Jim Barcelona's Philosophy and Food Blog

I'm looking for something. I'm not sure what it is. That's why I was at Taneli Kukkonen's lecture entitled "Averroes on Aristotle's God," at SF State today.

Here are a few tidbits that I got from the lecture:

1) Western Medievals called Aristotle "The Philosopher." Golden Age Moslem's called him "Al Hachim," which means "The Sage."

2) Reading the whole of Aristotle's Corpus should produce a feeling of tension between the items mentioned in the following pairs:

• The Prime Mover and The First Principle
  
• De Caelo and De Anima
  

3) Averroes tried to reconcile current theories of causality with God's existence. If the world is temporally finite, viz. has a beginning, then a medieval can easily posit a God at the beginning. However, what was known about causality at the time suggested that the world was eternal because of an infinite regress of causes. For example, my parents caused me, and their parents caused them, ad infinitum. At the time, it was believed that every event had a cause, and that cause had a cause, too. In following the chain of causes, one could never get to the beginning and so never get to God. This meant that God had to be outside the chain of causes, but this was a problem for Islam and any of the monotheistic faiths, because God - as revealed by faith - also had to be in the world. So the problem was: Given a medieval understanding of causality, and a monotheistic understanding of God, how can God be immanent?

Taneli Kukkonen said that Averroes found the answer to this problem in Aristotle's corpus. Somehow the 8th book of Physics and the 12th book of Metaphysics answering this question.

After the lecture, I asked a question: What's the difference between Averroes' God and Aristotle's God? I'm not quite sure what the answer to my question was...

After questions, folks were invited to dinner. I didn't quite feel like accepting the invitation. Instead, I hopped on the M to Church Street, and walked to Hayes Valley. I stopped by Frjtz for Belgian garlic fries, and a Calistoga. A group of folks in the garden were trying to look for a word that began with 'c' and was like 'co-worker.'

"Colleague," I barked at them.

"Thank you," a nice voice went.

After, I headed to Momi Toby's for a chamomile, and read more of the Gorgias.

Tonight, I got a lift to Eva Jo Meyer's show at Simple Pleasures out in the Richmond. For dinner I had a large bowl of the Mexicali soup with a 12 oz. bottle of sparkling Calistoga, all for $4.09! I totally recommend the soup. It was hearty like a stew with lots of rice and tomatoes. While eating, I read Plato's Gorgias. The parts I've read so far have to do with a sophist saying that oratory is an art that produces effects by means of speech. Socrates says that with other arts it's pretty easy to see what effects they produce. For example, doctoring produces health, weaving produces cloth products, but oratory? What does that produce?

Gorgias' answer is that oratory "confers on everyone who possesses it not only freedom for himself but also the power of ruling his fellow citizens." (452d)

I suspect that Socrates isn't happy with that answer, which will get trounced on royally as I read more.

BTW, I wasn't reading all the time. Eva Jo played a lot of interesting and fun songs that I can't wait to get when she comes out with her second CD.

Because I'm not an academic, I can spend the cash I make on food. Because I'm not an academic, I also can spend my time thinking about whatever I want to think about and not worry that I'll offend or lose my job at an institution. This blog is about Philosophy, and the favorite spots where I like to philosophize: restaurants and cafes.

I believe that people should be able to eat what they want to eat, and think what they want to think.

Stick around for future entries... Tomorrow I head off to SF State for a lecture on Averoes and Aristotle's God.

PS My old blog can be found at http://www.cyphgen.com/blog/.