The Declaration of Independence - 247 Years Ago Today

   (most of the text below is a repost from last year)

Below is the entire text of the Declaration of Independence.  I believe it to be one of the most

audacious and revolutionary documents in history (pun in intended).

I have always loved my country.  But as a philosopher one of the things that I marvel 

at is that  the United States is a country built on an idea.

 Ideas matter.

Freedom is in our nature.  No tyrant, no government can take that away.

I encourage you to read the entire text below on this birthday of our nation.  Particularly, I am struck by the last line:

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence,  we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Those who wrote their names on that document held up as collateral for the investment in our freedom:

1.  Their Lives.  I am humbled when I remember that so many gave much more than I will
ever give so that people like me could live free.  The only way we can hold onto our freedom is if men and women are willing to pay the ultimate price.  Too often tyrants, both fearsome and soft-spoken, try to snatch away our freedom.  They depend on us to lay down our resistance and give in.  We must never do so.  The Founding Fathers gave us that pledge.

2.  Their Fortunes.  I will likely never see combat.  But how do I spend my money to
ensure freedom?  Do I take care of our wounded warriors?  Do I support laws and
representatives I believe in with my capital?  And do I take payments from those who
would make me dependent?  This pervasive bribery must lead inexorably to subtle slavery.

3.  Their Sacred Honor.  Do we even believe in honor anymore today?  Does our name mean anything?  In A Man for All Seasons, when asked why he would not take an oath of

loyalty to Henry VIII, Thomas More said, "When a man takes an oath, 
he’s holding his own self in his hands. Like water.  And if he 
opens his fingers then — he needn’t hope to find himself again." 
 We are free and we must stand by our commitments. 
 Otherwise who we are, our name, means nothing.  

These great men signed their names to this document. 
 For each of them it may have been a death sentence.
  But they signed it nevertheless.  They their day they
 took a stand against tyranny and stood for freedom.

In their day they stood as men.

Today they stand as giants.

And the challenge of today is this: could we stand with them?

Do we have what it takes to be the patriots at Valley Forge or the resistance at Boston Harbor?  Does that same noble spirit of freedom stir in us?

Or do we stand with those who try to tear down their memory to only have us remember their faults and failings and not the fact that they gave us the greatest nation that the world has ever known?

Perhaps reading this document again will renew and refresh the spirit of liberty.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

---

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1

Georgia:

   Button Gwinnett

   Lyman Hall

   George Walton

Column 2

North Carolina:

   William Hooper

   Joseph Hewes

   John Penn

South Carolina:

   Edward Rutledge

   Thomas Heyward, Jr.

   Thomas Lynch, Jr.

   Arthur Middleton

Column 3

Massachusetts:

John Hancock

Maryland:

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton

Column 4

Pennsylvania:

   Robert Morris

   Benjamin Rush

   Benjamin Franklin

   John Morton

   George Clymer

   James Smith

   George Taylor

   James Wilson

   George Ross

Delaware:

   Caesar Rodney

   George Read

   Thomas McKean

Column 5

New York:

   William Floyd

   Philip Livingston

   Francis Lewis

   Lewis Morris

New Jersey:

   Richard Stockton

   John Witherspoon

   Francis Hopkinson

   John Hart

   Abraham Clark

Column 6

New Hampshire:

   Josiah Bartlett

   William Whipple

Massachusetts:

   Samuel Adams

   John Adams

   Robert Treat Paine

   Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:

   Stephen Hopkins

   William Ellery

Connecticut:

   Roger Sherman

   Samuel Huntington

   William Williams

   Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire:

   Matthew Thornton

Aborting Aristotle

 

St. Thomas Aquinas is the most important Catholic philosopher.  His work was so important that during the Council of Trent, his Summa Theologiae was placed on the altar along with the Bible as the guiding documents for the philosophy of Catholicism.

To understand much of St. Thomas' ideas, you have to understand the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle.  In Aristotle, St. Thomas found a philosophical grounding to the rational component of Christian thought.  One of the things I admire about St. Thomas is that he does not reference Aristotle as some kind of appeal to authority.  Instead, he sees that Aristotle argues St. Thomas' own positions effectively and so employs those arguments in his writing.  Joseph Pieper made clear that St. Thomas never quoted Aristotle simply to impress his readers with Aristotle's name.  He would quote Aristotle, when he thought Aristotle made a good argument.

Particularly, St. Thomas adopted much of Aristotle's metaphysics.  Metaphysics is that area of philosophy that deals with the question of what exists.  While this may sound like something that is high-falutin and unimportant to every day life, nothing could be further from the truth.  Your metaphysics will radically affect how you live.

For example, does God exist?  That is a metaphysical question.  If you see that He does, you will live a very different life than if you believe that He does not.  It is the difference between a life that is guided and governed by a good, loving, and rational Supreme Being or living in a random, purposeless, and indifferent universe.  As you can see, metaphysics matters.

This includes the questions about what this material world actually is.  Plato, Aristotle's teacher, believed that this material world was unimportant.  It was almost like what Buddhists believe that the material world is an illusion.  The goal, for the Platonist, is to rise above material things and contemplate the only real things that exist: immaterial Forms.  Why did Plato come to this conclusion?

There are many reasons.  But essentially, he saw that material things always change.  This is true.  There is nothing in this material world that stays the same.  Even the chair I am sitting in now is slowly disintegrating so that in ten million years it will be dust.  Because of this, Plato said that you could never know anything about a material thing, because it is constantly changing, it is never the same thing.  However, you can know things that don't change.  The laws of triangularity, for example, never change (e.g. the interior angles of a triangle will always equal 180 degrees).  He concluded that you could only know things like this that do not change.  And because you could know them, they had to be real.  In fact, they had to be the only real things.

Aristotle disagreed with Plato.  He did not think that the material world was unimportant.  Aristotle said that all material substances are a composite of form and matter.  All the material things in this world are composed of matter that have been shaped into some kind of form.  Together, the form and matter give us a substance.

With this in mind, Aristotle could say that would could know material things, because when we talk about my chair, we are talking about the form of the chair being expressed in this particular material.  Even as the material changes and even breaks down a bit, it is still a chair because the form gives it a unity.  It is not a random heap of changing material components.  The form makes it clear that this substance is a chair.

To be clear, Aristotle understood that the distinction between form and matter is a conceptual distinction.  It is a distinction that Aristotle makes so that we can understand how the form and the matter work together.  But, for the most part, they do not exist separately.  There is no matter that exists except in some kind of form.  The form of the chair does not exist in some idealized state, even when the chair completely disintegrates.

If that is confusing, think about words.  You can see a clear distinction between the material of a word (either printed out or stated out loud) and its meaning.  However, when you see or hear a word, the material component is always with the immaterial meaning.  It is an odd fact of the mind that once you know how to read, you cannot NOT read words when you see them.  The words you are reading now are not random pixelated matter.  Nor are they immaterial ideas.  They are material pixels and immaterial meanings together.

Okay, if you've stayed with me thus far, I thank you for your patience.  Why are we taking such a long digression into Aristotelian metaphysics?

Because Aristotle shows me a flaw in a common abortion slogan.

Too often I hear poor arguments that try to justify abortion.  One of them is something to the effect of "The life of a woman is more valuable than a clump of cells."

The implication is that you have on the one hand a fully formed human person with rights and innate value and on the other hand you have an undifferentiated material heap.

The key is this word "clump."  A "clump" implies something that is random in nature that really has no unity or specific form.  Think about when you have used this term in your life.  Maybe you made a clump of dirt, or garbage, or dirty clothes.  For the clothes, they may have some things in common in that they are all clothes, but they do not have a unity.  They are some t-shirts, a couple pairs of socks, along with your favorite hoodie.  But all of those are different substances with their own form that simply happen to be in proximity to each other.  But the clump is not really its own substance, its own being.

A clump of cells implies that there is no unity.  You have random things that are their own substance that are placed in proximity to each other.

But this is incorrect.

Recently I cam across a statement by a biologist who worked on embryos.  This person wrote "I used to work in a cell culture lab where we maintained actual clumps of cells.  A clump of cells is a disorganized, un-unified, non-developing mass of cells.  They are growing in size, but not developing.  The main difference between a clump of cells and an embryo is that the embryo is a whole human organism with goal oriented growth and development.  Clumps of cells don't do that."

The point is that a true "clump" of cells may grow.  But they don't develop in a unity.  To the naked eye, an embryo may look like a clump, just as to the naked eye an cloud may look like an elephant.  But in this case, the looks are deceiving.  The embryo will grow in a directed unity.  This is because the "clump" is not its own substance because it has no form to give it unity.  The embryo is its own substance because it has a form that gives it unity.

It is as incorrect to call the embryo a "clump" of cells as it would be to call me a "clump" of cells.  To be clear, a fully grown human and a human embryo are in different stages of development.  But we both have the same essential form of humanity that gives our substance a unity as we change.  We all experience this.  You have changed so much over the years, particularly in your material appearance.  But through it all you are still you.  That is because your form gives you a unity that makes you you through all your changes.

And you have had this form since the moment of conception.

So next time someone talks about aborting a clump of cells, keep in mind that when they say this they are also aborting the wisdom of Aristotle.

The Declaration of Independence: 246 Years Ago Today

  (most of the text below is a repost from last year)

Below is the entire text of the Declaration of Independence.  I believe it to be one of the most

audacious and revolutionary documents in history (pun in intended).

I have always loved my country.  But as a philosopher one of the things that I marvel 

at is that  the United States is a country built on an idea.

 Ideas matter.

Freedom is in our nature.  No tyrant, no government can take that away.

I encourage you to read the entire text below on this birthday of our nation.  Particularly, I am struck by the last line:

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence,  we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Those who wrote their names on that document held up as collateral for the investment in our freedom:

1.  Their Lives.  I am humbled when I remember that so many gave much more than I will
ever give so that people like me could live free.  The only way we can hold onto our freedom is if men and women are willing to pay the ultimate price.  Too often tyrants, both fearsome and soft-spoken, try to snatch away our freedom.  They depend on us to lay down our resistance and give in.  We must never do so.  The Founding Fathers gave us that pledge.

2.  Their Fortunes.  I will likely never see combat.  But how do I spend my money to
ensure freedom?  Do I take care of our wounded warriors?  Do I support laws and
representatives I believe in with my capital?  And do I take payments from those who
would make me dependent?  This pervasive bribery must lead inexorably to subtle slavery.

3.  Their Sacred Honor.  Do we even believe in honor anymore today?  Does our name mean anything?  In A Man for All Seasons, when asked why he would not take an oath of

loyalty to Henry VIII, Thomas More said, "When a man takes an oath, 
he’s holding his own self in his hands. Like water.  And if he 
opens his fingers then — he needn’t hope to find himself again." 
 We are free and we must stand by our commitments. 
 Otherwise who we are, our name, means nothing.  

These great men signed their names to this document. 
 For each of them it may have been a death sentence.
  But they signed it nevertheless.  They their day they
 took a stand against tyranny and stood for freedom.

In their day they stood as men.

Today they stand as giants.

And the challenge of today is this: could we stand with them?

Do we have what it takes to be the patriots at Valley Forge or the resistance at Boston Harbor?  Does that same noble spirit of freedom stir in us?

Or do we stand with those who try to tear down their memory to only have us remember their faults and failings and not the fact that they gave us the greatest nation that the world has ever known?

Perhaps reading this document again will renew and refresh the spirit of liberty.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

---

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1

Georgia:

   Button Gwinnett

   Lyman Hall

   George Walton

Column 2

North Carolina:

   William Hooper

   Joseph Hewes

   John Penn

South Carolina:

   Edward Rutledge

   Thomas Heyward, Jr.

   Thomas Lynch, Jr.

   Arthur Middleton

Column 3

Massachusetts:

John Hancock

Maryland:

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton

Column 4

Pennsylvania:

   Robert Morris

   Benjamin Rush

   Benjamin Franklin

   John Morton

   George Clymer

   James Smith

   George Taylor

   James Wilson

   George Ross

Delaware:

   Caesar Rodney

   George Read

   Thomas McKean

Column 5

New York:

   William Floyd

   Philip Livingston

   Francis Lewis

   Lewis Morris

New Jersey:

   Richard Stockton

   John Witherspoon

   Francis Hopkinson

   John Hart

   Abraham Clark

Column 6

New Hampshire:

   Josiah Bartlett

   William Whipple

Massachusetts:

   Samuel Adams

   John Adams

   Robert Treat Paine

   Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:

   Stephen Hopkins

   William Ellery

Connecticut:

   Roger Sherman

   Samuel Huntington

   William Williams

   Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire:

   Matthew Thornton

New Evangelizers Post: The Soul and the Brain

                 

 

I have a new article up at NewEvangelizers.com.  

I had a student say to me in class recently, “Mr. Grayson, isn’t it strange that the brain is the only organ of the body that named itself.”

I thought about what he said for a moment, but then I replied, “No, it didn’t. The brain did name the brain. The person named the brain.”

Perhaps I was trying to show off some of my time taking philosophy classes, but I thought it was an important distinction to make. In fact, I thought it was important enough to be the topic of an article here.

The big mistake is that the student was conflating the brain and the soul. The Greek word for soul that Plato uses is “psyche,” which is also translated as mind. When Christians use the word “soul” we mean a bit more than what Plato did, but at the very least our minds and our souls are intertwined. This point is taken up by Plato’s student Aristotle.

For Aristotle, the soul is not a physical thing. It is immaterial. The intellect was a receptivity or power that transcends physicality and is not dependent on physicality. Aristotle makes the point that “Thus that in the soul which is called mind (by mind I mean that whereby the soul thinks and judges) is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing. For this reason it cannot reasonably be regarded as blended with the body: if so, it would acquire some quality, e.g. warmth or cold, or even have an organ like the sensitive faculty: as it is, it has none.” (On the Soul, III, 4) The mind cannot be a part of the body, because then it would have to have material qualities. Aristotle uses warmth and cold in the above quote, but you could easily use other physical qualities like size and weight. The brain can be warm, cold, big, small, heavy, or light. But the mind cannot be any of those things.

The organ of the brain presents the sense information to the intellect to do its activity of thinking, but it is not the brain that does the thinking. We need this sense information in order to do the activity of thinking. As St. Thomas points out, “suspension of the senses necessarily involves a hindrance to the judgment of the intellect.” (Summa Theologiae, I, q 84, a 8)

The act of thinking is not completely divorced from physicality. But this brings us back to the immateriality component of the soul that Aristotle brought up. St. Thomas agreed with Aristotle that this thinking involves having knowledge that is “immaterial, universal, and necessary.” (Summa Theologiae, I, q 84, a 1)

The reason for this, as St. Thomas says, “the received is in the receiver according to the mode of the receiver.” ^6^ This means that while physical things can be known to humans, they are known in an intelligible mode, because that is the nature of the human mind. ^7^

But remember, we are not angels. We are not purely spiritual beings. To be human is to be a body and soul together. The mind has an important connection to the senses and the brain. The object of intellect transcends senses, but in order to have access to its objects, you need the senses. Without the senses, reason would never actualize.

In other words, like the beasts, we draw in data from the senses. But unlike the beasts, we can come to understand that data in a way they cannot. We don’t just see red objects, we can think of “redness” itself. We don’t just see objects of equal size, we can think of the concept of “equality.” We can turn sense experience into objects of thought. This is because we have the power of reason which draws intelligibility (or reads intelligibility into) sense images.

But isn’t the mind affected when there is damage to the brain?

Yes, but it is not damaged.

You can read the whole article here.

The Declaration of Independence: 245 Years Ago Today

 (most of the text below is a repost from last year)

Below is the entire text of the Declaration of Independence.  I believe it to be one of the most

audacious and revolutionary documents in history (pun in intended).

I have always loved my country.  But as a philosopher one of the things that I marvel 

at is that  the United States is a country built on an idea.

 Ideas matter.

Freedom is in our nature.  No tyrant, no government can take that away.

I encourage you to read the entire text below on this birthday of our nation.  Particularly, I am struck by the last line:

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence,  we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Those who wrote their names on that document held up as collateral for the investment in our freedom:

1.  Their Lives.  I am humbled when I remember that so many gave much more than I will
ever give so that people like me could live free.  The only way we can hold onto our freedom is if men and women are willing to pay the ultimate price.  Too often tyrants, both fearsome and soft-spoken, try to snatch away our freedom.  They depend on us to lay down our resistance and give in.  We must never do so.  The Founding Fathers gave us that pledge.

2.  Their Fortunes.  I will likely never see combat.  But how do I spend my money to
ensure freedom?  Do I take care of our wounded warriors?  Do I support laws and
representatives I believe in with my capital?  And do I take payments from those who
would make me dependent?  This pervasive bribery must lead inexorably to subtle slavery.

3.  Their Sacred Honor.  Do we even believe in honor anymore today?  Does our name mean anything?  In A Man for All Seasons, when asked why he would not take an oath of

loyalty to Henry VIII, Thomas More said, "When a man takes an oath, 
he’s holding his own self in his hands. Like water.  And if he 
opens his fingers then — he needn’t hope to find himself again." 
 We are free and we must stand by our commitments. 
 Otherwise who we are, our name, means nothing.  

These great men signed their names to this document. 
 For each of them it may have been a death sentence.
  But they signed it nevertheless.  They their day they
 took a stand against tyranny and stood for freedom.

In their day they stood as men.

Today they stand as giants.

And the challenge of today is this: could we stand with them?

Do we have what it takes to be the patriots at Valley Forge or the resistance at Boston Harbor?  Does that same noble spirit of freedom stir in us?

Or do we stand with those who try to tear down their memory to only have us remember their faults and failings and not the fact that they gave us the greatest nation that the world has ever known?

Perhaps reading this document again will renew and refresh the spirit of liberty.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

---

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1

Georgia:

   Button Gwinnett

   Lyman Hall

   George Walton

Column 2

North Carolina:

   William Hooper

   Joseph Hewes

   John Penn

South Carolina:

   Edward Rutledge

   Thomas Heyward, Jr.

   Thomas Lynch, Jr.

   Arthur Middleton

Column 3

Massachusetts:

John Hancock

Maryland:

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton

Column 4

Pennsylvania:

   Robert Morris

   Benjamin Rush

   Benjamin Franklin

   John Morton

   George Clymer

   James Smith

   George Taylor

   James Wilson

   George Ross

Delaware:

   Caesar Rodney

   George Read

   Thomas McKean

Column 5

New York:

   William Floyd

   Philip Livingston

   Francis Lewis

   Lewis Morris

New Jersey:

   Richard Stockton

   John Witherspoon

   Francis Hopkinson

   John Hart

   Abraham Clark

Column 6

New Hampshire:

   Josiah Bartlett

   William Whipple

Massachusetts:

   Samuel Adams

   John Adams

   Robert Treat Paine

   Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:

   Stephen Hopkins

   William Ellery

Connecticut:

   Roger Sherman

   Samuel Huntington

   William Williams

   Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire:

   Matthew Thornton