Today I'm skimming Physics and Philosophy, by James A. McWilliams, S. J. (1945). It seems that Aquinas mentions in lecture 28 of his commentary on Book VIII of the Physics that the outermost or near-outermost sphere rotated every 36,000 years. McWilliams indirectly quotes St. Thomas as saying that the "very celestial pole itself, centered near the North Star, describes an [page3/page4] orbit every '36,000 years.' Although the present calculation is nearer to 26,000, it is enlightening to learn that St. Thomas was aware of the phenomenon." Aquinas's own commentary makes it clear that this sphere is supposed to be the one with the stars embedded on it. Okay. But why does the author say on page 5 that the actual time of rotation 25,800 years?
Here is a summary and comments on the essay Freedom and Resentment by PF Strawson. He makes some great points, and when he is wrong, it is in such a way as to clarify things a great deal. My non-deterministic position is much better thanks to having read this. I’ll summarize it in this post and respond in a later one. In a nutshell: PFS first argues that personal resentment that we may feel toward another for having failed to show goodwill toward us would have no problem coexisting with the conviction that determinism is true. Moral disapprobation, as an analog to resentment, is likewise capable of coexisting with deterministic convictions. In fact, it would seem nearly impossible for a normally-constituted person (i.e., a non-sociopath) to leave behind the web of moral convictions, even if that person is a determinist. In this way, by arguing that moral and determinist convictions can coexist in the same person, PFS undermines the libertarian argument ...
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