Can y'all point out something in the video's timeline that's intense and profound for me, because the whole thing is going right over my black metal head
@@DHTC888 26:14 and talking about "to be anything, you must first be in a general sense" is where it started to get a little more concrete for me, but this is definitely one of those "I'm gonna have to listen to this three or four more times and take notes to be able to wrap my head around it" videos. I THINK what Scotus is getting at is that logically speaking, something has to exist in order to have attributes-the whole "you have to be in order to be in a suit" thing.
Dr. Sledge--as a student of philosophy and the "history of ideas," I particularly enjoyed this episode. Not many channels are willing to get into the weeds with Scholasticism, despite how influential some of these ideas and thinkers have been. Thanks for digging into this one, it is a fantastic introduction to the topic. As an off-topic aside, one of these days it would be awesome to see an episode on the history of esoteric herbalism, sacred plants, incense, entheogens, etc. Psychoactive or otherwise, the history of these plants and the associations they came to have is a fascinating topic. The other tools, equipment, etc., used in ceremonial magic probably all have an interesting history as well. I'm not sure how much scholarly research there is into this subject, I know everyone has a theory as to what exactly "soma" was, or what was given to initiates in the Mystery Shools in Greece and the like. Even so, some speculative hypotheses would be interesting to discuss. This is also a rather broad topic, it may need to be broken down into multiple episodes. Something like you did with absinthe would be awesome to see with historically significant plants used in witchcraft and magic, or at least I think so. Keep up the good work, and I'll keep watching!
I agree, it would be excellent to see Dr Sledge do a few videos specifically on entheogens and mystery cults, I'm sure there has been at least one piece that delved into it a little but it's such a broad and varied topic. I'd love to see his take on the various references to altered states and the various trance-inducting practices throughout both western and eastern esotericism.
It's kind of amazing to me how much argumentation occurred around trying to maintain God as an ideal human and yet one involved with non-ideal human life that we can attempt to reach-yet never with complete success. I find it to be a sort of underlying current to what creates a sense of the divine.
It's interesting to see how people struggle with making sense of the metaphysical divine exceptionalism while trying to be humble about how much they can pretend to know and understand about it.
I do wonder what people like Scotus, fresh from a day struggling with the nature of the transcendent Being of the Divine, really thought of say church officials announcing that God totally wants you to give 10% of your income to Bishop Fred here. They seem entirely disjoint.
I had the privilege of studying with OP Richard Schenck at DSPT doing a course on the active intellect in medieval philosophy. He often quipped "you have to get up pretty early in the morning if you want to argue with Duns Scotus."
@@TheEsotericaChannel It was a good choice for connecting my medieval philosophy studies with the Kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia for sure. Put thinkers like Dietrich of Frieberg and Henry of Ghent on my radar.
Univocity of Being seems to share some ideas with Wahdat al Wujud put forward by Ibn Arabi in the Sufi metaphysics tradition which I find interesting! Thanks for the video Dr Sledge!
“Anything you can do I can do meta” . I’m working that into a conversation wherever possible. I love this channel. The content is amazing and I really appreciate the absence of silly thumbnails.
Pretty sure if we bring up this TH-camr at our local mages meeting at least a few people will also be fans. We suspect that many wizards who take their craft seriously, are fellow fans of this man's work.
I greatly respect you and your channel. Really excellent, fascinating work. It has also allowed me to speak to my highly religious relatives on a new level. Keep it up!@@TheEsotericaChannel
This came up in my recommendeds and I was super worried based on the title. A lot of people really misrepresent Scotus’s theory of univocity to make it seem more radical than it actually was. As a Scotist, I will say that I think you did an excellent job correctly explaining Scotus’s positions. I very much agree as well on the Copleston recommendation. He heavily follows early 20th century Scotists who are usually much better than contemporary literature on Scotus. Thank you for this video. Glad to see more discussion of Scotus around the internet. And glad to see you actually read Scotus.
I think it's both more radical than appreciated and then oversold in some philosophy circles than necessary - but yes, I enjoy scotus. I even have a book of his for sale on my website.
Excellent video. Thank you for this. It makes me so happy. Duns Scotus is one of my favorite philosophers. Very glad to see him receive some of the attention he deserves. I'm not a neo-Scotist or anything like that, but apart from maybe Gershom Scholem, I don't know if there is a philosopher who has pushed forward my development as a person so much by engaging with them. Reading Scotus when I was 17 and 18 was seriously life-changing. I half-jokingly blame him for putting me on the path towards communism. An accessible text I'd also recommend for starters is "Duns Scotus on God" by Richard Cross, which touches on the famous three-pronged proof and the Christian Trinity.
“Pedantic logic chopper” 😂❤️ also, I have ADD and of course, when you said, “do I look like a Catholic” I ended up, looking up popes that had beards. I had no idea that it would become a subject unto itself, with its own lore, so I bookmarked it to read later.
"Do I look Catholic?" Totally could pass for an Eastern Catholic 100% In the Catholic Church the bishops etc still wear what looks like a kippa too, though for different reasons of course
31:50 Because he dropped that MFn mic, baby! {took me until the third viewing to catch on, lol} Peace 🙏 Edit: I wish that the SCOTUS was as adept as was Scotus.
@@TheEsotericaChannel Well I consider myself abit of a Pantheist considering my science mixed into philosophy and so had to arrange my brain thoughts to understand the needle thread Scotus was doing of that time to avoid complete Unity Oness of everything=a god but that is supposed to be outside all?, like a new logic Ven diagram design. Still I'm probably not getting his idea.
You’re an outstanding professor. I like your lectures on all subjects, especially Kaballah, which is part of my Jewish faith. You are fair and balanced and that I like. I also like your manner of presentation. It is logical and without emotion, like a Vulcan.
I love your work! Honestly the parables of history, religion and society are so awe inspiring to the creative artist. I had a request for you to maybe consider making a video on the Avesta: Yasna and the effect of that on the middle east and subcontinental oceania. It's the only known collection of Zorostranic text and I can understand the genuine skepticism at looking at a Sanskrit text. But please could you consider giving it a try incase you can help showcase some of its relevance in the history of alchemy or the Magi. Stay blessed wise one! Truly you have a microcosmic gift! ❤
Thank you for another wonderful episode. I like to imagine a plane of existence where Scotus and Tillich discuss the univocity of being and God as the ground of being/God above God... but out of Christian humility I'd have to admit only grasping a small amount of the discussion.
Fascinating! By far the most difficult video of yours I've watched so far. But I'll keep working on it. It seems to me that the laws against heresy were for Scotus (and many others) a frustrating constraint, and this is what makes it so hard to get to the core of his argument. When one has to avoid being burned at the stake, one must talk in circles. I might go further and say that the real difficulty of talking about the divine in the Middle Ages has nothing to do with any logical or philosophical problem. It's simply that the powerful elite of society have a particular point of view about the divine and will punish people for disputing that point of view. Naturally, since that point of view is what the social order is built on. I suspect this is the source of all class bondage and wealth inequality: the reduction of God to what is socially convenient, or what enables certain people to maintain power and control over others. If the king is the person everyone listens to and obeys, then the king may as well be God. And while that may be good enough for government, it utterly defeats the purpose of philosophy. Philosophy can't exist within a contained environment. It must be free to expand beyond the constraints of law and principles of social organisation, or it is useless. "Christian philosophy" is an oxymoron. Sorry if I'm just restating Philosophical History 101. I'm still working on my undergrad degree in ancient history and inhaling philosophy and esotericism in my free time. Some brilliant thinkers have come out of theology, and no doubt the wish to better understand God is what compelled them. But I can't help but feel that, on the whole, monotheistic religion has tremendously slowed the intellectual progress of humanity. The thinkers could've done so much more if they hadn't been forced to compromise with the ideas and agendas of the rich. We might've had atomic science in antiquity.
In my years of Philosophy studies, Medieval Philosophy was rather encouraged, but then again it's Poland, and most professors are involved with Catholic University. That being said, I had a privilege of being taught Medieval Philosophy by a great professor who did her doctorate on Duns Scotus - so this episode hits close to home :)
(Rarely did I rewind TH-cam to understand that often.) This video is a great work you know why? Because it makes it like a thriller. You may read of all notable philosophers in Wikipedia or some student's book, and you know some statements or even systems they made. If you like philosophy and stuff like that, you probably like these statements/systems already, they are fun toys for you, you collect them in your mind as you did collect Bionicles as a kid (and you probably like Greek and Descartes-Locke generations more than Medieval one, just as you like original Toas and Toa Metru more than Toa Nuwa). But dr. Justin Sledge make it pulsating, you feel what all these people lived for, what thrilled them, why they felt it important, why it was the drama of their lives. That's wonderful. ...But I guess you have to be nerdy enough from start to see it as a thriller (and to make that philosophers-bionicles comparison).
You’ve done it again. Something I knew nothing about, is now spreading through my mind like a mushroom cloud. An area I had no interest in, medieval philosophy, is suddenly interesting. Although it all stills seems like desperate apologetics to maintain a god concept, it’s is certainly of an order far beyond my ability to critique. It leaves me wondering, exactly who is the dunce here?
As a Catholic priest, I had a similar hat, though not the beard. On the subject of being, have you ever read the Catholic philosopher of the early 19th century, Antonio Rosmini and his idea of the order of Being?
I want to say Scotus did the philosophical equivalent of saying, "Okay guys, so matter isn't made up of atoms... but it's okay, I figured out what it IS made out of and it actually explains matter better." I can't help but think he'd hate being described analogically, though. At the risk of getting too political, it's highly amusing to me that the terms "dunce" and "Scotus" are associated with each other. Some of them aren't doing much to help that perception, either.
Could one hope for a video on the other John Scotus, Eriugena? Even though he's before Anselm, some see him as a proto, if not the first, scholastic, his vision of heaven and hell is interesting, and his philosophical system seems to be worthwile of longer exposition (Seekers of Unity did a great video introducing his Division of Nature). Mentioned by Hegel and Russell!?
I appreciate your wonderful and informative videos more than I can say. There is some intriguing fact in every one that makes my jaw drop. Much love for all you do. ❤
One more thing, this whole thing sounds so Gnostic to me. Scotus seems to be talking about G-d as the Monad. The primal Genus being, G-d, with archons and aeons in between, and the us. Holding the precepts of BS categorization proved to be such a powerful tool for the powers that be. Who said philosophy was not of much monetary worth?
@@andythedishwasher1117 that’s a difficult question to answer. I believe economics is not necessarily within the realm of logic, or at least as it is demonstrated by our institutions. Haha.
Scotus would strongly disagree that his ideas were Gnostic-ish. Instead, they borrow a ton from the ideas of Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Pseudo-Dionysius.
This incredible video can go hard in hand with foolish fish's, "science vs religion, wrong question" video. Such good stuff! We are positively blessed to have such creators talking about these concepts in such an approachable way. I finally feel that I have arrived at a point in my life when my years of study and trying to find my true call, have paid off.
As someone who majored in a philosophy around the same time as you, I remember anything from before the 17th century was ignored. You got a little Plato in 101, and then that was it. Maybe something between Plato and Descartes would come up in a Special Problems class, but other than that, not a peep. No Stoics, no Neoplatonism, no Confucianism, nada.
@@TheEsotericaChannel Yes, but my school was also a med school, so my professors were mostly interested in medical ethics. I did have one professor who was a classicist, but even she was more interested in Kierkegaard than Aristotle. Dr. Sadler, one of your fellow TH-cam philosophy teachers, told me this wasn't an unusual experience in the late 90s.
That makes sense. I was really lucky and undergrad to get a wide range of offerings. But graduate school with shockingly limited. Though I will say that Memphis is fantastic in that you're required to do both analytic and continental work. That's super rare in this country and I really appreciated that dimension of my graduate school training. I think it also informs how I do philosophy now where I really want to have the rigor of analytics and especially logic but also the adventuresome spirit of continental philosophy.
Thank you for this piece, Dr Sledge. It's really shed some light on a philosopher that I've seen mentioned many times but never understood. Although I probably still don't fully understand 😅 this breakdown of his works has given me a window in that is truly invaluable 🙌 I can only imagine the work you must put in to create these videos, you're an absolute legend 🫶
4:38-4:48 In high school I pored through the Catholic Encyclopedia. I remember a common, relevant lament in its pages. Wish I remembered a citation. This reputation arises from the direct failing of the Scholastics in grappling properly with rising Humanism, renaissance philosophy, Protestantism, and eventually Positivism. There, a lack of innovation, a decadent laziness, meant the same stultified, aged arguments were repeated ad nauseum, inviting easy ridicule. No new counterarguments or polemics were effectively developed or spread, not in time, and at any rate many Catholics were taken with new ideas of rationalism and kept their faith, so the threat of these other schools of philosophy weren't seen for what they were.
Do you have a downloadable podcast? I really enjoy watching your videos but I would love to listen to audio at work where I get no cell service because I work in a freezer.
A lot of this goes over my head. But around 23:00 I got confused in a specific way I can articulate. What's wrong with God being a being among beings. I mean, is God a being? Yes (if he exists in reality). Are there other beings? Yes. Ok then. I'm an Ex-Christian and don't understand the problem it presents to Christianity.
Greetings from Chattanooga, TN. Dry? Boring? Not to me, this is where I choose to spend my free time, right now. What's that quote "Those who say, do not know.....". Have a good day and thanks for sharing and for your time and wisdom.
I'd love to see you talk with PlasticPills, who's got a yt channel and I love him talking about 20th century philosophy, I bet it would be incredible and better crossover than Marvel and DC.
Sorry for my ignorance about the following question. Does philosophy integrate numerical and word autonomy in mathematic equations? Completely unrelated: the only way I understood Ezra Pound’s “Cantos” was to read it aloud. It is meant to be read aloud by the reader, I realized. Another fun addition to the worrisome work. Lol
You had me laughing so much at your diss of French Post-Structuralism with a "Magister T" moment I spilled my tea. Now a want a T-shirt with "Magister T" says "Shut up, fool. Post-Structuralism is incoherent and anti-epistemological" or some such.
I had never really considered your personal religion before, with how you speak I may have even assumed something more niche or even that you weren't, though it seems obvious after you pointed out not looking catholic. You do a great job of not letting it influence your content, at least as far as I can tell. Love the work!
Yes, reading medieval scholasticism is awesome. All the problem of universals, the problem of translation between greek-syriac-arab-latin, and the problem of the first faculty of the soul are so interesting and incredibly relevant. To continue with this series you must do a video about Ockham. PS. I really don't get your problem with Deleuze, it's not if he ever conceives the univocity of being of Scotus as ontological. He just points out that Scotus was the first to create a logical concept of univocity, as Spinoza did in the ontological plane.
My problem is that he attributes that position to Scotus despite the fact that Scotus clearly rejected it - something Deleuze is known to do to other philosophers (for instance forcing the A of the deduction onto Kant which clearly he rejected...hence him writing the B version and sticking to it). Scotus was by no means the first to come to the concept - it was widely known and rejected by Thomas, etc.
hi! this must be the twentieth video of yours I have watched , thank you so much for the in-depth, scholarly, and wise commentary on so much esoteric history! I am wondering if you’ve ever touched on topics of gender in Jewish or ancient mystic or magical practice - perhaps a topic for a future video, I’d be very interested! Thank you for your work!
This is so awesome, so much more interesting than bossing around more demons! Ive been wanting to delve deeper into Scotus for a few years but there are so few resources thay succinctly describe his doctrine - this video is an absolute godsend ;). I would kill for you to do a course on medieval philosophy or something, maybe once the Merkhava series is finished someday. Much love!
Such language!!! a reminder how good humans can get and reminded me to go listen to some Heilung (medieval German lyrics) I don't know medieval either. Thank you Dr Sledge and all the others out there seeking clarity.
I encountered Scotus peripherally through the works of Victorian Jesuit poet John Manley Hopkins.Some of the most profoundly beautiful and insightful verse of the natural world in English.Thanks for posting.
That was some serious verbal tap dancing there, Dr. Sledge! Unfortunately, my Philosophy professors made a pointed effort to denigrate Medieval thinkers as merely « papist sophistry ». So it’s certainly a gap in my education. I’ll certainly stay tuned for more.
Bravo, Justin Sledge, with that PHD Of yours. I have written and listened all day long just with your understanding of plunges of great depths of wide open wisdom with knowledge. BRAVO, SIR!!!!! I can't get enough of your lectures, and I thank you.❤
Duns Scotus elevated primitive Franciscanism to new intellectual heights. It's so beautiful to me how Islamic Sufism and Christian Scholastic Franciscanism arrive at such similar and beautiful insights rather independently merely through a reading of Aristotle. Very much appreciated your glowing appraisal of medieval philosophy.
Wonderfully lucid presentation of some notoriously spaghettified abstractions. As a philosopher and recovering Catholic I can confirm your opinion that most of ''Church philosophy'' is far weirder than most people CAN think. Many thanks for this - and all your work. M.
this is such a funny episode. This concept of Hallumanism(?) is, in my opinion, the source of all that is wrong with western humans. One powerful religious guys tells everyone else their place in the eye of G-d and him, being the mouth piece of "G-d", who disposes of their lives, livelihood, possessions, etc. This is why I love to study the pre-Colonial philosophers of my birth place. They did not expected anyone to tell them what to be. They already were. They were part of nature, of time, and of the gods, who were ruled by nature and time. Cool episode Sir. It gets the philosophical churning wheels going for sure. thank you 🤘
@@thomasmurphy9429a significant amount of content in early modern western philosophy is straight ripped from colonized people, or people being preached to by missionaries. Leibnitz was a big fan of confucianism, for instance. the Wendat statesman Kondiaronk had a famous series of arguments in which he politely deconstructed French society in comparison to his own civilization of voluntarist farmers and nomads. nearly every literate man worth the label had a copy, and it had an unavoidable impact on western philosophy. the idea of freedom as a default state of being is from north america. the meritocratic bureaucracy is a rip from china. don't even get me started on the impact of non-dualist philosophies. do you think Clausewitz was doing much more than imitating Sun Tzu for a (now early) modern era? the fact that much of this is unknown or denied despite many of these thinkers saying in no uncertain terms where they got their inspiration is evidence that white supremacy functioned as intended. it seems impossible, to the point of being considered racist, that other people had different ideas and that europeans liked those ideas. it's just that, liking those ideas didn't stop them from being wiped out. the way authority justified itself, if humans are free by default, is by claiming those living in free societies were in a "state of nature" and thus could be treated like animals. alternatively, they weren't "making good use of the land". beliefs most often form around material desires. protestant merchants wanted to practice usury, while peasants wanted equality before the lord and the law. English intellectual aristocracy found north american society and philosophy fascinating, but John Locke could still find a way to justify genocide.
I think the word being used was "Illuminism." As in, God must illuminate or reveal the truth to someone. And yes, it's a problem. Buddhism has a similar problem, where "my enlightenment" can never be because the enlightened person is supposed to be so humble that they'd never consider themselves enlightened, and "your enlightenment" is untrustworthy because I have no access to your mind to know whether you're fooling yourself or just fooling me. But what often happens is a very charismatic guy comes along, claims to be enlightened, or at least to know the way, and you get a new sect of Buddhism. However, Illuminism can work and ultimately I disagree with Duns Scotus here, as long as one takes a Popperian approach to their inner world: find reasons to believe you're not enlightened and that you don't know the truth of God and start hammering away at those reasons until there's no more. In fact, that's how the spiritual journey actually works!
I grew up in a United Church of Christ, and Paul Tillich was discussed at times, God as the Ground of Being itself. Tillich said that Christianity was always an ontological discourse philosophy. So when I discover figures like this it affirms Tillich’s main thesis for me. Of course, one of the figures Tillich was responding to was Heidegger, so there is the link, probably. or it might be more direct.
Christianity is really weird in this aspect. Buddhism has a similar thing going on, where the religion is strongly split between what's going on with its contemplatives and intellectuals versus the experience the everyday layman gets. As I've aged I've been exposed to the former more and more, but as a youth I rejected religion hard because of the latter. It's unfortunate that my experience, at least here in the Midwestern United States, continues to be one of a Christianity hostile to anything outside the zealous insistence that Jesus of Nazareth was the one true God in the flesh and there is nothing you need to know other than that. I find the ontological discussion far more useful and illuminating than the sad and grotesquely incorrect Christological conclusions the politically motivated early councils came to.
Excellent episode! If it weren't for John Duns Scotus's soteriological theory i myself would have had a very hard time continuing to practice western Christianity. Although a minority opinion in the Catholic Church, mainly held by Franciscans, learning about his rejection of substitutionary atonement theory in favor of a soteriology which to me resembles much more closely Eastern Orthodox soteriology was instrumental in my renewed interest in western Christianity. And although I am no longer a Catholic, and as an Episcopalian am free to hold to Eastern Orthodox soteriology, coming to that point qould have been impossible for me if it hadn't been for his ideas. Its very interesting to learn more about his other philosophical ideas here now, as i knew little about him beyond that and his debates with the Dominicans over the immaculate conception of Mary.
I’m no henologist, but don’t Plotinus and Proclus have similarly elegant solutions to these problems? I believe Plotinus said something like the One is being that is beyond the being / non-being dichotomy? But within an emanationist paradigm (like the tattered ends of your bell-bottom jeans, as you say), so a density of ontological levels protect it from the charge of pantheism. And pantheism, god in everything, is clearly a category mistake, it’s always ontic rather than ontological, it’s more like monotheistic animism or like a collapsed Cartesian dualism... now I’m wondering where Scotus stood on Platonism, since so much of the Aristotle coming down through Arabic treatises was heavily (neo)platonized...
"I believe Plotinus said something like the One is being that is beyond the being / non-being dichotomy?" That sounds like Plotinus. But, let's be honest, doesn't that just sound like nonsense? If I say something like, "The tiger ran into the grass," you easily understand what I'm saying because you have an experience, first-hand or otherwise, of tigers, running, and grass. But what does "Being that is beyond the being/non-being dichotomy" point to? Quine argued that the phrase "minotaurs exist" can at least be broken down to "a create with the head of a bull and the body of a man can be found in the Labyrinth," which we can then go to the Labyrinth and see for ourselves such a creature is not there. "Being that is beyond the being/non-being dichotomy" has no referent like this. It's just words that point at nothing.
@@saintsword23 Interesting, sounds like you are representing the most extreme form of nominalism, called "ostrich nominalism" in relation to Quine. It's interesting in this context because it's the most inhospitable environment for thinking through, with any generosity, western esotericism, which is entirely dependent upon platonism. So, Quine says there are only red houses and red roses, but no redness. But it seems pretty obvious to me that there's redness, not to mention a minotaur, floating around in my mind right now, and I don't believe any sort of brain scan technology will ever be able to locate them. That's the real sticking point for me with naturalism. "Thinking", to my mind, is just so clearly not propositional logic, not calculation, not the manipulation of discrete units of data. The notion that Intrinsic intentionality is reducible to underlying components is what really sounds like nonsense to me. Now, there is a subtle and robust logic to Plotinus's henology but I didn't do much justice with that formulation. Ultimately though, I'm starting to believe Lloyd Gerston that there can only be two stable and diametrically opposed camps in western philosophy, platonism and naturalism. (but not the idealist Plato, the man of the Cave and the abstract Forms, who is a creature of anglo-american philosophy departments. I mean the Plato of the Timaeus and Parminedes and the classical tradition). These are big tent camps full of compromisers and middle-wayers, but the forces within each push inexorably towards the poles of either thoroughly top-down or thoroughly bottom-up logics. And as a naturalist I believe you do have to commit ultimately to ostrich nominalism, Cartesian materialism, and a thorough-going mechanical reductionism, all of which seem like nonsense to me, though admittedly they've been very helpful for the advancement of science and technology. (though quite a bit of that advancement, and the scientific revolution itself, from Copernicus through Kepler to Newton, took place within the structures and logic of the platonic cosmos and the emanationist paradigm). Within the naturalist worldview, any concession to things like epiphenomena, emergent properties, or top-down systems analysis of any kind is going to eventually collapse, or, if you push too many concessions to top-down logics, you end up popping back out into the platonist camp. Anyway, if you are interested in "stepping into the strength of your opponent" (i.e. not me), check out Lloyd Gerston's talk "Philosophy as Ur-Platonism vs Anti-Metaphysical Naturalism" here on youtube. He mentions Quine in there, i'm pretty sure.
I love how Scotus is so intricate and arcane that it takes a 30 minute video to cover even one of his ideas. Would you be interested in doing a video on Siger of Brabant someday? I can't find much information on him online but he seems like a really fascinating thinker.
Can you do an episode on Jakob Böhme please? His story is wonderful considering that he was a shoemaker and is impact on the rest of philosophy to come is enormous despite being not very well known. Thanks, Justin
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5:45, you studied.mostly in the anglosphere, in France they do study and treasure their scholastics.
Were hitting quantum levels of esotericism right here. Way spookier than the clerical necromantic underworld.
I'd rather read Scotus any day over boring medieval necromancy. This is the real stuff.
Can y'all point out something in the video's timeline that's intense and profound for me, because the whole thing is going right over my black metal head
Can't wait until he gets to Pico's little treatise on Being. LMAO at hipster esotericism BTW.
@@DHTC888 agreed, I've hurt myself in my confusion
@@DHTC888 26:14 and talking about "to be anything, you must first be in a general sense" is where it started to get a little more concrete for me, but this is definitely one of those "I'm gonna have to listen to this three or four more times and take notes to be able to wrap my head around it" videos. I THINK what Scotus is getting at is that logically speaking, something has to exist in order to have attributes-the whole "you have to be in order to be in a suit" thing.
Dr. Sledge--as a student of philosophy and the "history of ideas," I particularly enjoyed this episode. Not many channels are willing to get into the weeds with Scholasticism, despite how influential some of these ideas and thinkers have been. Thanks for digging into this one, it is a fantastic introduction to the topic.
As an off-topic aside, one of these days it would be awesome to see an episode on the history of esoteric herbalism, sacred plants, incense, entheogens, etc. Psychoactive or otherwise, the history of these plants and the associations they came to have is a fascinating topic. The other tools, equipment, etc., used in ceremonial magic probably all have an interesting history as well. I'm not sure how much scholarly research there is into this subject, I know everyone has a theory as to what exactly "soma" was, or what was given to initiates in the Mystery Shools in Greece and the like. Even so, some speculative hypotheses would be interesting to discuss. This is also a rather broad topic, it may need to be broken down into multiple episodes. Something like you did with absinthe would be awesome to see with historically significant plants used in witchcraft and magic, or at least I think so. Keep up the good work, and I'll keep watching!
I agree, it would be excellent to see Dr Sledge do a few videos specifically on entheogens and mystery cults, I'm sure there has been at least one piece that delved into it a little but it's such a broad and varied topic. I'd love to see his take on the various references to altered states and the various trance-inducting practices throughout both western and eastern esotericism.
I would love to see a video on entheogens and ritual trance practices
I knew of Wahdat Al Wajud, but never realized there were other Unity of Being philosophies appearing from different traditions. It’s a killer for sure
It's kind of amazing to me how much argumentation occurred around trying to maintain God as an ideal human and yet one involved with non-ideal human life that we can attempt to reach-yet never with complete success. I find it to be a sort of underlying current to what creates a sense of the divine.
It's interesting to see how people struggle with making sense of the metaphysical divine exceptionalism while trying to be humble about how much they can pretend to know and understand about it.
There’s is no such thing as a being as god.
Funniest philosophical presentation since Diogenes did that thing with the chicken.
@@rachelvargas8446 shocking! I've never heard such an opinion as this before. Tell me more...
I do wonder what people like Scotus, fresh from a day struggling with the nature of the transcendent Being of the Divine, really thought of say church officials announcing that God totally wants you to give 10% of your income to Bishop Fred here. They seem entirely disjoint.
I had the privilege of studying with OP Richard Schenck at DSPT doing a course on the active intellect in medieval philosophy. He often quipped "you have to get up pretty early in the morning if you want to argue with Duns Scotus."
That's a great quote - The Active Intellect is also on my agenda. One of the most important medieval idea that gets hardly no attention these days.
@@TheEsotericaChannel It was a good choice for connecting my medieval philosophy studies with the Kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia for sure. Put thinkers like Dietrich of Frieberg and Henry of Ghent on my radar.
Univocity of Being seems to share some ideas with Wahdat al Wujud put forward by Ibn Arabi in the Sufi metaphysics tradition which I find interesting! Thanks for the video Dr Sledge!
“Anything you can do I can do meta” .
I’m working that into a conversation wherever possible. I love this channel. The content is amazing and I really appreciate the absence of silly thumbnails.
Haaa that make me cackle too, I couldn't believe he'd said that and had to rewind a few seconds to re-hear it 😂 genius 👌
Attributed to Rudolf Carnap.
I bought a shirt to support you, Justin. I’m 6’6” and 350. The 4xlt didn’t cut it 😅. I need an Esoteric diet plan.
“I pity the fool” who didn’t like this episode
Pretty sure if we bring up this TH-camr at our local mages meeting at least a few people will also be fans. We suspect that many wizards who take their craft seriously, are fellow fans of this man's work.
As a dialectical-materialist and Marxist, I couldn't agree more regarding the drive-by shooting here done on French post-structuralism.
Thanks - I just have so little patience for that obscurantist stuff
I greatly respect you and your channel. Really excellent, fascinating work. It has also allowed me to speak to my highly religious relatives on a new level. Keep it up!@@TheEsotericaChannel
@@kushluk777I tried. Hit the brick wall of dogma, fanaticism and biblical infallibility.
As a free market Capitalist.... I agree!
This came up in my recommendeds and I was super worried based on the title. A lot of people really misrepresent Scotus’s theory of univocity to make it seem more radical than it actually was.
As a Scotist, I will say that I think you did an excellent job correctly explaining Scotus’s positions. I very much agree as well on the Copleston recommendation. He heavily follows early 20th century Scotists who are usually much better than contemporary literature on Scotus.
Thank you for this video. Glad to see more discussion of Scotus around the internet. And glad to see you actually read Scotus.
I think it's both more radical than appreciated and then oversold in some philosophy circles than necessary - but yes, I enjoy scotus. I even have a book of his for sale on my website.
Excellent video. Thank you for this. It makes me so happy. Duns Scotus is one of my favorite philosophers. Very glad to see him receive some of the attention he deserves. I'm not a neo-Scotist or anything like that, but apart from maybe Gershom Scholem, I don't know if there is a philosopher who has pushed forward my development as a person so much by engaging with them. Reading Scotus when I was 17 and 18 was seriously life-changing. I half-jokingly blame him for putting me on the path towards communism. An accessible text I'd also recommend for starters is "Duns Scotus on God" by Richard Cross, which touches on the famous three-pronged proof and the Christian Trinity.
“Pedantic logic chopper” 😂❤️ also, I have ADD and of course, when you said, “do I look like a Catholic” I ended up, looking up popes that had beards. I had no idea that it would become a subject unto itself, with its own lore, so I bookmarked it to read later.
First Roe v Wade and now Aristotle, IS THERE ANYTHING SAFE FROM SCOTUS???
We really need a Kimmy Gibbler joke counter, alongside a "wonder what happened to that Josh guy" joke counter.
I only pull the Gibbler material when it's a special episode. Scotus deserves it.
@@TheEsotericaChannel that joke had me nearly losing my lunch. Good job good sir.
A moment to appreciate the fact Dr. Sledge is responding to so many comments.
I think, therefore my mind is melting.
we need to learn how to drive, learn how to speak, but people act like we dont have to lean how to think
I think therefor i think...he he
I suddenly understand why your videos were getting recommended to me when i started watching elden ring videos. Man.
"Do I look Catholic?"
Totally could pass for an Eastern Catholic 100%
In the Catholic Church the bishops etc still wear what looks like a kippa too, though for different reasons of course
Even priests can wear a black zucchetto, which looks very similar to a kippa, and comes from a shared tradition.
All that i know is that i know nothing.
31:50 Because he dropped that MFn mic, baby!
{took me until the third viewing to catch on, lol}
Peace 🙏
Edit: I wish that the SCOTUS was as adept as was Scotus.
I had to rewatch this listen concentrate 2-3 times just to get what you were saying Scotus was talking about
Yeah this is a good example of how this channel is not an introductory level channel - this is seriously difficult material
@@TheEsotericaChannel Well I consider myself abit of a Pantheist considering my science mixed into philosophy and so had to arrange my brain thoughts to understand the needle thread Scotus was doing of that time to avoid complete Unity Oness of everything=a god but that is supposed to be outside all?, like a new logic Ven diagram design. Still I'm probably not getting his idea.
You’re an outstanding professor. I like your lectures on all subjects, especially Kaballah, which is part of my Jewish faith. You are fair and balanced and that I like. I also like your manner of presentation. It is logical and without emotion, like a Vulcan.
I love your work! Honestly the parables of history, religion and society are so awe inspiring to the creative artist.
I had a request for you to maybe consider making a video on the Avesta: Yasna and the effect of that on the middle east and subcontinental oceania.
It's the only known collection of Zorostranic text and I can understand the genuine skepticism at looking at a Sanskrit text. But please could you consider giving it a try incase you can help showcase some of its relevance in the history of alchemy or the Magi.
Stay blessed wise one! Truly you have a microcosmic gift! ❤
Just superb.
I worried this one went a little too hard on the technicalities of medieval philosophy - glad folks are digging it! I love Scotus.
Thank you for another wonderful episode. I like to imagine a plane of existence where Scotus and Tillich discuss the univocity of being and God as the ground of being/God above God... but out of Christian humility I'd have to admit only grasping a small amount of the discussion.
Fascinating! By far the most difficult video of yours I've watched so far. But I'll keep working on it.
It seems to me that the laws against heresy were for Scotus (and many others) a frustrating constraint, and this is what makes it so hard to get to the core of his argument. When one has to avoid being burned at the stake, one must talk in circles. I might go further and say that the real difficulty of talking about the divine in the Middle Ages has nothing to do with any logical or philosophical problem. It's simply that the powerful elite of society have a particular point of view about the divine and will punish people for disputing that point of view. Naturally, since that point of view is what the social order is built on. I suspect this is the source of all class bondage and wealth inequality: the reduction of God to what is socially convenient, or what enables certain people to maintain power and control over others. If the king is the person everyone listens to and obeys, then the king may as well be God. And while that may be good enough for government, it utterly defeats the purpose of philosophy. Philosophy can't exist within a contained environment. It must be free to expand beyond the constraints of law and principles of social organisation, or it is useless. "Christian philosophy" is an oxymoron.
Sorry if I'm just restating Philosophical History 101. I'm still working on my undergrad degree in ancient history and inhaling philosophy and esotericism in my free time. Some brilliant thinkers have come out of theology, and no doubt the wish to better understand God is what compelled them. But I can't help but feel that, on the whole, monotheistic religion has tremendously slowed the intellectual progress of humanity. The thinkers could've done so much more if they hadn't been forced to compromise with the ideas and agendas of the rich. We might've had atomic science in antiquity.
I've listened to this three times and I still have trouble understanding these concepts.
In my years of Philosophy studies, Medieval Philosophy was rather encouraged, but then again it's Poland, and most professors are involved with Catholic University.
That being said, I had a privilege of being taught Medieval Philosophy by a great professor who did her doctorate on Duns Scotus - so this episode hits close to home :)
(Rarely did I rewind TH-cam to understand that often.)
This video is a great work you know why? Because it makes it like a thriller. You may read of all notable philosophers in Wikipedia or some student's book, and you know some statements or even systems they made. If you like philosophy and stuff like that, you probably like these statements/systems already, they are fun toys for you, you collect them in your mind as you did collect Bionicles as a kid (and you probably like Greek and Descartes-Locke generations more than Medieval one, just as you like original Toas and Toa Metru more than Toa Nuwa). But dr. Justin Sledge make it pulsating, you feel what all these people lived for, what thrilled them, why they felt it important, why it was the drama of their lives. That's wonderful.
...But I guess you have to be nerdy enough from start to see it as a thriller (and to make that philosophers-bionicles comparison).
It's always an automatically great day when Esoterica uploads! Fantastic video, as always!! Thank you! 😁
too true
This man said "...The Ascended Master, Kimmy Gibbler." 😫😭😭
this is the way
You’ve done it again. Something I knew nothing about, is now spreading through my mind like a mushroom cloud.
An area I had no interest in, medieval philosophy, is suddenly interesting. Although it all stills seems like desperate apologetics to maintain a god concept, it’s is certainly of an order far beyond my ability to critique. It leaves me wondering, exactly who is the dunce here?
As a Catholic priest, I had a similar hat, though not the beard.
On the subject of being, have you ever read the Catholic philosopher of the early 19th century, Antonio Rosmini and his idea of the order of Being?
I've not but sounds interesting
@@TheEsotericaChannel His On the Origin of Ideas would be the starting point.
I should mention since Rosmini came up here that there is a book in Italian on Scotus’s influence on Rosmini
@@thebyzantinescotist7081 Fantastic!
I think there were prerequisites to this video... And I plan to have a migraine on the day of the quiz...
Yeah this video isn't exactly introductory level
😂
I want to say Scotus did the philosophical equivalent of saying, "Okay guys, so matter isn't made up of atoms... but it's okay, I figured out what it IS made out of and it actually explains matter better." I can't help but think he'd hate being described analogically, though.
At the risk of getting too political, it's highly amusing to me that the terms "dunce" and "Scotus" are associated with each other. Some of them aren't doing much to help that perception, either.
Technically “Scotus” at the time referred to the Irish
Could one hope for a video on the other John Scotus, Eriugena? Even though he's before Anselm, some see him as a proto, if not the first, scholastic, his vision of heaven and hell is interesting, and his philosophical system seems to be worthwile of longer exposition (Seekers of Unity did a great video introducing his Division of Nature). Mentioned by Hegel and Russell!?
Zevi from seekers of unity has a fantastic video on him
I appreciate your wonderful and informative videos more than I can say. There is some intriguing fact in every one that makes my jaw drop. Much love for all you do. ❤
One more thing, this whole thing sounds so Gnostic to me. Scotus seems to be talking about G-d as the Monad. The primal Genus being, G-d, with archons and aeons in between, and the us. Holding the precepts of BS categorization proved to be such a powerful tool for the powers that be. Who said philosophy was not of much monetary worth?
Philosophy (or at least logic) is, in my opinion, a precursor to money itself. How does one define value using numbers without engaging in logic?
@@andythedishwasher1117 that’s a difficult question to answer. I believe economics is not necessarily within the realm of logic, or at least as it is demonstrated by our institutions. Haha.
Scotus would strongly disagree that his ideas were Gnostic-ish. Instead, they borrow a ton from the ideas of Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Pseudo-Dionysius.
Thank you for yet another mind bendingly wonderful episode of Esoterica. Keep up the good work
This incredible video can go hard in hand with foolish fish's, "science vs religion, wrong question" video.
Such good stuff!
We are positively blessed to have such creators talking about these concepts in such an approachable way. I finally feel that I have arrived at a point in my life when my years of study and trying to find my true call, have paid off.
Aquinus reference! Everyone take a shot.
As someone who majored in a philosophy around the same time as you, I remember anything from before the 17th century was ignored. You got a little Plato in 101, and then that was it. Maybe something between Plato and Descartes would come up in a Special Problems class, but other than that, not a peep. No Stoics, no Neoplatonism, no Confucianism, nada.
Were you in a hardcore analytic department?
@@TheEsotericaChannel Yes, but my school was also a med school, so my professors were mostly interested in medical ethics. I did have one professor who was a classicist, but even she was more interested in Kierkegaard than Aristotle. Dr. Sadler, one of your fellow TH-cam philosophy teachers, told me this wasn't an unusual experience in the late 90s.
That makes sense. I was really lucky and undergrad to get a wide range of offerings. But graduate school with shockingly limited. Though I will say that Memphis is fantastic in that you're required to do both analytic and continental work. That's super rare in this country and I really appreciated that dimension of my graduate school training. I think it also informs how I do philosophy now where I really want to have the rigor of analytics and especially logic but also the adventuresome spirit of continental philosophy.
Deleuze as "interesting but wrong" made me cackle
The guy's a genius there's no doubt about that and when he's right he's right and when he's wrong...well he's wrong
Thank you for this piece, Dr Sledge. It's really shed some light on a philosopher that I've seen mentioned many times but never understood. Although I probably still don't fully understand 😅 this breakdown of his works has given me a window in that is truly invaluable 🙌 I can only imagine the work you must put in to create these videos, you're an absolute legend 🫶
4:38-4:48
In high school I pored through the Catholic Encyclopedia. I remember a common, relevant lament in its pages. Wish I remembered a citation.
This reputation arises from the direct failing of the Scholastics in grappling properly with rising Humanism, renaissance philosophy, Protestantism, and eventually Positivism. There, a lack of innovation, a decadent laziness, meant the same stultified, aged arguments were repeated ad nauseum, inviting easy ridicule. No new counterarguments or polemics were effectively developed or spread, not in time, and at any rate many Catholics were taken with new ideas of rationalism and kept their faith, so the threat of these other schools of philosophy weren't seen for what they were.
Hah, Dr. Sledge beat me to it. Perhaps I should've listened to the next 30 seconds before writing.
That was a hell of a 40 minute trip! Thanks for your work.
What if we just throw out the problematic necessity of transcendence?
Ah yes, the famous 20th century French philosopher Monsieur T and his philosophy of Pitié Le Fou.
“Anything you can do, I can do meta “made my day. 🎉
This is one of your videos where I’m just like “I like your funny words, magic man.” But enjoyable nonetheless.
This is interesting. But my brain is packing and wants a vacation,
This is incredible. Never heard of this. I'd love to hear more theology & philosophy, as it's prior to esoteric thought & practice
Do you have a downloadable podcast? I really enjoy watching your videos but I would love to listen to audio at work where I get no cell service because I work in a freezer.
A lot of this goes over my head. But around 23:00 I got confused in a specific way I can articulate. What's wrong with God being a being among beings. I mean, is God a being? Yes (if he exists in reality). Are there other beings? Yes. Ok then. I'm an Ex-Christian and don't understand the problem it presents to Christianity.
Greetings from Chattanooga, TN. Dry? Boring? Not to me, this is where I choose to spend my free time, right now. What's that quote "Those who say, do not know.....". Have a good day and thanks for sharing and for your time and wisdom.
Great episode! But in this day and age, it’s difficult to use “SCOTUS“ and “wisdom“ in the same positive declaration. 😑
I'd love to see you talk with PlasticPills, who's got a yt channel and I love him talking about 20th century philosophy, I bet it would be incredible and better crossover than Marvel and DC.
I might be down reach out to them!
It would be super interesting conversation!
28:52 Thank you Bl. Scotus for preserving analogy. Dominicans everywhere are grateful.
Sorry for my ignorance about the following question.
Does philosophy integrate numerical and word autonomy in mathematic equations?
Completely unrelated: the only way I understood Ezra Pound’s “Cantos” was to read it aloud. It is meant to be read aloud by the reader, I realized. Another fun addition to the worrisome work. Lol
You had me laughing so much at your diss of French Post-Structuralism with a "Magister T" moment I spilled my tea.
Now a want a T-shirt with "Magister T" says "Shut up, fool. Post-Structuralism is incoherent and anti-epistemological" or some such.
I had never really considered your personal religion before, with how you speak I may have even assumed something more niche or even that you weren't, though it seems obvious after you pointed out not looking catholic. You do a great job of not letting it influence your content, at least as far as I can tell. Love the work!
Yes, reading medieval scholasticism is awesome. All the problem of universals, the problem of translation between greek-syriac-arab-latin, and the problem of the first faculty of the soul are so interesting and incredibly relevant. To continue with this series you must do a video about Ockham.
PS. I really don't get your problem with Deleuze, it's not if he ever conceives the univocity of being of Scotus as ontological. He just points out that Scotus was the first to create a logical concept of univocity, as Spinoza did in the ontological plane.
My problem is that he attributes that position to Scotus despite the fact that Scotus clearly rejected it - something Deleuze is known to do to other philosophers (for instance forcing the A of the deduction onto Kant which clearly he rejected...hence him writing the B version and sticking to it). Scotus was by no means the first to come to the concept - it was widely known and rejected by Thomas, etc.
hi! this must be the twentieth video of yours I have watched , thank you so much for the in-depth, scholarly, and wise commentary on so much esoteric history! I am wondering if you’ve ever touched on topics of gender in Jewish or ancient mystic or magical practice - perhaps a topic for a future video, I’d be very interested!
Thank you for your work!
This is so awesome, so much more interesting than bossing around more demons! Ive been wanting to delve deeper into Scotus for a few years but there are so few resources thay succinctly describe his doctrine - this video is an absolute godsend ;). I would kill for you to do a course on medieval philosophy or something, maybe once the Merkhava series is finished someday. Much love!
Such language!!! a reminder how good humans can get and reminded me to go listen to some Heilung (medieval German lyrics) I don't know medieval either. Thank you Dr Sledge and all the others out there seeking clarity.
I encountered Scotus peripherally through the works of Victorian Jesuit poet John Manley Hopkins.Some of the most profoundly beautiful and insightful verse of the natural world in English.Thanks for posting.
The emphasizing of “500-year prejudice” has me so tickled rn idk why LMAO
Sorry Dr Sledge, I tried, hard, but O could not understand after about half the videp, cpmpletely lost.
That was some serious verbal tap dancing there, Dr. Sledge!
Unfortunately, my Philosophy professors made a pointed effort to denigrate Medieval thinkers as merely « papist sophistry ». So it’s certainly a gap in my education.
I’ll certainly stay tuned for more.
new hollywood blockbuster biography piece focused scotus imploding philosophy
This is such an admirably clear presentation
Another "I get it! Nope....oh wait this feels weirdly familiar. " episode. 🤘
yaay!!! what a great way to end the week with this fresh upload on medieval theological beef
Pierce carried this through to contemporary thought. He’s esoteric also. I did my grad work at saint louis u so i devoured Scotus.
Such a great episode. Thanks for going up to bat for medieval philosophy in general and scholasticism in particular.
Bravo, Justin Sledge, with that PHD Of yours. I have written and listened all day long just with your understanding of plunges of great depths of wide open wisdom with knowledge.
BRAVO, SIR!!!!! I can't get enough of your lectures, and I thank you.❤
29:25 When are we getting an episode on Godel's Ontological Proof?
Smells like Spinoza!
Duns Scotus elevated primitive Franciscanism to new intellectual heights. It's so beautiful to me how Islamic Sufism and Christian Scholastic Franciscanism arrive at such similar and beautiful insights rather independently merely through a reading of Aristotle. Very much appreciated your glowing appraisal of medieval philosophy.
That is a spectacular piece of explaining of extremely complicated ideas! What a great channel this is...
"The ascendant master Kimmy Gibbler" 🤣😂
what does the Supreme Court Of The United State have to do with metaphysics 🤔
Got me good with Kimmy Gibbler.
Wonderfully lucid presentation of some notoriously spaghettified abstractions. As a philosopher and recovering Catholic I can confirm your opinion that most of ''Church philosophy'' is far weirder than most people CAN think. Many thanks for this - and all your work. M.
This's eerily similar to Ibn Taymiyyah.
this is such a funny episode. This concept of Hallumanism(?) is, in my opinion, the source of all that is wrong with western humans. One powerful religious guys tells everyone else their place in the eye of G-d and him, being the mouth piece of "G-d", who disposes of their lives, livelihood, possessions, etc. This is why I love to study the pre-Colonial philosophers of my birth place. They did not expected anyone to tell them what to be. They already were. They were part of nature, of time, and of the gods, who were ruled by nature and time. Cool episode Sir. It gets the philosophical churning wheels going for sure. thank you 🤘
Good comment. I enjoyed your thoughts. But why did you censor “G-d”?
@@thomasmurphy9429a significant amount of content in early modern western philosophy is straight ripped from colonized people, or people being preached to by missionaries. Leibnitz was a big fan of confucianism, for instance. the Wendat statesman Kondiaronk had a famous series of arguments in which he politely deconstructed French society in comparison to his own civilization of voluntarist farmers and nomads. nearly every literate man worth the label had a copy, and it had an unavoidable impact on western philosophy. the idea of freedom as a default state of being is from north america. the meritocratic bureaucracy is a rip from china. don't even get me started on the impact of non-dualist philosophies. do you think Clausewitz was doing much more than imitating Sun Tzu for a (now early) modern era? the fact that much of this is unknown or denied despite many of these thinkers saying in no uncertain terms where they got their inspiration is evidence that white supremacy functioned as intended. it seems impossible, to the point of being considered racist, that other people had different ideas and that europeans liked those ideas. it's just that, liking those ideas didn't stop them from being wiped out. the way authority justified itself, if humans are free by default, is by claiming those living in free societies were in a "state of nature" and thus could be treated like animals. alternatively, they weren't "making good use of the land".
beliefs most often form around material desires. protestant merchants wanted to practice usury, while peasants wanted equality before the lord and the law. English intellectual aristocracy found north american society and philosophy fascinating, but John Locke could still find a way to justify genocide.
@@bovinejonie3745 🤷♂️
animism has a better account of relations, IMO. arguably, many modern problems can be framed in terms of a "relational crisis"
I think the word being used was "Illuminism." As in, God must illuminate or reveal the truth to someone.
And yes, it's a problem. Buddhism has a similar problem, where "my enlightenment" can never be because the enlightened person is supposed to be so humble that they'd never consider themselves enlightened, and "your enlightenment" is untrustworthy because I have no access to your mind to know whether you're fooling yourself or just fooling me.
But what often happens is a very charismatic guy comes along, claims to be enlightened, or at least to know the way, and you get a new sect of Buddhism.
However, Illuminism can work and ultimately I disagree with Duns Scotus here, as long as one takes a Popperian approach to their inner world: find reasons to believe you're not enlightened and that you don't know the truth of God and start hammering away at those reasons until there's no more. In fact, that's how the spiritual journey actually works!
Jibber-Jabber?!? 😆
I grew up in a United Church of Christ, and Paul Tillich was discussed at times, God as the Ground of Being itself. Tillich said that Christianity was always an ontological discourse philosophy.
So when I discover figures like this it affirms Tillich’s main thesis for me.
Of course, one of the figures Tillich was responding to was Heidegger, so there is the link, probably. or it might be more direct.
Christianity is really weird in this aspect. Buddhism has a similar thing going on, where the religion is strongly split between what's going on with its contemplatives and intellectuals versus the experience the everyday layman gets. As I've aged I've been exposed to the former more and more, but as a youth I rejected religion hard because of the latter.
It's unfortunate that my experience, at least here in the Midwestern United States, continues to be one of a Christianity hostile to anything outside the zealous insistence that Jesus of Nazareth was the one true God in the flesh and there is nothing you need to know other than that. I find the ontological discussion far more useful and illuminating than the sad and grotesquely incorrect Christological conclusions the politically motivated early councils came to.
Oh damn! Parmenides and Duns Scotus in such a short window! Two of my favorites. Nice.
Excellent episode! If it weren't for John Duns Scotus's soteriological theory i myself would have had a very hard time continuing to practice western Christianity. Although a minority opinion in the Catholic Church, mainly held by Franciscans, learning about his rejection of substitutionary atonement theory in favor of a soteriology which to me resembles much more closely Eastern Orthodox soteriology was instrumental in my renewed interest in western Christianity. And although I am no longer a Catholic, and as an Episcopalian am free to hold to Eastern Orthodox soteriology, coming to that point qould have been impossible for me if it hadn't been for his ideas.
Its very interesting to learn more about his other philosophical ideas here now, as i knew little about him beyond that and his debates with the Dominicans over the immaculate conception of Mary.
What brought you away from the Roman Catholic Church?
I’m no henologist, but don’t Plotinus and Proclus have similarly elegant solutions to these problems? I believe Plotinus said something like the One is being that is beyond the being / non-being dichotomy? But within an emanationist paradigm (like the tattered ends of your bell-bottom jeans, as you say), so a density of ontological levels protect it from the charge of pantheism. And pantheism, god in everything, is clearly a category mistake, it’s always ontic rather than ontological, it’s more like monotheistic animism or like a collapsed Cartesian dualism... now I’m wondering where Scotus stood on Platonism, since so much of the Aristotle coming down through Arabic treatises was heavily (neo)platonized...
"I believe Plotinus said something like the One is being that is beyond the being / non-being dichotomy?"
That sounds like Plotinus. But, let's be honest, doesn't that just sound like nonsense? If I say something like, "The tiger ran into the grass," you easily understand what I'm saying because you have an experience, first-hand or otherwise, of tigers, running, and grass.
But what does "Being that is beyond the being/non-being dichotomy" point to? Quine argued that the phrase "minotaurs exist" can at least be broken down to "a create with the head of a bull and the body of a man can be found in the Labyrinth," which we can then go to the Labyrinth and see for ourselves such a creature is not there. "Being that is beyond the being/non-being dichotomy" has no referent like this. It's just words that point at nothing.
@@saintsword23 Interesting, sounds like you are representing the most extreme form of nominalism, called "ostrich nominalism" in relation to Quine. It's interesting in this context because it's the most inhospitable environment for thinking through, with any generosity, western esotericism, which is entirely dependent upon platonism. So, Quine says there are only red houses and red roses, but no redness. But it seems pretty obvious to me that there's redness, not to mention a minotaur, floating around in my mind right now, and I don't believe any sort of brain scan technology will ever be able to locate them. That's the real sticking point for me with naturalism. "Thinking", to my mind, is just so clearly not propositional logic, not calculation, not the manipulation of discrete units of data. The notion that Intrinsic intentionality is reducible to underlying components is what really sounds like nonsense to me. Now, there is a subtle and robust logic to Plotinus's henology but I didn't do much justice with that formulation. Ultimately though, I'm starting to believe Lloyd Gerston that there can only be two stable and diametrically opposed camps in western philosophy, platonism and naturalism. (but not the idealist Plato, the man of the Cave and the abstract Forms, who is a creature of anglo-american philosophy departments. I mean the Plato of the Timaeus and Parminedes and the classical tradition). These are big tent camps full of compromisers and middle-wayers, but the forces within each push inexorably towards the poles of either thoroughly top-down or thoroughly bottom-up logics. And as a naturalist I believe you do have to commit ultimately to ostrich nominalism, Cartesian materialism, and a thorough-going mechanical reductionism, all of which seem like nonsense to me, though admittedly they've been very helpful for the advancement of science and technology. (though quite a bit of that advancement, and the scientific revolution itself, from Copernicus through Kepler to Newton, took place within the structures and logic of the platonic cosmos and the emanationist paradigm). Within the naturalist worldview, any concession to things like epiphenomena, emergent properties, or top-down systems analysis of any kind is going to eventually collapse, or, if you push too many concessions to top-down logics, you end up popping back out into the platonist camp. Anyway, if you are interested in "stepping into the strength of your opponent" (i.e. not me), check out Lloyd Gerston's talk "Philosophy as Ur-Platonism vs Anti-Metaphysical Naturalism" here on youtube. He mentions Quine in there, i'm pretty sure.
The ascended master Kimmy Gibler!!😂
Thank you for making my long drive commute to work enlightening with your videos!
I love how Scotus is so intricate and arcane that it takes a 30 minute video to cover even one of his ideas. Would you be interested in doing a video on Siger of Brabant someday? I can't find much information on him online but he seems like a really fascinating thinker.
If you think Scotus is intricate, just wait until you read Aquinas or Suarez
Thank you Scotus, very cool.
As always, fascinating
Can you do an episode on Jakob Böhme please? His story is wonderful considering that he was a shoemaker and is impact on the rest of philosophy to come is enormous despite being not very well known. Thanks, Justin