Does Kryptonite Exist?

You might have recently read online that a mining team in Serbia came across a rock with precisely the same chemical name as Kryptonite, the fictional rock from the Superman comics.  So did they find Kryptonite?  ‘Well of course not,’ you say.  ‘The thing doesn’t exist.’  But then this question arises: To what do you refer when you say of this object “Kryptonite,” that it does not exist? 

After all, I can point to it.  Well, perhaps not with a finger, but when I say the name “Kryptonite,” you know what I mean:  That there is something there that I am singling out; something to which I refer, and it is this thing, we are saying, that doesn’t exist.  But how can there be something there that doesn’t exist?  Does the name Kryptonite, have a referent? 

Here’s how a Meinongian might respond.

(1) We have intentional states (e.g. ‘fear’) only if there is some real object responsible for that intentional state (e.g. fear of a dog).

(2) We have intentional states about Kryptonite (e.g. we admire Kryptonite).

(3) No non-Kryptonite entity is responsible for the intentional state e.g. of my admiring Kryptonite.

(4) Therefore, there is a real entity Kryptonite.

Now to back-pedal a bit, I should say that the Meinogian will parse the “is” in that last proposition as “subsists” and not “exists”, but for now, that’s neither here nor there.  What’s important is that when we say the name Kryptonite, the Meinongian argues that it does refer to a real object and not something merely the figment of our imagination.

Theological Hospitality: 2 responses to Beckwith’s conversion

A few weeks ago, as Beckwith’s reversion to Roman Catholicism was the town buzz, I came across these two comments in response to Frank’s post/announcement. The first was posted by New Testamant scholar Craig Blomberg, and the second by pastor Greg Miller. Notice any differences?

“They’re leaving in droves!”

Dr. Robert Koons, professor or Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, has decided to swim the Tiber  along with Dr. Beckwith.  Fortunately, there doesn’t seem to be the same amout of vitriol there was when Frank spoke of his decision.

King Herod’s Tomb Unearthed?

Hebrew University professor Ehud Netzer and colleagues say they solved one of Israel’s great archaeological mysteries by unearthing the remains of Herod’s grave, sarcophagus, and mausoleum at the Herodium complex.

See the article here at National Geographic’s website.

HT: J.C. Miller

Bonaventure Quote

[J]ust as the eye, intent on the various differences of color, does not see the light through which it sees other things, or if it does see, does not notice it, so our mind’s eye, intent on particular and universal beings, does not notice that Being which is beyond all categories, even though it comes first to the mind, and through it, all other things.[1]

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[1] Bonaventure, The Journey of the Mind to God, trans. Philotheus Boehner (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1956; orig. 1259), p. 29.

A Comparison of how Aquinas & Scotus make Negative & Positive Predications of God

In Question 13, article 5 of his Summa Theologica, Aquinas identifies three forms of predication (or 3 ways to use words to predicate things of God). The first is univocal—using a term in exactly the same way of more that one subject (this desk and that desk are both “desk”; no need to change the term). The second is pure equivocal—this is to use the same word, but the subjects are different (e.g., pointing to a picture of someone and then to the actual person and calling each “Bob”; there’s something in common, but the two are obviously different). Third is analogical—this is what Aquinas uses between creatures and God.

Tulane Scientist Frank Tipler in News on God’s Existence

See here. This was on the local news this evening.

Wittgenstein, qualia, and Private Experience

Wittgenstein denies the Cartesian-esque theses that we undergo private expriences, that the mind is somewhat like an inner theatre of experience.  But this view seems to have much going for it.

For example, it seems intuitive that when I remember something, there is an inner process taking place to which I affix the term “remember.”  And what I mean by “remember” is just what this inner process is.  But Wittgenstein thinks this intuition mistaken.  Consider an example: Suppose I (qua a Cartesian soul) decide to take note of a certain sensation I experience by recording “S” in a diary whenever I have this experience.  I say that by “S” I mean this sensation, but just how is this relationship established?  What is it precisely that affixes “S” to this particular sensation?  One cannot just ostensibly define a sign unto himself. 

Nevertheless, when I remember, there seems to be a certain mental object, something there that I (and only I) “see.”  And it is for this mental process that I use the word “remember.”  But Wittgenstein insists that it is a mistake to think that “the picture of the inner process gives us the correct idea of the use of the word ‘to remember.’”  It is not possible to translate a private experience into a public language.  But this is not to deny that there is a mental process of remembering, he says (this would be nothing other than behaviorism).  Rather to speak of a mental process of remembering is nothing other than that the individual has remembered. 

Maybe it’s just me, but I find this ambiguous in the Phil. Investigations: Does Wittgenstein mean to deny the possibility of private experience because they couldn’t be expressed in natural language, or does he mean to say that even if private experiences were possible, we couldn’t express them in natural language?  He could have intended the latter.  In that case, he would admit that private experiences were possible but that we just couldn’t express them .

 I think one putative example of this would be qualia–the thesis that for some sentient organism there is in all its consciousness and sensory perceptions, a certain subjectivity such that there is something it is like for that organism to be conscious or to have a sensation.  There is something it is like for me to see this piece of paper that I have here before me–and what that is, is something that I am immediately acquainted with.  And this, further, is an irreducibly mental object.  Indeed it is a private mental object.  No one knows what it is like for me to see this piece of paper but me.  But qualia are thought to be inexpressible.  I do not know how I could, in any natural languge, express what it is like for me to see the color green.  So qualia sensations are at least one putative example of private experiences.

Francis Beckwith has converted to Catholicism

See here.

UPDATE: See here for the statement given by the ETS executive committee.

10 Things I Hate About Graduate Philosophy

With papers due and final exams on the way, we here at Summaphilosophiae are in a sour mood.  The following is a heartfelt vent:

1.  After devoting 2hrs to a close reading of Heidegger, you realize that you have no idea what you’ve just read.

2.  That sinking feeling you get when you’ve spent the last five minutes in class insisting to the professor that Aristotle did hold such-and-such a view and then he opens the text and shows you that Aristotle held the opposite.

3.  Your wife refuses to understand that Plato has priority over house-hold responsibilities.

4.  It’s always during the most intense debates that you can’t seem to remember those killer arguments your prof. had mentioned in class.

5.  For every philosophical view, there seems to be an equal and opposite philosophical view.

6.  Similarly, for every intelligible philosophical view, there is an equal and opposite Heideggerian view.

7.  You’ve finally worked up the courage and proceed to challenge your professor’s position, but your fellow classmates refuse to come to your aid, letting you go down in flames.

8.  The awkward silence and blank stares that follow when well-meaning lay persons ask you to explain the thesis that you are writing, and you oblige.

9.  Phenomenology.

10.  The last two weeks of the semester.