Re-thinking the Prime Thinker
Some objects of thought such as mathematical thought and triangularity and liberty and God are universal and determinate (read: unambiguous, exact) in their conceptual content. Yet none of these objects is or ever could be perceived by the senses, like the dinner table is or some triangle drawn on the teacher’s chalkboard. Nobody encounters the concept of liberty in the wild or modus tollens like they do a beaver or some random fat lady. This observation is what has called for a distinction in us between various powers – a sensible power, on the one hand, and an intellectual power, on the other. Related to the former power (sense) we have perception, and memory, and imagination, etc. Whereas related to the latter power we have apprehension (or understanding) and judgment and reasoning.
Thinkers from Plato to Descartes have tried to answer the enigma of how we come to possess concepts if we never encounter them directly via sense experience and this is what led to the postulation of innate ideas – that they are just somehow in us. But how did they (the innate ideas) get there? Did a dump truck bring them in? And how many are there: do we have 10 innate ideas or do we have 10,001? While there is no contradiction in the idea of innate ideas, it does seem implausible and would probably require some supreme designing intellect, such as God, to decide just which, and how many, innate ideas to implant in us. Certain thinkers have, of course, taken that option.[1]
Another issue with innatism is it seems experientially false. Conceptual ideas come to us by interacting with the world and deriving them from it; that is, our intellect depends for its primary apprehension upon sense-experience, and while it is true that we never experience cat-ness in the world, we do experience cats – this cat (Sebastian) and then another cat (Hercules) – and by someone pointing to enough cats and labelling them we come to possess the concept of cat itself: that is, a general understanding of what is common to all the particulars sharing certain similar characteristics. The concept comes to us, or we come to possess the concept, which tells against us having innate ideas. In which case a more adequate explanation would be that we have the potential to possess concepts and often come to actualize that potential under the appropriate conditions.
What are these appropriate conditions? Minimally, they would involve being part of a linguistic community, as Wittgenstein held in his private language argument.[2] In which case, even if someone is not directly intending to bring a person to conceptual awareness their acting as concept users eventually actualizes their coming to possess concepts. Though, of course, we very often come to possess concepts because people taught us – because someone intended to make objects intelligible to us, such as when a parent points to objects of a similar kind in hopes of getting their child to acquire the relevant concepts.
When I say a person possesses a concept I mean – to paraphrase Mortimer J. Adler – that they have acquired a disposition to pick out perceived objects as being this kind or that kind and to understand what this kind or that kind of object is like and to perceive a number of particulars as being the same in kind and discriminate between them and other sensible particulars that are different in kind. Further, as Adler explains, “Concepts are acquired dispositions to understand what certain kinds of objects are like both (a) when the objects, though perceptible, are not actually perceived, and (b) we also when they are not perceptible at all, as is the case with all the conceptual constructs we employ in physics, mathematics, and metaphysics.”[3]
But look out! Here comes David Hume, “Let any man try to conceive a triangle in general, which is neither isosceles nor scalene, nor has any particular length or proportion of sides; and he will soon perceive the absurdity of all the scholastic notions with regard to abstraction and general ideas.”
Response? Hume’s mistake is in failing to differentiate between understanding or conceiving and perceiving or imagining. Of course, one cannot picture or imagine (“image”) a triangle without engaging the sense power and thus having the picture become bound as either isosceles or scalene, but that is not what understanding is about and Hume is overlooking the difference between intellect and sense – the very distinction we are currently exploring. For we obviously can and do conceive of triangularity by understanding (not picturing) what is common to all particular triangles, be they isosceles or scalene, red or white, drawn in chalk or ink, etc.
To deny our act of understanding universals invites not just nominalism but self-defeat. For we have every right to ask why we call such particulars (this triangle, that triangle) by a common name (triangle), and what other reason could a person provide aside from the fact they share characteristics in common (namely, triangularity, trilaterally, etc.)? If we admit to understanding such characteristics then nominalism is refuted because we have just conceded to having a universal and determinate understanding of something (such as triangularity) apart from particulars (being isosceles or scalene, drawn in chalk or ink, etc.), which is what Hume denies. Further, if we do not admit to understanding such characteristics then there is no basis for calling various particular things all triangles in the first place – which is required for Hume to get his objection started. Ironically, Hume demonstrates both the reality, and his understanding of, universals (triangularity) in his very attempt to refute them, else his assertion is meaningless. Hume is confusing picture thinking (sense power) with conception (intellectual power). The scholastics are not impressed.
Ed Feser summarizes the self-defeat issue for nominalism, a position which denies the reality of universals, as follows, “… where we think there are universals, the nominalist says, there are really only general names, words we apply to many things. Hence, there is, for instance, the general term ‘red,’ which we apply to various objects but no such thing as redness. Of course, this raises the question why we apply the term ‘red’ to just the things we do, and it is hard to see how there could be any plausible answer other than ‘because they all have redness in common,’ which just brings us back to affirming the existence of universals after all. The nominalist might seek to avoid this by saying that the reason we label different things ‘red’ is that they resemble each other, without specifying the respect in which they resemble each other. This is implausible on its face – isn’t it obvious that they resemble each other with respect to their redness?”[4] Did you notice resemblance is itself a universal? Nominalism again reverses itself.
Ultimately Hume’s concern is unthreatening because it is a mistake predicated upon the overlooking or denial of separate but cooperative human powers: sense and intellect.
But what, then, are we to make of universals, which include not just concepts such as triangularity, but propositions, and mathematical thought, and possible worlds, and so on? Do they have some independent existence of their own, in a Platonic heaven of sorts? (Extreme Realism) Are they merely “in” the particulars themselves and then abstracted by us? (Moderate Realism) Or are they in the particular objects, abstracted by us, but somehow ultimately grounded in the mind of God? (Scholastic Realism). We will be returning to this question and arguing for the final alternative as the correct understanding – and that from our possession of concepts there is a strong reason to adopt the classical theistic conception of God -- but for now we must consider what other implications our entertaining of universals and our coming to possess concepts has for us. This investigation will provide important insights for philosophical anthropology which have critical metaphysical implications, as well.
One long running implication of our ability to possess concepts is that it refutes materialist and physicalist metaphysics. One reason to think so is because if all material things are particular and no universal is particular, then how could a worldview which is materialist/physicalist accommodate universals? It seems the materialist would be committed to nominalism (which many materialists are) but if nominalism is false then materialism must be false also. Just run the modus tollens.
Or think of it this way. Everything material is particular. But some thoughts are universal. Therefore, some thoughts are not material.[5]
The first premise is uncontentious because every material thing is (obviously) restricted to this or that particular instantiation. There is, for example, this triangle drawn on this chalk board and there is that triangle drawn on that chalkboard, etc., but never do we encounter in the material world triangularity as such. Further, every material thing in relation to its universal characteristic – that is, for example, every particular triangle in relation to triangularity as such – is always to some inevitable degree imperfect (less than perfectly straight sides, etc.), however precise the tools are we use to draw it.
But we can know and entertain the concept of triangularity and do not rely on any restricted mental image to do so, because such images (as we argued along with Hume) will always be particular and therefore not universal (and to some degree imperfect). We grasp what triangularity is and this grasping transcends the material because everything material – including brain states – is particular. One is not reducible to the other. Hence, at least some of our thinking cannot be entirely material. Because our thoughts are something no material thing can be (universal, and, as we’ll see, determinate or exact in conceptual content) our thoughts cannot themselves be material.[6]
In this sense, even if we cannot think without our brains, we do not think (understand) with our brains. Our brains, while perhaps a necessary condition, are not themselves a sufficient condition for the functioning of the human mind at least in relation to formal thought and conceptual content.
We can pursue the argument further, as James Ross does, arguing that:
All formal thinking is determinate. No physical process is determinate. Thus, no formal thinking is a physical process.[7]
First, if our formal thinking – say, addition, reasoning via modus ponens, etc. – were not determinate (that is, exact in conceptual content, and not ambiguous), then we wouldn’t know what we’re talking about and would lose all basis for rational argumentation.[8] Thus, any argument against the determinacy of formal thinking would undercut itself – for determinacy must be assumed in venturing any such argument. Further, we would have to have some clear, unambiguous (read: determinate) conception of what adding, modus ponens, etc., is to say that our formal thinking isn’t that – again, the notion reverses itself, since we must have some clear and distinct idea of what it is we are rejecting in our rejection of it. So, we cannot escape the obvious here: that at least some of our thinking is unambiguous and exact – that is determinate in conceptual content.
But no physical process (or material thing) is determinate, and even if physical processes can approximate pure functions (such as computing) they can never instantiate them. In addition to what has been argued, why believe this? Again, consider some particular triangle drawn on a chalkboard. Now ask, what does it represent? Does it represent triangularity, or trilaterally, or three straight sides, or small triangle (because it is relatively small), or red triangle (because it is drawn in red, say), or does it represent (more obscurely, as Feser suggests) the forgotten pop band Triangle? The point is for anything material it is (in and of itself) always indeterminate and ambiguous as to what it does (or could) conceptually represent. This is not only true for mental images, but anything we want to claim is purely material, including logical and mathematical examples, as well.
Here, we could reiterate Kripke’s plus/quus example in relation to computing. How do we know, by a consideration of physical properties alone, whether we, or some machine, has been adding (as we commonly understand it) or quadding (see footnote).[9] The argument is no consideration of the physical properties alone could determine this, because one could always hold the machine is malfunctioning or that beyond a certain output it could also be shown not to be adding after all but quadding; thus, any appeal to the apparent consistency or efficacy of computing would beg the question. The point of this oddly skeptical scenario is to show, once again, that physical processes alone are indeterminate in their conceptual content; we need prior minds capable of concept formation to make sense of what is happening.
James Ross summarizes the issue this way, “In a word: our thinking, in a single case, can be of a definite abstract form (e.g., N x N = N2 ), and not indeterminate among incompossible equally most particular forms. . . . No physical process can be that definite in its form in a single case. Adding physical instances even to infinity will not exclude incompossible equally most particular forms (cf. Saul Kripke’s “plus/quus” examples). So, no physical process can exclude incompossible functions from being equally well (or badly) satisfied. . . . Thus, no physical process can be the whole of such thinking. The same holds for functions among physical states.”[10]
Haldane offers his own iteration in saying, “For any naturally individuated object or property there are indefinitely many non-equivalent ways of thinking about it. That is to say, the structure of the conceptual order, which is expressed in judgments and actions, is richer and more abstract than that of the natural order, and the character of this difference makes it difficult to see how the materialist could explain the former as arising out of the latter.”[11]
We can use a simple example to illustrate the point Haldane is making. I have a friend – Bo. He is an individual and he is comprised of certain physical facts, whatever those may be. However, there are, as Haldane indicates, indefinitely many non-equivalent ways of thinking about my friend Bo: that is, as my friend, or, as my friend and former schoolmate, or, as a father and husband of twins, or just a husband, or as a husband of twins and my friend born January 2nd, or as somebody I once played a lot of video games with, and so on and so forth. The point is that the material facts are indeterminate between ways of conceptualizing things and this includes efficient causal relations.
The latter part about efficient causal relations is insufficient to account for determinacy of meaning, because, at the very least, causal relations cannot account for conceptual differences among properties that have the same logical extension. For whatever the thing or circumstance is that instantiates triangularity, as we know through geometrical reasoning, always instantiates triangularity – that is, we know that these concepts are truly distinct but not separable (wherever one is, the other is also). Haldane anticipates this objection in his exchange with Jack Smart by saying, “To the extent that he can even concede that there are distinct properties the naturalist will want to insist that the causal powers… or trilaterals and triangulars are identical. Thus, he cannot explain the difference between the concepts by invoking causal differences between the members of their extensions.”[12]
Furthermore, what Haldane says about the space of reasons – that is, the way we can conceptualize things – being richer and more abstract than the natural (or merely physical) order, connects strongly with an argument against materialism by Josh Rasmussen, who, using Cantor’s theorem, shows there are more mental than physical properties, indicating the former is not reducible to the latter.
Rasmnussen argues:
A1. There are more mental properties than physical properties, where ‘properties’ ranges over all conceivable properties.
A1a. There are more plurals of physical properties than physical properties.
A1b. There is at least one mental property for each plural of physical properties.
A2. If there are more mental properties than physical properties, then some mental properties are non-physical.
A3. Therefore, some mental properties are non-physical.
A4. If some mental properties are non-physical, then all mental properties (or all of a certain class) are non-physical.
A5. Therefore, all mental properties (or all of a certain class) are non-physical.[13]
I leave full inspection of Rasmussen’s argument to the reader but highlight that this result is not surprising given what has already been argued. This independent line of reasoning by Rasmussen gives further evidence in favor of the traditional scholastic notion that intellectual activity is immaterial and that thought cannot be ultimately reduced to non-thought (physics).
In summary, because the space of causes (physics) cannot fix the space of reasons (thought) the physicalist cannot make sense of the determinacy of meaning. What is more, it is the issue surrounding determinacy meaning issue that has led several physicalist thinkers (for example, Quine) to say there really are no “facts of the matter” when it comes to what it is that we mean by various statements and thought processes.[14] But this, in relation to support of the initial premise, is untenable. Better to reject physicalism then to lose what is otherwise obvious and necessary for all meaningful discourse and rational argumentation.
Could evolution fix determinancy of meaning? Not hardly, and a deeper consideration of this should tell against any purely naturalistic account of evolution, as well, since evolution would just be an efficient causal story and (as we’ve already argued) no efficient causal story can solve the issue of determinate meaning for the physicalist. Are frogs selected for catching bugs or small flying things? Naturalistic evolution – that is, blind selection working on mutation – has no way in principle of knowing or telling us, which indicates, given that here is some determinate fact of the matter of just what selection pressures have selected for, that evolution itself must be teleological and determinate, which tells against it being a purely physicalist phenomenon. Again, I leave the completion of this argument to others.[15]What has just been said should be enough for our purposes.
At this point, we have discovered something quite significant. There is an aspect about us, relatedly primarily to intellectual activity, that is not reducible to physics or chemistry but is an immaterial operation, whatever else that may entail: i.e. whether we have an immortal soul, survive bodily death, etc., is something we shall not attempt to resolve in this article, though if one combines the scholastic notion of “action follows being”, or that what a thing does, necessarily reflects what a thing is, to what has been already been argued, then one can begin to see how Aquinas and other thinkers made the case for human immortality, since, if there is some aspect of us that is not susceptible to corruption (as immaterial things are on Aquinas’s view) then at least that aspect will not go the way of the body at death.
We now turn to a more metaphysical question.
We have a potential to form concepts under appropriate conditions – to acquire a new disposition and mode of being – a new actuality, if you will. But the actualization of this potential requires something that is already actual in a sufficient respect to bring this actuality about in us. Here we are beginning to see the hallmarks of a potentially vicious causal regress, less we posit some primary member in such a causal series that is categorically different than those who receive some causal actuality derivatively – namely, that which has the causal actuality inherently (rather than derivatively or dependently) and can pass that property along. But if the causal property in question is conceptual content, does this mean we must get to that which just has conceptual content inherently and automatically. Indeed, this will become the argument for the need of a Prime Thinker, as Haldane once put it.[16]
What is this argument?
We begin with a generally safe causal principle – namely, that whatever produces F must have an F-ness producing power. Less we posit that something can come from nothing, this principle is analytically true. However, it is sometimes the case that what produces F does not just have an F-ness producing power but is itself F (that is, of the same form). Fire, for example, can be the cause of further fire, an instance where what produce F (fire) does not just have an f-ness producing power (like conditions that can produce fire without fire being already present, say the striking of a match plus tinder, etc) but is itself F (fire). Again, this is not always the case, since I can produce a chair without myself being a chair, but because I have a rational power which explains my ability to arrange and coordinate material components to form into a unit for sitting. Hence why scholastics have traditionally differentiated the effect being contained in the cause either formally, virtually, or eminently.[17] However, it is clearly sometimes the case – and, as Haldane suggests, in the instance of inducing concepts actually is the case – that whatever produces F is itself of the form F.
Why say that whatever is responsible for inducing concepts is itself a concept possessor; or, put tersely, that whatever is the ultimate cause of thinkers is itself a thinker (or maybe just a thought?)? What’s more, this ultimate concept possessor cannot be a concept possessor contingently. To halt the causal regress it must be a concept possessor necessarily – and, indeed, automatically. This means that not only can there be no adequate explanatory story that is entirely physical to account for our possession of concepts, and neither could we appeal to an infinitely backwards extending number of human members living in community. First, virtually nobody believes any more that human beings have always been around but came on the scene at some finite time in the past. But even granting the theoretical possibility that humans have always existed, it is precisely because they are not concept possess essentially or inherently that we must search for an explanation beyond the collection of human beings (whether finite or infinite) to explain how this power has come to be actualized.
Below I offer multiple, mutually reinforcing considerations, building a cumulative case for the Prime Thinker, as traditionally understood to be God. The first is from Haldane, who argues “… it is supported by the idea that the induction of conceptual ability is an intentional activity and therefore is expressive of purposeful intelligence in which ends are conceived.”[18] In other words, inducing concepts means making objects intelligible to someone, intentionally (i.e. I am trying to get my child to understand – which is an intentional activity – that things of this kind are dogs and not cats, etc) – that is, aiming toward a particular end, which itself requires conceptual ability.
Objection: Might it be possible that something non-conceptual could be called in to fulfill this causal role? The answer is no given that we have already argued that possession of concepts is not reducible to anything physical. Such that even if, say, we programmed a computer (defined as purely physical system) to teach a child to discriminate between cats and dogs and become competent at using the relevant concepts, the computer is an instrumental rather than primary cause – it does not, and cannot, stand as the originating source, even if it can serve as a functional intermediary.
Now, if something is directed toward an actuality by something beyond itself, this regress cannot continue indefinitely. We must admit a category shift and concede to something primary and different in some fundamental respect – something that is directing but itself undirected.[19]
Some may find that latter statement controversial, if only because things seem to act for ends quite regularly without being intentional about it or having any awareness whatsoever (such as acorns being regularly directed toward becoming oaks) which links directly to Aquinas’s 5th way – an argument for God claimed to establish divine intelligence from the unconscious directedness of unintelligent objects. Of course, an explication of Aquinas 5th way is beyond the scope of this article but could serve as an independent pathway toward affirming the Prime Thinker.[20] For now it is enough to note that, contrary to things acting regularly toward ends being evidence against a Prime Thinker, traditionally this has been seen as one of the more powerful evidence for that very conclusion, and particularly for identifying the Prime Thinker as God.
I am not claiming my argument, at least so far, shows the Prime Thinker is God as classical theism understand God with respect to all divine attributes – that is, as purely actual, eternal, immutable, omnipotent, and so on. However, given that the argument seems to establish the existence of some entity that is the immaterial source of our coming to possess concepts, the classical theistic conception of God seems like a plausible candidate, and identifying the Prime Thinker with God would make for a nicely unified – and not to mention metaphysically slim – hypothesis that connects with a conclusion reached by independent means. In other words, is there any reason to think that that which is purely actual (given by Aquinas’s De Ente argument) is not that which is purely conceptual (given by The Prime Thinker argument)?
Another way to support the Prime Thinker from human concept possession is to incorporate the argument from eternal truths, as it has come to be known. In short, our concepts are universals, many of them eternal and immutable and necessary. Mathematical truths, for example, and various propositions and the like that clearly do not depend upon the contingencies of human minds nor the material world. For necessary truths were necessarily true before any human mind existed and would remain necessarily true even if all human minds were expunged from reality. The same is true with respect to any material reality whatever, since it is possible that no material reality existed at all. In fact, these necessary and eternal truths could not even depend upon angels, if we believe angels exist, because angels are themselves contingent realities, and no contingent reality could provide the fundamental ground for a necessary reality, even if that reality is immaterial.
There is (once again) an obvious candidate here – one invoked by thinkers such as Augustine and Leibniz – and that is God: the eternally and necessarily existing, purely actual divine intellect. The idea is that only a necessarily existing intellect could ultimately explain abstract necessary objects. Our coming to possess concepts and understand universals are examples of entertaining abstract objects. Propositions, possible worlds, and mathematical entities are other examples of abstract objects. What is the ontological status of abstract objects?
Greg Welty argues any theory meant to explain abstract objects must meet six conditions, which include:
- Objectivity = abstract objects exhibit a reality independent of human minds. They are something we discover, rather than invent. Whatever theory of abstract objects is posited must explain this.
- Necessity = abstract objects are not contingent, or something that could have been otherwise, or not at all. Again, any theory of abstract objections which is posited must explain this.
- Intentionality = abstract objects are thought-like in nature; they represent something in the world like how thoughts do (triangularity represents triangles, for example). This, too, is something any theory of abstract objects must explain.
- Relevance = any theory of abstract objects must explain why there are the necessary and possible truths there are.
- Plentitude = any theory of abstract objects must explain the enormous – in fact, infinite – number of abstract objects.
- Simplicity = any theory of abstract objects must not posit more entities than are necessary to explain the data.
There is great debate not just on the status of abstract objects but what best explains them. That debate is too large to adjudicate now; however, the preceding arguments – including what has already been said against nominalism, which attempts to eliminate the reality of abstract objects – limit the remaining available options effectively down to one. Namely, The One.
Welty makes the case for Theistic Conceptual Realism (which mirrors Scholastic Realism), by explaining, “First, a divine mind (being omniscient) can certainly have enough thoughts for all the truths and possibilities we intuitively think there are. Second, if necessarily existent thoughts are required, they must be the thoughts of a necessarily existent mind. ‘It doesn’t require much further thought to see whose mind this must be. A necessarily existent mind must be the mind of a necessarily existent person. And this, Aquinas would say, everyone understands to be God.’ Third and finally, objectivity is secured by there being just one omniscient and necessarily existent person whose thoughts are uniquely identified as AOs. These thoughts would have extramental existence, just as on realism. At least, they have it relative to finite minds. Propositions would exist independently of any human cognition, although they would not exist independently of divine cognition.”[21]
Another – and for our purposes, final -- suggestion in favor of a theistic foundation comes from Norris Clarke, a Thomistic personalist, who argues “In a word, when being is allowed to be fully itself as active presence, it necessarily turns into luminous self-presence—self-awareness, or self-consciousness—one of the primary attributes of persons. To be fully is to be personally.”[22]
The idea here is that matter is the sole obstacle to intelligence. Immaterial being just is (intelligent) personal being. That is, any being which is not restricted by matter, which is more unrestricted, in other words, is being which is transparent to itself, inherently relational and capable of understanding. What is the argument for this? Simply that matter, traditionally understood, is a principle of limitation. Combine that with the notion that being which is self-reflective, personal, thinking, etc., is a higher expression of being, it seems right to say that matter is an obstacle to this; hence, the less limitation, the more being is fully expressed. I leave this suggestion undeveloped – merely a suggestion, as it were. Enough, hopefully, has already been said to provide more than ample support that theism – that is, the existence of a prime thinker, or, as Lonergan puts it, an unrestricted act of understanding, understanding itself – is the best explanation for our contingently possessing concepts.[23]
[1] As well, if one is hoping to argue from our possessing concepts to some transcendent thinker, as I am, innatism isn’t so much a threat as a shortcut!
[2] For an overview, see Candlish, Stewart and George Wrisley, "Private Language", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2019), at plato.stanford.edu.
[3] Mortimer Adler, Ten Philosophical Mistakes, (Touchstone Reprint, 1997), 51.
[4] Edward Feser, Five Proofs of the Existence of God (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), 92-93.
[5] For a more detailed development of this argument see Edward Feser, Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide, (London: OneWorld Publishing, 2009), chapter 4, Kindle edition.
[6] The argument is that if thought has property x, and property x cannot be material, then thought cannot be material.
[7] Edward Feser, “Kripke, Ross, and the Immaterial Aspects of Thought,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 87, no 1 (2013) at newdualism.org, www.newdualism.org/papers/E.Feser/Feser-acpq_2013.pdf. See also James Ross, Thought and World: The Hidden Necessities, (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008), 116-121.
[8] Importantly, and to pre-empt another objection, it is not just that our thinking is directed at something determinate, but the thinking itself is determinate, and if thinking itself has property Y (determinacy) and if no physical process can have property Y, then thinking cannot be (entirely) physical. Again, if thinking itself were not determinate, then we could never know that we were actually adding, reasoning via modus ponens, etc. But we do know that we are actually adding, reasoning via modus ponens, etc. So at least our formal thinking is determinate, and that is all that’s needed to run the argument.
[9] Again, see Feser, “Kripke”
[10] James Ross, Thought and World: The Hidden Necessities, (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008), 116-121.
[11] J.J.C. Smart, J.J. Haldane, Atheism and Theism, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002), 107.
[12] Smart, Haldane, Atheism and Theism, 107.
[13] Joshua Rasmussen, “Against Non-Reductive Physicalism,” at Joshua Rassmussen.com (blog), at https://joshualrasmussen.com/
[14] Feser, “Kripke”.
[15] Edward Feser, Aristotle’s Revenge, 1st ed. (Germany: Editiones Scholasticae, 2019), 406-420.
[16] Smart, Haldane, Theism and Atheism, 227-232.
[17] Quoting Feser again to provide examples, “Suppose you need twenty dollars and I give it to you. The effect is your having a twenty-dollar bill. It might be that the way I was able to bring this about is by virtue of actually having a twenty-dollar bill with me. That would be a case where what is in the effect was in the cause “formally”; that is to say, you have the “form” or fit the pattern of possessing a twenty-dollar bill because I actually had that very same form or fit that pattern myself. It could instead be, though, that I did not initially have twenty dollars on me, but I did have at least that much in my bank account and could go retrieve it on demand. In that case, what is in the effect was in the total cause (namely me and my bank account) “virtually.” The twenty-dollar bill was not actually or formally present, but it could be generated at will. Or, to take a more exotic case, suppose I did not have even twenty dollars in the bank, but did have access to a U.S. Treasury printing press and ran off a brand new twenty-dollar note to give to you. In that case, although I did not have twenty dollars “formally” or “virtually,” I did have it “eminently,” in the sense that I had something even more fundamental, the power to generate a new twenty-dollar bill. See: Edward Feser, “From Aristotle to John Searle and Back Again: Formal Causes, Teleology, and Computation in Nature,” at New Dualism, at www.newdualism.org.
[18] Smart, Haldane, Atheism and Theism, 121.
[19] Otherwise, we have a set of receivers but no producer; hence there would be nothing to receive. Since there is something to receive, there must be something which has the causal-property inherently and not derivatively.
[20] See Edward Feser, Aquinas: A Beginners’ Guide (UK: Oneworld Publications, 2009).
[21] See Paul Gould (ed.), Beyond the Control of God?, (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), 88-89, chapter by Greg Welty, Kindle.
[22] Norris Clarke, Explorations in Metaphysics (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1995), 211-227.
[23] A speculative thought about the relation between logic and God: God would not exist if he were not thinking himself because God is an unrestricted self-thinking thought; and logic would not exist if it were not being thought about by God, because logic is just the necessary structure of being (God), as thought by God.