Aristotle’s Views on Law

Jeffrey Thayne
In Plato, we saw a tension between two different accounts of law: one as an imperfect, man-made set of rules established for the purpose of peaceful coexistence, and the other as a divine order encoded into human law by an individual with privileged access to the divine world. Aristotle recognized this distinction, and attempted [...]

In Pursuit of Truth

The Persuasive Power of Science: Part 1
Jeffrey Thayne
In our age, science has attained a respected status that has largely gone unchallenged. I suspect there are many good reasons for this. Clearly, we have many conveniences today that we commonly attribute to the scientific endeavor. This is certainly a good thing. Brent Slife and Richard Williams [...]

The Purposes of Law

Philosophy of Law Notes: Part 2
Jeffrey Thayne
Before we discuss Aristotle’s thoughts on law, we must consider for a moment the purpose of law. Robin Letwin, in her chapter on Aristotle, introduces two distinct views of law that she finds hints of in Aristotle (and the beginnings of which in Plato). This distinction is helpful in [...]

Plato’s Views on Law

Philosophy of Law Notes: Part 1
Jeffrey Thayne
Last weekend, I posted notes from my philosophy of law class on this site. The post was quite lengthy, and I have decided to divide it into a series of shorter posts, which I will repost over time. Again, I am not arguing any particular point of view here; [...]

I Know That I Am Nothing

Jeffrey Thayne
Today, we hear a lot about the importance of self-confidence and self-esteem. Where does this concept originate? Well, sometimes we think poorly of ourselves. The oft-proposed solution is that we should think more highly of ourselves. I think the intent behind this idea is probably good; clearly, self-derogatory thoughts are not constructive, and probably [...]

Gravity Made It Happen

Jeffrey Thayne
Physicists have noticed that things accelerate at a particular rate when falling towards the earth. After extensive observation, they discovered that the acceleration of falling objects could be generalized and approximated by this particular mathematical equation:
M represents the mass of the earth, G is a constant value, and R is the distance of [...]

Brief Reflections on Secularism

Jeffrey Thayne
There are many different uses of the term secular. Gawain Wells and Wesley Burr, for example, explain that “secularism is the belief that the answers to life are found through rational means—through the concrete, observable, and practical world of people and things.”1
This definition of secularism sounds like a natural, viable position in our modern [...]

Announcement: 17 September 2008

School has started, and reading assignments have piled up. This is good news and bad news. The good news is that I’ll have many new ideas to write about as I study my course material. The bad news is that both Nathan and I are feeling a schedule pinch, and have thus decided to only [...]

The Restoration of All Things

Jeffrey Thayne
Many of us compartmentalize our lives in a way that would seem strange to scholars of past centuries. We talk about our religious lives and our academic lives as though they were two separate things, divided in a way that protects one from the effects of an error in the other, as a bulkhead [...]

Meaningful Antecedents

Jeffrey Thayne
Although agency and indeterminism are often equated in popular rhetoric, the two philosophical concepts are very different things. Indeterminism, as Williams defines it, is the philosophy that events have no antecedents, or in other words, that they are inherently arbitrary or random. Random choices are no more meaningful, however, than inevitable choices; therefore, in [...]

Needed or Enough?

Jeffrey Thayne
This post may seem a little basic, but I believe that there are two terms that, if understood properly, may greatly help us understand how the doctrines of the Restoration may compare with the philosophies of the world. The two terms I would like to discuss today are necessary and sufficient.
Necessary: Required, needed, or [...]

Announcement: 29 August 2008

This week, I’ve been moving into a new apartment and straightening my fall class schedule. Nathan has also been moving. Therefore, we sadly do not have anything to present today.
However, on Wednesday we posted our 50th article on this site. Hooray!!!

A War for Chance?

Jeffrey Thayne
Agency is arguably one of the most crucial doctrines of the restored gospel. Richard Williams, in his paper “The Freedom and Determinism of Agency,” claimed that “there is a good case to be made for the centrality of agency to any understanding of the meaning and purpose of the Plan of Salvation and the [...]

Pruning the Branch We’re Standing On

Jeffrey Thayne
Science often parades itself as the search for truth, or the the search for an understanding of what is actually going on in the world. In the pursuit of truth, science has largely adopted a philosophy known as reductive materialism. This is the philosophy that all events can be accounted for and explained by [...]

Transcending Naturalism in Literature

Jeffrey Thayne
Today, I would like to consider two different genres of fiction: fantasy and science fiction. The way in which I talk about them will probably be different than the way a literary expert would talk about them; I make no claims to any serious research in this post, but rather I would just like [...]

Challenging the Pleasure Principle

Jeffrey Thayne
Nathan has been writing an excellent series on two very different paradigms of human intent; he has contrasted a fundamentally egoistic and self-interested theory of human behavior with a fundamentally relational, other-oriented theory of human behavior. Today, I would like to discuss a related topic: the long-standing and often misunderstood concept called hedonism.
The dictionary [...]

Announcement: 10 August 2008

As our readers may have noticed, our goal to post three times a week is occasionally unattainable, especially as we move to the end of summer. However, we are dedicated to this blog and are strongly motivated to continue sharing our thoughts on a regular basis. We hope our readers are patient with us when [...]

The Treasure Cave of Mortal Thoughts

Jeffrey Thayne
In recent posts, I have responded to the claim that God’s embodiment limits or constrains God’s power over the material world in some important way. I believe that the idea that God must be incorporeal to have perfect command over the material world is an assumption inherited to us from Greek philosophy; an assumption, [...]

Hellenized Mormonism

Jeffrey Thayne
I have no desire to dissuade anyone from reading this post, but the contents of this post are best understood when prefaced by my previous three posts (“The Greek and Hebrew Intellectual Traditions,” “Dynamic and Active Being,” and “Hellenized Christianity“). Also, I recognize that this is certainly not the only way to interpret Latter-day [...]

Hellenized Christianity

Two Ancient Worldviews Part Three
Jeffrey Thayne
This post and Friday’s post may appear extremely oversimplified to some philosophers or historians. The actual history of events and ideas is much more complex and nuanced than what I present here; therefore, while the ideas in this post are one possible interpretation of historical events, they are certainly not [...]