Is The New Atheist Literature Intellectually Frivolous?

[jeremyp]

Wot Edward Feser said..............

I think it's pretty much been decided that what he said was a pile of dingoes' kidneys.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlunderer,

Wot Edward Feser said..............

Seriously? You are of course free to stand behind it if you wish, but it's pretty low grade thinking. Your call though.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Wot Edward Feser said..............

I think it's pretty much been decided that what he said was a pile of dingoes' kidneys.

Nope....You new atheists just don't like it up you. I think you are beginning to believe your own crap.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlunderer,

Nope....You new atheists just don't like it up you. I think you are beginning to believe your own crap.

Calling the authors "wankers" isn't putting anything "up" anyone - it's just an ad hominem, and not even a witty one.

[jeremyp]

Wot Edward Feser said..............

I think it's pretty much been decided that what he said was a pile of dingoes' kidneys.

Nope....You new atheists just don't like it up you. I think you are beginning to believe your own crap.

What he said was first order bollocks. Still, if that's your intellectual level, I'm happy for you to go with it.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Wot Edward Feser said..............

I think it's pretty much been decided that what he said was a pile of dingoes' kidneys.

Nope....You new atheists just don't like it up you. I think you are beginning to believe your own crap.

What he said was first order bollocks. Still, if that's your intellectual level, I'm happy for you to go with it.

Jeremy you are just being religious about New Atheism and treating the Dawkins, Harris's, Dennett's etc as immaculate conceptions and saints.

A Fellow believer sticking one or two on the new atheists is enjoyable but not as good as when reasonable and less angry or attention seeking atheists pull the new atheists up. People like Michael Ruse, Theodore Dalrymple, Elsdon Baker et al. It makes me relieved that it is not just loony evangelical antitheists who make up the bulk of my fellow citizens.

Still since New Atheism is getting a bit passe I do wonder if people like Feser and myself are in danger of becoming as irrelevant as what we criticise.

[Nearly Sane]

Given you agree with the Feser, Vlad, could you enlighten me as to why 'new atheism' closes its mind (which is an atrocious meaningless piece of generalisation and witless reification) to all of Aristotle, to pick the first thinker in the list?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Given you agree with the Feser, Vlad, could you enlighten me as to why 'new atheism' closes its mind (which is an atrocious meaningless piece of generalisation and witless reification) to all of Aristotle, to pick the first thinker in the list?

He just says they close their minds to serious consideration of Aristotle etc.

Beyond that New Atheists as a collective are in my experience very prone to dismissing any ancient philosophical approach. The philosophers of old are often derided as being from the bronze age.

In any event I think this is best settled by revisiting New Atheist works and seeing just how much reference is made to Aristotle.

[Nearly Sane]

What is the difference between closing their mind to the entirety of the works of Aristotle and 'serious consideration'? And even if we pick 'serious consideration', can you illustrate that his contention that no 'new atheist' has ever seriously considered Aristotle's work (let's stick with Aristotle because al is an addition we don't need to get onto till we've done the first one)


And if you want to use your approach, then there is no serious consideration in Feser's article about Montaigne so I suppose I can dismiss it?

[Nearly Sane]

Perhaps a better approach would be for you to suggest a piece of Aristotle's work that you think needs serious consideration by 'new atheists' and use it as an argument in support of your position? Tbh I don't really care about Dawkins says, he's your spunkmonkey, not mine, but for this to have validity it needs the arguments that you somehow seen to agree have not been given serious consideration. So let's start with Aristotle, what do you think is being not given serious consideration by these 'new atheists'?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What is the difference between closing their mind to the entirety of the works of Aristotle and 'serious consideration'? And even if we pick 'serious consideration', can you illustrate that his contention that no 'new atheist' has ever seriously considered Aristotle's work (let's stick with Aristotle because al is an addition we don't need to get onto till we've done the first one)


And if you want to use your approach, then there is no serious consideration in Feser's article about Montaigne so I suppose I can dismiss it?

I think he's talking about New atheism as a collective and doesn't speak of individual New Atheists.

Given that he is not stating that no New Atheist has ever seriously considered Aristotle's work I don't have to demonstrate it.

Are you arguing that New Atheism is Aristotelian?

[jeremyp]

Jeremy you are just being religious about New Atheism and treating the Dawkins, Harris's, Dennett's etc as immaculate conceptions and saints.

Nope. I'm reading the article without the benefit of your confirmation bias.

A Fellow believer sticking one or two on the new atheists is enjoyable but not as good as when reasonable and less angry or attention seeking atheists pull the new atheists up.

Yes, for you, it's not about making rational argument so much as sticking one on people.

Still since New Atheism is getting a bit passe I do wonder if people like Feser and myself are in danger of becoming as irrelevant as what we criticise.

You have never been relevant.

[Nearly Sane]

Isn't he stating that? Why then use the generalisation about its mind?

As to 'new atheism' being Aristotelian, that's another lazy strawman. Can we get back onto what of Aristotle isn't given serious consideration? You agree with Feser that it is true, so tell me what arguments do you think are not being given serious consideration?

[jeremyp]

He just says they close their minds to serious consideration of Aristotle etc.

In what context do you think the work of Aristotle is worthy of serious consideration?

[jeremyp]

Isn't he stating that? Why then use the generalisation about its mind?

As to 'new atheism' being Aristotelian, that's another lazy strawman. Can we get back onto what of Aristotle isn't given serious consideration? You agree with Feser that it is true, so tell me what arguments do you think are not being given serous consideration?

Are there any ideas of Aristotle that anybody gives serious consideration to nowadays? I know for a fact that his ideas on physics and cosmology are dead wrong. I imagine philosophy has moved on a bit in the last two and a half thousand years too.

[Nearly Sane]

Isn't he stating that? Why then use the generalisation about its mind?

As to 'new atheism' being Aristotelian, that's another lazy strawman. Can we get back onto what of Aristotle isn't given serious consideration? You agree with Feser that it is true, so tell me what arguments do you think are not being given serous consideration?

Are there any ideas of Aristotle that anybody gives serious consideration to nowadays? I know for a fact that his ideas on physics and cosmology are dead wrong. I imagine philosophy has moved on a bit in the last two and a half thousand years too.

Do you use your imagination as a good guide generally?

[Red Giant]

Isn't he stating that? Why then use the generalisation about its mind?

As to 'new atheism' being Aristotelian, that's another lazy strawman. Can we get back onto what of Aristotle isn't given serious consideration? You agree with Feser that it is true, so tell me what arguments do you think are not being given serous consideration?

Are there any ideas of Aristotle that anybody gives serious consideration to nowadays?

Not unless they'e Catholic theologians.

I know for a fact that his ideas on physics and cosmology are dead wrong.

And so obviously wrong.  My 6-year-old grandmother could out-think Aristotle.

I imagine philosophy has moved on a bit in the last two and a half thousand years too.

Not too sure about that bit though.

[Shaker]

I imagine philosophy has moved on a bit in the last two and a half thousand years too.

Quite honestly I don't see that there's any way of telling whether this is the case. There's no way to measure it.

[Nearly Sane]

I would quite like to read some of the thoughts of Red Giant's '6 year old grandmother' who can out think Aristotle.

[Gordon]

Are there any ideas of Aristotle that anybody gives serious consideration to nowadays?

Yep - his approach to ethics.

[Outrider]

Jeremy you are just being religious about New Atheism and treating the Dawkins, Harris's, Dennett's etc as immaculate conceptions and saints.

"Clean up in Post 566107 - Vlad's been dribbling again!"

A Fellow believer sticking one or two on the new atheists is enjoyable but not as good as when reasonable and less angry or attention seeking atheists pull the new atheists up. People like Michael Ruse, Theodore Dalrymple, Elsdon Baker et al. It makes me relieved that it is not just loony evangelical antitheists who make up the bulk of my fellow citizens.

Wow, who would have thought that a demographic as large as 'atheists' might have a few less-that-stellar philosphers amongst them... or 'Vlads' as we like to call them.

Still since New Atheism is getting a bit passe I do wonder if people like Feser and myself are in danger of becoming as irrelevant as what we criticise.

'New' atheism has always been a bit passe, given that it was just atheism without a sense of shame.  There are no new versions of 'but WHY do you accept that nonsense?' As to your becoming irrelevant, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that you could never BECOME irrelevant...

O.

[Outrider]

I would quite like to read some of the thoughts of Red Giant's '6 year old grandmother' who can out think Aristotle.

Take Vlad's posts, read them in a squeaky voice with the aroma of home-cooked food in the background, and take out the creepily fetishistic obsession with Professor Dawkins. Oh, and occasionally make a valid point instead of Vlad's usual nonsense.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

As to 'new atheism' being Aristotelian, that's another lazy strawman. Can we get back onto what of Aristotle isn't given serious consideration? You agree with Feser that it is true, so tell me what arguments do you think are not being given serious consideration?

I'd have thought that the ground rules Aristotle set out for empiricism are still germane, albeit that others have modified and built on them since. Which is ironic given Vlad's antipathy to empiricism in favour of his "whateverpopsintomyhead-ism" but there it is.

Feser's effort is spectacularly poor, but as he doesn't tell us what specifically he thinks the "new atheists" (if I say "2+2=4" at 4.30 this afternoon, does that make me a "new mathematician"?) are missing then it'd be futile to guess. For the most part though, I'd have thought that atheism is more grounded in Aristotelian thinking than is theism.

Ah well.     

[bluehillside Retd.]

The Vlunderer,

A Fellow believer sticking one or two on the new atheists is enjoyable but not as good as when reasonable and less angry or attention seeking atheists pull the new atheists up. People like Michael Ruse, Theodore Dalrymple, Elsdon Baker et al. It makes me relieved that it is not just loony evangelical antitheists who make up the bulk of my fellow citizens.

Baker I don't know at all but based on the little I've seen so far of Feser his thinking is hopeless. Ruse is an embarrassment - he came up here a while ago for an op-ed piece in (I think) the Grauniad that was ridiculously easy to dismantle. If I can find it I'll re-post.   

Dalrymple I'm aware of - right wing ideologue type - but I don't know what he has to say about religion. What is it about his work that you find persuasive - maybe we can have a look too? 

[Nearly Sane]

I always viewed the philosophical sewing on of Aristotle to Thomism as the intellectual equivalent of the Human Centipede