Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek's Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024) Part 1

By Razie Mah

Presumably, the works covered in this commentary cover ideas spanning from long before the period of publication. Mariusz Tabaczek O.P. is first and foremost a Thomist, familiar with the labors of Aquinas, dating to the thirteenth century. At the same time, Tabaczek participates in a Thomistic revival, a quest for a "neo-neo-Aristotelianism" (because Thomas Aquinas marks the first neo-Aristotelianism), called for by a pope in the late nineteenth century in order to provide an alternative to modernism.
Consequently, Tabaczek narrows his Thomism to a slightly modified view of thirteenth century concepts. He does very well, by the reckoning of this commentator, because he selects one of the weak joints in the modernist citadel, the scientific treatment of emergence. Scientists cannot build mathematical and mechanical models of emergence, both in material science (for example, the fairly simple hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell) and in biological science (for example, mitochondria). This is a real weakness, since scientists are supposed to build models based on observations and measurements of phenomena, using their specialized disciplinary languages.
Somewhat disturbingly, this commentator proposes that Tabaczek's initial accomplishment is the dismissal (or perhaps, "termination") of the positivist intellect that serves as the relation within the Positivist's judgment. What great aim! With the positivist intellect "dismissed", the two great illuminations of the Positivist's judgment have no choice but to enter into secondness, resulting in a pair of dyads, one illuminated by the model and the other illuminated by the noumenon.
Yes, a mathematical or mechanical model is not its noumenon, the thing itself, even though a triumphalist science-maven would have you believe that the model is more real than the noumenon (and therefore, ought to replace it).
No, these two illuminations do not see eye to eye.
Weirdly, each sees the other as a mirror of itself.
The agent of science sees himself in the mirror of theology.
The agent of theology sees himself in the mirror of science.
And, the theologian doesn't like what appears in the mirror of theology.
And, the scientist totally ignores what appears in the mirror of science.
Why? The ghost of the positivist intellect tells him to.
Once the Positivist's judgment is reconfigured as Tabaczek's looking glass, then the preacher's intellectual quest becomes more and more gritty, curious and novel, because the most productive way to envision his trajectory is through the lens of the semiotics and the categories of C. S. Peirce. According to Thomist and semiotician John Deely, Peirce picks up a thread spun by the Baroque scholastic John Poinsot and initiates the dawn of a neo-neo-Aristotelian age. Welcome to the Age of Triadic Relations.
Tabaczek speaks the specialized philosophical language of Aquinas.
These comments speak the specialized philosophical language of Peirce.
Both revive Aristotle. Both bring philosophy to life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Razie Mah
• Release date: Jan 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9781955931144

Razie Mah

See website for bio.

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Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek's Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024) Part 1

By Razie Mah

Published for Smashwords.com

2024

Notes on Text

This work comments on three books by Mariusz Tabaczek, O.P., currently a professor of theology at the Thomistic Institute at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas in Rome. These books derive from his interdisciplinary doctoral studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley (2011-2016) along with later work. So, I suppose that the titular arc of inquiry covers a decade, rather than five years. Plus, this arc of inquiry covers a lot of territory.

The three books are Emergence: Towards a New Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science (2019) and Divine Action and Emergence: An Alternative to Panentheism (2021) and Theistic Evolution: A Contemporary Aristotle-Thomistic Perspective (officially 2024). The first two are published by the University of Notre Dame Press in Notre Dame, Indiana. The latter is published by Cambridge University Press.

Plus, an interlude appears between the second and third books.

The interlude comments on the essay, What Do God and Creatures Really Do in an Evolutionary Change? Divine Concurrence and Transformism from the Thomistic Perspective, appearing in The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (2019).

This work exhibits an unusual composition. A major part of this work will appear as blogs, titled Looking At Mariusz Tabaczek's Book..., at www.raziemah.com, for the months of April, May and June 2024. The blogs will cover Emergence and part one of Divine Action and Emergence and the majority of Theistic Evolution. Part two of Divine Action will be covered only in these comments, since this is where my review well... dare I say?... goes off the rails. The interlude will be covered in comments. Comments will be divided into two parts for technical reasons.

My goal is to review these works using the category-based nested form and other relational structures within the tradition of Charles Peirce. At times, this will be a close reading. At other times (in fact, most of the time), the reading will be tangential. For example, I introduce illustrations that take on lives of their own.

As the reader will see, these comments are compatible with the intellectual traditions of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Yet, they are not quite the same. In the course of the examination, I suggest that Peirce provides a framework for what Tabaczek calls neo-Aristotelianism.

‘Words that belong together’ are denoted by single quotes or italics.

Prerequisites: A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form, A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction

Recommended: Other articles in the Phenomenology and the Positivist Intellect Series may be found in the smashwords website.

Table of Contents

Comments on Emergence (2019) P0001

Comments on Divine Action and Emergence (2021) Part 1 P0155

Comments on Divine Action and Emergence (2021) Part 2 P0426

Comments on What God and Creatures Really Do (2019) P0545

Comments on Thomistic Evolution (2024) P0644

Addendum: Human Evolution Comes with a Twist P0861

Projections in Tabaczek's Mirror

0001 Philosophers enamored of Aristotle and Aquinas tend to make distinctions. So, what happens when such philosophers wrestle with modern science as it confronts the realness of apparently irreducibly complex systems, such as um... hydrogen-fuel cells and the Krebs cycle, which serves as the fuel cell for eukaryotic cells?

On the surface, Tabaczek fashions, yet does not articulate, a distinction between... hmmm...

0002 Consider a sentence, found on page 273 of Emergence, midway in the final chapter, seven, saying (more or less), I hope that my re-interpretation of downward causation and emergent systems, in terms of old and new Aristotelianism, will help analytical metaphysicians sound more credible to scientists and philosophers of science, who employ, analyze and justify methodological reductionism.

....what?

Philosophers of science and analytialc metaphysicians?

0003 Philosophers of science attempt to understand the causalities inherent in the ways that each empirio-schematic discipline applies mathematical and mechanical models to observations and measurements of particular phenomena. In terms of Aristotle's four causes, their options are few. Science is beholden to material and efficient causalities, shorn of formal and final causation. So, they end up going in tautological circles. What makes a model relevant? Well, a model accounts for observations and measurements of phenomena. What are phenomena? Phenomena are observable and measurable facets of their noumenon. What is a noumenon?

Ugh, you know, the thing itself.

If I know anything about the Positivist's judgment, then I know this. Science studies phenomena, not their noumenon.

Everybody knows that.

Except, of course, for those pathetic (analytical) metaphysicians.

0004 ...what?

A noumenon and its phenomena?

0005 Tautologies are marvelous intellectual constructions.

In a tautology, an explanation explains a fact because the fact can be accounted for by the explanation. For modern science, mathematical and mechanical models explain observations and measurements because observations and measurements can be accounted for by mathematical and mechanical models.

Scientific tautologies are very powerful. Important scientists ask for governments to support their empirio-schematic research in order to develop and exploit such tautologies... er... technologies. Philosophers of science tend to go with the flow, so they end up employing, analyzing and justifying the manners in which mathematical and mechanical models account for observations and measurements, along with other not-metaphysical pursuits. One must tread lightly. First, there is a lot of money on the line. Second, the positivist intellect has a rule. Metaphysics is not allowed.

0006 ...hmmm...

Does Tabaczek offer a way out of the rut of not-metaphysics, without noticing that the rut is what distinguishes scientific inquiry from experience of a thing itself? Aristotle will tell me that the rut is not the same as the world outside the rut. The scientific world is (supposedly) full of mind-independent beings. Ours is a world of mind-dependent beings.

0007 ...aha!

Now, I arrive at the yet-to-be-articulated distinction between what science investigates and what we experience.

For the modern philosopher of science, models are key. Disciplinary language brings mathematical and mechanical models into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena.

For the estranged modern metaphysician, the thing itself is key. The thing itself, the noumenon, gives rise to diverse phenomena, facets that are observable and measurable.

Consequently, the distinction that Tabaczek does not name looks like this.

0008 In 2019 AD, Mariusz Tabaczek publishes the book before me, titled Emergence: Towards a New Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science (University of Notre Dame Press). He aims to counter the fact that philosophers of science, and maybe a few scientists, struggle to account for emergent phenomena.

0009 What are emergent phenomena?

They range from galaxies to dust devils, from micelles to bacteria, and from bacteria to um... Bach. (See Looking at Daniel Dennett's Book (2017) From Bacteria to Bach and Back, appearing in Razie Mah's blog in December 2023). Emergent phenomena, on one level, resist reduction to truncated material and efficient causalities on lower levels. Societies are more than interacting individuals. Individuals are more than the cells that compose them. Cells are more than micelles containing biochemicals. Biochemicals are more than atoms. If any of these statements are not so, then sociology reduces to anthropology and anthropology reduces to biology and biology reduces to biochemistry and biochemistry reduces to physics.

Emergent phenomena are everywhere, yet cannot be readily modeled using lower-level principles, even though some computer simulations come close to success.

0010 Such is the Positivist's dilemma.

0011 Note the overlap within the applied distinction. Both sides consider material and efficient causation. So, why the qualifier, truncated?

Consider the following figure.

0012 Do scientists reduce Aristotle's four causes into the two that yield mathematical and mechanical models?

Or do they select out, through controlled observations and measurements, those phenomena that may be treated using only material and efficient causes?

If either answer is yes, then phenomena that might be attributed to formal or final causation in Aristotle's schema end up being treated as if they are produced only by material and efficient causations, because these two causalities enable mathematical and mechanical models.

0013 So, maybe the word, truncated, itself is misleading.

But, it sounds so much better than the more accurate qualifier, nominally divorced.

Plus, it is so much shorter than modern terms that pretend to be the same as Aristotle's.

On top of that, it is way easier than modern terms that may actually manifest Aristotle's formal and final causations under the guise of being the same as Aristotle's material and efficient causations.

0014 Here is a picture.

0015 In comedies and in tragedies, the audience always knows something that the characters on stage do not. I do not know whether Tabaczek's enormous and grueling efforts are funny or futile in the eyes of God. But no matter how God views the author's long and arduous studies, I know this.

Tabaczek does not employ, analyze or justify the distinction between philosophers of science (who are concerned about models) and analytical metaphysicians (who are concerned about noumena).

Tabaczek does analyze and review a massive amount of academic material in his effort to show that