tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post5589509542464564636..comments2024-03-28T19:56:42.305-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: Animals and AnimaliaAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-30469477556222920412014-09-17T17:55:30.177-05:002014-09-17T17:55:30.177-05:00Austin,
Even if Aristeteliam essentialism were tr...Austin,<br /><br />Even if Aristeteliam essentialism were true, our classifications of species are still going to be error prone. The troubles for the Thomist are not in the fact that our classifications can be in error, but rather in the intolerance for error engendered by linking an error-prone empirical system to a theological system that eschews any suggestion of error.<br /><br />It's hard to get an error prone biology, whether Aristotelian or modern, to support epistomological certainty about a doctrinal postition about the place of humans in the world. But that is exactly what some essentialists try to do. Williamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12533263841520213358noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-28547646074546727872014-09-17T16:27:15.333-05:002014-09-17T16:27:15.333-05:00It's important here to keep a clear distinctio...It's important here to keep a clear distinction between <i>animal</i> as a member of a a very old and big clade, the kingdom Animalia, and <i>animal</i> as defined by statements such as "it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, so it must be an animal." <br /><br />The first definition is based on historical pedigree and related datsa such as similarities in ribosomal DNA sequence, the second definition uses functional considerations alone. <br /><br />I'd say the second definition makes far more error-prone assumptions than the first, but both can be used, especially since we usually have more access to information about function than pedigree. <br />Williamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12533263841520213358noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-75191097622080407352014-09-17T16:20:50.551-05:002014-09-17T16:20:50.551-05:00It's an important question to ask if we think ...It's an important question to ask if we think that something like Aristotelian Essentialism is true.<br /><br />That's something that's always given me trouble with essences and formal causes in the Aristotelian sense. How do we determine what is what, when the lines seem so blurred (or in the case of your examples, confused)? Austinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12755810627119315845noreply@blogger.com