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essence

unicorn-hunt

Essence and Existence in Modern Science

St. Thomas laid the intellectual groundwork for modern natural science — the absolute distinction between existence and essence. Read More ›
Unicorn

Essence and Existence: The Cornerstone of Thomistic Metaphysics

I can describe anything you like in whatever detail you like, but you can’t know whether it exists or not merely by its description. Read More ›
Aristotle-2

Edward Feser on Aristotle’s Revenge — Purpose and Essence in Nature

Scientists can get along without Aristotle’s metaphysics, says Feser, but science can’t. Read More ›

AAUP Responds on Academic Freedom

Gary Rhoades at AAUP responded to my original post. My own response is below the fold.

Dear Mr. Crowther,

Apparently patience is not one of your stronger virtues, at least not in this case. If you were really interested in my response, or in the position of the AAUP, you might have had the courtesy to give me a reasonable amount of time to respond to your letter below (which came to me at 3:33p.m. EST today, whereas your posting below was 1:24 p.m today, though the time zone is not posted).

Upon returning to my emails late this afternoon, after addressing some other pressing matters earlier in the afternoon, I come to find that you have already posted the following on your organization’s website:

He pastes in this blog post.

Read More ›

How Not to Defend Free Will

Friday in Washington, D.C. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) hosted an event titled “Genes, Neuroscience, and Free Will.” The panel, which discussed whether new findings in neuroscience and genetics have destroyed our notion of free will, consisted of James Q. Wilson (Pepperdine), David Brooks (New York Times), Charles Murray (AEI), Sally Satel (AEI), and moderator Christina Hoff Sommers (AEI). I won’t bother to record the differing views of the panelists, for their differences were very few and very far between. Essentially, they all argued that we have an innate sense of free will and that findings in genetics and neuroscience have not undermined it because: (1) sure, genes determine behavior, but not 100%; often the environment contributes to our behavior Read More ›

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