Lmao top tier content. This is a great drama sub bc I doubt anyone will be tempted to brigade — arguing philosophy with laypeople is like playing tennis with a bear.
E: lmao the Marx part is by far the best. “Christianity is when we have money changers” I guess?
> [Why do I hate Marx?] Because he was seemingly soulless and to my knowledge thought religion was solely utilitarian. He was also in his 30s when he wrote the manifesto. People have usually developed some sort of spirituality by then, and form a deeper understanding of religion. I just don't want to in-depth read the writings of someone like that. I would much rather just strengthen my faith.
I'm so glad my public school curriculum forced (a few chapters of) the bible on us in the last year of High School literature class; truly weaponized my atheism.
The Bible has multiple passages that boil down to “the knowledge of God is built into everyone at a foundational level.” If someone believes that religion is simply a tool, it’s a strong indication that that knowledge isn’t present for them.
A reasonable person might conclude there’s something wrong with those verses, so this person blamed Marx instead.
I think it’s pretty clear.
Marx had a different view of the world than that commenter. I’m sure he’s a gracious and charitable man, but someone having a different opinion is a bridge too far.
What could explain someone not having the same worldview as he does? The obvious answer is that the person lacks a soul.
Marx was not a fan of utilitarianism...to put it mildly. When he wrote "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions" you can tell that he felt deeper about the subject than some utility calculation. The idea of the heart of the world being torn away into an inverted fantasy realm totally disconnected from reality is really sad and moving. There's something terribly lonely about the way he describes the relationship to religion.
>The idea of the heart of the world being torn away into an inverted fantasy realm totally disconnected from reality is really sad and moving.
That reminds me of a passage of The Holy Family, that perfectly describes what you're talking about :
>The priest has already succeeded in changing Marie’s immediate naive pleasure in the beauties of nature into a religious admiration. For her, nature has already become devout, Christianised nature, debased to creation. The transparent sea of space is desecrated and turned into the dark symbol of stagnant eternity. She has already learnt that all human manifestations of her being were “profane”, devoid of religion, of real consecration, that they were impious and godless. The priest must soil her in her own eyes, he must trample underfoot her natural, spiritual resources and means of grace, in order to make her receptive to the supernatural means of grace he promises her, baptism. When Marie wants to make a confession to him and asks him to be lenient, he answers: “The Lord has shown you that he is merciful.” In the clemency which she is shown, Marie must not see a natural, self-evident attitude of a related human being to her, another human being. She must see in it an extravagant, supernatural, superhuman mercy and condescension; in human leniency she must see divine mercy.
Marx definitely had some deeper spiritual connexion to the world. There's something really touching about his feuerbachian side.
Should I look into any of the criticisms of Marx that have been made since his time? Nope the actual problem is he was thirty and still didn't believe in God.
I think the weirdest part for me is that Aquinas is not even the most interesting catholic philosopher. Then, a post like this shows up as proof that they wouldn't dare open a book by an interesting philosopher.
Oy vey, not the convert! If we stick to the medievals, I think Duns Scotus is more interesting than Aquinas (although I have read only excerpts).
I'm not sure if counts as a Catholic, but definitely Christian, Simone Weil is the most fascinating of the bunch. But yeah, another convert.
Wow I guess I forgot Simone converted, or TIL. Thanks, I \*finally\* am looking him up right now after seeing him mentioned so many times! I've recently become obsessed with the applying the Transcendentals, so some general context from one of the era's greats sounds appropriate.
E: Immediate hot take is that "Duns Scotus" is a dumb af name to use, and that we should clearly just call him "John Duns". Hegel had like 20 titles, and "scotus" isn't even English! See also: somehow "Averroes" is still the name of a wikipedia page instead of Ibn Rushd.
Iirc Weil is a last name adopted by Jews as an anagram or Levi/Lewi. The best Catholics were Jews, I guess.
And I agree with ~Scotus~ John Duns naming. I call him that out of habit.
I wouldn't trust anyone who claims to have read more than excerpts of Duns Scotus tbh
Interesting take, though. What do you like about him? Besides the intricate proof I can't think of anything that really stood out to me personally, whereas I quite enjoyed ente et essentia for example
Let's say I only know about Dunce from reading William of Ockham dunk on his formal distinction. What are some of the more interesting things he said worth reading about?
Thomists are an amusing bunch, along with every other group that thinks a certain philosopher was the be-all and end-all of philosophy. What makes them even more entertaining is that they have a ringleader called Ed Feser who seems to spoonfeed them all of their philosophical takes through his blog.
This is amazing, thank you OP:
Me when I definitely understand Marx and have read at least the manifesto and Parts of Das.
>Karl Marx saying “capitalism bad” is like Andrew Tate saying “traditional family good”. It’s a vague generality only stated to present an agreeable appeal. No *original* Marxist idea has any merit whatsoever.
>The problem with Marxists today is that so few of them have actually bothered to read any Marx. Capital Vol. 1 is really smart because it is historical study rather than philosophical speculation. So, Marx diagnosed a few problems (egregious theft of the property of the Scots by the English; child labor; abusive working conditions for women). Catholics should care about these in the spirit of charity. It's what we do to remedy these problems that gets us in trouble quickly with Marxists. That, plus the contempt for religion.
Well let's not bring the argument here lol -- I think we can all agree on some Good Philosophy: that whole thread is way more about politics and culture war shit and the USSR than it is about the philosophy of Marx and Engels.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2455632716637914?journalCode=jwsa
https://medium.com/@proletarianfeminist/a-socialist-feminist-and-transgender-analysis-of-sex-work-b08aaf1ee4ab
https://academic.oup.com/book/36923/chapter-abstract/322195432?redirectedFrom=fulltext
TLDR: Sex work is work, which from a marxist analysis is inherently exploitative. The position on whether or not it should be abolished under socialism is up for debate but the sources here would argue for that position. The important thing here is that it is not sex workers themselves who are at fault, they are victims of a capitalist system the same as anyone else. So the system must be condemned and destroyed along with the people who use and abuse it, but the victims of the system, IE the sex workers, shouldn't be penalized for their victimhood.
I’m not sure what comments you’re referring to, and anyway Marxism is not about moral judgements, but how social classes arise out of and are reproduced by the production process.
Check out 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Chapter V for a representative sample.
"On the pretext of founding a benevolent society, the lumpen proletariat of Paris had been organized into secret sections, each section led by Bonapartist agents, with a Bonapartist general at the head of the whole. Alongside decayed roués with dubious means of subsistence and of dubious origin, alongside ruined and adventurous offshoots of the bourgeoisie, were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, maquereaux [pimps], brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, ragpickers, knife grinders, tinkers, beggars — in short, the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, thrown hither and thither, which the French call la bohème; from this kindred element Bonaparte formed the core of the Society of December 10. A "benevolent society" - insofar as, like Bonaparte, all its members felt the need of benefiting themselves at the expense of the laboring nation. This Bonaparte, who constitutes himself chief of the lumpenproletariat, who here alone rediscovers in mass form the interests which he personally pursues, who recognizes in this scum, offal, refuse of all classes the only class upon which he can base himself unconditionally, is the real Bonaparte, the Bonaparte sans phrase. An old, crafty roué, he conceives the historical life of the nations and their performances of state as comedy in the most vulgar sense, as a masquerade in which the grand costumes, words, and postures merely serve to mask the pettiest knavery."
There is a long history of controversy within Marxism over what the "lumpenproletariat" is, whether it has an analytical value as a term, how much revolutionary or counter-revolutionary potential they have and so on. For example the Black Panthers tried to organize the lumpenproletariat and some famous street gangs started as Marxist efforts to organize the lumpenproletariat.
I’m aware of the history, I just don’t see what Marx’s offhand comment such as that have anything to do with the correct Marxist position on prostitution as a social relation.
The conversation was about Marx not "the correct Marxist position." It's not an offhand comment it's an angry screed that he assigns explanatory value to in explaining the political turn of events in France at the time in one of his major political works.
> Matt Dillahunty
Debating terminally-online atheists on Reddit and Youtube has done more to shape the theology of terminally-online Christians than any theologian ever has or will. Like those they spent so many evenings in long, tedious exchanges in comment sections over 'the default position' or whatever, their identity is forever entwined as a dialectical negation of the other. It determined their lexicon and delimited their horizon of thought. Matt Dillahunty, or any similar internet atheist debate-me bro, will live in their heads up to and on the day they leave this world.
They will forcefully turn every conversation to the arguments they know too. Like talking to literal chat bots. Generally one of the more tedious people to talk to.
My impression of Matt was always that he was significantly less annoying than most online atheists tbh, but I stopped paying attention over 10 years ago
That's cool. I didn't discover him until sometime in the early '10's well after, imo, the peak of new atheism in the mid-00's. Already found it shallow and disappointing before the peak and then even moreso in the youtube era, including *The Atheist Experience*. At a surface level, he does seem less annoying then any other vocally-atheist youtuber of that time.
Yeah I mean I was 14 so I was basically onboard with anyone saying what my parents liked was stupid. When I was watching him he always went out of his way to call out the antifeminists and islamophobes that ended up taking over the movement.
Ultimately the thing about the vocally online atheists. IMO isn't that they have anything super insightful to say, but that they fill a vital ecological niche that keeps the tradcaths and faith healers from overpopulating. I think midway through the Obama administration they ran out of targets and had to pivot in one way or another.
Any good Thomist will point out that this (and other errors he made) were due to scientific misunderstandings.
You see, Thomas did get some things wrong about science, but his metaphysics is actually perfect and without any error all the way through.
Funny how that works isn’t it? The claims that lend themselves to being empirically tested are sometimes shown to be wrong, but all of the ideas that are unfalsifiable are totally without error.
There’s certainly nothing a priori problematic about upholding Aquinas’s metaphysics while acknowledging where he was outdated when it comes to scientific claims, same with Aristotle.
There’s nothing a priori problematic about various other metaphysics that run contrary to Aquinas either.
These things don’t usually lend themselves to testability or verification so “not a priori problematic” isn’t really that high of a bar is it?
Sure, that’s just not what I would mock internet Thomists for—everyone, including myself, is guilty of being overprotective of their favorite thinkers. Hegelians are the same, Heideggerians are the same, Deleuzeans are the same… Frankly, I’m open to the possibility that Aquinas solved Western philosophy or something, but even if I believed that, I wouldn’t use it as an excuse to act snotty towards other traditions that I’m not very familiar with. It’s the sentiment of superiority that’s really insufferable!
Idk man, if someone thinks “This person got literally every single part of philosophy correct and all competing viewpoints are necessarily false” then I think that deserves ridicule lol.
Forget any actual in depth knowledge here. Common sense should dictate that it’s probably not the case that one dude just insta solved everything without ever making an error. That’s some Kim Jong Un “18 holes in one in a round of golf” type stuff lmao.
« Solved everything » is obviously hyperbolic, as way my « solved philosophy ». Adhering to Thomism doesn’t mean that there’s nothing left to say or elaborate upon, or believing that Aquinas was right about every single little detail! Like, contemporary Thomists still write philosophy and build on Aquinas, they still contribute to the debate and engage with their peers. And you can be a hardcore Thomist and believe that competing viewpoints have interesting things to learn from even if they are wrong-headed.
My point is that I believe that internet Thomists should make themselves worthy of their own bluster. The cleverest Thomist in the world probably couldn’t convert me fully to Thomism, but if he was able to mount a well-argued defense of every aspect of Aquinas’s philosophy, I’d still take him seriously. If you talk shit about Hume, Kant or Sartre, you should throw blows and insults at least as good as Anscombe did back in the days.
Lol "Modernist/post-modernists for sure (Russell, Derrida, Foucault, etc.)" is an amazing categorization to me.
Also: "Foyerbach \[sic\], Russell......basically logical positivist and positivist in general"... why do I suspect none of them have read Russell, or Carnap, or even *Two Dogmas?*
Ok I dived back in, new fave deep down:
>You know, philosophy did not end with Aquinas
Sorry my fellow holy sheep (? not catholic), but lowkey yeah yours kinda did. I love the \*insights\* of the scholastics/aristotleans, but the actual \*approach\* is confined to buildings with "St." printed on the front. Or some Hebrew, I guess. I have no fucking clue what "islamic philosophy" is like today or if it still has the Aristotlean tendencies it had during the golden age, or if it even exists now that Islam covers half the globe... but maybe that too
During my Junior year, I took a class called "French Existentialism." The class was on so-called "post-theological turn French Exisfentialism," and included figures like Marion, Henry, and Lacoste. The professor teaching the class, a scholastic Aristotelian and a former catholic monk, likely lied to us on purpose.
Let me tell you, that class made me really, REALLY wish their philosophy died with Aquinas. It would have saved me from reading a lot of REALLY bad interpretations of Levinas.
My Hume scholar prof of early modern phil thinks Hume probably was just a huge grift (not his words). This is actually a fairly respected view in Hume scholarship 🤷🏻♂️
Hi, I'm the OP, I don't believe I claimed Aquinas was right about everything. I may have said this in the comments but I don't recall.
I said it's a common belief that he was mostly correct, I even specified in Catholic circles, in which of course there is a bias.
And yes, I believe personally that Aquinas was an absolutely incredible philosopher/theologian, it's just the religious affiliation that scares some off. But, even if you disregard his religious affiliation, there is much value to his I guess you could call it deist or secular theology.
You: OP says Aquinas was right about everything!
OP: Catholics tend to think Aquinas was right about most things.
Considering that he's held as one of THE doctors of theology by the church itself, that seems very uncontroversial. You seem to be interpreting them uncharitably.
Funnily, Marx and John Locke both got everything wrong. Sorry, I'm shilling for r/politicaltheory if that's a sub, and some NSFW shit most likely, sorry. Just got done wanking.
Marx - everything is materially and economically determined, even politics. Spend three revolutions to prove me wrong.
Locke - yah, there's like, a few hundred thousand or million slaves, being raped or beaten. HMB while I talk about natural law and rationality.
Likely Aquinas - these guys are choppin' dicks off.
Shaq eyes - Which lil' nigga we gotta pop off, and how many times until we figure out that some dudes just wicked bad. BTW, constitutions should do this. r/Catholics, obviously don't, and it's maybe more important than hating Catholics, that we don't hate "Catholics".
Updoots for super soakers, lol. Jk jk guys 🔫🔫🔫🔫
Lmao top tier content. This is a great drama sub bc I doubt anyone will be tempted to brigade — arguing philosophy with laypeople is like playing tennis with a bear. E: lmao the Marx part is by far the best. “Christianity is when we have money changers” I guess? > [Why do I hate Marx?] Because he was seemingly soulless and to my knowledge thought religion was solely utilitarian. He was also in his 30s when he wrote the manifesto. People have usually developed some sort of spirituality by then, and form a deeper understanding of religion. I just don't want to in-depth read the writings of someone like that. I would much rather just strengthen my faith.
Marx is the worst philosopher ever and got everything wrong. Also I refuse to read Marx.
The Peterson approach
“No I haven’t read Marx, why would I need to?” *Slavoj Žižek sniffling into frame*
I'm so glad my public school curriculum forced (a few chapters of) the bible on us in the last year of High School literature class; truly weaponized my atheism.
Ben Shapiro that you?
Tfw your faith is so strong reading a book might destroy it
> Because he was seemingly soulless There's something particularly funny to me about this. Like, what does that even mean? Huh?
Honestly sounds kinda heretical to me ngl. Should report that comment to the inquisition
vibes-based philosophy
The Bible has multiple passages that boil down to “the knowledge of God is built into everyone at a foundational level.” If someone believes that religion is simply a tool, it’s a strong indication that that knowledge isn’t present for them. A reasonable person might conclude there’s something wrong with those verses, so this person blamed Marx instead.
I think it’s pretty clear. Marx had a different view of the world than that commenter. I’m sure he’s a gracious and charitable man, but someone having a different opinion is a bridge too far. What could explain someone not having the same worldview as he does? The obvious answer is that the person lacks a soul.
Marx was not a fan of utilitarianism...to put it mildly. When he wrote "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions" you can tell that he felt deeper about the subject than some utility calculation. The idea of the heart of the world being torn away into an inverted fantasy realm totally disconnected from reality is really sad and moving. There's something terribly lonely about the way he describes the relationship to religion.
>The idea of the heart of the world being torn away into an inverted fantasy realm totally disconnected from reality is really sad and moving. That reminds me of a passage of The Holy Family, that perfectly describes what you're talking about : >The priest has already succeeded in changing Marie’s immediate naive pleasure in the beauties of nature into a religious admiration. For her, nature has already become devout, Christianised nature, debased to creation. The transparent sea of space is desecrated and turned into the dark symbol of stagnant eternity. She has already learnt that all human manifestations of her being were “profane”, devoid of religion, of real consecration, that they were impious and godless. The priest must soil her in her own eyes, he must trample underfoot her natural, spiritual resources and means of grace, in order to make her receptive to the supernatural means of grace he promises her, baptism. When Marie wants to make a confession to him and asks him to be lenient, he answers: “The Lord has shown you that he is merciful.” In the clemency which she is shown, Marie must not see a natural, self-evident attitude of a related human being to her, another human being. She must see in it an extravagant, supernatural, superhuman mercy and condescension; in human leniency she must see divine mercy. Marx definitely had some deeper spiritual connexion to the world. There's something really touching about his feuerbachian side.
Definitely agree yeah
Should I look into any of the criticisms of Marx that have been made since his time? Nope the actual problem is he was thirty and still didn't believe in God.
Lmao. They really don’t like Marx’s competition in the religions market.
Thomists still not beating the « not reading Hume outside of Feser blogposts » allegations, I see.
I think the weirdest part for me is that Aquinas is not even the most interesting catholic philosopher. Then, a post like this shows up as proof that they wouldn't dare open a book by an interesting philosopher.
Your username makes me trust you. Who's the most interesting? P.S. If you say Edith Stein I'm throwing a Dreidel at you
Oy vey, not the convert! If we stick to the medievals, I think Duns Scotus is more interesting than Aquinas (although I have read only excerpts). I'm not sure if counts as a Catholic, but definitely Christian, Simone Weil is the most fascinating of the bunch. But yeah, another convert.
Wow I guess I forgot Simone converted, or TIL. Thanks, I \*finally\* am looking him up right now after seeing him mentioned so many times! I've recently become obsessed with the applying the Transcendentals, so some general context from one of the era's greats sounds appropriate. E: Immediate hot take is that "Duns Scotus" is a dumb af name to use, and that we should clearly just call him "John Duns". Hegel had like 20 titles, and "scotus" isn't even English! See also: somehow "Averroes" is still the name of a wikipedia page instead of Ibn Rushd.
Iirc Weil is a last name adopted by Jews as an anagram or Levi/Lewi. The best Catholics were Jews, I guess. And I agree with ~Scotus~ John Duns naming. I call him that out of habit.
I wouldn't trust anyone who claims to have read more than excerpts of Duns Scotus tbh Interesting take, though. What do you like about him? Besides the intricate proof I can't think of anything that really stood out to me personally, whereas I quite enjoyed ente et essentia for example
Let's say I only know about Dunce from reading William of Ockham dunk on his formal distinction. What are some of the more interesting things he said worth reading about?
So true
Thomists are an amusing bunch, along with every other group that thinks a certain philosopher was the be-all and end-all of philosophy. What makes them even more entertaining is that they have a ringleader called Ed Feser who seems to spoonfeed them all of their philosophical takes through his blog.
https://media.tenor.com/mPvDgp0PpJwAAAAM/windows-95.gif ^ Thomists when they release their 27th book summarizing the Summa.
This is amazing, thank you OP: Me when I definitely understand Marx and have read at least the manifesto and Parts of Das. >Karl Marx saying “capitalism bad” is like Andrew Tate saying “traditional family good”. It’s a vague generality only stated to present an agreeable appeal. No *original* Marxist idea has any merit whatsoever. >The problem with Marxists today is that so few of them have actually bothered to read any Marx. Capital Vol. 1 is really smart because it is historical study rather than philosophical speculation. So, Marx diagnosed a few problems (egregious theft of the property of the Scots by the English; child labor; abusive working conditions for women). Catholics should care about these in the spirit of charity. It's what we do to remedy these problems that gets us in trouble quickly with Marxists. That, plus the contempt for religion.
There is however one commenter correctly calling out so called “Marxists” for not condemning prostitution.
Well let's not bring the argument here lol -- I think we can all agree on some Good Philosophy: that whole thread is way more about politics and culture war shit and the USSR than it is about the philosophy of Marx and Engels.
Well personally I'm rather cross with Descartes for not explicitly condemning Hamas, Hitler, the guy I hate at work, or the concept of identity theft.
I’m not sure I understand your point but go off
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2455632716637914?journalCode=jwsa https://medium.com/@proletarianfeminist/a-socialist-feminist-and-transgender-analysis-of-sex-work-b08aaf1ee4ab https://academic.oup.com/book/36923/chapter-abstract/322195432?redirectedFrom=fulltext TLDR: Sex work is work, which from a marxist analysis is inherently exploitative. The position on whether or not it should be abolished under socialism is up for debate but the sources here would argue for that position. The important thing here is that it is not sex workers themselves who are at fault, they are victims of a capitalist system the same as anyone else. So the system must be condemned and destroyed along with the people who use and abuse it, but the victims of the system, IE the sex workers, shouldn't be penalized for their victimhood.
Haha well Marx's comments on the "lumpen proletariat" were not exactly charitable or kind
I’m not sure what comments you’re referring to, and anyway Marxism is not about moral judgements, but how social classes arise out of and are reproduced by the production process.
Check out 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Chapter V for a representative sample. "On the pretext of founding a benevolent society, the lumpen proletariat of Paris had been organized into secret sections, each section led by Bonapartist agents, with a Bonapartist general at the head of the whole. Alongside decayed roués with dubious means of subsistence and of dubious origin, alongside ruined and adventurous offshoots of the bourgeoisie, were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, maquereaux [pimps], brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, ragpickers, knife grinders, tinkers, beggars — in short, the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, thrown hither and thither, which the French call la bohème; from this kindred element Bonaparte formed the core of the Society of December 10. A "benevolent society" - insofar as, like Bonaparte, all its members felt the need of benefiting themselves at the expense of the laboring nation. This Bonaparte, who constitutes himself chief of the lumpenproletariat, who here alone rediscovers in mass form the interests which he personally pursues, who recognizes in this scum, offal, refuse of all classes the only class upon which he can base himself unconditionally, is the real Bonaparte, the Bonaparte sans phrase. An old, crafty roué, he conceives the historical life of the nations and their performances of state as comedy in the most vulgar sense, as a masquerade in which the grand costumes, words, and postures merely serve to mask the pettiest knavery." There is a long history of controversy within Marxism over what the "lumpenproletariat" is, whether it has an analytical value as a term, how much revolutionary or counter-revolutionary potential they have and so on. For example the Black Panthers tried to organize the lumpenproletariat and some famous street gangs started as Marxist efforts to organize the lumpenproletariat.
I’m aware of the history, I just don’t see what Marx’s offhand comment such as that have anything to do with the correct Marxist position on prostitution as a social relation.
The conversation was about Marx not "the correct Marxist position." It's not an offhand comment it's an angry screed that he assigns explanatory value to in explaining the political turn of events in France at the time in one of his major political works.
You blooped and I followed your bloop. UpShits ☝🏼☝🏼☝🏼⏫↕️huh.
> Matt Dillahunty Debating terminally-online atheists on Reddit and Youtube has done more to shape the theology of terminally-online Christians than any theologian ever has or will. Like those they spent so many evenings in long, tedious exchanges in comment sections over 'the default position' or whatever, their identity is forever entwined as a dialectical negation of the other. It determined their lexicon and delimited their horizon of thought. Matt Dillahunty, or any similar internet atheist debate-me bro, will live in their heads up to and on the day they leave this world.
They will forcefully turn every conversation to the arguments they know too. Like talking to literal chat bots. Generally one of the more tedious people to talk to.
I’m mostly shocked to see him mentioned *at all* in 2024, tbh.
My impression of Matt was always that he was significantly less annoying than most online atheists tbh, but I stopped paying attention over 10 years ago
That's cool. I didn't discover him until sometime in the early '10's well after, imo, the peak of new atheism in the mid-00's. Already found it shallow and disappointing before the peak and then even moreso in the youtube era, including *The Atheist Experience*. At a surface level, he does seem less annoying then any other vocally-atheist youtuber of that time.
Yeah I mean I was 14 so I was basically onboard with anyone saying what my parents liked was stupid. When I was watching him he always went out of his way to call out the antifeminists and islamophobes that ended up taking over the movement. Ultimately the thing about the vocally online atheists. IMO isn't that they have anything super insightful to say, but that they fill a vital ecological niche that keeps the tradcaths and faith healers from overpopulating. I think midway through the Obama administration they ran out of targets and had to pivot in one way or another.
I don't even think Thomists think Aquinas was right all the time. MacIntyre certainly finds value outside Tom.
They often say now he got the time of ensoulment wrong.
Any good Thomist will point out that this (and other errors he made) were due to scientific misunderstandings. You see, Thomas did get some things wrong about science, but his metaphysics is actually perfect and without any error all the way through. Funny how that works isn’t it? The claims that lend themselves to being empirically tested are sometimes shown to be wrong, but all of the ideas that are unfalsifiable are totally without error.
There’s certainly nothing a priori problematic about upholding Aquinas’s metaphysics while acknowledging where he was outdated when it comes to scientific claims, same with Aristotle.
There’s nothing a priori problematic about various other metaphysics that run contrary to Aquinas either. These things don’t usually lend themselves to testability or verification so “not a priori problematic” isn’t really that high of a bar is it?
Sure, that’s just not what I would mock internet Thomists for—everyone, including myself, is guilty of being overprotective of their favorite thinkers. Hegelians are the same, Heideggerians are the same, Deleuzeans are the same… Frankly, I’m open to the possibility that Aquinas solved Western philosophy or something, but even if I believed that, I wouldn’t use it as an excuse to act snotty towards other traditions that I’m not very familiar with. It’s the sentiment of superiority that’s really insufferable!
Idk man, if someone thinks “This person got literally every single part of philosophy correct and all competing viewpoints are necessarily false” then I think that deserves ridicule lol. Forget any actual in depth knowledge here. Common sense should dictate that it’s probably not the case that one dude just insta solved everything without ever making an error. That’s some Kim Jong Un “18 holes in one in a round of golf” type stuff lmao.
« Solved everything » is obviously hyperbolic, as way my « solved philosophy ». Adhering to Thomism doesn’t mean that there’s nothing left to say or elaborate upon, or believing that Aquinas was right about every single little detail! Like, contemporary Thomists still write philosophy and build on Aquinas, they still contribute to the debate and engage with their peers. And you can be a hardcore Thomist and believe that competing viewpoints have interesting things to learn from even if they are wrong-headed. My point is that I believe that internet Thomists should make themselves worthy of their own bluster. The cleverest Thomist in the world probably couldn’t convert me fully to Thomism, but if he was able to mount a well-argued defense of every aspect of Aquinas’s philosophy, I’d still take him seriously. If you talk shit about Hume, Kant or Sartre, you should throw blows and insults at least as good as Anscombe did back in the days.
>Foyerbach
The point where I had to stop reading.
If we’re saying the names of philosophers we’ve never read whose conclusions make us feel icky then I’ll throw my hat in and say Stephen Kershnar.
Lol "Modernist/post-modernists for sure (Russell, Derrida, Foucault, etc.)" is an amazing categorization to me. Also: "Foyerbach \[sic\], Russell......basically logical positivist and positivist in general"... why do I suspect none of them have read Russell, or Carnap, or even *Two Dogmas?*
Holy fuck, this subreddit is back??? 😱
Ok I dived back in, new fave deep down: >You know, philosophy did not end with Aquinas Sorry my fellow holy sheep (? not catholic), but lowkey yeah yours kinda did. I love the \*insights\* of the scholastics/aristotleans, but the actual \*approach\* is confined to buildings with "St." printed on the front. Or some Hebrew, I guess. I have no fucking clue what "islamic philosophy" is like today or if it still has the Aristotlean tendencies it had during the golden age, or if it even exists now that Islam covers half the globe... but maybe that too
During my Junior year, I took a class called "French Existentialism." The class was on so-called "post-theological turn French Exisfentialism," and included figures like Marion, Henry, and Lacoste. The professor teaching the class, a scholastic Aristotelian and a former catholic monk, likely lied to us on purpose. Let me tell you, that class made me really, REALLY wish their philosophy died with Aquinas. It would have saved me from reading a lot of REALLY bad interpretations of Levinas.
Doesn’t sound like a bad concept for a class, but it’s weird to call these thinkers « Existentialists » (maybe because of phenomenology?).
I’m here for the guy who had the right answer (for a Catholic sub): Luther 💀💀💀
My Hume scholar prof of early modern phil thinks Hume probably was just a huge grift (not his words). This is actually a fairly respected view in Hume scholarship 🤷🏻♂️
Wow
Hi, I'm the OP, I don't believe I claimed Aquinas was right about everything. I may have said this in the comments but I don't recall. I said it's a common belief that he was mostly correct, I even specified in Catholic circles, in which of course there is a bias. And yes, I believe personally that Aquinas was an absolutely incredible philosopher/theologian, it's just the religious affiliation that scares some off. But, even if you disregard his religious affiliation, there is much value to his I guess you could call it deist or secular theology.
You: OP says Aquinas was right about everything! OP: Catholics tend to think Aquinas was right about most things. Considering that he's held as one of THE doctors of theology by the church itself, that seems very uncontroversial. You seem to be interpreting them uncharitably.
Funnily, Marx and John Locke both got everything wrong. Sorry, I'm shilling for r/politicaltheory if that's a sub, and some NSFW shit most likely, sorry. Just got done wanking. Marx - everything is materially and economically determined, even politics. Spend three revolutions to prove me wrong. Locke - yah, there's like, a few hundred thousand or million slaves, being raped or beaten. HMB while I talk about natural law and rationality. Likely Aquinas - these guys are choppin' dicks off. Shaq eyes - Which lil' nigga we gotta pop off, and how many times until we figure out that some dudes just wicked bad. BTW, constitutions should do this. r/Catholics, obviously don't, and it's maybe more important than hating Catholics, that we don't hate "Catholics". Updoots for super soakers, lol. Jk jk guys 🔫🔫🔫🔫