used often by Aquinas to designate the act of existence itself as a real principle distinct from the essences of being), and especially to demonstrate how this reality overcomes the “epistemological gap” introduced by Descartes in asking how we can know that our ideas represent the extramental world as it really is.

Analogy of Being

Thus, it was thought, an answer might be found in not merely having an analogical concept of being, but in holding that being itself is analogically.  To illustrate this point, John Deely, in his 2002 article, “The Absence of Analogy”, cites a 1940 publication by Edward T. Foote:

It is because things really are analogous that the universe presents itself, a unity, attractive to intellect, and penetrable by knowledge which excels science.  It is because things are analogous that mind can course up and down the grades (the “steps’” of perfections—where univocal unities would be futile—can freely range transversely from category to category.  By analogies man can go from himself, the being he knows best, far down to the truth, the goodness, the beauty of all inferior creation, which is ordered to him; he can rise to know something of what it means to be a creature without matter.  Finally, since beings are analogous to Being, from the existence and perfections of finite things, man can have knowledge of the transcendence excellences, the very subsistence of God.

Foote 1940: “Anatomy of Analogy”, The Modern Schoolman 18: 12–16.  Cited in Deely 2002: “The Absence of Analogy”, The Review of Metaphysics, 55.3: 547n32.  As Deely comments, “Pure Neoplatonism unconscious of itself.”

What would it mean for things to be analogous?  The suggestion of Foote, that there exists within all diverse things a commonality of being that allows our minds to “freely range transversely from category to category” seems in no way distinct from any generic and supposedly “univocal concept” (or “univocal essence”—which would be univocal, by contrast, to analogical “being”, one must presume)—as, indeed, the concept of “deer” being grasped allows me freely to consider the eight different ruminants picking through the snow in my neighbor’s yard at this very moment; as, indeed, by “ruminant” I am free to consider not only the deer, but the giraffe, the elk, even the bison.

I am not here proposing a solution to the question of analogy; a question legitimate and not easily resolved.  Nor can the thoughts of Neoplatonists or those under their sway be cavalierly dismissed.  But we would do well to stop and reconsider what reality we are signifying by the term “analogy” before we say that something is or is not analogical.


[1] Cf. Hochschild 2010: The Semantics of Analogy.

[2] Note, however, that “multipliciter dicitur” is, by far, his preferred term.

[3] And criticized it rather harshly, as some would hold.  See Kemple 2017: Ens Primum Cognitum, 40–51.

[4] The biggest of which would be the converse implication concerning “univocal” concepts: as though a concept not in and of itself analogical must signify precise the same cognition-independent reality—as though there exists a quantum entanglement between the concept and every instance in which the concept is precisely realized independently of the mind.

⚘ Songbirds of the Primate World | Baranna Baker and Sofia Berstein

On 15 October 2022 at 11am ET (see event times around the world here and join the live Q&A here), Baranna Baker and Sofia Berstein will present on “Songbirds of the Primate World”.

Baranna Baker is an independent scholar who explores semiotics through the lenses of quantum physics and literature. She studied philosophy under the acclaimed semiotician, John Deely, at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. In her current work, she applies semiotic principles to literature, especially as concerns the acts of writing and reading fiction. She also plays with the way the quantum world affects our perceived reality and how that reality can be explained by the interplay of semiotics and quantum physics, via the action of signs. She has been published in Semiotica, Chinese Semiotic Studies, The American Journal of Semiotics, and Semiotics, the yearbook of the Semiotic Society of America. She is the associate editor of the latter two works and has in addition edited numerous papers, articles, and books relating to the field of semiotics, including proofreading John Deely’s book “On the Path of the Sign: Medieval Philosophy Redefined as the Latin Age” (read her review).

After receiving the M.Sc. degree in Primate Behavior and Ecology from Central Washington University in 2012, Sofia Bernstein pursued her doctorate in the Departments of Ecology and Social Behavior and Cognition and Learning at the PRI – Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University, Japan. While at the PRI, Bernstein was also a member of the Leading Graduate Program in PWS – Primatology and Wildlife Science, a highly selective program for graduate students at Kyoto University, funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Sofia’s dissertation, which was supervised by Drs. Michael Huffman and Hiroki Koda, was entitled “The Vocal Repertoire of Tibetan Macaques in Mt. Huangshan, China: A Quantitative Analysis, Congeneric Comparisons, and Species-Specific Derived Calls”. Bernstein has taught a wide array of courses including biostatistics, introductory courses in biology and anthropology, research methods and research design for anthropology students, and primatology specific courses at the undergraduate and graduate level. In 2017 Sofia was awarded a special appointment position that enabled her to supervise graduate students.

Commentary will be provided by Susan Mancino (Assistant Professor at Saint Mary’s College) and Amelia Lewis (Royal Society of Biology, the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies, and the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour)

Join the Live Q&A here.

2022 International Open Seminar on Semiotics (IO2S) | Website

This collaborative international open scientific initiative and celebration is jointly organized by the Institute for Philosophical Studies of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra, the Lyceum Institute, the Deely Project, Saint Vincent College, the Iranian Society for Phenomenology at the Iranian Political Science Association, the International Association for Semiotics of Space and Time, the Institute for Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Semiotic Society of America, the American Maritain Association, the International Association for Semiotic Studies, the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies and the Mansarda Acesa with the support of the FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education of the Government of Portugal under the UID/FIL/00010/2020 project.

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THE FAULTS OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY

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⚘ Peircean Robotics: Semiotics applied to the Emergence of Symbols | Takafumi Kato

On 7 September 2022 at 9am ET (see event times around the world), Takafumi Kato will present on Peircean Robots: Semiotics applied to the Emergence of Symbols. Those who wish to join in the live Q&A can do so here. KATO Takafumi is a full-time lecturer at Osaka Seikei University in Japan. He received his Ph.D. from Kyoto University in 2018. He is the author of “A Peircean Revision of the Theory of Extended Mind” (Cognitio: Revista de Filosofia, v.16, n.1, 2015) etc. and has so far translated into Japanese important works on pragmatism such as The Pragmatic Maxim (by C. Hookway, OUP, 2011), Perspectives on Pragmatism (by R. Brandom, HUP, 2011), and The American Pragmatists (by C. Misak, OUP, 2013). His research interests lie in Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotics and its contemporary applications. Nowadays, Peircean semiotics receives enthusiastic attention from various kinds of scholars such as cultural anthropologists and frontier robotics researchers. His present research project overviews such interdisciplinary discussions as a philosopher and supplements them with an appropriate philosophical context, aiming to increase philosophers’ commitment to them and reveal a contemporary significance of pragmatist thoughts.

Commentary will be provided by Dr. Sachi Arafat, Assistant Professor of Data Science at KAU – King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. His research lay at the intersection of data science and philosophy of science & technology. He previously worked on quantum theory inspired models for characterizing socio-technical behaviour while a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow at the School of Computing Science at the University of Glasgow (UK). His monograph Search Foundations (co-authored with E. Ashoori) with MIT Press (2019), was nominated for best book in information science (in 2020) by the Association for Information Science and Technology. Therein was proposed a new kind of science—inspired by the work on Heidegger and the classical philosophical tradition—for re-basing data and information science on rigorous philosophical foundations in order to create an explicitly explanatory science of AI from the ground-up for understanding technology-mediated experience.

Join the meeting room to participate in the live Q&A.

2022 International Open Seminar on Semiotics (IO2S) | Website

This collaborative international open scientific initiative and celebration is jointly organized by the Institute for Philosophical Studies of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra, the Lyceum Institute, the Deely Project, Saint Vincent College, the Iranian Society for Phenomenology at the Iranian Political Science Association, the International Association for Semiotics of Space and Time, the Institute for Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Semiotic Society of America, the American Maritain Association, the International Association for Semiotic Studies, the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies and the Mansarda Acesa with the support of the FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education of the Government of Portugal under the UID/FIL/00010/2020 project.