This book is intense. — Posty McPostface

In what way?

As it happens, I came across the following article the other day, which I think is a clear and perspicacious summary of Augustine's argument, which is worded differently than your summary of Feser's: http://www.catholic.org/homily/yearoffaith/story.php?id=48442.

The element I have the most doubts about is his claim that there are only three possible Realist views: Platonic, Aristotelian, and Scholastic, and that by a process of elimination, the Scholastic one wins. — Mitchell

If he says that, I very much doubt it too. There is simply no such thing as "the Scholastic" view of universals. There are loads of different views among the various Scholastic thinkers. Abelard, John of Salisbury, Bonaventure, Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, Matthew of Aquasparta, Duns Scotus, Walter Burley, Ockham, etc. They all have contrasting views on universals.

This isn't the first time someone has observed that Feser has a penchant for essentializing Scholasticism, which for him is really just Thomism. The following review by a Scotist of one of Feser's previous books advances this charge: http://lyfaber.blogspot.com/2014/06/fesers-scholastic-metaphysics-book.html

Perhaps we should reintroduce the upvotes (not the downvotes, as that will lead to reddit style abuse). If it is seen that people find certain posts helpful/useful, then that may lessen the desire for censure.

Investment largely refers to buying further means of production - factories, tools, machinery, technology, etc. etc. or building new property — Agustino

And these means of production require workers, and workers require wages. So reinvestment does include hiring people from profits made.

Its real value must be computed in scientific terms, not in what people are willing to pay for it — Agustino

And what are those terms? You still haven't answered my question.

Profit is technically never paid in wages — Agustino

This statement and the following one:

avings (and profits) are required for me the owner to (1) take my fair share out of the business, and (2) have what to reinvest to grow the operations, expand production, etc. — Agustino

... are in opposition. If profits are used to reinvest, and reinvestment entails hiring and paying more workers, then profits are in fact used to pay wages.

So this talk about the market deciding this and that is actually bullshit. — Agustino

For the life of me, I don't see how anything you said in the various paragraphs in which this statement is embedded actually demonstrates this. You say that the market undervalues or overvalues goods and services. That assumes there is some mechanism or criterion other than the market used to determine the true, objective value of things. What is that and how do you know it? Do people determine it and, if so, why should we trust them to determine it? If a non-market based mechanism determines it, what is that mechanism?

The entrepreneur adds value by (a) organizing production to achieve economies of scale and efficiency, and (b) creating the right distribution channel to distribute the goods produced. — Agustino

And c) having ideas that can translate to new goods and services. Another issue with Marxism is that it fails to account for human creativity and innovation, focusing instead on labor and material products from an antiquated late 19th century perspective (it is no accident that BC's chosen example above is of an early 20th century car plant).

Now, on a different note, wealthy people in my view have another duty/responsibility that has largely been forgotten today. The wealthy should finance learning, culture, art, etc. Much like during the Renessaince, the Medici family, for example, would bring artists to their court, give them all that they needed to live, and then let them produce their art free of worldly cares. The artist, the philosopher, the musician, etc. cannot survive without the businessman and the politician. So the two are both needed to make society work. — Agustino

Agreed.

You are an ignorant fool — bloodninja

>:O

Do note that in your reply you haven't shown what I said you needed to show.

The stockholders would be stripped of their assets, likewise individual owners. — Bitter Crank

So you're not opposed to exploitation, just so long as the "right people" are exploited....

Marx wasn't proposing a reform of capitalism, he was proposing its abolition. — Bitter Crank

Yes, indeed. This is why "exploitation" is not a neutral, descriptive term, but a normative one. Marxists, as well as most people, are opposed to exploitation. To use the term at all to describe capitalism is to commit oneself to being opposed to capitalism. I do not fall for this bait, however. I recognize Marxism as the immoral and irrational utopian ideology that it is. And some utopia it proposes! Workers managing plants in perpetuum. What a veritable paradise! Who knew that human depravity, poverty, and misery could be solved by workers managing plants!

I would think wages, replacing equipment, buying materials, etc. would come out of gross revenue not profit. Profit is net revenue, isn't it, what is left over after the costs of production and allied costs are covered. — Bitter Crank

No, it can and is used to pay wages.

The point is, labor creates more value than it gets paid for. The rest is "alienated" -- that is, lost to the workers. The rest goes to the capitalist who actually performed no labor at all. — Bitter Crank

The assumption that business owners just sit on their hands collecting a paycheck isn't true. But even if you could make the case that they are superfluous to production, I already anticipated such a response by referencing the market. If the market allows owners to be paid X and the workers Y, then you cannot cry exploitation. In other words, if, as you admit, exploitation does not refer to the necessity to work, then as a term of moral opprobrium, it must refer to some sort of unjustly coercive behavior relating to the distribution of revenue and profit. That is what you have not shown but need to show for me to accept the term in question. You have merely stated the fact that an unequal distribution of wealth exists, but this in and of itself need not be unjust. Once again, the mere fact that someone sprints faster than his opponents in a race doesn't mean an injustice must have occurred to account for the imbalance.

Workers produce more value than they receive in wages. The surplus value is accumulated by the capitalist as profit. — Bitter Crank

Which profit is paid in wages and used to reinvest, which results in hiring more workers and paying more wages. Also, the "value" the workers produce is determined by the market. Unless employers are forcing people to work for them, there is no exploitation. Again, unless consumers are forced to buy the products at the prices they buy them, there is no exploitation in offering them at said prices, which produces profit.

It's a term almost entirely used by Marxist economists. Again, this conversation will go nowhere until you acknowledge your own presuppositions about what "capitalism" is.

Where does value come from if not the labour power used to make commodities? — bloodninja

This doesn't entail exploitation....

Let's not pretend the four Gospels are a historical record. — ProbablyTrue

But they are. No scholar denies this. They may contain more than mere historical record, but that doesn't mean they don't record history.

A historian is in the business of verifying his facts. — Hanover

I don't deny this. I never intended to describe the historian's craft in its totality.

and so it should be expected that materialists will reject the Resurrection as a matter of faith, just as Christians accept it as a matter of faith. — Hanover

No. I have no idea why you would read this into my words. If materialism is true, the Resurrection is false. There is no faith required to reject the Resurrection in that case.

but it's that because a Resurrection is entirely inconsistent with my worldly experience as well as the worldly experience of every person I've ever known or heard from, save a few isolated ancient accounts from a handful of people and documented in a faith based book — Hanover

Here your disbelief rests on a probability, which means your disbelief does not rest on a demonstrated fact. Your position is thus similar to what I said: "a lack of evidence is not evidence of absence. One may believe that the former is indicative of the latter, but that cannot be asserted as fact, unless new evidence is brought to light...."

The truth is that most believe in the Resurrection because their parents did or it was a pervasive cultural belief. — Hanover

So what? It isn't refuted due to this fact. If it happened and only one person in the world believed it, he would be right.

The belief is simply an adoption of the local legend, regardless of how firmly the believers wish to argue that it's not. — Hanover

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

Buxte is exactly right. The historian is methodologically agnostic. A lack of evidence is not evidence of absence. One may believe that the former is indicative of the latter, but that cannot be asserted as fact, unless new evidence is brought to light, such as Jesus' body being discovered.

On the other hand, something like the Resurrection can be ruled out axiomatically if some form of positivistic materialism is true. Were it true, miracles are impossible and those events labeled as such are simply misunderstood physical processes like everything else.

I will say that for traditional Christians, the articles of faith (i.e. the items in the creeds) are divinely revealed and only received by grace. You cannot definitively establish them through the use of reason. Indeed, if that were true, then faith would be superfluous. However, merely because the Resurrection, for example, requires faith to believe in does not mean that it is unreasonable to do so, provided one believes in certain preambles to the faith, such as the existence of God (which the creeds assume). So I don't think faith in the Resurrection is "bullshit" if those preambles are true. Debating the merits of the Resurrection's occurrence before establishing the existence and nature of God is to put the cart before the horse.

If it's exploitation, it isn't capitalism, and you are operating under a strawman.

I wouldn't be wrong in saying children are maturing faster nowadays. — TheMadFool

Dear lord, no. It is precisely the reverse. Try being a substitute teacher at a public school, as I was, or talk to a teacher over the age of 50. I have no hesitation in declaring that this is the most infantilized, coddled, illiterate, and immature generation in the history of civilization. It's a running joke among academics that college is the new high school. Compare this observation to the rites of passage into adulthood that existed for most of human history when the individual was about 13 or so.

I've liked Charles Murray's ideas on universal basic income whenever I've heard them. Milton Friedman supported it as well. The key is that it must simplify and replace already existing welfare programs, otherwise it would simply be too expensive and a bureaucratic nightmare.

I don't have a dog in this doctrinal fight. — ProbablyTrue

I don't either, actually. I'm neither a Catholic nor a Christian. Within Christianity, however, Catholicism makes the most sense to me and attracts me the most.

No, that's completely whack. Islam without Muhammad? Buddhism without Buddha? — Sapientia

I can imagine Buddhism without the historical Siddhartha Gautama. Many later Mahayana schools don't seem to depend on the historicity of him. Islam without Muhammad might be a more difficult case to imagine, but it's certainly possible, since the Quran is the core of Islam and is a book that has existed from eternity. Muhammad is just a messenger.

Not heretical enough that the Catholic church doesn't want to claim his opinion for their purposes, though. — ProbablyTrue

Or you.

That's what I've been doing. — Sapientia

If you say so.

You're still not making any sense. You can't believe in something that requires the existence of God if, as per one's materialism, you don't believe God exists.

It's like believing in dragon fire without believing in the existence of dragons. The dragons must exist in order for there to be such a thing as the fire they breathe.

In other words, you're a mind-reading prophet. How should I know what a hypothetical person does with his money? He could just as well reinvest it or give it away.

Keynes advocated government spending to counteract contraction in the economy. The economy is not, at this time, contracting. — Bitter Crank

The stock market is doing well and employment numbers have increased, but the effects of the recession are still not over and the jobs added are not as good as they were before.

Tax law is the principle means by which the extreme disproportionate distribution of wealth has occurred. The 2017 tax bill is simply more diversion of economic resources to the already richer-than-Croesus-crowd. — Bitter Crank

There is no diversion of any resources when reducing taxes. Cutting taxes enables people and entities to keep more of their money. The rich and corporations also pay proportionally way more in taxes than any average American.

Yes, the rich do get richer at the expense of the poor. — Bitter Crank

Well, I disagree.

They want the stuff and the freedom from toil that money brings, are you seriously suggesting that 'stuff' is in infinite supply? — Inter Alia

I never used the word "stuff," I used the word "wealth." You're attempting to strawman me here by saying that the material resources on the planet are finite. But I would never deny that. Material resources aren't the only source of wealth. Just think of the digital and service sectors. Some programmer who creates an app and becomes rich didn't exploit any poor person.

In the grand scheme, Tertullian's opinion is just one of many so even this doesn't amount to much. I doubt we'll solve a major theological schism here in the ShoutBox. — ProbablyTrue

True. Quoting a heretical non-saint like Tertullian doesn't help your case, especially as he doesn't reject the doctrine of the real presence in that quote.

this has nothing to do with materialism. You can be a hardcore materialist and still believe in transubstantiation. — Agustino

This makes no sense. A materialist is someone who believes that only matter and physical forces exist, which rules out the existence of God, angels, demons, souls, substantial forms, Platonic Ideas, etc. Transubstantiation requires the existence of God at the very least. Therefore, one cannot be a materialist and believe in transubstantiation.

You're confusing understanding and agreement. The failure is all yours. It is because I see it for what it is that I reject it, as I reject magical thinking in general. — Sapientia

You've simply made my point for me here. Yes, you reject what you put into the category of "magical thinking." You have reasons for doing so. Those reasons require defending in order to reject transubstantiation.

the Republican Party just passed a ruinous tax cut which resembles a Keynesian maneuver — Bitter Crank

I don't see what's so ruinous about it. The bad thing is that, short term, it will likely add to the deficit, but as you perhaps allude to, this is a rather Keynesian move and one the Democrats ought clearly to have no issue with. That the Democrats are suddenly concerned about the deficit warms my cockles, but if they were sincere, then they ought to support legislation that cuts bloated government welfare programs. That way, Americans get to keep more of their own money without growing the deficit.

Money doesn't generally "trickle down". — Bitter Crank

No economist has ever advocated this so called "trickle down" theory. It's a myth, a strawman.

In order to get the good stuff that is locked up in the economic canopy of the jungle, you have to cut off the top of the "trees". Liquidate the plutocracy, in other words — Bitter Crank

It's interesting to me how those on the left seem to believe that there has always ever existed a fixed amount of wealth, with the rich greedily owning too large a share, and that if we could simply rob them of this unjust sum and use it as a largess, all would be well. This seems to betray a basic ignorance of how wealth is created and how it can grow, which require certain incentives and structures. The rich do not normally become rich at the expense of the poor, just as when running a race, the fastest sprinter does not cause the others to run more slowly. If you take from the rich and give it to the poor, but fail to regrow all that wealth the rich acquired to begin with, you haven't really solved anything and, worse, doomed future generations to poverty. Your scenario would make one generation moderately wealthy and everyone after that equally poor.

What needs cutting off is the government gravy train to, and bailouts of, large corporations. Let them compete and succeed in the market to justify their existence and profits.

I don't see that it does.

Ok. The burden of proof still rests on the believer, and fuzzy feelings don't count as proof. — ProbablyTrue

You're strawmanning here. And the burden of proof lies on whoever makes a claim. If the non-believer claims that transubstantiation is false, it's up to him either to disprove the presuppositions of the doctrine or prove his own that rule it out.

I provided quotes of very early Christian leaders denying the physical presence of Jesus in the bread and wine. You care you cite some of the early Christians you speak of? I could cite many more to make my case. — ProbablyTrue

Here are some: http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/father/fathers.htm

Are you suggesting that Jesus ate and drank himself with his disciples? — ProbablyTrue

Sure, why not. Aquinas, for example, thought so: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4081.htm

You do not understand the theological implications here. This is Tertullian affirming that God was flesh, not that the bread became God's literal flesh and blood. — ProbablyTrue

Well, here's the Catholic response: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/did-tertullian-and-st-augustine-deny-the-real-presence . Makes sense to me. You're just quote mining without respect of context.

Well, that makes those particular leftists hypocrites.

So the Catholic Church asserts something that cannot possibly be verified in any way — ProbablyTrue

No, not in any way, but certainly not in a scientific way. Of course, the positivist could reply that only that which is verified by science counts as knowledge, but that too requires justification, a difficult task given the self-refuting nature of the claim.

Transubstantiation is not at all explicit in the text itself. Many, if not most, of the early church writers did not see the breaking of bread and drinking of wine as anything other than symbolic. — ProbablyTrue

By "the text" I suppose you mean the Bible. It may be disputable, but I think the New Testament affirms the doctrine. And early Christians did believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. All Christians believe it is symbolic, by the way, but those who believe in the real presence don't think it's merely symbolic or symbolic in such a way that Christ is not really present. So the two quotes you provided don't refute the doctrine at all. In fact, the Tertullian quote affirms it quite strongly.

I don't know what part of the left you're talking about, but it is obvious to me that most who belong on said part of the political spectrum have a seething antipathy for multinational corporations, big banks, Wall Street, "the 1%," and the rich in general. To support such things and their subsidization by the state is to be a corporatist, not a capitalist, but the left fails to distinguish between the two.

authority, self sufficiency — Bitter Crank

These are opposites. However, I would say that the American religious conservative values authority in matters of religion but self-sufficiency in matters economic and social life. For the religious liberal, it is the reverse: he values authority in matters of economic and social life and self-sufficiency in matters of religion.

They were socially liberal, fiscally conservative — Bitter Crank

It's interesting to me that one finds no socially conservative, fiscal liberals (in the American sense of these terms). I still have sympathies for market socialism, which sounds like an oxymoron, but is in fact a thing, as well as distributism, both of which are not all that dissimilar or opposed to capitalism classically understood.

The left strawmans capitalism, confusing it with corporatism, while the right strawmans socialism, confusing it with command economics. In reality, capitalism and socialism are not opposed. That is to say, private property and the free market are not opposed to cooperative ownership of enterprises.

I'm talking about the real world. — Sapientia

If I may interject, this is the reason why you fail to understand transubstantiation. The doctrine assumes that what is real, indeed what is most real, is not the physical world. Trying to make sense of it while assuming some version of materialism, as you apparently hold to, is definitionally impossible. Trying to understand any idea on your own terms is a recipe for failure. You need to either defeat its presuppositions or demonstrate your own in order to advance the charge of incoherence.

I realize that that's a big task, but it is a necessary one.

Interesting post. There's a book I've been eyeing for some time called The Idea of Decline in Western History by Arthur Herman, which treats of this general fixation of which you speak. You may find it relevant.

Alas, I do happen to find Ken Wilber to be a bit of a quack, though.... :(

If my question (what question do you mean?) was absurd, then yours is incoherent. Who is the "he" in that last clause? I don't know what you're trying to say.

We all understand you don't like her — Hanover

This need not be a permanent judgment, by the way, as I just got done saying to TL, and as indeed I said on page two of this thread.

I think you guys are rather petty at times. The deflections and farcical responses to my suggestion of making Agustino a mod are proof of that (my favorite: "we're fresh out of mod spaces, alas!"). No legitimate reason was given for why he can't be one. If he can't be a mod, then I think it shows that you only want mods you already like and agree with (and by "you" I have in mind especially the Three Stooges below jamal in Michael's image, not necessarily you). I prefer meritocracy to nepotism, however. I also think people who say they value feedback and a diverse mod team should start walking the walk.

Sounds like you were just pissed off and saying whatever. Anyway, you got your say. It's the holidays. Let's all get along. — Hanover

You say this after you get in a nice dig at me, lol. Okay, sure, let's get along.

Thank you for the elaboration. I have a rather severe disposition most of the time, which may mean that I don't pick up certain frequencies of humor as well or as swiftly as others, not to mention the fact that conveying humor through the written word is vastly more difficult than in person. I suppose I understand on some level the hyperbolic approach, as one might call it, to verbal fencing, but I don't think I'm very good at it and so my impatience with it boils over into outrage over the charges. I hold no grudges, however, and do not believe that because respect has been lost it cannot be regained.

Oh hello. Getting answers in this thread has been like extracting blood from a turnip, so I'm glad you've finally made an appearance to help settle the matter. I accept and sincerely appreciate your apology. I will also begin to flag inappropriate posts.

jamal, I hope you're not so naive as to believe that most of the mods would not love to get rid of me as they would Agustino. Their contempt for us can barely be contained these days. Whatever dam protects me from censure and being banned has been significantly eroded after the debate on guns and the debate on female modesty. I'm sure this will be met with cries of "persecution complex," but so be it. It's easy to make that charge from a position of power. If I didn't think I was being targeted, I wouldn't be making threads like this.

"Much ado about nothing" you might alternatively say, and have said by referencing mountains and molehills. This is true. It is much ado about nothing in the grand scheme of things. Under ideal circumstances I would more or less be off the grid and not engaged in such petty squabbles. But I have obtained a fair amount of value and perspective by interacting with others on both the old and now this forum, and so long as I'm here, I might as well speak my mind and tidy up as best I can this one small corner of the Internet.