Dr. Jacobs, It is so, so encouraging to hear your clear, rational case for realism. I'm a Christian and trying to explore my faith from a philosophical point of view. Your shared story and expertise is helping me immensely. I've already listened to several of your other podcasts. You're doing very important work, keep it up!
Nathan, this is a fascinating episode. I’ve always been a realist (I just didn’t know it). I’m a newbie to philosophy and also EO (I’m an inquirer with the intention to become Orthodox). I met you at church recently, but I won’t say where since we are on the internets 🤣 I’m loving your podcast! Thank you for being another EO voice out there helping the rest of us to grow and learn. God Bless ☦️
"Aww, $&#@, I just became a Platonist" I had a very similar experience with Aristotle. Had a friend who patiently talked to me for years about Christianity and philosophy, but I was about as typically nominalist as an American liberal could be. I had, incidentally, converted to Orthodox Christianity in my early 20s after leaving nondenominational Protestant Christianity and drifting for awhile. My catechism in Orthodoxy wasn't bad, per se, but it wasn't very thorough and I wasn't exactly the sort of person at the time who thought very much about theology or philosophy. Few years into that and I'd fallen out of the church in general, became one of those "Nones" you talk about so much. This friend of mine (an Evangelical, which is kind of funny) spent years talking to me about all of this stuff. At one point my marriage fell apart and I wound up going through a pretty dark time; in that crisis I did actually start to dig deeply into philosophy in a very ham-handed way. Let me be the first to suggest that reading Nietzsche during a divorce is a good way to wind up in a weird place. Anyway, that friend pushed me into reading a lot of other things, one of which was Edward Feser's "The Last Superstition". It's a simple book, but it was my first real introduction to realism. After that, it was a short hop into Aquinas and Aristotle. I did the same thing you did too; I went digging through every philosophical school I could find, trying to figure out if I was a human being with free will created in the image of God or just some kind of hallucinating brain in a vat, or any other thing in between. It was actually in an argument with some other guy about the whole "brain in a vat" thing where I realized I'd been making realist arguments the entire time, and I said to myself, "Well $#&@, I guess I'm a Realist now." Seven or so years later, and here I am listening to you basically describe my own journey in slightly different words. Found my way back to Orthodoxy, married with tons of kids, and life is far, far, far more meaningful and beautiful than I could have ever imagined back then. Thanks for doing what you're doing man, and keep it up. I'm certain there are plenty more of us out there who will benefit greatly from all of this.
Hey Dr. Jacob’s, I really hope you have an episode on how you got from more pagan process theology stuff to Eastern Orthodox belief. I feel I am going on the same path but not fully understanding how to fit into EO and some of the doctrine. Thanks!🙏🏻
All ya gotta do is have a realist provide all the different definitions for ‘things that exist’ they hold… a nominalist will provide one, for one existence. A realist metaphysic also is self defeating in that it attempts to solve the problem of universals only to increase the problem by an infinite-fold cuz they can’t address the third-man argument against the existence of abstract entities. If the realist claims to adhere to realism ‘cuz it works’, we now have a pragmatic justification for solving the problem. But if that’s the case, we should adhere to Nominalism cuz it doesn’t invoke magic, divine providence, or invisible, incorporeal abstract entities, like properties, ghosts, and god…
It was occurring to me as you were talking about what a self defeating pair empiricism and nominalism are! Leads to all kinds of mental gymnastics materialist atheists have to go through rather than actually admit the incongruity of their project.
certain extreme atheist positions are untenable, but its about 10 layers of materialist atheism from "there is no order to anything" to "god is conscious and affects all things including me personally"
The problem is that empirical science doesn't make truth claims yet realism demands those truths from science and includes them in ontological arguments. Physics for instance used to claim that gravity is best modeled as a force until Einstein's general relativity successfully argued for a model that describes gravity as curvature of spacetime. The argument was successful because the general relativity model is capable of predicting more physical events under less strict constraints than Newton's model did. If physics pretended to be true then Newton's model would be taboo because it was proven false by Einstein's model, but Newton's model keeps working just fine within its constraints (where things aren't so energetic that they experience measurable relativistic effects) and is used by physicists every day. If those models ("laws of gravity") were real it's hard to explain why two competing models (resulting in different laws of gravity that can't be true at the same time) are both successful.
@@JerehmiaBoaz you can't infer that there is no truth claim just because something may turn out to be false. There are non-certain truth claims, such are the claims of scientific theories. That's why they're falsifiable. Newton's model is considered obsolete and we still use it only because we are able to calculate when the error it makes is negligible (according to out best knowledge).
For me it was working thru 1st letter to Corinthians. The question of meat and spirits. Paul wrote that physical cult object in the temple is not a thing. YET, eating meat in temple is participating with demons. If you unpack this, its apparent that in acient world, cult objects were hyperlinks to stories, narratives and ideas. Today we don't have physical objects as our literacy is much higher than in ancient world. So we fashion our idols with words and call them ideologies. Problem with Aristotle is that using naturalist taxonomy on the spiritual world. It doesn't work that way.
I definitely align with realist first principles, but what is the response to the fact that our senses can deceive us, such as in binocular rivalry, or thinking that the sun revolves around the Earth?
There's a good book called "The Theological Orgins of Modernity" that introduced me to this problem. Fr. Seraphim Rose's "Nihilism" and "Orthodox Survival Course" trace the course of history from an Orthodox perspective and touch on this topic, but neither are explicitly about nominalism. "The Ontology of Death" by Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson is explicitly about the battle of nominalism and realism. They are all excellent reads.
Martin Luther and his “alien imputed righteousness” by mere divine declaration is peak nominalism. The Bible, of course, teaches participatory, synergistic realism.
He does not teach Nominalism. It's by uniting and becoming one with Christ through faith that we get to partake of His righteousness. It is not some arbitrary declaration, but rather a charing in Christ.
@@mhhuuuujjjj Luther said, "The believing soul by means of the pledge of his faith is free in Christ, its bridegroom, free from all sins, secure against death and hell, and is endowed with the eternal righteousness, life, and salvation of Christ its bridegroom." So in a way, it is imputed, which lines up with nominalism. The Orthodox understanding is that the human ACTUALLY has to change via participation in the life of the Holy Trinity, which is more in step with realism.
@@buglepongyou enter into a different layer of reality that can't be quantified. Matters of the heavens(truths, virtues, purpose, principles, identity, patterns, theories, philosophy, hierarchy) go beyond the scope of science. It's still real, because you and others interact with that space of reality. It just becomes more real, than concrete reality because it has cosmic properties.
@@buglepong the "it" is still real. There are different levels of reality at play at all times. I tend to think more from an archaic cosmology where the perception of reality made space for all things in a hierarchical manner.
@TheNathanJacobsPodcast what are your thoughts on the approach to justification that people like @JayDyer + @esorem take with TAG? They reject foundationalism, both hard and soft, in favor of a form of coherentism.
Dr. Jacobs, It is so, so encouraging to hear your clear, rational case for realism. I'm a Christian and trying to explore my faith from a philosophical point of view. Your shared story and expertise is helping me immensely. I've already listened to several of your other podcasts. You're doing very important work, keep it up!
Thank you so much for the last 20 minute explanation of Christianity’s confessional commitment to realism
Nathan, this is a fascinating episode. I’ve always been a realist (I just didn’t know it). I’m a newbie to philosophy and also EO (I’m an inquirer with the intention to become Orthodox). I met you at church recently, but I won’t say where since we are on the internets 🤣 I’m loving your podcast! Thank you for being another EO voice out there helping the rest of us to grow and learn. God Bless ☦️
Just found your channel from your recent podcast with Jonathan Pageau, "The case for realism". Wonderful videos!
ICXC NIKA
🙏🏿☦🙏🏿
So glad you finally made a podcast. I've been hoping to see more from you for a while now
"Aww, $&#@, I just became a Platonist"
I had a very similar experience with Aristotle. Had a friend who patiently talked to me for years about Christianity and philosophy, but I was about as typically nominalist as an American liberal could be. I had, incidentally, converted to Orthodox Christianity in my early 20s after leaving nondenominational Protestant Christianity and drifting for awhile. My catechism in Orthodoxy wasn't bad, per se, but it wasn't very thorough and I wasn't exactly the sort of person at the time who thought very much about theology or philosophy. Few years into that and I'd fallen out of the church in general, became one of those "Nones" you talk about so much.
This friend of mine (an Evangelical, which is kind of funny) spent years talking to me about all of this stuff. At one point my marriage fell apart and I wound up going through a pretty dark time; in that crisis I did actually start to dig deeply into philosophy in a very ham-handed way. Let me be the first to suggest that reading Nietzsche during a divorce is a good way to wind up in a weird place.
Anyway, that friend pushed me into reading a lot of other things, one of which was Edward Feser's "The Last Superstition". It's a simple book, but it was my first real introduction to realism. After that, it was a short hop into Aquinas and Aristotle. I did the same thing you did too; I went digging through every philosophical school I could find, trying to figure out if I was a human being with free will created in the image of God or just some kind of hallucinating brain in a vat, or any other thing in between.
It was actually in an argument with some other guy about the whole "brain in a vat" thing where I realized I'd been making realist arguments the entire time, and I said to myself, "Well $#&@, I guess I'm a Realist now." Seven or so years later, and here I am listening to you basically describe my own journey in slightly different words. Found my way back to Orthodoxy, married with tons of kids, and life is far, far, far more meaningful and beautiful than I could have ever imagined back then.
Thanks for doing what you're doing man, and keep it up. I'm certain there are plenty more of us out there who will benefit greatly from all of this.
I really like the historical approach to realism and you do a very good job at explaining what it is. The key term "structures" is most helpful.
Awesome stuff
Hey Dr. Jacob’s, I really hope you have an episode on how you got from more pagan process theology stuff to Eastern Orthodox belief. I feel I am going on the same path but not fully understanding how to fit into EO and some of the doctrine. Thanks!🙏🏻
All ya gotta do is have a realist provide all the different definitions for ‘things that exist’ they hold… a nominalist will provide one, for one existence. A realist metaphysic also is self defeating in that it attempts to solve the problem of universals only to increase the problem by an infinite-fold cuz they can’t address the third-man argument against the existence of abstract entities. If the realist claims to adhere to realism ‘cuz it works’, we now have a pragmatic justification for solving the problem. But if that’s the case, we should adhere to Nominalism cuz it doesn’t invoke magic, divine providence, or invisible, incorporeal abstract entities, like properties, ghosts, and god…
It was occurring to me as you were talking about what a self defeating pair empiricism and nominalism are! Leads to all kinds of mental gymnastics materialist atheists have to go through rather than actually admit the incongruity of their project.
certain extreme atheist positions are untenable, but its about 10 layers of materialist atheism from "there is no order to anything" to "god is conscious and affects all things including me personally"
The problem is that empirical science doesn't make truth claims yet realism demands those truths from science and includes them in ontological arguments. Physics for instance used to claim that gravity is best modeled as a force until Einstein's general relativity successfully argued for a model that describes gravity as curvature of spacetime. The argument was successful because the general relativity model is capable of predicting more physical events under less strict constraints than Newton's model did.
If physics pretended to be true then Newton's model would be taboo because it was proven false by Einstein's model, but Newton's model keeps working just fine within its constraints (where things aren't so energetic that they experience measurable relativistic effects) and is used by physicists every day. If those models ("laws of gravity") were real it's hard to explain why two competing models (resulting in different laws of gravity that can't be true at the same time) are both successful.
@@JerehmiaBoaz you can't infer that there is no truth claim just because something may turn out to be false. There are non-certain truth claims, such are the claims of scientific theories. That's why they're falsifiable. Newton's model is considered obsolete and we still use it only because we are able to calculate when the error it makes is negligible (according to out best knowledge).
For me it was working thru 1st letter to Corinthians. The question of meat and spirits. Paul wrote that physical cult object in the temple is not a thing. YET, eating meat in temple is participating with demons. If you unpack this, its apparent that in acient world, cult objects were hyperlinks to stories, narratives and ideas. Today we don't have physical objects as our literacy is much higher than in ancient world. So we fashion our idols with words and call them ideologies.
Problem with Aristotle is that using naturalist taxonomy on the spiritual world. It doesn't work that way.
I definitely align with realist first principles, but what is the response to the fact that our senses can deceive us, such as in binocular rivalry, or thinking that the sun revolves around the Earth?
The sun does revolve around the earth *from our perspective.* How does heliocentrism or binocular rivalry have anything to do with realism?
@@marincusman9303 It has everything to do with realism because what is real and what is perceived are not congruent.
Very insightful. Are there any accessible books that go through this? At best from a Christian perspective.
There's a good book called "The Theological Orgins of Modernity" that introduced me to this problem. Fr. Seraphim Rose's "Nihilism" and "Orthodox Survival Course" trace the course of history from an Orthodox perspective and touch on this topic, but neither are explicitly about nominalism. "The Ontology of Death" by Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson is explicitly about the battle of nominalism and realism. They are all excellent reads.
@jessecurle716 Thanks! I'll take a look.
Martin Luther and his “alien imputed righteousness” by mere divine declaration is peak nominalism. The Bible, of course, teaches participatory, synergistic realism.
He does not teach Nominalism. It's by uniting and becoming one with Christ through faith that we get to partake of His righteousness. It is not some arbitrary declaration, but rather a charing in Christ.
@@mhhuuuujjjj Luther said, "The believing soul by means of the pledge of his faith is free in Christ, its bridegroom, free from all sins, secure against death and hell, and is endowed with the eternal righteousness, life, and salvation of Christ its bridegroom."
So in a way, it is imputed, which lines up with nominalism. The Orthodox understanding is that the human ACTUALLY has to change via participation in the life of the Holy Trinity, which is more in step with realism.
@@mhhuuuujjjjLuther was all over the place. Manichean in many ways and gnostic in others.
You almost couldnt straight face it through that introduction
You’re a nominalist until you have to engineer a car.
Here’s a Syllogism, from the University of Science. Do you own a dog house?
gay
I do not. Would you like to come over for some chicken?
@ 😂😂
lol at 54:11 - "Yep, I just tasted God's ideas."
+
The hardcore nominalist believes that truth is theirs to make up. Conversely, the hardcore realist has an awful lot of faith in God.
realism becomes nominalism the moment you talk about it. which is why philosophy is pure nominalism. realism is punching your opponent in the face.
What? You can talk about real things.
@@baa950 its the talking that isnt "real"
@@buglepongyou enter into a different layer of reality that can't be quantified. Matters of the heavens(truths, virtues, purpose, principles, identity, patterns, theories, philosophy, hierarchy) go beyond the scope of science. It's still real, because you and others interact with that space of reality. It just becomes more real, than concrete reality because it has cosmic properties.
@@uchechukwuibeji5532 if it was obvious... you wouldnt need to talk about it. Like getting punched in the face
@@buglepong the "it" is still real. There are different levels of reality at play at all times. I tend to think more from an archaic cosmology where the perception of reality made space for all things in a hierarchical manner.
You repeat yourself
@TheNathanJacobsPodcast what are your thoughts on the approach to justification that people like @JayDyer + @esorem take with TAG? They reject foundationalism, both hard and soft, in favor of a form of coherentism.