Aristotelianism

Totally.

This is, like, a very Aristotelian character-based, like-

Mm-hmm

... vibe to this.

By examining these two intersecting moments of form beholding, right, the thing for what it is, and then you encountering it and being enraptured in this splendor, where all beauty is objectively located, the resolute and indivisible union of the true, good, and beautiful should become more apparent.

An analysis and definition of Aristotelian form through a Thomistic reading of beauty begins an understanding of the three formal criteria of beauty in the Thomistic tradition.

Here, it is understood that three things are necessary for beauty to be met formally.

The first is proportion or consonance.

What's fascinating here is how Lonergan tried to bridge ancient and modern thought.

He took Aristotelian concepts like potency, form, and act, and updated them to speak to relativity, quantum theory, and fields.

So he's arguing that reality isn't just a human construction? Exactly.

The laws of

The word happiness is inserted there.

It's an extension of Aristotelian thought, of Epicurean thought.

The idea that happiness is not an emotional concept.

It is a philosophical idea, and it is the seeking of the highest good and virtue.

Accordingly, Aristotle by his logic throws the emphasis on classification.

The popularity of Aristotelian logic retarded the advance of physical science throughout the Middle Ages.

If only the schoolmen had measured instead of classifying, how much they might have learnt.

Classification is a halfway house between the immediate concreteness of the individual thing and the complete abstraction of mathematical notions.

Aristotle said that you must conceive such a system to be at rest.

Galileo added that the state of rest is only a particular case, and that the general statement is either in a state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line.

Accordingly, an Aristotelian would conceive the forces arising from the reaction of alien bodies as being quantitatively measurable in terms of the velocity they sustain, and as directively determined by the direction of that velocity.

While the Galilean would direct attention to the magnitude of the acceleration and to its direction.

He studied Heidegger in German.

as well as he was an Aristotelian.

And so he at the school I went to in college went to the seminarians and the philosophy were integrated where I took courses with seminarians.

And so in my younger 20s, when I did that, I was more rebellious against the religion of my father, right? And so I was kind of rebelling against those things at the same time as I was doing my entheogenic experiences, going through what I was talking about before with Tool.

This is the thing.

They are polarizing themselves to an extreme.

And again, this is inculcated to us first and foremost by every societal thing we have from school, which teaches us this Aristotelian, Cartesian worldview.

It's got to be either or.

Well, Willis is very quick to clarify what his position is not.

He is not taking the Aristotelian middle way.

He is not taking the Buddhist middle path.

OK, so it's not a compromise.

So this is not an escape from Thomism exactly.

but kind of it is because what the Puritans did so incredibly well is they said, hey, we're going to abandon the sort of Aristotelian nonsense that has held the church captive.

And instead, we're going to embrace the truth covenantal themes of scripture.

We're going to embrace sola scriptura, scripture alone as our authority.