Surrealism

In this episode, I provide some thoughts from Kant’s logic about the nature of philosophy. Philosophy is not sophism, which merely seeks to appear clever and win debates. Philosophy is not the picture-thinking we encounter in the mytho-poetic ancient cultures. Philosophy integrates all the other sciences in a purposeful unity.

In this episode, I give a brief rundown of the surrealist movement in the art and literature. The surreal is a merger of dream and reality, such that dreams can provide a source of truth and there is no longer a distinction between dreams and reality. The surrealists used Freud to justify their exploration of the unconscious and they challenged the facile order of the conscious mind characteristic of Enlightenment Reason. Automatic writing let ideas flow with moral or aesthetic concern.

Kant tried to balance the strict lawfulness of nature with an absolute idea of human freedom. To accomplish this, Kant established the natural world as ideal, i.e. based on mental mediation in part. In ourselves, independent of any mental mediation, we can exercise an absolute freedom. But a will that is distinct from any causal structure seems free to invent itself without any constraint by the natural law. A will that is independent of any causal structure can make itself good without the grace of God. The independence of the Kantian agent seems to be the basis of the rebellion against nature characteristic of the New World Order.

In this episode, I discuss the philosophical roots of the cultural battle, after the recent repeal of Roe v. Wade. There are three key issues that have profound implications for how we view the controversial social issues of our time, which include, but are surely not limited to, abortion. These issues involve belief in God, our definition of truth, and our notion of liberty. Please check out this article by Pedro Trevijano to read up on the issue! https://www.religionenlibertad.com/opinion/484706846/batalla-cultural.html

In this episode, I discuss an article by the Spanish writer Pedro Trevijano in which he distinguishes between two extreme attitudes in one’s moral philosophy. One is pharisiacal and rigid, judging others and claiming possession of absolute truth. The other has no sense of absolute truth and puts everything up for debate. I think this provides a helpful framework for considering ethical issues. https://www.religionenlibertad.com/opinion/574738836/relativismo-moral-catolico-extremismos.html?eti=5293##STAT_CONTROL_CODE_3_574738836##

In this episode I go over an argument for the immortality of the soul from St. Thomas Aquinas. The idea is that the soul can grasp unchanging principles, while the senses are rooted in a specific time and place. I tie this idea into Plato’s Theory of the Forms, which holds that there are supra-sensible ideas that are abstract patterns for all concrete realities. The mind’s ability to grasp the general formulations of mathematics makes a compelling case for its distinctness from the body.

In this episode, I discuss two conceptions of liberty. One is the ability to do what one desires. The other is the a self-mastery in which true autonomy is the following of the moral law. Kant gave us an idea of freedom that is libertarian. We are truly free when we are able to think in universal terms, and not just yield to private self-interest. I consider these ideas in light of a line from an epistle of St. Peter in which he warns us of using liberty as a cloak for malice.

In this episode, I discuss an episode in the Gospel of Matthew in which the people of Nazareth dismiss Christ for his wisdom and miracles. I was wondering how people could be so foolish and perverse? They have a “crabs in the bucket” mentality. I turn to Aquinas to illuminate how we do not directly choose evil, but instead mistakenly choose a certain pleasure that comes with an evil. We do not have a “diabolical will”—one of Kant’s ideas-because we don’t seek to rebel against the law for its own sake. We have mistaken priorities in which we value a small pleasure over the real goodness of God.

In this episode, I discuss a recent interview with Remi Brague, a prominent European thinker. He documents the phenomenon of “cancel culture.” It is common to hear about this, but we must not take it lightly. We need to recognize that political correctness protects certain dogmas from any criticism. Feminism, radical ecologism, and gender ideology, among others, do not permit dissent. These ideas are meant to drive a wedge between ourselves and the past, and we are in danger of losing touch with our moral compass.

In this episode, I discuss a fascinating and vigorous philosophical treatise by a great American, Benjamin Franklin. It is called “A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain.” Franklin denies human free will. How can we choose something to which the omnipotent God does not consent? Franklin claims that there is no evil, because pain is necessary for the existence of pleasure. There is no need for an afterlife to realize justice, because pleasure always arises in exact proportion to pain.