Thursday, January 19, 2006

Various Links of Interest

An interesting paper by Branden Fitelsen on the ID controversy: Some Remarks on the "Intelligent Design" Controversy (PDf; hat-tip: OPP)

A very good paper by Helen Steward on the locution 'could have done otherwise' and Frankfurt-style examples: 'Could have done otherwise', action sentences, and anaphora. She's exactly right; and the fact that she is will turn out, I think, to be a serious problem for people who rely on Frankfurt-style examples to reject PAP.

An essay on St. John of the Cross by Hans Urs von Balthasar

A good discussion of Aquinas's theory of virtue by John O'Meara: Virtues in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas.

George Berkeley's philosophical/economic text, The Querist, can be found online at McMaster University. From the introduction:

I apprehend the same censure on this that I incurred upon another occasion, for meddling out of my profession; though to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, by promoting an honest industry, will, perhaps, be deemed no improper employment for a clergyman who still things himself a member of the commonwealth. As the sum of human happiness is supposed to consist in the goods of mind, body,and fortune, I would fain make my studies of some use to mankind with regard to each of these three particulars, and hope it will not be thought faulty or indecent in any man, of what profession soever, to offer his mite towards improving the manners, health, and prosperity of his fellow-creatures.


Also, the following is a very good webpage on The Analyst controversy: The `Analyst' Controversy. In The Analyst Berkeley sharply criticized mathematicians of the time with regard to the foundations of the calculus (analysis). It is Berkeley in his most polemic mode; its subtitle is "A Discourse to an Infidel Mathematician," and it is an all-out attack on this mathematician (probably Halley) as irrational. As he says:

Whereas then it is supposed, that you apprehend more distinctly, consider more closely, infer more justly, conclude more accurately than other Men, and that you are therefore less religious because more judicious, I shall claim the privilege of a Free-Thinker; and take the Liberty to inquire into the Object, Principles, and Method of Demonstration admitted by the Mathematicians of the present Age, with the same freedom that you presume to treat the Principles and Mysteries of Religion; to the end, that all Men may see what right you have to lead, or what Encouragement others have to follow you. It hath been an old remark that Geometry is an excellent Logic.


It's also brilliant, since Berkeley, who had always had some knack for and interest in mathematics, pounds some genuine problems people at the time faced when it came to giving the calculus a coherent basis. The work stirred up considerable controversy; several mathematicians rose to defend Newton's theory of fluxions, but couldn't always agree on what it was.