Category Archives: Philosophy

I’ve been reflecting a little more on some issues I raised in a reply to Merv on Eddie’s thread. It builds on the ongoing consideration of the Aristotelian idea of formal causation, but the involves more global implications of the philosophical divide between realism and nominalism – broadly, whether there are genuine universal “types” or just multitudes of individual things that we humans lump together for convenience. 

I’ve spent a number of posts digging around various bits of Aristotelian-Thomist metaphysics, especially with regard to causation. Notable examples here and the most recent, commenting on a piece by Ed Feser, here. Why does it matter?

I don’t suppose any of my American brethren will be posting on Thanksgiving Day, so have a good one! Here’s a conversation that Werner Heisenberg said changed his life: Heisenberg: “We cannot observe electron orbits inside the atom…Now, since a good theory must be based on directly observable magnitudes, I thought it more fitting to restrict myself to these, treating them, as it were, as representatives of the electron orbits.” “But you don’t seriously believe,” Einstein protested, “that none but observable magnitudes must go into a physical theory?” “Isn’t that precisely what you have done with relativity?” I asked in some surprise… “Possibly I did use this kind of reasoning,” … Continue reading →

August 1970 – It was the end of my gap year, men had walked on the moon twice and I saw Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight Festival just a couple of weeks before he died.