The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism

by Edward Feser

that the content of secularism as a philosophy and a sensibility is entirely parasitic on religion.

evinces a desire to rationalize their atheism,

Nietzsche held that Christianity was nothing other than “Platonism for ‘the people,’” which, while overstating things to the point of falsehood (standard procedure for Nietzsche)

many philosophers would regard Plato’s student Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) as a philosopher at least as great as Plato was, and more correct in his views to boot.

What we know when we know the essence of triangularity is something universal rather than particular, something immaterial rather than material, and something we know through the intellect rather than the senses.

are objective facts,

“third realm.”

something that is universal, immaterial, extra-mental, and known via the intellect rather

What we grasp, in short, is a Form.

To understand Plato, we have to break free of the lazy assumption that everything real must have some location in time and space;

proves that there is more to reality than the world of time and space.

pointer to something beyond itself,

Form of Triangularity, the Form of Humanness, and the Form of Justice.

Form of Man.

Forms, being outside time and space, are eternal and unchanging.

Forms are more real than the material things that exemplify them.

shadows, reflections...

“less...

metaphysical asymmetry in their ways...

This entails a standard of goodness, and a perfectly objective one.

the good for a thing, including for a human being, is entirely objective;

that the material world points beyond itself to an eternal source;

The reason is that at least something like Plato’s theory is notoriously very hard to avoid if we are to make sense of mathematics, language, science, and the very structure of the world of our

the truths of mathematics in general are things we discover rather than invent;

necessary truths rather than contingent ones. To

Indeed, 2 + 2 = 4 would remain true even if the entire universe collapsed in on itself.

must also exist in a necessary way, outside time and space and independently of any mind.

When the mind entertains any thought at all, whether true or false, it is ultimately a proposition that it is entertaining, and not a sentence.

propositions are in some sense distinct from the material world.

seems to follow that propositions are also independent of any mind.

called realism,

alternative views are nominalism,

conceptualism,

they exist only in ...

irrelevant to practical life.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

realists

Platonic is realist. Realism. Contrary to nominalism or conceptualism

“third realm” of abstract objects.

Propositions cannot be identified with anything either material or mental.

conceptualism hopes to avoid realism not by denying that universals exist, but rather by denying only that they exist outside the mind.

Hence these things are not subjective or mind-dependent, but objective,

with no necessary connection to objective reality.

avoid realism.

Aristotle just isn’t as “sexy” as Plato. His only advantage is being right.

Like Plato, Aristotle is a realist in the sense we’ve been discussing.

Still, he thinks it is an error to regard them as objects existing in a “third realm” of their own.

Rather, considered as they are in themselves they exist only “in” the things they are the forms of; and considered as abstractions from these things, they exist only in the intellect.

which is the most powerful and systematic realist metaphysics ever developed

was the single greatest mistake ever made in the entire history of Western thought.

was the logical development of Aristotelian ideas (primarily by his medieval Scholastic admirers) that provided the most powerful and systematic intellectual foundation for traditional Western religion and morality