tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post1025143588263977928..comments2024-03-27T20:37:09.185-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: The pursuit of perfection and the great chain of beingAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-42870489348420119782020-04-27T09:51:09.487-05:002020-04-27T09:51:09.487-05:00Harrison:
That's a really good point. I think...Harrison:<br /><br />That's a really good point. I think I need a different term than "pursues", as "pursues" suggests you don't have it. How about "strives for"? Even when you have perfection now, you strive to have it in the future. <br /><br />Consider the common hypothesis that the man who was caught up to the seventh heaven, whom Paul speaks about (and whom most readers take to be Paul), experience the beatific vision. Surely while having that beatific vision it made sense for the man who strive for its maintenance, at least in the sense of having the disposition to answer "Yes" should God ask: "After you come back to your earthly life, do you want to return to the beatific vision?"Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-53746148314883404652020-04-24T13:52:23.761-05:002020-04-24T13:52:23.761-05:00Maybe a way out of the regress could be mounted on...Maybe a way out of the regress could be mounted on the distinction between “phase virtues”—virtues proper to a phase in an individual’s life—and “virtues proper.” The pursuit of perfection may be a phase virtue, but it is not a virtue proper. Correspondingly, it’s not a natural activity to *pursue* perfection once one already has it. That description of the expression or attainment of perfection is too weak to pick out the aspect under which it is virtuous or “natural,” even if the expression or attainment of perfection concurrently involves a pursuit of perfection. Harrison Leehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01651820132512341348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-31656819323484062062020-04-23T11:38:27.798-05:002020-04-23T11:38:27.798-05:00'Pursuit', though, suggests that it's ...'Pursuit', though, suggests that it's change toward completion, and thus not a perfection at all. There is an ambiguity, I think, in (2), in that we can say that substances naturally 'act' in the sense of change toward an end, which is imperfect act and thus not a perfection, and we can say that substances naturally 'act' in the sense of activities that include their own end, and thus are complete activities (and 'completeness' and 'perfection' are synonyms here).<br /><br />I also wonder if 'pursuit' is like 'trying'. Trying to do X is also trying to try to do x, and trying to try to try to do X, and so forth; but this distinction among these is purely a logical distinction, and in fact you do all the levels at once because they are just distinct ways of characterizing the same act of trying. Perhaps this is related to your potential infinity suggestion -- the levels are in fact just dividing further one and the same action.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-54331459499374310172020-04-23T10:32:16.179-05:002020-04-23T10:32:16.179-05:00Would not Hegel help for this problem? I mean it i...Would not Hegel help for this problem? I mean it is not a chain with no end. It starts at Being and ends at The Absolute Spirit. [At least that is how I understood what McTaggart was saying in his describing Hegel's Logic.]Avraham https://www.blogger.com/profile/07822433921393627746noreply@blogger.com