tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25190947.post114576004844849625..comments2023-10-28T03:26:35.948-05:00Comments on Catholic in the Third Millennium: Stuck between Plato and AristotleDan Dunlaphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15610718122774026303noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25190947.post-1146270634007597832006-04-28T19:30:00.000-05:002006-04-28T19:30:00.000-05:00Steve,In all seriousness, if you've written an art...Steve,<BR/><BR/>In all seriousness, if you've written an article or brief summary, or you would like to write something of "blog-length" on this topic I'd be happy to post it on the main page. I'm interested to hear more about your research. Drop me a line if you're interested. Thanks for posting.<BR/><BR/>DanDan Dunlaphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15610718122774026303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25190947.post-1146169601737278842006-04-27T15:26:00.000-05:002006-04-27T15:26:00.000-05:00In answer to you question about the word entity ov...In answer to you question about the word entity over property......<BR/><BR/>An entity is a thing or if you will allow the Aristotelian in me to speak a being (something that has reality that is substantive.) A person, is not simply a soul, but is the one that the soul (life force) becomes under the providence of God in actually living. Hence, in order to accentuate the permanence of a person's existence, I call person an "emergent entity." <BR/><BR/>Now, person is also a metaphysical or ontological category that is rooted in the essence of God who is three Persons in unity. So, person is a very, very fundamental ontological concept. HOwever, in human beings, personal identity and one's existence as a person are not the same (as they would be in the simplicity of God), since one's personal identity can change in the sense that my relationships and my experiences define me (at least in large measure. so, the idea that human personal identity made possible by the give of the rational life force that bears God's image as personal (Trinity) strikes me as a promising way to discuss it.<BR/><BR/>It also avoids the unhappy implication of the term property, since a property has to be a property of something other than itself. We do not want to say that the person is a property of an otherwise material being.<BR/><BR/>BTW: My thoughts on this topic have been shaped in large measure by my doctoral research comparing Spinoza and Aquinas on the doctrine of mind-body identity theory.<BR/><BR/>all the best, and thanks for your sight.Steve Blakemorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10826666093164587256noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25190947.post-1146121242092724702006-04-27T02:00:00.000-05:002006-04-27T02:00:00.000-05:00BTW - On first reading of your comment I like the ...BTW - On first reading of your comment I like the terminology of the soul as "entity" better than that of "property." The difference is an improvement and of particular importance if we are to contend for the continuing consciousness of the soul apart from the body at death. My reading of Polkinghorne (see recent posting) is that there is some ambivalence on this particular issue in his mind. Again, thanks.<BR/><BR/>DanDan Dunlaphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15610718122774026303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25190947.post-1146120793854990902006-04-27T01:53:00.000-05:002006-04-27T01:53:00.000-05:00Thanks for your helpful comment Steve. Please ela...Thanks for your helpful comment Steve. Please elaborate, if you will, on what you mean by "emergent entity" as opposed to "emergent property." What in your view does the soul as "entity" emerge from?<BR/><BR/>DanDan Dunlaphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15610718122774026303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25190947.post-1146066562449722822006-04-26T10:49:00.000-05:002006-04-26T10:49:00.000-05:00One thing wrong with the notion of the soul as an ...One thing wrong with the notion of the soul as an "emergent property" is that the "emergent" theory identifies the soul too closely with the person whose identity is made possible by the life force that God creates in union with the matter. Aristotle anticipates contemporary ideas that are currently in play about DNA "information" as that which makes a physical entity to be the thing that it is. However, what Aristotle lacked was a notion that could approximate the Christian idea of the person made in the image of God. So, Aquinas took Aristotle and made his view of the soul as the life force serve Christian purposes. The soul is prior logically to the bodily entity that is formed by it. However, without the bodily entity the soul has no existence. Yet, Aquinas advances over Aristotle in that he could conceive of how the Person made alive by the soul was (if you will allow) an emergent entity (not a property). The soul becomes a particular person through union with the body and through the experiences and choices of that living person. So, Aquinas is less indebted to Plato and more faithful to an Biblical account of the soul.Steve Blakemorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10826666093164587256noreply@blogger.com