what are some goo refutations disproving the theory of solipsism??

Question

anything that contradicts it. but be sure that your refutations cannot be contradicted themselves

Answer 1

Something has to generate the "thinking," so you're not just random thoughts in an otherwise empty universe.

Answer 2

The thing is, solipsism is internally incoherent. There can be no philosophy relying on it, because applying logical or empirical arguments implies that there is an external world upon which to base these arguments. Completely ruining it is language - if you can use the word 'solipsism', or indeed any word, you are thinking using language. Where does it come from, and why does it exist, if not as a construct from an external world, meant to communicate with it?

There's a good discussion of it, as a start, linked in the sources:

Answer 3

look at wittgenstein

Answer 4

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY
vs. MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL ERRORS
-----------------------------------------------------------


** Why a correct philosophy of reality is important for the Faith, in refuting various forms of *subjectivism* that have ruined our society and are responsible for the misery and violence in it **


By Jim J. McCrea
------------------------


Many philosophical errors have come down through the centuries which have
been detrimental to our Catholic Christian Faith. These errors have been
antagonistic to the universality of truth which God wishes to give us
through divine revelation and the light of natural reason. On a practical
level, this has led to relativism (which maintains that all morality depends
on the point of view of the subject) and skepticism (which says that the
human intellect is incapable of discovering objective truth). This has led
us to the point where society has partially broken down because there is no
longer a generally recognized absolute truth with which to conform one's
conduct, so that society can no longer work towards a common good. As Fulton
Sheen said, this leads to societal interactions being nothing but the
conflict and criss cross of individual egos, attempting to assert themselves
at the expense of other egos. In this state of human activity, there can be
nothing but conflict and discord in the world.

René Descartes (d. 1650) is credited with being the father of modern
philosophy. It is widely recognized that it was from him that philosophy in
the modern era took a new direction. In medieval scholasticism, it was
understood that the things outside of ourselves were real. This was the
starting point of all philosophy. Descartes was the first major thinker,
after the middle ages, to make the conscious self the starting point. The
first thing he does is to employ a method in which he doubts all previous
knowledge. He attempts to wipe the slate clean, so to speak, so that he can
build philosophy fresh, and clear out the supposed cobwebs of unexamined
authority and intellectual prejudice in the understanding of philosophical
truth. He asks himself, now that the slate is clean, is there any fact that
is indubitably true with which to use as a starting point to build
philosophical truth from scratch. He says that the fact of his own existence
is such a truth. It is infallibly true that he must exist in order to even
ask these questions. "I think, therefore, I am," is his famous motto. He
then proceeds to question whether the outside world is real. He questions
how he knows that he isn't being fooled by some powerful demon who may be
infusing a false perception of an objective reality into his consciousness.

To solve this problem, he again appeals to the ideas within his own
intellect. He says that he has an idea of an infinitely perfect being in his
mind, which is called God. Only an infinitely perfect being can be the cause
of this idea which he has of an infinitely perfect being. Now an infinitely
perfect being wouldn't allow him to be fooled on something as fundamental as
his perception of outside reality. Such deception would denote imperfection
in God. He concludes, therefore, that what he sees as real is real. What we
have with the procedure of Descartes is not a direct intuition of the real
to let him know that the real is real, but an acceptance of the real from
deduction, based on his internal ideas. His whole methodology in philosophy,
in fact, is to proceed by way of "clear and distinct ideas," according to
the rules of deduction. This overemphasis on deduction, based on internal
ideas, to discover philosophical truth, is known as rationalism. The problem
with rationalism is that in order to properly find truth in philosophy and
metaphysics, it is required that one's intellect feed immediately off the
real to determine the attributes of the real. With the methodology of
rationalism, one may be following a chain of deductive thought which may be
entirely disconnected from the real.

Perhaps the modern philosopher most responsible for the plague of skepticism
and relativism we see today is Immanuel Kant (d. 1804). He took Descartes
method of starting with the thinking self to a radical conclusion. He turned
the entire process of knowing reality inside out. With Kant, our intellect
does not perceive an objective reality "out there," which it simply
registered and recognized, as most previous thinkers held, but our intellect
actually creates the reality it perceives. If we look around the room we are
in, and see tables, chairs, etc, these are not things but merely impressions
in our mind, which he terms phenomena. These impressions are caused by
things in themselves, of which we have no idea of what their nature is,
which he calls noumena. Kant reasons that this is so because phenomena exist
in an section of space which is the condition of the existence and nature of
the phenomena. Space coordinates the elements of sensation. Because space
itself is not a sensed object it is an a-priori condition of our intellects
created by our intellects. Kant maintains that space is a structure of the
mind, which is a part of what he calls Pure Reason. As a result, it is our
intellect which is the cause of the forms we perceive, by the containing
space our intellect creates. Similarly, for Kant, morality is not based on a
right and a wrong "out there," (such as an externally given Ten
Commandments) but proceeds completely from within our intellect. "I am never
to act otherwise than so that I can also will that my maxim should become a
universal law," Kant maintained. Morality is not derived from the nature of
man himself and his circumstances, as the Christian natural law would
maintain. This source of morality is a structure in the human intellect and
will, which Kant calls Pure Practical Reason. According to his system, to
have one's actions determined by a morality "out there," one would be to be
tethered to an alienating influence. This alienating influence, Kant terms
heteronomy.

We can see the fruit of Kant's philosophy today. "One must not impose one's
morality on others," is an often heard phrase. This implies that morality is
purely subjective and not objective. The practical result of this, of
course, is that it is deemed permissible to do anything you think is right
(which really reduces to doing what you want), provided you have the power
to do it, and won't suffer severe consequences for your actions. This
perception was the basis for Hitler's actions. The tendency to impose
morality, in the worst sense of the word, is the logical consequence of
morality being subjective. Without an objective guide, might makes right. If
morality comes entirely from within oneself, the moral code can be
manipulated any way that one wants to justify anything. The mind is able to
rationalize anything to quiet the conscience if the mind is the creator of
morality. It is a known fact that evil doers almost always justify
themselves by appealing to some moral code that they themselves have
devised. Objective morality, on the other hand, is the basis for peace and
freedom. To be just, one must be able to recognize claims "out there." This
is because everyone's actions would be in accordance with a common system,
and work according to a human nature which is common to all human beings. In
the intellectual sphere, we often hear the phrase "this is true to you, but
not true to me." This is also a consequence of Kant's subjectivism.
"Freeing" the mind from objective reality, he has trapped the mind within
itself. According to Kant, the mind is unable to do precisely what it is
designed to do - to grasp reality! If the proper function of the mind is to
grasp what is real, something is either true or it isn't. It isn't true to
one person and false to another. Different subjective impressions may
contradict one another, but the nature of objective reality is that it does
not contradict itself. It is one!

How do debunk the thinking of Descartes and Kant, to establish the existence
of an objective reality which we can perceive directly. First of all, to
meaningfully deny something, we must first have an valid concept of the
thing we are denying. For example, to meaningfully say that A does not
exist, we must have a proper idea of what A is in order to deny its
existence. If we say that no vase exists on this table, we must have an
intelligible idea of what a vase is, in order to say that it is not there.
An analogous principle holds with the notion of "objective reality." If Kant
says that we have no direct knowledge of objective reality - that all we
have knowledge of is the impressions of things - it has to be asked, where
is he getting the concept of objective reality to deny that a direct
intuition of it can be had.

What we call "objective reality" is a metaphysical moment of our
phenomenological perception. For this, I appeal to the common natural
operation of the human intellect, as we find it in practice. Any normal
person knows that what is called solipsism is an absurd doctrine. A
solipsist believes that the only thing in existence is himself, and that
everything he perceives is nothing but a creation of his own mind. Now to
demonstrate the falsity of solipsism, we must appeal to a fundamental
intuition which is operative in all normal people. When I perceive the
table, chair, or person, "out there," or as an "objective reality," there is
a specific quality of "out-there-ness" or "objective-reality-ness," that the
table, chair, or person has which makes them distinct, in our perception,
from any mere idea that may be generated within our mind. It is a
fundamental ability of the intellect to be able to recognize
"out-there-ness" or "objective-reality-ness." It is the most basic ability
of the intellect to transcend itself and grasp the "other." The common
ordinary person realizes this implicitly. The notion of objective reality,
relative to our mind, is a basic metaphysical moment which is simple and
irreducible. It cannot be given in terms of something else. This is because
any mere idea, no matter how perfectly formed or coherent, is still only an
idea in our head - it needs this "extra" of being "objectively real," to be
a percept of something real.

Now, the very concept of objective reality can only come from objective
reality itself. It cannot come from something which is not itself. Now the
notions of "concept" and "objective reality" need not be completely
different from each other - one being a concept and the other being a
reality. Ideas themselves necessarily involve the intellect's direct contact
with elements of objective reality. The intellect does not work in a void -
that is, separately from objective reality - but has a vital and necessary
contact with it at all times in its operation. For example, if we consider
an imaginary construction, such as a gold mountain, our intellects have a
real contact with the essence of "goldness" which exists in all gold things,
and a real contact with the essence of "mountain-ness" which exists in all
mountains. The only purely ideal part in this is in the combining of them
and in how we combine them into a particular form of the imagination. The
philosopher David Hume used the example of the gold mountain to say that
every idea we have, must be composed of things we have experienced. I will
go further and say that with any memory of something there is a real and
mysterious contact with that thing remembered. We cannot know something by
an idea which is completely different from that thing. The idea must have
some element which is identical with that thing in order to make the
connection between the mind and that thing. Now the concept of objective
reality is like that. If the metaphysician ponders the concept of objective
reality as such, the concept must include a direct and dynamic connection
with the essence of "objective-reality-ness," which is common to all
objectively real things, in order for that concept in his mind to constitute
a valid consciousness of it. One reason why man must have a spiritual soul,
is that only a soul transcends space in this way so that the intellect can
make a real and dynamic contact with other things in its consciousness of
other things.

Kant, and the Buddhists who say that our perception of reality is an
illusion, must initially have in their intellect the concept of objective
reality in order to deny it. They can only get this from the objective
reality that they observe all around them. They do not explicitly realize
that they are experiencing objective reality while they are in their
philosophical mode. One wonders how such error could be possible . We see it
all the time today. Goodness, evil, truth, and falsity are denied constantly
as valid realities by intellectuals today. Yet these same intellectuals
would recognize them in their practical thinking and acting that they engage
in at all times. Everyone does. Certainly, one sign of false philosophy are
systems of ideas which contradict natural, normal, common sense, everyday
reality. Part of the problem with why philosophy has something of a bad
reputation as an intellectual discipline, is that people have the notion
that this is what philosophy is essentially about - that it is just a game
to combine concepts in interesting and bizarre combinations that have
nothing to do with actual reality. One of my aims as a philosopher is to
debunk this type of notion. The main reason why philosophers come up with
ideas which contradict the natural perceptive powers of the intellect is
mainly due to some sort of intellectual vice. It can either be pride or
curiosity which is at fault. Pride, in that the philosopher contradicts
natural knowledge because he wishes to imagine himself on a superior plane
to the common lot of humanity; curiosity, in that he is a slave of novelty
so that the service of his intellect to the truth is suppressed. The worst
motive for philosophical error is that the philosopher has no interest in
the truth whatsoever, but simply says what he says in order to manipulate
other intellects to his own selfish ends.

It may be objected that someone who is dreaming or having an hallucination
may be certain that the dream or the hallucination is real. This, however,
can only occur if there is some shrinking or retraction of the intellect
from the universality of being which is proper to it. In these cases the
ability for the intellect to properly grasp both the subjective and the
objective together and to make proper judgments about them, is hampered. The
light of the intellect (during a dream or hallucination) is mainly focused
on the subjective so that the subjective is mistaken for the objective when
it is seen. A certain trace of the objective must remain in the intellect,
however, for the intellect to make such an confusion. The objective is
confused with the subjective because the intellect is unable to make the
proper distinctions between the two. One of the fundamental characteristics
of intellectual impairment is the loss of the ability to distinguish that
which should be distinguished and identify that which should be identified.
Even the very notion of the idea of a dreams or hallucinations demonstrates
the intellect's capacity to grasp objective reality. The very idea of a
dream or hallucination as something being falsely attributed to objective
reality can only validly exist if there is a proper idea of a valid grasp of
objective reality as a frame of reference.

** footnote - Phenomenology which uses the contents of the conscious mind as
a starting point for philosophy is not necessarily subjective. If Catholic,
rather than Kantian phenomenology is used, the content of our consciousness
includes the elements of objective reality. The value of phenomenology is
that it helps us to sort out, in our conscious awareness, what is subjective
v.s. what is objective. It helps us to get rid of erroneous suppositions in
our search for philosophical truth.

Now we turn to the philosophy of empiricism, which is a form of skepticism.
This is the belief that the mind can come to the grasp of no universal truth
at all. A major figure who supported this was David Hume (d. 1776). He
claimed that the only truth that the human mind can know is that which is
perceived through the senses or deduced mathematically. According to him, we
can have no knowledge of metaphysics (the science of being as such) or
theology (the science of God). Metaphysics or theology would, for him, come
under the category of pure opinion which is not real knowledge at all. In
the material realm, Hume maintains that there is no real knowledge of
causality as a power going from cause to effect to make the effect occur by
the efficacy of the cause. For example, when we see one billiard ball
conferring momentum upon another, it is not as if we have discerned
something (called momentum) going from one ball to the other, but that we
only expect the second ball to move upon impact with the first because we
have experienced such a thing in the past. Causality, as the human mind
understands it, therefore, is simply a matter of the mind working according
to the laws of association, based on past experience. Our expectation of the
workings of causality in something, according to Hume, is not a judgment of
the intellect, but more of a regurgitation, much like Pavlov's dog
salivation when he hears a bell.

To refute the theory of empiricism we utilize a powerful tool of
philosophical analysis, known as the transcendental argument. With the
transcendental argument, any theory can be deemed false if a supporting
premise or idea of that theory contradicts that theory. This is one of the
prime tools used by the metaphysician in order to arrive at philosophical
truth. For example, we used the transcendental argument above to show that
those who attempt to say that we cannot have a valid knowledge of objective
reality must be using an idea of objective reality to attempt to do that -
that is, the very idea of objective reality that they are refuting must come
from objective reality itself. Now for Hume, when he maintains the theory of
empiricism, that the only valid knowledge can come from sense experience or
mathematics, he implicitly contradicts himself. The theory of empiricism,
itself, is not an object of sense experience or mathematics. It is a
metaphysic. Hume, therefore, (not known to himself) is doing metaphysics to
refute metaphysics. This is what all philosophers do when they deny
metaphysics in their philosophical analysis.

This is similar to agnosticism. The agnostic may argue that we can know
nothing about God, because he is infinitely above us. But the agnostic
contradicts himself because he is basing his argument on something he claims
that he knows about God - that he is infinitely above us. Similarly, those
who deny that the human mind can know truth are putting this very
proposition forward as a truth. If they maintain that this is the only truth
we can know, they better come up with an answer as to why this is the only
bald singular truth we can in fact know. When pressed, they are inevitably
forced to appeal to an entire constellation of other "truths" in order to
back up their argument. Agnosticism or any form of skepticism is self
refuting. If it were truly correct, that we could only know what our senses
tell us, we would be mere animals (animals cannot do mathematics, because
mathematics necessarily implies metaphysics. Mathematics necessarily
includes the concepts of unity and multiplicity and all their applications
to actual and possible realities). Animals do not even have the general
notion that all that they can perceive is what their senses tell them - all
they do is perceive, without in any way theorizing about it. In fact, they
make no affirmations of truth or falsehood at all. They "think" and act
according to the laws of association within their mind. The animal use of
language, which is cited by some researchers as evidence of animal
intelligence, is purely based on mental association. This is because they
lack the context of the universal which is the basis of not only metaphysics
but all human understanding and moral behavior. It is precisely this ability
that humans have, of putting things in the context of the universal, which
puts man on a qualitatively higher level than that of animals.

What, therefore, can be affirmed as universal truth that the human intellect
can know. The first principle of all reality is the law of identity. This
claims that a thing is what it is. This means that it is not necessarily
what we believe it to be or want it to be. An affirmation of the law of
identity requires us to lay aside all rationalizations and to be docile to
the voice of being. Wishing alone is incapable of bending reality one iota.
Reality is something which is purely and absolutely given to our intellect.
To have integrity - rather than attempting to manipulate reality with our
mind in order to arrive at the "truth" we wish, the intellect must conform
to being - that is, it must be fluid. It must conforms itself to reality as
water conforms itself to the hand being put into it. The principle of
identity is based on the fact that it is the very nature of objective
reality to be recognized by our intellect and not created by it. This is
given in the very essence of objective reality. Objective reality is a world
common to all subjects - it is "ours," - whereas subjective experience is
particular to a given subject - it is "mine." As many subjective experiences
exist as there are persons, but objective reality is one with itself.
Objective reality is the common frame of reference through which we relate
to the world and to each other. This is why the often heard statement "one
should not impose one's morality on others" is so fallacious. It assumes
that the source of morality is personal subjective experience, when in
reality the source of it is common objective reality. Without a common
world - and as a consequence of this - without a common nature of this
common world with which to conform our moral actions, according to an
objective moral law, all we would have is subjective reality. As a
consequence, each person would be a god unto himself and, therefore, would
make his ego absolute. Other egos, as a result, simply exist for him (or
her) to be exploited for selfish gain, or they would have to be eliminated
if they stand in his way. If subjectivism were universalized (as many elites
are now pushing) we would have hell on Earth.

The second most fundamental principle of reality is the law of
non-contradiction. This states that nothing can both be and not be under the
same aspect at the same time. The law of change and variety, in reality,
allows that things can be and not be at different times, or be and not be
under different aspects, but not under the same aspect at the same time. The
law of non-contradiction concerns the pure fact of existence or
non-existence of a given thing or attribute. Because a ball is red on one
side and green on another, this does not constitute a violation of the
principle of non contradiction. The red and the green refer to two different
aspects - that is, two different sides of the ball. When we say that
something is, we are saying that it is not not. When we say that something
is not we are saying that it is not is. For example, if a man asks his wife
if dinner is ready now, he would expect either a "yes" which would mean that
he is to come to the table now, or a "no" which would indicate that he would
come at a later time. If this "yes" and "no" were confused and one did not
exclude the other, no practical information could be gained by asking the
question about dinner. Without the hard exclusion of one alternative over
the other - that is of the exclusion of the fact of the existence with
respect to the fact of the non existence of something - no possible
communication or reasoning could be possible for the human intellect. As a
technical analogy, a computer would clearly be defective if it were
incapable of distinguishing ones from zeros in its memory cells.

** footnote - Sympathizers with the philosophy Buddhists claim a 'higher'
wisdom in which the Aristotelian law of non-contradiction does not apply to
reality. They claim that when things can both be and not be, and this adds
'richness' to reality. The law of non-contradiction, however, is not
abrogated in this case. If examples were given of such Buddhist wisdom, we
could see that the things they refer to, exist and do not , under different
aspects. A full analysis of this is beyond the scope of this article. If the
law of non contradiction were truly abrogated this would not add richness to
reality, but confusion to the point of unintelligibility.

The third fundamental law of reality is principle of sufficient reason. This
states that if something exists, occurs, or is true, it must have adequate
grounds for this. Something cannot exist, occur, or be true, simply for no
reason at all. To validate this we appeal to the principle of common natural
practice. The principle of common natural practice has been referred to
above, simply, as what everyone does or how everyone thinks in real life in
practical situations. As mentioned above we can validate the objectivity of
truth, falsity, good, and evil, with this. Even if a philosopher denies the
objectivity of these in theory, he always exercises a belief in these in
practice. Along with the transcendental argument, the principle of common
natural practice is a prime tool of the metaphysician in arriving at
philosophical truth. With the principle of sufficient reason, even if
someone were to deny it in theory, that person would always appeal to it in
practice in his life. It is an innate property of the human intellect to
always search for the reason behind an existent, occurrence, or truth. For
example, if someone were to ask me to properly validate the principle of
sufficient reason, he has just proven my point!

Returning to David Hume we know that the second billiard ball moves upon
impact with the first because the motion of the second must have its
sufficient reason in the motion of the first. We can say, therefore, that
our understanding of causality is based on an intellectual apprehension of
the causative mechanism. The sequence of cause and effect is not solely
something we expect according to the laws of association within our mind,
based on nothing but past experience. Hume denies the validity of the design
argument for the existence of God for a reason similar to his denial of the
objective reality of causality. He claims that if we come across a watch, we
know that it must have a designer because we have prior experience of
watches being designed. We have no experience of the universe being
designed, so we can not necessarily conclude that it has a designer. The
problem with Hume's reasoning is that the principle "design requires a
designer" is based on the principle of sufficient reason. It is not based on
experience alone. Even though we have not personally experienced the
universe being created, from the principle of sufficient reason, we can know
that the universe requires a cause for its design and order.

These principles of identity, non-contradiction, and sufficient reason are
fundamental structures of the human intellect. In truth, they cannot be
thought not (even though someone may make an erroneous judgment in this
respect). They cannot not be thought, and at the same time they cannot not
be in actual reality. A principle exists in scholastic philosophy which
states that "the law of the reality is the law of the mind." This is because
the proper object of the intellect is being. Error cannot be made in the
apprehension - that is, in the direct consciousness of something or in the
direct consciousness of an attribute of something. For example, when we see
the colour blue, we cannot be mistaken in the fact that we are seeing blue.
Error can, however, be made in the judgment - that is, error can be made in
the combining or distinguishing of concepts. The fundamental source error in
the human intellect is a defect in the ability to distinguish that which
should be distinguished and identify that which should be identified. For
example, we cannot be mistaken if we perceive the colour blue and know that
we perceive the colour blue, but we can be mistaken if we think that that
blue we are perceiving is the colour of a monster that we see while under
the influence of drugs. One can be mistaken in philosophy in denying the law
of non-contradiction, but the error of such a philosopher lies precisely in
not realizing that what he is denying (what he calls the principle of
non-contradiction) is different from the true principle of non-contradiction
which exists infallibly within his intellect. The fact that fundamental
structures of knowledge exist in the intellect does not mean that the
intellect has innate ideas (ideas that one is born with), but that these
principles are abstracted from the being with which one has experience with.

NOW WE SHALL BUILD on the above section which discusses how the intellect
can understand objective reality. Now we shall proceed to the nature of
being itself.

One of the major philosophical errors of this modern era is known as
scientism. Scientism maintains that the only universal truths that the human
intellect can know are those given by the physical sciences - that something
is of value as objective knowledge if it can be measured or calculated.
Sciences such as psychology or botany also allow for a phenomenological
analysis, in that behaviors (in psychology) or species (in botany) can be
classified and analyzed on the basis of similar empirical appearances of the
phenomena in question. With scientism, anything spiritual, theological, or
metaphysical is denied as valid knowledge. Scientism has its roots with the
empiricism of Hume.

We have demonstrated in the last section how universal principles must exist
which transcends that which the senses give us, and have demonstrated how
the human mind can know such principles. Now we shall establish how, within
material objects themselves, there are elements which are necessarily non
material and metaphysical. This idea of this metaphysical element in
material things will be used to validate the Catholic concept of the real
presence of Christ in the Eucharist. It will also be used as a connective to
demonstrate the rationality of the concept of angels and human souls, and be
a support for a valid understanding of the existence and nature of God.

What many modern philosophers have denied is the concept of the "essence" -
or the "what-it-is" of things. Essences, for example, would include
"catness," which is in all particular cats and which makes them cats, and
which distinguishes them from all other things. Any given thing has its own
particular essence which identifies what that thing is. A given essence is
identical in all things of a given type, so that all things of that type can
be identified as belonging to the same type. Such an essence in such a type
differentiates things of that type from things of other types (i.e. because
the essences of cats and dogs differ they belong to different types). Many
moderns have said that the things that we name such as cats, trees, and
tables, are only named because that is how the linguistic functions in our
brain reacts to the various types of phenomena our senses encounter. Again,
these modern thinkers are relegating true human intellectual operations to a
sub-human status. According to them the operations of our mind and our use
of language is based simply on the laws of mental and neurological
association. For them there is no proper and vital contact between being and
the intellect, and for them there is no virtue of truthfulness in which we
communicate to others, the being which our intellect apprehends, through an
appropriate sign (i.e. a word). In fact, it was the notorious Bertrand
Russell who said that words are simply conventional noises we make to have
others do our bidding (as we all know, this is what sociopaths do).

These moderns do, however, grant an objectivity to the abstracted physical
properties of things, apprehended by the senses or discerned by scientific
instruments. They grant as real those attributes of things which can be
measured, weighed and counted. They also grant the objective reality of
certain phenomenological properties such as shape, colour, hardness etc. How
do we, in the face of this, establish the objectivity of essence and how do
we properly explain what essence is. First of all, a thing is not simply its
parts (modern science discerns the nature of things by examining what they
are made of). A jumble of car parts, lying in a heap, is not a car. Only
when these parts are properly assembled do we have a real car. The car parts
can be termed the matter of the car. The overall arrangement and
interconnectivity of those parts, properly assembled, is the form of the
car. Both matter and form are required to constitute a real material object.
Form is simply a "multiplicity-as-unity," with all the parts being
simultaneously considered, but being arranged and connected so that they
make one thing. With both matter and form, we have a "something," and the
"what" of that thing the intellect understands as its "essence." Each
essence is derived from a particular type of matter and form.

This is precisely the stumbling block for many moderns. Since an
understanding of form involves a consideration of all parts simultaneously,
it escapes the methodology of the physical sciences which views things in
isolation and "under the microscope." Form is rejected by many moderns
because it escapes his ability to intellectually dominate it from a superior
vantage point. Essence is the same way. It involves a certain depth of
mystery - a certain impenetrability - which cannot be completely grasped by
the human mind. The issue of why a given matter and form render a given
essence - and the degree of latitude allowed in the variation of this matter
and form to render a such an essence - definitely involves mystery (for
example, men come in all shapes and sizes. A mystery would be involved in
the question of how far could the alteration in shape and size and other
characteristics go, before a man would become something else - that is,
before he takes on a different essence. A mystery would be involved in
determining the exact boundary of such a transformation). For many
intellectuals, the existence of such mystery simply is not tolerable. Some
sort of intellectual vice is usually involved in this lack of tolerance.
This intolerance can involve the vices of either pride or intellectual
avarice: pride, in that such a thinker wishes to fancy himself above all
things, refusing all legitimate subordination; intellectual avarice, in
which he wishes to "own" all things with his mind. It is a just punishment,
in the order of human nature, that those intellectuals who seriously aspire
to this type of illicit greatness are actually very much impoverished in
their understanding of the real world and real life. A real stupidity
demonstrates itself with such thinkers as they attempt to deal with other
people and practical situations of life. The common opinion, that the
extreme specialist is socially inept, may have its basis in fact after all.
It was G.K. Chesterton who said that in the past, man wanted to get his head
into the heavens. Now modern man wishes to get the heavens into his head.

We may again appeal to the principle of common natural practice to defend
the notion of essence and form. Even the scientist who holds that the only
objective knowledge constitutes that which is measurable or observable,
according to the senses or scientific instruments, treats essences as
objective realities in his practical day interaction with things. If he did
not do this at all, he would be entirely unable to function in life. Working
with things in their essences and working with how things in their essences
interact with other things in their essences, is the natural and primary way
that man, guided by his intellect, interacts with things. The scientific
method, used by the material sciences, abstracts certain physical details
and measurements from things, for study. These physical details and
measurements, thus abstracted, involve no or very little depth of mystery,
so that they are palatable to the materialistic scientist. Since the
material scientific methodology involves this type of abstraction from a
full reality, which involves both matter and form - essence and existence -
this full reality, even of material things, must necessarily escape the
scope of the understanding of the material sciences, which means that this
full reality of things necessarily involve mystery.

We have demonstrated above, from the point of view of essence, how material
objects must involve something non, or extra-material. There is another way
in which material objects involve a non-material principle. This is in its
ontological content -that material objects have real being, not simply
physical characteristics. An error made by modern philosophers is to reject
the Aristotelian distinction between accident and substance. Substance is
the thing itself, while accidents are the characteristics that that thing
has. For example, substance is the man himself, while the accidents of the
man are things such as his height, weight, hair colour, etc. This would seem
very straight forward and common sense, however, it has been challenged by
modern philosophers who say that there is no such distinction between
accident and substance. This challenge has also been used to denigrate the
idea of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist in which the accidents
(physical characteristics) of bread remain, while the substance of bread has
been transformed into the substance of Jesus Christ.

One main challenger to the substance/accident distinction was John Locke (d.
1704). He too was an empiricists who rejected classical metaphysics. He had
rejected most of what he had been taught about scholastic philosophy (the
Christian philosophy of the middle ages). He said that all we see when we
see a man, for example, are his physical characteristics. His physical
characteristics are all that the senses can register. We see nothing extra
about him which we can call "substance," in addition to these
characteristics. Similarly, a detractor of the real presence would use such
an argument to say that if all that is seen, tasted, and felt in the
Consecrated Host is bread, it is bread, since according to this detractor,
the Host is nothing but these physically discernible qualities.

The error of this, is that it totally ignores the ontological content of the
man or the Host in question - ignoring the fact that they are beings, not
just collections of qualities. If, for example, you perceive something, if
all you perceive are physical qualities of sense, all you would perceive are
subjective sensations. Unless there were an "extra" of being or reality that
these sensed qualities are a part of, you would be a solipsist, which would
mean that nothing would exist except yourself and your subjective
consciousness. I think that most of us can agree that this is absurd. For
things to be objectively real, this extra - "being" - must necessarily be a
part of them. Establishing that, we can say that substance is the being of a
particular thing - that substance is the embodiment of being in a particular
concrete thing. The real distinction between substance and accident is based
upon the fact that this or that being has this or that set of
characteristics. The being of a thing is intuited with the intellect, while
physical characteristics are primarily perceived by the senses. The
intellect reaches out to embrace the being of a thing, in that being's true
reality, so that the intellect grasps it objectively. This involves far more
than mere sensations being impressed on the senses. We can say that Christ
truly exists in the consecrated Host, because while the Host has the
physical characteristics of bread, its being is that of Christ. Many modern
thinkers have rejected the substance/accident distinction, because the
principle of substance, as embodied being, also involves mystery. Such a
thing is intolerable to the proud intellectual who wishes to dominate
everything from above with his mind. This is precisely why the validity of
metaphysics, as the science of being as being, has been rejected in this day
and age.

** footnote - Modern materialistic thinkers hold that intelligence is
information processing ability [holding that the mind is nothing but
operations of the brain and the brain is nothing but an information
processor]. If this were true, even modest computers would be far more
intelligent than we are. True intelligence, in reality, is something
completely different. It is the capability of intuitive penetration into the
nature being with the intellect.

From what has been established, we can now proceed to discuss the rational
coherence of the concept of spiritual entities such as human souls, angels,
and God.

If there is a real distinction between the being of a thing and its physical
characteristics, it is possible for entities to exist apart from physical
characteristics. These "separated substances" using the Thomistic term, are
spiritual beings which include human souls, angels, and God. How do we
rationally discuss the characteristics of each?

Material things are limited in a two fold way. First of all, each material
thing has a certain essence, which means that its being and its operation is
limited to a given type. For example, a rose does not have the attributes of
an opossum, and vice versa. Secondly, material things are vastly limited
because they are enclosed in a finite section of three dimensional space.
This is why many material things of a given essence can exist. Innumerable
material things, of the same type, can be enclosed in innumerable sections
of three dimensional space.

Angels do not have this second limitation of being enclosed in three
dimensional space in such a way. They are independent of space. They do have
the first limitation, however, of being limited to being of a certain
species. Angels are "one step up" in the hierarchy of being, relative to
material entities (and this includes man). All that distinguishes one angel
from another is the fact of the essence it possesses. Each angel, therefore,
is a distinct species in itself.

Human souls are spiritual, because they have an intellect and will which is
related to the universal. The human act of understanding is the
consciousness of how something fits into the universal scheme of things.
Morality involves an understanding of how a proposed action fits into the
universal scheme of things. If the intellect were not spiritual, the science
of metaphysics (the science of being as being) would not be possible.
Animals cannot conduct or understand metaphysics.

When we move to the top of the hierarchy of being, which is God, he has
neither limitation. He is neither enclosed in a given section of space nor
confined to a given species. Species denotes a limitation of being, in that
it contains certain aspects of being and excludes certain other aspects. In
the terminology of scholastic philosophy, essences are composites of act and
potentiality. God, on the other hand, is pure being. Being self existent, he
contains all that being can possibly imply and, therefore, has all possible
positive perfections. He is not a composite of act and potentiality, but is
Pure Act|







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