I have been thinking about moving Houyhnhnm Land for a while, and have finally begun to do so. Here is the preliminary form of the new site. The comments are not properly done yet (either in the pop-up window or on the permalink page), but I haven't decided yet whether I'll allow comments on H.L.
The template is from Elise Free (there's a link on the page under "credits"), and is called "Fava Beans and a Nice Chianti." So far I like it as a general format, despite the Hannibal-Lectorish sound of the template name; but to make it fit my needs I've tweaked a few things and there are a lot of things I'm going to have to figure out how to tweak. *sigh* This is the problem with computers; you're always already behind. Anyway, if you have suggestions, let me know. I might end up changing the template entirely, but that's for later, if at all.
Do let me know what you think. I haven't yet had a chance to look at it from different screens, browsers, etc., so if you notice an obvious problem, let me know so I can look into it.
Siris will be here with Blogger for a while longer; if I like WordPress enough, I can move it. The old H.L. address will still be around; I'll probably modify it for some other purpose. Rather than import I think I will move the posts from the old H.L. manually; it will take more time, but will, I'm thinking, be less hassle in the long run. In any case, the actual transfer of focus and function from the old to the new H.L. will probably not occur for at least a week.
Also let me know if you have any ideas for the functionality of the site. One thing I hope to do on the new H.L, once it gets up and running, is occasionally to have what I call Guest Pieces. Essentially they would be guest posts in which guests from various disciplines would write an overview summarizing an issue of potential interest to those studying early modern philosophy (a very vast field, since it encompasses philosophy, history, literature, science, theology, etc.) and give an annotated list of references for further reading and research. The primary idea is for experts in various fields to give students a heads-up on issues in those fields that might be worth studying more closely. I think I might even be able to get a big name here or there, given that the commitment required for a Guest Piece would be barely more than that required to write a medium-length abstract. In any case, that's for down the road....
Again, all suggestions are welcome!
Saturday, August 21, 2004
Speaking of Coleridge...
Since he came up, here are three good poems by Coleridge:
Drinking versus Thinking
Or, A Song Against the New Philosophy
My Merry men all, that drink with glee
This fanciful Philosophy,
Pray tell me what good is it?
If antient Nick should come and take
The same across the Stygian Lake,
I guess we ne'er should miss it.
Away, each pale, self-brooding spark
That goes truth-hunting in the dark,
Away from our carousing!
To Pallas we resign such fowls -
Grave birds of Wisdom! ye're but owls,
And all your trade but mousing!
My merry men all, here's punch and wine,
And spicy bishop, drink divine!
Let's live while we are able.
While Mirth and Sense sit, hand in glove,
This Don Philosophy we'll shove
Dead drunk beneath the table!
And more somberly:
Human Life,
On the Denial of Immortality
If dead, we case to be; if total gloom
Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare
As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,
Whose sound and motion not alone declare,
But are their whole of being! If the breath
Be life itself, and not its task and tent,
If even a soul like Milton's can know death;
O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant,
Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes!
Surplus of nature's dead activity,
Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase,
Retreating slow, with meditative pause,
She formed with restless hands unconsciously!
Blank accident! nothing's anomaly!
If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state,
Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, they fears,
The counter-weights! - Thy laughter and they tears
Mean but themselves, each fittest to create,
And to repay the other! Why rejoices
Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good?
Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood,
Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices,
Image of image, ghost of ghostly elf,
That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold?
Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold
These costless shadows of they shadowy self?
Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun!
Thou hast no reason why! Thou canst have none;
They being's being is a contradiction.
And, more uplifting:
God's Omnipresence,
A Hymn
My Maker! of they power the trace
In every creature's form and face
The wond'ring soul surveys:
Thy wisdom, infinite above
Seraphic thought, a Father's love
As infinite displays!
From all that meets or eye or ear,
There falls a genial holy fear
Which, like the heavy dew of morn,
Refreshes while it bows the heart forlorn!
Great God! they works how wondrous fair!
Yet sinful man didst thou declare
The whole Earth's voice and mind!
If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state,
Lord ev'n as Thou all-present art,
O may we still with heedful heart
Thy presence know and find!
Then, come what will, of weal and woe,
Joy's bosom-spring shall steady flow;
For though 'tis Heaven THYSELF to see,
Where but thy Shadow falls, Grief cannot be!
(Notice, incidentally, the use of the line "If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state" to serve directly opposite moods and themes in these last two poems.)
Drinking versus Thinking
Or, A Song Against the New Philosophy
My Merry men all, that drink with glee
This fanciful Philosophy,
Pray tell me what good is it?
If antient Nick should come and take
The same across the Stygian Lake,
I guess we ne'er should miss it.
Away, each pale, self-brooding spark
That goes truth-hunting in the dark,
Away from our carousing!
To Pallas we resign such fowls -
Grave birds of Wisdom! ye're but owls,
And all your trade but mousing!
My merry men all, here's punch and wine,
And spicy bishop, drink divine!
Let's live while we are able.
While Mirth and Sense sit, hand in glove,
This Don Philosophy we'll shove
Dead drunk beneath the table!
And more somberly:
Human Life,
On the Denial of Immortality
If dead, we case to be; if total gloom
Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare
As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,
Whose sound and motion not alone declare,
But are their whole of being! If the breath
Be life itself, and not its task and tent,
If even a soul like Milton's can know death;
O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant,
Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes!
Surplus of nature's dead activity,
Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase,
Retreating slow, with meditative pause,
She formed with restless hands unconsciously!
Blank accident! nothing's anomaly!
If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state,
Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, they fears,
The counter-weights! - Thy laughter and they tears
Mean but themselves, each fittest to create,
And to repay the other! Why rejoices
Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good?
Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood,
Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices,
Image of image, ghost of ghostly elf,
That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold?
Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold
These costless shadows of they shadowy self?
Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun!
Thou hast no reason why! Thou canst have none;
They being's being is a contradiction.
And, more uplifting:
God's Omnipresence,
A Hymn
My Maker! of they power the trace
In every creature's form and face
The wond'ring soul surveys:
Thy wisdom, infinite above
Seraphic thought, a Father's love
As infinite displays!
From all that meets or eye or ear,
There falls a genial holy fear
Which, like the heavy dew of morn,
Refreshes while it bows the heart forlorn!
Great God! they works how wondrous fair!
Yet sinful man didst thou declare
The whole Earth's voice and mind!
If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state,
Lord ev'n as Thou all-present art,
O may we still with heedful heart
Thy presence know and find!
Then, come what will, of weal and woe,
Joy's bosom-spring shall steady flow;
For though 'tis Heaven THYSELF to see,
Where but thy Shadow falls, Grief cannot be!
(Notice, incidentally, the use of the line "If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state" to serve directly opposite moods and themes in these last two poems.)
On Lesbianism in Coleridge's Christabel
It has become common to talk about the hint of lesbianism in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Christabel. For instance, Camille Paglia (as might be expected, I suppose) notes it, and the notes to my Penguin Classics Complete Poems say, "Nineteenth-century commentators on 'Christabel' - including STC himself - divert attention from the central erotic aspect of the poem, with its inescapable suggestion of lesbian sexuality" (p. 507). What I would like to suggest is that we should pull back a bit from claims like this, not because Christabel does not admit of such interpretation, but because such interpretation goes beyond the (probably deliberate) indeterminacy of the text, to treat it as if it were more specific than it actually is. In other words: the lesbianism interpretation fits the poem; but it is not required by the poem, which is more evocative and suggestive than this interpretation, if pressed too exclusively, allows. It is possible (and even, perhaps, reasonable) to read the poem as being such that its central aspect is erotic, and the suggestion of lesbian sexuality is inescapable; but this requires suppositions beyond the text. In actual fact it is difficult to define a central aspect to this constantly shifting poem (Coleridge's own "witchery by daylight" is perhaps the best that can be done in this direction), and the suggestion of lesbianism is escapable.
Just one example: it seems common to interpret the 'sin' of Christabel (at line 381) as having something to do with a lesbian encounter. However, it is not even clear from the poem that Christabel has really sinned; Christabel suggests it with "Sure I have sinned!" but this could (for all the poem ever tells us) just be an incorrect inference. It isn't clear what Christabel means by 'sin'; she could, for instance, be referring to her having brought Geraldine across the threshold. Indeed, it isn't even clear that Christabel knows what she means by 'sin'; "Sure I have sinned!" could be said if (for example) you were to see your state as a punishment, but do not know what you have done that has deserved the punishment. Further, Coleridge emphasizes Christabel's innocence later in the poem; at line 599 he calls her "The maid, devoid of guile and sin," and this is essential to her being the dove held tight in the serpent's coils. There is a great deal the poem does not tell us, and thus considerable room for radically different interpretations.
Christabel is very characteristic of Romantic poetry in that it is more suggestive than definitive; it lets the mind lead itself on its own track of associations, guided but not coerced by the poetic words. There is no definite lesbianism in the poem (and no definite lack of it) only the somewhat misty, dreamlike chiaroscuro of witchery and poetic suggestion. (Have you ever had a nightmare in black and white? I once had one; and Christabel always reminds me of it.) Exploring these associations, even the sexual ones, is part of what a good literary criticism of Romantic poetry must do; but it is also important not to get pinned down by one interpretation. Such is my thought, anyway.
Just one example: it seems common to interpret the 'sin' of Christabel (at line 381) as having something to do with a lesbian encounter. However, it is not even clear from the poem that Christabel has really sinned; Christabel suggests it with "Sure I have sinned!" but this could (for all the poem ever tells us) just be an incorrect inference. It isn't clear what Christabel means by 'sin'; she could, for instance, be referring to her having brought Geraldine across the threshold. Indeed, it isn't even clear that Christabel knows what she means by 'sin'; "Sure I have sinned!" could be said if (for example) you were to see your state as a punishment, but do not know what you have done that has deserved the punishment. Further, Coleridge emphasizes Christabel's innocence later in the poem; at line 599 he calls her "The maid, devoid of guile and sin," and this is essential to her being the dove held tight in the serpent's coils. There is a great deal the poem does not tell us, and thus considerable room for radically different interpretations.
Christabel is very characteristic of Romantic poetry in that it is more suggestive than definitive; it lets the mind lead itself on its own track of associations, guided but not coerced by the poetic words. There is no definite lesbianism in the poem (and no definite lack of it) only the somewhat misty, dreamlike chiaroscuro of witchery and poetic suggestion. (Have you ever had a nightmare in black and white? I once had one; and Christabel always reminds me of it.) Exploring these associations, even the sexual ones, is part of what a good literary criticism of Romantic poetry must do; but it is also important not to get pinned down by one interpretation. Such is my thought, anyway.
Friday, August 20, 2004
Malebranche on Self-knowledge
A translation of a passage from Malebranche's Réponse au Livre des vraye et des fausses Idées (1684). It's a bit rough and needs tweaking, but it's a start. The passage may be found at OC 6:57 (Réponse chapter VI, sections IV and V).
"Mr. Arnaud does not deny that the mind has the idea of infinity, for he avows it page 314. He must therefore claim that the modalities of the soul are essentially representative of the infinite. But I have two things to say to him.
"The first, that all modality is the being itself in some fashion. The roundness, for example, of a body is nothing but the body itself figured in such-and-such fashion, that all the parts of the surface are equally distanced from the which one calls the center. And so, the modality of the soul is not able to represent objects, save only the fashion of being, i.e., the perception it has of the object: that perception, I claim that it makes it felt without idea, I claim that it is essentially representative, by interior sentiment, of what it contains. But I deny taht it is able to represent by idea, or to make known what it does not contain.
"The soul does not know itself by an idea that it is able to contemplate, in order to discover the properties of which it is capable, as do the Geometers who contemplate the idea they have of extension, and discover relations in it: it does not know its own being, other than by interior sentiment of what it has in itself. The soul is not able, therefore, to know its modifications, but only to feel them. For as the modifications are not other than the substances themselves in such-and-such fashion, the perception one has of modifications is of the same kind as that which one has of substances. I have an idea of extension: I therefore have an idea of circle. I have only an interior and confused sentiment of my being: therefore I have also have an interior and confused sentiment of my own perceptions, which are not other than modifications of my substance. So, rather than modalities of the soul being able to be representative of objects, so as to make them clearly known, and so that one may learn, for example, like Geometers the certain truths of their science, they do not make themselves known. This is what I already said in the Search after truth, in so many words."
"Mr. Arnaud does not deny that the mind has the idea of infinity, for he avows it page 314. He must therefore claim that the modalities of the soul are essentially representative of the infinite. But I have two things to say to him.
"The first, that all modality is the being itself in some fashion. The roundness, for example, of a body is nothing but the body itself figured in such-and-such fashion, that all the parts of the surface are equally distanced from the which one calls the center. And so, the modality of the soul is not able to represent objects, save only the fashion of being, i.e., the perception it has of the object: that perception, I claim that it makes it felt without idea, I claim that it is essentially representative, by interior sentiment, of what it contains. But I deny taht it is able to represent by idea, or to make known what it does not contain.
"The soul does not know itself by an idea that it is able to contemplate, in order to discover the properties of which it is capable, as do the Geometers who contemplate the idea they have of extension, and discover relations in it: it does not know its own being, other than by interior sentiment of what it has in itself. The soul is not able, therefore, to know its modifications, but only to feel them. For as the modifications are not other than the substances themselves in such-and-such fashion, the perception one has of modifications is of the same kind as that which one has of substances. I have an idea of extension: I therefore have an idea of circle. I have only an interior and confused sentiment of my being: therefore I have also have an interior and confused sentiment of my own perceptions, which are not other than modifications of my substance. So, rather than modalities of the soul being able to be representative of objects, so as to make them clearly known, and so that one may learn, for example, like Geometers the certain truths of their science, they do not make themselves known. This is what I already said in the Search after truth, in so many words."
A Thought on the Holy Incarnate Word, Part I
The doctrine of the Incarnation is neatly stated by Athanasius in his work On the Incarnation: "At one and the same time--this is the wonder--as Man He was living a human life, and as Word He was sustaining the life of the universe, and as Son He was in constant union with the Father." More technically, Cyril of Alexandria wrote in a letter that was affirmed at the Council of Ephesus in 431:
So what do we have here? We have, first, a divine person (the Word of God) 'hypostatically' united to 'flesh enlivened by a rational soul'. 'Hypostatically', for our limited purposes here, can be treated as a synonym for 'personally'. To say that the Son of God was hypostatically united to flesh enlivened by a rational soul is to say that He was personally united to it; that is, this very person, the Son of God assumed or took up fleshly rational life. Note what does not follow from this.
1. It does not follow from this that the Son of God ceased to be a person of the Trinity. Quite the contrary - the whole point is that this very person of the Trinity was enfleshed.
2. It does not follow from this that the Son of God was somehow turned into flesh; all that follows is that He was united to it.
3. It does not follow that the Son of God took up or assumed a human person; all that follows is that He took up human flesh, life, and reason. (More on this below.)
4. It does not follow that the Son of God was somehow turned into a human person (merely); all that does follow was that the Son of God became man, which allows for an interpretation under which the Son of God does not cease to be God. As we noted in (1), this is the whole point.
5. It does not follow that divine and human natures ceased to be distinct in Christ; all that follows is that they were united.
These sorts of considerations led to the clarification put forward by Chalcedon in the Definition of the Faith, which said that there was
There are, then, two natures under consideration in the Incarnation: a human nature and a divine nature. In the hypostatic union, i.e., the personal union in which the Word became flesh, these natures are united without ceasing to be distinct, and are distinct without ceasing to be united. They are distinct as natures: being divine is, and always will be, something different from being human. But they are united in the one person who became incarnate, namely, the Word. Two distinct natures of one single person. Since the sort of things one can do depend on one's nature, throughout His earthly life, Christ was engaged in two types of action, human actions and divine ones. As Athanasius says in the same text noted above,
William Vallicella in an interesting article has raised this issue about the consistency of the Incarnation. The doctrine leads, he says, to the following incompatible triad:
1. Necessarily, if two things are identical, they share all their (non-intentional)properties.
2. God the Son and Jesus do not share all their (non-intentional) properties.
3. God the Son and Jesus are identical.
An example of an 'intentional property' would be believed to be the Son of God. Naturally, it would be possible for someone to believe that God the Son is the Son of God without believing that Jesus is the Son of God; this really doesn't, and shouldn't, have any affect on our discussion here, so the "non-intentional" here sets those properties aside.
Vallicella considers this triad to encapsulate what he calls the "Orthodox Chalcedonian incarnationalism" or OCI. Vallicella is quite right that the triad he presents is an incompatible one. He is quite wrong to think that this triad is OCI. The problem is with the identity thesis (3): it is only superficially similar to the genuine Orthodox thesis, which is that the Word of God and Jesus are one person. To see this, consider the following example (apologies for the lowliness of it):
Brandon without clothes is the same person as Brandon with clothes; but Brandon without clothes is not logically identical to Brandon with clothes, because in putting on clothes I add non-intentional properties to my person. Having clothes and not having clothes are not the same thing.
Likewise (mutatis mutandis, of course), the Word of God is the same person as the Incarnate Word of God; but the two are not logically identical, because the Word of God can be unincarnate as well as incarnate. It is not necessary for the pre-incarnate Word to have all the same properties as the incarnate Word; indeed, that would defeat the whole point of the Incarnation, which is the doctrine that the unincarnate Word took on incarnate properties. The unincarnate Word is still the same person as the incarnate Word. There are not two persons, one unincarnate, the other incarnate; but there is one person, who has in the one case additional properties. This, you will note, is what the Chalcedonian definition says. (3), which is the culprit in the incompatible triad, is a false characterization of Chalcedon and orthodoxy.
A major temptation of those with a sophisticated philosophical background, in this area as in the area of Trinitarian theology, is to treat the matter as a question of logical identity. It is not, and treating it as though it were inevitably will tie you in tangled knots. It is not surprising that such people begin to think of the doctrine of the Incarnation as involving contradictions. It is fairly easy to show that there is only one way in which the basic doctrine of the Incarnation could be shown to involve contradictions. Contradictions can only arise if X is A and Y is ~A in the same respect. It would be a contradiction, for instance, if Christ were God and not-God in exactly the same way. But this, of course, is not the doctrine of the Incarnation. Christ is God because He is the Word; He is also human, and only in that sense not-God. This is the whole point of Chalcedon, which has resoundingly and effectively closed off any attempt to locate an easy contradiction in the doctrine: Christ has both human and divine properties; for there to be a contradiction in this, Christ would have to have conflicting properties (e.g., omnipresence and containment in a limited space) in the same way. Christ (in his divine nature) has some properties (divine ones) and Christ (in his human nature) has some properties (human ones); what is true of Christ as God may not be true of Him as man, and vice versa. This sort of statement, in which we say, "X as Y is Z" is called a 'reduplicative statement'; and one of the things reduplicative statements do is block straightforward contradictions.
They do not block all contradictions. In this case the reduplicative or two-natures response leaves open one way in which a contradiction could arise: namely, if it could be shown that there is a contradiction in one person being the subject of both divine and human natures. While I think there is a solution to this implicit in what has already been said, it is clearly the case that showing this route to contradiction is blocked is more difficult; Chalcedon doesn't explicitly show it. To see it we have to turn from the Council of Chalcedon (451) to the Third Council of Constantinople (680-681).
In my experience, the single biggest stumblingblock people face to accepting the integrity of the doctrine of the Incarnation is this. We tend to think of ourselves as our minds; and thus people construct the following sort of dilemma: if God has taken up 'flesh enlivened by a rational soul' He can only do so by 1) taking up a human person; or 2) taking up less than what is required for a human person. The reasoning is that if the Word assumes a rational soul, he assumes a mind and therefore a person; but if He does not assume a person, He does not assume a rational soul and therefore does not become human. If this dilemma is acceptable, the sort of contradiction noted above would arise.
However, if by 'divine mind' we mean 'divine capability for thinking' and by 'human mind' we mean 'human capability for thinking', then there is no clear sense in which this would be the case. It is not clear what else we could mean. And a single person can have two different capabilities, e.g., a physical capability for walking and a mental capability for reasoning. And this is, in essence, the point of the Constantinople III. They put it in terms of will rather than intellect; the reason I put it in terms of intellect is that this is where the problem arises nowadays. But the two cases are closely parallel. As the council said of wills:
The only way to argue for a contradiction in the doctrine of the Incarnation, then, is to argue that it is logically impossible for one person to have two different capabilities (whether intellectual or volitional), one subordinate to the other. I don't have an argument that such an argument is impossible; but we can, I think, reasonably ask, on what basis would we make such an argument? Certainly on no basis proposed so far; and it seems doubtful, even from the point of view of mere reason, that we could absolutely rule out the possibility of one person having "two natural wills not in opposition".
I put a "Part I" in my title for the same reason I did so with my Trinitarian post; all this is very rough and incomplete and will, no doubt, need a sequel at some point.
UPDATE (24 Aug 2004): Vallicella has put up a helpful response to my argument; it seems clear that I misunderstood his argument in some way. I'm leaving the above post untouched both because it was a first draft anyway, and because I still think its positive points are all quite right and, while the position attributed to Vallicella might not be his, these sorts of criticisms do come up. For a link to Vallicella's response and my further puzzlings about his argument, see this post.
Rather do we claim that the Word in an unspeakable, inconceivable manner united to himself hypostatically flesh enlivened by a rational soul.... Rather did two different natures come together to form a unity, and from both arose one Christ, one Son. It was not as though the distinctness of the natures was destroyed by the union, but divinity and humanity together made perfect for us one Lord and one Christ, together marvellously and mysteriously combining to form a unity.
So what do we have here? We have, first, a divine person (the Word of God) 'hypostatically' united to 'flesh enlivened by a rational soul'. 'Hypostatically', for our limited purposes here, can be treated as a synonym for 'personally'. To say that the Son of God was hypostatically united to flesh enlivened by a rational soul is to say that He was personally united to it; that is, this very person, the Son of God assumed or took up fleshly rational life. Note what does not follow from this.
1. It does not follow from this that the Son of God ceased to be a person of the Trinity. Quite the contrary - the whole point is that this very person of the Trinity was enfleshed.
2. It does not follow from this that the Son of God was somehow turned into flesh; all that follows is that He was united to it.
3. It does not follow that the Son of God took up or assumed a human person; all that follows is that He took up human flesh, life, and reason. (More on this below.)
4. It does not follow that the Son of God was somehow turned into a human person (merely); all that does follow was that the Son of God became man, which allows for an interpretation under which the Son of God does not cease to be God. As we noted in (1), this is the whole point.
5. It does not follow that divine and human natures ceased to be distinct in Christ; all that follows is that they were united.
These sorts of considerations led to the clarification put forward by Chalcedon in the Definition of the Faith, which said that there was
one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures which undergo no confusion, no change, no division, no separation; at no point was the difference between the natures taken away through the union, but rather the property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single person and a single subsistent being; he is not parted or divided into two persons, but is one and the same only-begotten Son, God, Word, Lord Jesus Christ
There are, then, two natures under consideration in the Incarnation: a human nature and a divine nature. In the hypostatic union, i.e., the personal union in which the Word became flesh, these natures are united without ceasing to be distinct, and are distinct without ceasing to be united. They are distinct as natures: being divine is, and always will be, something different from being human. But they are united in the one person who became incarnate, namely, the Word. Two distinct natures of one single person. Since the sort of things one can do depend on one's nature, throughout His earthly life, Christ was engaged in two types of action, human actions and divine ones. As Athanasius says in the same text noted above,
You must understand, therefore, that when writers on this sacred theme speak of Him as eating and drinking and being born, they mean that the body, as a body, was born and sustained with the food proper to its nature; while God the Word, Who was united with it, was at the same time ordering the universe and revealing Himself through His bodily acts as not man only but God.
William Vallicella in an interesting article has raised this issue about the consistency of the Incarnation. The doctrine leads, he says, to the following incompatible triad:
1. Necessarily, if two things are identical, they share all their (non-intentional)properties.
2. God the Son and Jesus do not share all their (non-intentional) properties.
3. God the Son and Jesus are identical.
An example of an 'intentional property' would be believed to be the Son of God. Naturally, it would be possible for someone to believe that God the Son is the Son of God without believing that Jesus is the Son of God; this really doesn't, and shouldn't, have any affect on our discussion here, so the "non-intentional" here sets those properties aside.
Vallicella considers this triad to encapsulate what he calls the "Orthodox Chalcedonian incarnationalism" or OCI. Vallicella is quite right that the triad he presents is an incompatible one. He is quite wrong to think that this triad is OCI. The problem is with the identity thesis (3): it is only superficially similar to the genuine Orthodox thesis, which is that the Word of God and Jesus are one person. To see this, consider the following example (apologies for the lowliness of it):
Brandon without clothes is the same person as Brandon with clothes; but Brandon without clothes is not logically identical to Brandon with clothes, because in putting on clothes I add non-intentional properties to my person. Having clothes and not having clothes are not the same thing.
Likewise (mutatis mutandis, of course), the Word of God is the same person as the Incarnate Word of God; but the two are not logically identical, because the Word of God can be unincarnate as well as incarnate. It is not necessary for the pre-incarnate Word to have all the same properties as the incarnate Word; indeed, that would defeat the whole point of the Incarnation, which is the doctrine that the unincarnate Word took on incarnate properties. The unincarnate Word is still the same person as the incarnate Word. There are not two persons, one unincarnate, the other incarnate; but there is one person, who has in the one case additional properties. This, you will note, is what the Chalcedonian definition says. (3), which is the culprit in the incompatible triad, is a false characterization of Chalcedon and orthodoxy.
A major temptation of those with a sophisticated philosophical background, in this area as in the area of Trinitarian theology, is to treat the matter as a question of logical identity. It is not, and treating it as though it were inevitably will tie you in tangled knots. It is not surprising that such people begin to think of the doctrine of the Incarnation as involving contradictions. It is fairly easy to show that there is only one way in which the basic doctrine of the Incarnation could be shown to involve contradictions. Contradictions can only arise if X is A and Y is ~A in the same respect. It would be a contradiction, for instance, if Christ were God and not-God in exactly the same way. But this, of course, is not the doctrine of the Incarnation. Christ is God because He is the Word; He is also human, and only in that sense not-God. This is the whole point of Chalcedon, which has resoundingly and effectively closed off any attempt to locate an easy contradiction in the doctrine: Christ has both human and divine properties; for there to be a contradiction in this, Christ would have to have conflicting properties (e.g., omnipresence and containment in a limited space) in the same way. Christ (in his divine nature) has some properties (divine ones) and Christ (in his human nature) has some properties (human ones); what is true of Christ as God may not be true of Him as man, and vice versa. This sort of statement, in which we say, "X as Y is Z" is called a 'reduplicative statement'; and one of the things reduplicative statements do is block straightforward contradictions.
They do not block all contradictions. In this case the reduplicative or two-natures response leaves open one way in which a contradiction could arise: namely, if it could be shown that there is a contradiction in one person being the subject of both divine and human natures. While I think there is a solution to this implicit in what has already been said, it is clearly the case that showing this route to contradiction is blocked is more difficult; Chalcedon doesn't explicitly show it. To see it we have to turn from the Council of Chalcedon (451) to the Third Council of Constantinople (680-681).
In my experience, the single biggest stumblingblock people face to accepting the integrity of the doctrine of the Incarnation is this. We tend to think of ourselves as our minds; and thus people construct the following sort of dilemma: if God has taken up 'flesh enlivened by a rational soul' He can only do so by 1) taking up a human person; or 2) taking up less than what is required for a human person. The reasoning is that if the Word assumes a rational soul, he assumes a mind and therefore a person; but if He does not assume a person, He does not assume a rational soul and therefore does not become human. If this dilemma is acceptable, the sort of contradiction noted above would arise.
However, if by 'divine mind' we mean 'divine capability for thinking' and by 'human mind' we mean 'human capability for thinking', then there is no clear sense in which this would be the case. It is not clear what else we could mean. And a single person can have two different capabilities, e.g., a physical capability for walking and a mental capability for reasoning. And this is, in essence, the point of the Constantinople III. They put it in terms of will rather than intellect; the reason I put it in terms of intellect is that this is where the problem arises nowadays. But the two cases are closely parallel. As the council said of wills:
And we proclaim equally two natural volitions or wills in him and two natural principles of action which undergo no division, no change, no partition, no confusion, in accordance with the teaching of the holy fathers. And the two natural wills not in opposition, as the impious heretics said, far from it, but his human will following, and not resisting or struggling, rather in fact subject to his divine and all powerful will.
The only way to argue for a contradiction in the doctrine of the Incarnation, then, is to argue that it is logically impossible for one person to have two different capabilities (whether intellectual or volitional), one subordinate to the other. I don't have an argument that such an argument is impossible; but we can, I think, reasonably ask, on what basis would we make such an argument? Certainly on no basis proposed so far; and it seems doubtful, even from the point of view of mere reason, that we could absolutely rule out the possibility of one person having "two natural wills not in opposition".
I put a "Part I" in my title for the same reason I did so with my Trinitarian post; all this is very rough and incomplete and will, no doubt, need a sequel at some point.
UPDATE (24 Aug 2004): Vallicella has put up a helpful response to my argument; it seems clear that I misunderstood his argument in some way. I'm leaving the above post untouched both because it was a first draft anyway, and because I still think its positive points are all quite right and, while the position attributed to Vallicella might not be his, these sorts of criticisms do come up. For a link to Vallicella's response and my further puzzlings about his argument, see this post.
The Value of Things Heterogeneal
One of the oft-overlooked peculiarities in Hume's argument against testimony for miracles is his notion of balancing. When we entertain two thoughts, each one comes with its own force or vivacity; if the thoughts conflict, we weigh the thoughts against each other, subtracting the force or vivacity of Thought A from that of Thought B, and assent to Thought A with the force or vivacity by which A exceeds B. In the case of testimony that conflicts with our normal experience, we weigh the force or strength of the testimony against the force or strength of the experience. Hume's argument consists in arguing that, however strong the testimony for a miracle may be, by the nature of the case the experience with which it conflicts has the strongest possible force or strength. In the following passage from A Dissertation on Miracles, Campbell attacks this notion of balancing. The passage is of especial interest because the assumption criticized by Campbell here is a common one.
There is in arithmetic a rule called REDUCTION, by which numbers of different denominations are brought to the same denomination. If this ingenious author shall invent a rule in logic analogous to this, for reducign different classes of evidence to the same class, he will bless the world with a most important discovery. Then indeed he will have the honour to establish an everlasting peace in the republic of letters; then we shall have the happiness to see the controversy of every kind, theological, historical, philosophical, receive its mortal wound: for though, in every question, we could nto even then determine, with certainty, on which side the truth lay, we could always determine (and that is the utmost the nature of the thing admits) with as much accuracy as geometry and algebra can afford, on which side the probability lay, and in what degree. But till this metaphysical reduction be discovered, it will be impossible, where the evidences are of different orders, to ascertain by subtraction the superior evidence. We would not but esteem him anovice in arithmetic, who being asked, whether seven pounds or eleven pence make the greater sum, and what is the difference, should, by attending solely to the numbers, and overlooking the value, conclude that eleven pence were the greater, and that it exceeded the other by four. Must we not be equal novices in reasoning, if we follow the same method? Must we not fall into as great blunders? Of as little significancy do we find the balance. Is the value of things heterogeneal to be determined merely by weight? Shall silver be weighed against lead, or copper against iron? If, in exchange for a piece of gold, I were offered some counters of baser metal, is it not obvious, that till I know the comparative value of teh metals, in vain shall I attempt to find what is equivalent, by the assistance either of scales or of arithmetic?
(A Dissertation on Miracles (1839 edition), pp. 23-24)
There is in arithmetic a rule called REDUCTION, by which numbers of different denominations are brought to the same denomination. If this ingenious author shall invent a rule in logic analogous to this, for reducign different classes of evidence to the same class, he will bless the world with a most important discovery. Then indeed he will have the honour to establish an everlasting peace in the republic of letters; then we shall have the happiness to see the controversy of every kind, theological, historical, philosophical, receive its mortal wound: for though, in every question, we could nto even then determine, with certainty, on which side the truth lay, we could always determine (and that is the utmost the nature of the thing admits) with as much accuracy as geometry and algebra can afford, on which side the probability lay, and in what degree. But till this metaphysical reduction be discovered, it will be impossible, where the evidences are of different orders, to ascertain by subtraction the superior evidence. We would not but esteem him anovice in arithmetic, who being asked, whether seven pounds or eleven pence make the greater sum, and what is the difference, should, by attending solely to the numbers, and overlooking the value, conclude that eleven pence were the greater, and that it exceeded the other by four. Must we not be equal novices in reasoning, if we follow the same method? Must we not fall into as great blunders? Of as little significancy do we find the balance. Is the value of things heterogeneal to be determined merely by weight? Shall silver be weighed against lead, or copper against iron? If, in exchange for a piece of gold, I were offered some counters of baser metal, is it not obvious, that till I know the comparative value of teh metals, in vain shall I attempt to find what is equivalent, by the assistance either of scales or of arithmetic?
(A Dissertation on Miracles (1839 edition), pp. 23-24)
Thursday, August 19, 2004
You Can Lead a Horse to Water....
I'm in the middle of grading end-of-term exams for my PHL 210 class. There are some very solid responses here; but there's also a bit of what must exasperate anyone who has ever taught. I won't go too much into it, but here's a good example:
One of the exam questions is a short answer question, fairly easy, on Kant. Because this is a summer course, the class periods are very long (3 hours), so I divided the period up into a guest lecture (by Julie, who taught the first term) and the test. The guest lecture was on Kant. Julie, with whom I had consulted on the question beforehand, emphasized the answer three or four times in the course of her lecture, which was about an hour long; and her formulation of it was very similar to the formulation of the question. Since Julie is a fairly good lecturer, the lecture was clear (better than mine usually are, since she is less likely to be carried away by the line of thought in front of her at a given moment), and the importance of the answer was easy to recognize. There were still people whose answers to the question weren't even in the ballpark. Several of them, in fact; it can't be that all of them just blanked on the question whose answer they had been given several times in the previous hour.
My philosophy of teaching is essentially Thomistic in character. The greater part of the intellectual work is and must be done by the pupil; all learning is an exercise of the pupil's own understanding on occasion of assistance by another. The purpose of an external instructor is:
1) To provide external aids and means of understanding, e.g., by relating it to the experience of the students or by giving examples and analogies, which the pupils can use to help themselves understand the truths and opinions being studied;
2) To give order to the truths and opinions being studied so the pupils can more easily see how they all fit together.
This is all (I'm leaving aside things that may conduce to these ends but are not essential to instruction, e.g., the things that make classes not just informative but enjoyable and entertaining). These things are very difficult to do; but they don't get anyone very far if the students are not willing to put forward a bit of their own intellectual work. Fortunately, there are lots of students who are willing to do this. Nonetheless it's frustrating to find that there are those who aren't. Even one is exasperating; that there are several almost makes me angry.
One of the exam questions is a short answer question, fairly easy, on Kant. Because this is a summer course, the class periods are very long (3 hours), so I divided the period up into a guest lecture (by Julie, who taught the first term) and the test. The guest lecture was on Kant. Julie, with whom I had consulted on the question beforehand, emphasized the answer three or four times in the course of her lecture, which was about an hour long; and her formulation of it was very similar to the formulation of the question. Since Julie is a fairly good lecturer, the lecture was clear (better than mine usually are, since she is less likely to be carried away by the line of thought in front of her at a given moment), and the importance of the answer was easy to recognize. There were still people whose answers to the question weren't even in the ballpark. Several of them, in fact; it can't be that all of them just blanked on the question whose answer they had been given several times in the previous hour.
My philosophy of teaching is essentially Thomistic in character. The greater part of the intellectual work is and must be done by the pupil; all learning is an exercise of the pupil's own understanding on occasion of assistance by another. The purpose of an external instructor is:
1) To provide external aids and means of understanding, e.g., by relating it to the experience of the students or by giving examples and analogies, which the pupils can use to help themselves understand the truths and opinions being studied;
2) To give order to the truths and opinions being studied so the pupils can more easily see how they all fit together.
This is all (I'm leaving aside things that may conduce to these ends but are not essential to instruction, e.g., the things that make classes not just informative but enjoyable and entertaining). These things are very difficult to do; but they don't get anyone very far if the students are not willing to put forward a bit of their own intellectual work. Fortunately, there are lots of students who are willing to do this. Nonetheless it's frustrating to find that there are those who aren't. Even one is exasperating; that there are several almost makes me angry.
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