The Uphill Job Battle

So, yesterday I continued that seemingly unending project of getting hired. I was called to the downtown HQ to begin my extensive background check, and found that to my amazement, someone finally had looked at my file before talking to me, but that this did have some downsides.

Instead of the usual look of who are you, I was greeted with an expression that said that I had already been analyzed by the personality profilers and had been stereotyped as a nerd/intelectual, and thus I would be impractical and unable to handle challenges or stressful situations, especially those that involved some sort of physical threat. I suppose that I reinforced that first impression by dressing decently rather than however she expected me to be dressed.

In the end, however, after checking my references, I seemed to receive the stamp of approval from my background investigator.

More on the Beginning of Life

With the debate on when the soul is joined to the body and thus when human life begins, I thought it might be useful to reflect momentarily upon what is going on shortly after conception.

As the new life begins, the fertilized egg strengthens its membrane to inhibit a secondary fertilization. It also begins the process of forming new cells. Neither the mother nor the father is in direct contact with this new life at this time. Their offspring is under its own direction as the body begins to take shape. For the first few days, all the mother’s body does for the new child is direct it toward its eventual site of implantation. The newly formed DNA of the child directs some elements of its formation; however, the DNA cannot solely be the motive principle of the new life. The DNA will not change throughout the life of the child (except when it is inaccurately copied by a cell). Moreover, the DNA is acted upon by the cell, rather than acting upon the cell. The DNA is copied in toto when the cell divides into two new cells, and the DNA is copied in part when certain parts, RNA, are needed for various cellular functions. It is the master plan for the functioning of the cell, but like an architect’s blueprint which does not cause the house to be built, the DNA does not by itself cause a cell to be, live, or function. Something else must direct the life of the cell and of the whole creature.

Moreover, DNA or any other feature of a single cell is unable to account for voluntary action, or the intellectual grasp of universals. The brain certainly has some function in mental activities, including sensation, sensible memory, and imagination.

Materialists

In a certain sense, it is surprising that the modern materialist philosopher does eventually advert to some notion of the soul rather than just giving up on the question. He thinks of the soul as part of the ancient mysticism that we enlightened moderns have been liberated from. However, the strict materialists that every high school chemistry class in the country is turning out (with their strict and antiquated Bohr models of atomic and subatomic structures) is left with nothing to advert to when it comes to explaining life. The scientist, unguided by philosophy that is truly grounded in nature, seeks to create life by mixing together a vat of amino acids and electricity in an acidic atmosphere to create a single protein, which incidentally is not life. In order to explain the leap of faith that the scientist is making in holding that this extremely improbable action would happen in nature, the scientist is required to hold that the world has already existed for an extremely long period of time, if not eternally. Additionally, the scientist is required that over enough time, every possible combination of events will occur. However, again this is quite a leap of faith. Not everything that is imaginable in our picture thinking imaginations is something that is potentially possible. I can imagine that I could sprout wings and fly, and thus you could say that it is possible, but I have no real potency to do such.

The possible is the rationalist’s replacement for the Aristotelian distinction of act and potency, which helps to ground both philosophy and science in the real. The potential is based upon what something could actually do or be but currently is not, while the possible is based upon what is conceivable in the mind but currently is not. Equating the possible and the potential is little more than sloppy philosophy and egoism.

The Abortion Debate

Since I mentioned abortion in "Political Myopathy," I thought that it would be worthwhile to undertake a more thorough investigation of the various opinions on the subject. There is a vast array of opinions about whether and when abortion should be legal. We will begin with the most radical pro-abortion view and work our way back.

1. Since birth is primarily an accidental change, and children do not have full and active use of the faculty of reason until around age 7, any child up to this age may be aborted.

2. Since birth is primarily an accidental change, and children do not even recognize reason in another, let alone actively use reason, abortion ought to be allowed up until children are able to recognize and follow reason in another.

3. Abortion should be allowed up until the child is born, at which time he becomes a person and a citizen of his country, and thus entitled to life.

4. Abortion ought to be permitted up until the age of viability, at which time it is only accidental that the child is in the womb.

5. Abortion ought to be permitted up until the age of quickening, at which time the child exhibits explicit and quantifiable signs of animal life.

6. Abortion should not be permitted at any point, since the child is a distinct human person from the moment of conception.

Although the first two positions are only rarely proposed, since the laws of every country that I know of rightly consider this to be murder, they seem to be fairly logical extensions of the pro-abortion stance. They are based upon something that is more intrinsic to man than birth.

Still, the use of reason is still potentially present in the individual from the moment the human soul is joined to the new matter. However, until the matter is sufficiently developed, the individual is unable exercise reason. A notion and understanding of the role of soul seems to be the underlying problem in this whole debate. Although the ancients noted that something beyond matter is necessary to explain life. A purely material and physical understanding of the universe is unable to distinguish between or account for the difference between the living and the nonliving. If you were shown a picture of a person and were asked whether he was sleeping or dead, you would be unable to answer.

Now you say, this is still a bit superficial. What if you were able to examine the individual? You would check the individual's vital signs: heart beat, breathing, brain waves, etc. These days, the medical field defines death as the absence of brain waves, but as I mentioned in my post "The meaning of Death" on 23 May 2008, at least two individuals have spontaneously regained "living" after having previously ceased brain function. So called vital signs are signs that generally accompany life, but are insufficient for accounting for or causing life.

We should all just read Aristotle's De Anima.

The ancients still had a hard time explaining what was in utero, especially when in the early stages of gestation, but they all agree that it is at least potentially a fully functioning human person. We now know through ultrasound imaging and surgical procedures that the child moves about under its own power much earlier than previously thought. The ancients could only rely upon the sensation of the mother, but we can "look" into the uterus. The child is also distinct from the mother from its first moments. It has distinct DNA, and its cells are functioning under their own direction to develop the child's body.

This is a tough issue, and unfortunately many on both sides are driven by emotion rather than reason. The discussion also strays into rather accidental matters such as the difficulty in raising a child. No doubt raising children is difficult, but if one is not in such a state as to accept the natural consequences of ones actions, adoption can always be arranged. The real question is whether the child is a human person from the moment of conception, not whether the parents are inconvenienced or the mother's health is put at risk. Risks are not certainties, and what mother or father would not want to give his life for his children after they are born? Does not the motherly or fatherly instinct direct the parents to risk their own harm to protect their children?

Progress on the Job Hunt

Beginning a career seems to be a bit more involved than I had hoped. I have been applying for jobs in my chosen field since May of this year, and unfortunately do not have much to show for it as of yet. The application that is the furthest along is one of the last added to the application pool. The first couple of applications to process went down in flames of glory as I began to learn the hiring game that I was taking part in. In a lot of ways getting hired is a lot like doing well in school. It not only takes suitable study and natural aptitude, but also knowing what your teachers are looking for. Thus, to get hired, you have to get a feel for those who are hiring you, and be able to articulate what they are looking for better than they are able to. Thus, my first two applications failed as I worked to figure out what was going on, my third ended when I discovered that the department was not one that I wanted to work for, and the last four applications are still pending.

It also helps when you are applying to a bigger department. If only a few people are being hired out of a big applicant pool, the department is more concerned with finding any excuse to disqualify someone rather than with finding the best applicants. However, if may are being hired, then to some extent the department is forced to take a more serious look at the applicants at each stage to determine the strongest ones.

I suppose that this is all theory for now. We shall see what I think when I am on the other side, but that will have to wait for a while.

I also have to fight the prejudices of those who are interviewing me. My background is unusual but not unheard of for this career. I heard about one at least partially similar case when I was finishing my M.A. in Florida. An officer with the Ft. Myers PD also had a Masters Degree in theology. So, this has been done before, but it is a bit of a hard sell.

Apology

I must apologize for the extended silence of this blog. I do not have continual internet access as I did when I began the blog. Nevertheless, I do have regular access to the internet, but generally without adequate time to write blogs. In the future I will try to write throughout the week and post a week worth of blogs over the weekend. You will notice the blogs appearing all at once, but I will date them as they are written.

If anyone still bothers to look at this blog, your persistence and patience will pay off shortly.

Unintended Consequences

Last week I finally got around to ordering health insurance for myself. The window of time to get insurance without an official gap in coverage was swiftly drawing to a close. I had already gotten insurance for my wife through her employer. Since she is not a full time employee, she does not automatically receive insurance, but she is given the option to buy into her employer’s plan. We were especially interested in having her insured since we are expecting the birth of our first child in late January or early February. Now buying into this plan is rather pricey, but having done the math, it looks to be somewhat less expensive than paying the hospital bill out of pocket if all goes well, and much cheaper if there are any complications. So, there is nothing too unexpected here. No one really wants to insure a pregnant woman, but an employer’s HMO could care less, since they pay a flat fee to the doctor whether any services are provided or not.

The real surprise came when I applied for my own insurance. I am not interested in joining my wife’s plan, since it would more than double our premiums. Her employer only gives the option for single coverage or a family plan. Thus, this is not a cost effective way of covering just two individuals. Being a healthy 24 year old, I figured that procuring private insurance for myself would not be that hard. I shopped around a bit, and settled upon a plan with a moderate deductible, and a premium that is just a bit over a tenth of what we are paying for my wife’s insurance. However, just yesterday, I received the following letter:

Dear Mr. Simplicius,

Thank you for your application for health care coverage provided by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City.

After careful review, we regret to inform you that we are unable to accept your application at this time due to YOUR SPOUSE’S PREGNANCY.

…

Sincerely,

Underwriting Department

Now, I was quite astonished when I read the letter. Since my wife was not being included on my policy, I could see no reason for her pregnancy to have any influence on whether or not I could receive coverage for myself. So, I called up the Underwriting Department and told them that there must be some mistake. I was not insuring my wife on this policy, and thus that she is pregnant should not be of any concern. However, to my amazement, I was told that I was mistaken. Her pregnancy was of the utmost importance to my insurer. The state requires insurers to add a newborn to either of the parents’ policies without underwriting, and since there could be many complications with a newborn, the insurance company would not offer private insurance policies to either parent.

Thus, I am uninsurable except through a group plan or through state insurance.

What sounded like a good bill to legislators, viz., requiring insurance companies to cover babies, just resulted in their parents, and thus the children as well, being uninsurable. Thank you Missouri, that was brilliant.

Political Myopathy: Gen. Colin Powell endorses Obama

As the presidential race heats up in anticipation of November 4th, the presidential race continues to become more and more troubling. While I cannot whole heartedly approve of either candidate, as both have flawed views on major issues, McCain at least shows more promise on his grasp of foundational or first principles. Roe vs. Wade has been and continues to be one of the central issues of American politics, whether or not it is explicitly invoked. Why should Americans be concerned about one single issue? Shouldn't the candidate's whole platform be an object of consideration?

In a way yes, and in a way no. International relations are important, as is the American economy, energy independence, and the environment, but none of these matter in the end if we decide that we can murder those who are inconvenient to us. Legalizing and supporting abortion signals a fundamental change in our approach to life. Children are now looked upon as a problem if they don't come at a convenient time, so we eliminate the mother's burden. But what substantial difference is there in the child a few moments before he is born and a few moments after he is born? Where does the slippery slope end. Additionally, why not use the same approach at the end of life, or anytime in between? A just war doctrine would no longer have any bearing, as these principles are extended to their logical conclusions. Wars can be fought for any reason, or none at all. As my wife is fond of saying, "Only the niceties of circumstance keep the pro-abortion mentality from being against any inconvenient life."

While everyone ostensibly agrees on the first principle that murder is wrong, the primary disagreement is about one of the proximate conclusions from this principle: abortion is murder. The child does not become a person at birth, or at the age of reason, but at the beginning of life. As far as it goes, I think that for the pro-abortion camp, it is much more logical to say that a child becomes a person at the age of reason than at birth, since birth is necessary in a certain sense, but in another it is rather accidental to the whatness of the individual. The further actuality of our specific difference is much more intrinsic to what we are than birth seems to be. Anyway, I would be interested in your comments on the matter. Also check out this link.

So...let's follow the lead given to us by the title of this post and take a quick look at some of Colin Powell's explanations for his endorsement.

Powell said a major part of his decision to turn his back on his own party was his conclusion that Obama was the better option to repair frayed U.S. relations with allies overseas.

Again, while good foreign relations are both beneficial and useful, it is not the central issue.

"I think he is a transformational figure," Powell said. "He is a new generation coming ... onto the world stage and on the American stage. And for that reason, I'll be voting for Sen. Barack Obama."

New generation, sure. Inexperienced, yes. Racially motivated endorsement, perhaps. I have a hard time not doubting General Powell's motives in endorsing Obama.

As a key reason, Powell said: "I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that's what we'd be looking at in a McCain administration."

In other words...good bye strict constructionists, hello legislating from the bench. The current trends will continue as we have seen in Massachusetts, California, and Connecticut. No more natural law. Law becomes arbitrary, and the country moves another step toward the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century. I don't think that it is "Change that You Can Believe In," but it is change that you can count on.

Politics: Business as Usual, Part II

I don't know if the on going Valerie Plame incident is bothering anyone else, but let me briefly note some things that continue to bother me about this case.

For those of you who may have forgotten who Valerie Plame is, she is a CIA operative who was supposedly operating under cover inside the US. She was making a fairly concerted effort to reveal her own identity, but that is beyond the matter at hand. Robert Novak revealed Plame's identity in a newspaper article, and then Scooter Libby, the Chief of Staff of Vice President Cheney, was convicted of perjury for giving conflicting reports to the FBI about the case.

Congressional Democrats have accused the Bush administration of revealing Plame's identity in retaliation against her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had testified to Congress that Iraq was not attempting to acquire uranium ore from Africa.

Now, why do I bring this up now? The case does not seem to have gone away. House Oversight Chairman Henry Waxman has subpoenaed Attorney General Michael Mukasey to hand over notes from the FBI's investigation of Cheney, including "notes about the 2003 State of the Union address, during which President Bush made the case for invading Iraq in part by saying Saddam Hussein was pursuing uranium ore to make a nuclear weapon. That information turned out to be wrong" (emphasis added).

Now, perhaps Congress has missed it, but Saddam Hussein had managed to stockpile a rather large supply of uranium ore in the form of yellowcake. Collation forces found a stockpile of 550 metric tons (1.2 million pounds) of yellowcake in an underground nuclear research laboratory. I have a hard time understanding how Hussein could not have been pursuing uranium ore if he had stockpiled 550 metric tons. I suppose they could be disputing the "in Africa" part of the President's claim, but that would be beside the point anyway. I guess I just don't have a suitable imagination to be a politician.

Politics: Business as Usual

Politicians have always specialized in empty promises. One of the most recent noteworthy remarks was given by Obama in reference to his proposed nuclear policy for the United States:

We will make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear policy.

While I suppose that it is perfectly possible that the US could eliminate its arsenal of nuclear weapons, I hardly think that Russia and China would be interested in following suit. If you have any doubts, check out the following links: here and here. The Russians certainly aren't up for this sort of policy. The Department of Defense's figures for China's nuclear stockpile can be found here. China's only stated policies that I could find are that they won't shoot first and that they won't use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against countries that do not possess nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, nuclear weapons will remain a necessary weapon until either we have some more powerful weapon to replace them, or the major countries have sufficient anti-missile systems to make the use of nuclear ICBMs impractical. It would be nice if all countries followed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, but in practice we can only control our own behavior. Countries that do not like us can always give nuclear technology to warmongering countries. So, nice try, Obama. That is a nice campaign promise to make, but nuclear weapons are here to stay, at least for awhile.

2nd Ammendment

Just this morning the US Supreme Court reached what is considered a landmark decision in the interpretation of the US Constitution's Second Amendment.

For the moment, we will not go into the implications of the decision. My current interest is the negative response that the decision received from those who are politically liberal. The mayor of Chicago will be taken as a case study of one of their primary objections. A more detailed account of some of his comments can be found here. However, I would like to primarily focus on this comment:

"If they think that's the answer ... they're greatly mistaken. Then why don't we do away with the court system and go back to the Old West, you have a gun and I have a gun, and we'll settle it in the streets if that's they're thinking."

Underlying this argument, if you can call it that, is the belief that laws can solve all/most problems. If you could only pass enough and the right kind of laws, then all/most problems could be eliminated.

The problem here is that no finite cause/good can cause the will to act necessarily. Thus, while laws can be a good thing, they do not by themselves cause a problem to go away. If it is illegal to have handguns, only criminals will have handguns. They can still get them quite easily from other municipalities that do not have as strict of gun regulation, or they can acquire from other criminals. Laws against owning handguns might prevent some violent crimes, but for many others these laws will only add a minor offense to the more serious one committed with the gun.

Additionally, the lack of a particular civil positive law does not mean that everyone will do the wrong thing in a given situation. Man is fallen, but he is not completely evil. The natural law at least generically guides man to do the right thing in civil matters, and even men with less than perfect motives will do the right thing because it is practical.

Contrary to the mayor of Chicago, I do not see the US returning to the Old West because of this legal ruling. Those who have guns should be trained to be responsible with them, but these same individuals do not become crazed gunslingers just because they own a handgun. The will is a complex thing, and the errant position of the mayor of Chicago tries to reduce the will to a simple thing that is directly motivated by civil positive law.

Dissention in the Ranks: Part III

St. Louis has had its own ongoing controversy over the last few years...well, I suppose it has been going on for much longer than a few years, but it has gained notoriety in the past couple of years.

A polish parish has been confused about the ontological order of the Church for some time now. Instead of seeing their pastor as having power in virtue of his ordination and authority in virtue of being delegated by the ordinary, the parish council saw the priest's authority as coming from the democratic judgment of the parish council. As you may have guessed, the Archbishop of St. Louis did not concur with the parish council on this matter. The parish council was given a period of time to consider their position, and when they did not return to the orthodox position, they incurred the penalty of excommunication. Having lost their appeal to Rome, the parish council is still working on establishing an acceptable position.

While the St. Louis predicament may seem unique, I think its error is more widespread than one might think. In a country that has been built upon democracy and thus the will of the people, religion has also tended toward congregationalism. Each community desires to define the whole in virtue of the beliefs of the individuals. While this may not seem too bad, it has direr repercussions. Once the priority is shifted from the universal Church to that the believing individual, what is believed shifts from an objective truth handed down from the apostles to a subjective truth as held by a particular individual or set of individuals. It is still possible for these two sets of beliefs to be congruent, but it is my no means necessary. The individual can enter into error, and often does. This comes out even more strongly in many Protestant circles, where one goes "church shopping" to find a church or pastor that most clearly believes what the individual believes, and having found a church to belong to, the individual's beliefs may still remain distinct from those of this church. Further, even in well meaning and well catechized Catholics, the individual will still be required to believe many truths implicitly that the universal Church holds as true explicitly.

The correct understanding of the Church can be drawn out of a variety of texts. The first that comes to mind is Mt. 16:18, where Jesus speaks of founding his Church upon the sure foundation of Peter. Jesus is speaking of founding a Church and not merely sending the Apostles out in a disorganized evangelization. Second, in the Pauline texts, the Church itself is spoken of as the bride of Christ. The individual is not directly wed to Christ. Rather, Christ is joined to the individual in virtue of the individual's membership in the Church. Thus, the universal Church has an ontological priority to the belief of the individual.

Dissention in the Ranks: Part II

The ninth question addressed is really the crux of the issue:

Q. Governor Sebelius says that she is personally opposed to abortion, but she supports the law protecting the right of others to choose an abortion. Why is this not a morally acceptable position?

A. Freedom of choice is not an absolute value. All of our laws limit our choices. I am not free to drive while intoxicated or to take another’s property or to assault someone else. My freedom ends when I infringe on the more basic rights of another. On a similarly grave moral issue 150 years ago, Stephen Douglas, in his famous debates with the future President Abraham Lincoln, attempted to craft his position as not favoring slavery but of the right of people in new states and territories, such as Kansas, to choose to sanction slavery. Being pro-choice on a fundamental matter of human rights was not a morally coherent argument in the 1850s, nor is it today. No one has the right to choose to enslave another human being, just as no one has the right to kill another human being. No law or public policy has the authority to give legal protection to such an injustice.

In addition to this response, it is appropriate to link the condemnation of abortion to the natural law. Since the unborn child is a human being instilled with a soul from the moment of his conception, to kill the child is to commit the crime of murder. Thus, abortion would be condemned by the natural law. Unfortunately, the government has not yet made this connection, primarily because the legal system continues to argue that the unborn child is not yet a person, and thus in not entitled to have his life protected by the legal system. However, since the condemnation of abortion is a necessary conclusion from the natural law's condemnation of murder, it is compulsory for civic leaders to work to ban or at least limit abortion. This is not an imposition of religion upon others, or the establishment of a religion, but a recognition that abortion is fundamentally the grave evil of murder.

In the end, "personally opposed, but..." is merely saying "I wouldn't do it, but I don't think that it is wrong."

Dissention in the Ranks

As some of you may have read, His Grace Joseph Naumann, the Archbishop of Kansas City, recently remonstrated Governor Sebelius for her longstanding advocacy for open access to abortion in Kansas. A summary of the Archbishops first public letter to Governor Sebelius can be found here.

For those of you who are not familiar with some of the complications to the abortion debate in Kansas, I will give you a brief background on some of the issues.

Recently, the Attorney General, Paul Morrison, resigned when information surfaced that he had had an affair with a staff member of the previous Attorney General Phil Kline (purportedly to gain information on the pending investigation of George Tiller, who is a notorious late term abortionist and was a financial backer of Morrison). Tiller was investigated by a grand jury convened by the citizens of Kansas (although a grand jury probably cannot be convened in such a way in many states, Kansas allows citizens to call for the formation of grand juries in an attempt to work around government corruption). Due to some shady appointments of members of the grand jury, Tiller escaped indictment, but was later indicted by Morrison for 19 misdemeanors. Needless to say, the upper echelon of pro-choicers in Kansas have been shady at best in their attempts to expand the so called right to abortion. I am not quite sure why Kansas attracts such radical abortionists. The Midwest is usually more moderate than the coasts, but on this issue, it seems like the extreme has taken root in the Great Plains.

The governor and the Archbishop have had run ins before. Sebelius was going to hold a party at a Catholic Church after her inauguration parade. However, when the Archbishop found out about it, he forbid it.

Governor Sebelius has supported removing any obstacle to receiving abortions during her entire political career. Following the Archbishop's initial article in the diocesan news paper The Leaven, the Archbishop released a second column responding to some of the negative feedback that he received.

The complaints were reduced to 15 main questions. I will try to summarize these questions by indicating their main groupings.

1) Why are you censuring Sebelius as opposed to the others who hold similar positions?
2-4) Practical questions on the reception of the Eucharist.
5) What does scandal mean?
6-13) Conflicts between the Church and state.
14) Has a bishop done something like this before?
15) Why does the Church have moral authority if its members sin?

The first question could have come from both those agreeing with the Archbishop and those who oppose him. Those who are in support of him might think that he did not go far enough in only condemning Sebelius, while those who oppose him might wonder why he condemns Sebelius if others are not punished for the same position. The Archbishop's response more than adequately addresses each of these concerns.

The second section of questions explains the Church's teaching on when one is fit to receive Communion, and why the Archbishop has given a public directive for Sebelius to refrain from receiving.

The third section is a simple definition, clarifying the distinction between the common meaning of scandal and what the sin of scandal involves.

The most important part of the fourth section is the clarification that Sebelius' duty to the state does not release here from her moral obligations, and further that it is not enough to be personally opposed to abortion (especially when one goes on to further propagate it). “Concerning choices that are intrinsically evil, Catholics may not promote or even remain indifferent to them.”

The fifth section notes precedent for such a pastoral action.

The sixth section dismisses the attack as it is given as ad hominem. It is quite possible to move beyond this response to note the divine origin of the Church, and the divine guidance of the Church. Even though the Church is composed of fallible members, she draws her strength from her head, Jesus Christ.

Opposition is so Divisive...

Why bother with such philosophical conundrums as the square of opposition, you ask? If you can't distinguish one thing from another, then you can't come to know what a thing is. We come to know things by making distinctions. Although our senses are directed toward particulars, our intellect works with universals. Often, when we first establish a universal, we have discovered a genus that is a bit broader than is helpful in the case at hand. Properly, specific differences are used to distinguish between the members of a genus; however, in practice we are often forced to use properties of the species to distinguish one from another rather than the specific difference (which is most formally what separates one species from another).

When we go on to speak of the differences between things, and especially bring qualities into the conversation, it becomes necessary to judge what kind of opposition is represented in our predications. Mistaking contraries for a contradiction will over simplify the consideration, since intermediaries lie between contraries, while contradictions admit of no intermediaries. Thus, knowing the kind of opposition can make all the difference.

Opposition

One of the fundamental parts of philosophy is the four forms of opposition in predication. These have traditionally been expressed in the square of opposition. The following diagram is courtesy of The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy.
The vowels A,E,I, and O are used as abbreviations for the four kinds of predications. A is the universal affirmative: all S are P. E is the universal negative: no S is P. I is the particular affirmative: some S is P. O is the particular negative: some S is not P. These kinds of predications form four kinds of oppositions. I won't uses these vowel abbreviations in what follows, but I may use them in future posts. S and P stand for subject and predicate, respectively.

The first kind of opposition is that of contraries: all S is P, no S is P. Only one of the contraries can be true at a given time. It is not possible for all S to be P and for no S to be P at the same time and in the same respect. However, it is possible for them to both be false. If some S is P and some other S is not P then neither of the contraries is true. It can both be false that all coffee is served black and that no coffee is served black; however, if all coffee is served black, then it is false to say that no coffee is served black.

Additionally, intermediates exist between the extremes of any genus. In this way, black and white are opposed. Between the extremes lies numerous intermediates. The extremes cannot be exactly reduced to the first meaning of contrary given above, viz., contrary predications. Rather, what they are is contrary.

The second kind of opposition is that of contradictories. Two sets of contradictories exist in the diagram above. The first is the opposition between all S is P and some S is not P. The second is the opposition between no S is P and some S is P.In each of these oppositions, one of the predications must be true and the other must be false. If it is true that some coffee is served black, then it cannot be true that no coffee is served black.

The third kind of opposition is the subcontrary. Both of these can be true at the same time. It is possible for some S to be P and for some other S to not be P. The same S cannot both be P and not P, but the group of subjects can be varied. If it is true that some coffee is served black, it can also be true that some coffee is not served black.

The fourth kind of opposition is that of subalternates. The subalternates are true if the universal predication is true, but the universal predication is not necessarily true if the particular is true. However, if the particular is false, then the universal must likewise be false. Thus, if it is false to say that some coffee is served black then it is also false to say that all coffee is served black.

The Meaning of Death

The medical community is yet again perplexed by the meaning of death. Since ultimately death is not something tangible (it is the separation of the immaterial soul from the body), medical ethicists look for tangible signs to define life and death. The prevailing medical opinion for some time now has been that brain function equates to life. This is in part based upon the supposition that thinking and determining one's own actions are fundamentally what life consists in, and the further reduction of these functions to their material principle, viz., the brain. Thus, when the brain stops functioning, the man stops living or at least stops really being a man (n.b. the use of the term vegetable for one who still is capable of some signs of life without tangible evidence of higher brain functioning). Without going into why the medical community has accepted this definition of life and death, we will consider some of its consequences.

From time to time, individuals have returned to consciousness after being declared dead. The most recent occurrence to catch my attention looks like it may have occurred last weekend. The news story can be found here or here, but for convenience I will summarize it for you. An elderly woman suffered a pair of heart attacks. Her heart stopped for two prolonged periods, and for 17 hours she showed no discernible brain activity. The doctors declared her to be dead, and removed all life support equipment except a ventilator (because they were hoping that the family would consent to donate her organs). Rigor mortis had already begun, but 10 minutes after the life support equipment had been removed, the woman regained consciousness.

A similar event took place a few months ago. A man was declared brain dead, and four months later, when his families were saying their last good-byes, the man responded to pressure on a finger nail and a pocket knife scraped across his foot.

Without further complicating these events by saying that they are singular acts of divine intervention, which they could in fact be, it is worth considering the simpler case first. In the end, it is easy enough to say that men are alive when we see them moving around under their own power or doing some other activity associated with life, but putting our finger on when a man is dead can be pretty challenging.

The difficulty arises because death results from the removal of the first act from the composite, while we notice life because of the second act of the composite. What do I mean by this, you say? Aristotle in the De Anima defines the soul as the "first act of the natural organized body having life potentially." Thus, a body is living when it has some sort of soul joined to it. This is true of men, animals, and plants. A living thing is more than just a material principle. Nevertheless, the body with a soul joined to it is still in potency to other acts. Among these other acts are growth, local motion, and reasoning. These second acts are what other men can see and then judge the composite to be living. Nevertheless, the lack of these acts does not necessarily mean that there is no composite, and thus that the man is dead. The dead man is not capable of any of these second acts, but the living man is at least in potency to them. The observer is only able to see that the potency was there by seeing the act that the potency was ordered to. However, the potency must be prior to the act in at least one of the four senses of prior. Therefore, it is possible for a man to be alive without showing any outward signs of life (2nd acts).

Apprenticeships?

Having earned a couple of college diplomas now, I am increasingly struck by the oddity of the current university system. Now you might ask, "what other systems are there," but we will leave that question alone for now. The current question on my mind, is what has happened to apprenticeships? Practical skills are best learned from one who has been working on the skill for many years. The practice of apprenticeships still remains for some occupations but often under different names. Recent law school graduates generally begin their careers as legal clerks. In this position, they work under established layers and judges providing research and helping to craft arguments for cases that the established lawyers are litigating. In this way, the new lawyer moves beyond speculative knowledge of jurisprudence to the more practical role of being a lawyer (which was probably also addressed at length in law school).

Some more practical fields have also retained apprenticeships. I have spent several months in a couple of temporary jobs working with meat cutters. At least in the stores that I worked, the meat cutters retained the three ranks of apprentice, journeyman, and master. The term master was replaced by manager, while the positions of apprentice and journeyman appear to have been retained even in name.

So...where does this leave us? There has been a push to turn many professions that were once developed in the apprenticeship model into college degrees. I am not really sure why this has been happening, although this trend seems to have a correlation to another interesting trend. According to the US Census bureau, between 1950 and 2000 the percentage of the U.S. population that has achieved at least a bachelor's degree has increased from approximately 5% to approximately 25%. While 25% is still a fairly small percentage of the population, it remains interesting that in this period of time a five fold increase (percentage wise) has occurred in the U.S. Additionally, the modern university system greatly predates 1950. I am not quite sure what has happened in the past 60 years to precipitate such an increase.

Along with the increasing role of college education in the lives of Americans has come an increase in the diversity of degrees offered. Diversity is good, right? Haven't we all been taught that since we entered the school system? In this case, I have to wonder. Many jobs that have functioned well without being connected to university degrees are now heading away from apprenticeship models and into mass educational systems. A few degrees or programs that catch my attention are a master's degree in landscape studies, a master's degree in activism, and an entire college within a well known university dedicated to agriculture. Now, I don't want to belittle these occupations (well...I might be interested in belittling activism, it is from a college in San Francisco after all), but college just doesn't seem like the place to study these pursuits. Before I get a bunch of angry farmers and landscape artists after me saying that I want to deny them the opportunity to get an education, we need to look at this issue a bit more closely. I am not saying that I don't think that any of you shouldn't go to college, or wouldn't do perfectly well there. What I am saying is that I don't think that anyone should think that you need a degree to be qualified to do your job. It wouldn't surprise me at all if many of the people with these degrees are rather unqualified farmers and landscape artists. Degrees don't equate to knowledge and education. Apparently, even dogs are getting degrees these days. There is certainly a role for people dedicated to studying the empirical sciences that underlie farming and landscape work, but a lot can be learned from those who have been farming and landscaping for many years. Maybe good apprenticeships are still out there for these jobs, but this is still an alarming trend.

Final Cause

Others might call this a mission statement, but why be common when you can be philosophical? We'll have no mission statements here. I'll leave those to the schools and to the motivational speakers.

Since the final cause is the first in the order of intention, I thought it might be worth musing about what my plans are for this blog. While I make no guarantees about what the blog will actually be like when it gains a bit more actuality, my intention, which will invariably result in a myriad of topics, is to try to bring clarity and cohesion to the thoughts that go milling about my head. Be forewarned! This is a long and winding road into the unknown. Where are Virgil and Beatrice when we need them?