When Do Wholes Happen?
Nov 29th, 2007 by Micah Tillman | 3 Comments |
I’ll be lecturing about St. Thomas’ philosophy to my students for the first time today. We’ll be discussing the fact that, in Christian philosophy/doctrine, God and World do not form a whole. They are not two parts of the same thing.
Red and awesome may be two parts of my hair. Legs and arms may be parts of my body. But God and World form no larger whole together. (Nor is God a part of the whole that is the World. Nor is the World part of the whole that is God.)
So, my question is, when do wholes happen? I hate the word “we,” as I’ve said many times before. Do animals, whether human or not, ever form larger wholes together? (I know we’ve got words for such wholes. My question is, do they exist?)
Are you talking about the whole nominalism/realism debate about whether universals exist as such? On this issue, I am an Aristotelian (or a Thomist), in that I am an immanent realist. I do believe universals exist but, unlike Plato, I do not believe they exist independent of particulars. If you mean something else instead, then I’m probably not following you.
After you dig. Duh.
Oh, wait…..
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