Reddit reviews Pensees (Penguin Classics)

I would suggest to move on to Leibniz or Spinoza so you can see how Descartes influenced the rationalist tradition. Taking a peek at the letters that are often included in recent editions of the Meditations—especially the letters to and from Princess Elizabeth—would be quite helpful. The motivation for Passions of the Soul comes out in these letters, and they are well-worth studying if you intend to take the latter work seriously. Leibniz and Spinoza both have texts dedicated to interpreting and criticizing Descartes' Principles of Philosophy. Spinoza's text can be found here, while Leibniz's text can be found here. I recommend Spinoza's text as a good point of entry for his thought, whereas I recommend reading Leibniz's text only after reading other early writings ("First Truths", "Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas," "Discourse on Metaphysics," and "Elements of Natural Science"). The Leibniz text on Descartes' Principles is a helpful bridge to his later writings (including "Monadology") and are indispensable for understanding his dynamics. Leibniz's text on Descartes' Principles will be more or less helpful for you depending on what you want to get out of these authors.

In short, I think you've put in a lot of time with Descartes, and I think it will pay off when you move to other thinkers. There is plenty more to get from Descartes, but you may not appreciate it as much until you dive into other thinkers. Understanding the problematic of the Passions of the Soul—that is, how the passions aim to bridge the gap between the soul and the body—will be useful to you for understanding various elements of Spinoza's philosophy (the central role that affect plays in his thought) as well as empiricism and idealism, but you need not read the whole work until later. I would also suggest checking out Blaise Pascal if you're looking for a fun read. Pascal and Hume work quite well together, I've found. If you want a break from rationalism, then that might be a good path for you. I have a sheet with the passages from the Pensées dedicated to skepticism if that problematic interests you. You can find it here. The notes follow the pagination of the Penguin edition of the text, and they should be followed in no particular order (maybe start with passage 44 and the starred ones?). Best of luck!

Plenty of Christian apologists were convinced by Christianity. What do you think would cause a staunch atheist to convert?

>Why do we distinguish between apologetics and philosophy?

Often we don't, and oftentimes a philosopher is an apologist and vice versa.

> Why are so few philosophers theists?

This wasn't the case for most of human history, and I don't think it's fair to draw the conclusion out of the current state of secularization in academia.

>If you think you've got something good then by all means share it, but I don't expect to be surprised.

Have you read the following?

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis - Lewis was an atheist for most of his life, but later became the most well-known Christian apologist. You might also want to read his autobiography, Surprised by Joy.

The Reason for God by Tim Keller.

The Language of God by Francis Collins -
This one is more about how science and religion relate, and it's written by one of the leading scientists of the modern day.

Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas This is the original apologetic. If you're alright with some more-serious reading, this would be a great book to have read, both from an intellectual and historical perspective.

Descartes' Meditations While I'm not really convinced by his arguments, Descartes is known as the "Father of Modern Philosophy" for popularizing rationalism, or the use of reason/logic as the chief source or test of knowledge.

Pascal's Pensees

The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant This is known as "one of the greatest works in the history of philosophy" Quite the opposite of Descartes, Kant actually argues against the notion that we can use reason alone to understand the universe.

Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard - This is definitely not apologetics. However, he was an incredibly Christian philosopher, and is known as the Father of Existentialism (interesting that the founder of existentialism was a devout Christian, though now it is often associated with atheists such as Sarte and Nietzsche).

>Really? Is there a place I can learn more about this?

I can recommend this publication of Pascal's Pensees, which has an excellent overview of the scholarship surrounding Pascal's postmortem publications.

As far as the errors of Pascal's wager, you shouldn't have too much trouble searching for "atheist responses to Pascal's wager". Although some don't recognize the simplicity of the error (false dichotomy of Christianity vs. Atheism), their responses, generally, are quite correct. Pascal's analysis leaves out the opportunity cost of the risk that Islam or some other religion will turn out to be true, and thus his analysis is incomplete. Also, Pascal essentially begs the question of whether the Christian God really is good. Of course Pascal would take that for granted, but unbelievers can be understandably skeptical on this point, given that this God supposedly killed a whole planet full of people in Noah's flood, and then commanded the Israelites to wage a bloody war against the Canaanites. If it is not established and agreed that the God of Christianity is good, then the cost/reward analysis becomes entirely subjective.

The situation this has created appears to me somewhat like this: Christians perceive the intuitive force of applying game theoretical considerations to the problem of religion, and thus continue to push Pascal's Wager, which superficially appears to them unproblematic, as it represents the problem of religion as it appears to them. But, the problem of religion appears to atheists in a very different way, which makes the problems of Pascal's Wager very obvious in their eyes. In the end, both sides end up talking past each other.

I think my approach could, possibly, bridge the gap. Instead of looking at the problem of religion at the level of "Which of these 4,000 religions is true?", I take the analysis back to the fundamental questions of religions: "Does God exist? and, If God does exist, Is God good?" This amounts to a nested double-dichotomy, and thus a true trilemma. Game theory principles can then be applied in a consistent, coherent way.

>But if something is justified just because it'll make you happier, doesn't that apply to anything?

The fact that something will "make you happier" can only be considered one aspect of the total analysis. And not a very useful one, all by itself. Qualitative judgments like that are not super helpful, unless we have reason to believe that they amount to infinitudes of reward or cost. For example, it is not just that the existence and goodness of God can make me "happy", but that the happiness that that kind of being is capable of giving is INFINITE. Eating dirt might make you happy for an hour or so, but a good God can make you happy forever (at least in principle).

The reason this is critical is because, while it is difficult to compare qualitative elements (and a game theoretical analysis is essentially a comparative analysis), we can nevertheless easily compare infinitudes with finitudes. For example, it is hard to compare the "good" experienced in a moment of heavenly existence (being characterized by peace, pleasure, spiritual fulfillment, love, etc.), and the "evil" experienced in a moment of earthly suffering. Both momentary experiences will be qualitative and finite. However, because the "good" to be experienced in heaven can, at least in principle, endure forever, while on the other hand the sufferings of earthly existence are temporary, we can easily see that the good of the end outweighs the evil of the means.

Now, the game theory analysis is more complicated than that, but the principle remains in effect. Infinite qualities do beat out finite ones.

Did you read the blog post I linked? I tried to be very exhaustive in my analysis of the potential costs and rewards associated with the basic options in the trilemma of the problem of religion. You should see that my argument rests on much more substance than the mere fact that believing in the existence and goodness of God makes me "happy". At least, I hope that one can see that. Obviously, I am open to criticism on that count.

>Is there any known answer to this question?

Hehe. Not that I've found in my research. It looks like there is an epistemological gap, which cannot be bridged by the normal operations of science or reason. There are many proposed arguments on the various sides of the argument, and I'm still working through some of them. Feser's Philosophy of the Mind presents many of the currently and historically popular arguments from all sides, in what is intended to be a fair representation. This book is intended as an introduction, and might be a good pickup for you as well.

While I have "adopted", for the time being, a hylemorphic dualist position, it is early days for me, and this may become subject to change. However, as a personal testimony, it makes sense of things that have always been vague, loose, unconnected bits of understanding for me. As someone else represented to me, learning the A-T metaphysical worldview has been like going down the rabbit hole of Alice in Wonderland, but in reverse. The nonsense in my worldview is rapidly being exposed, and the coherence of reality seems to be coming into focus.

>I believe that they can but I'm having a hard time understanding how they exist. Probably in a more simple way. Does that make sense?

Yes. I think you have good metaphysical instincts.

In my concept map, connecting all of the concepts of A-T metaphysics, God is in the center as Pure Being Itself (as opposed to one being among many). Among the attributes of God which Aquinas proves through the ways of negation, causation... and something else having to do with the Principle of Proportionate Causality... is "simplicity". The attribute of simplicity took me a long time to understand, and I resisted the idea the whole time. But then it made sense.

The reason I wanted to resist it is because I thought that God being "simple" meant He had to be one thing, and one thing only; and by "things" I kind of meant the way I perceive things in the natural order. For example, I have intelligence and power, and these things come through totally different ontological pathways. Thus, in me, intelligence and power are two different things. So I took intelligence and power in God to be the same kind of things as they are in me, and thus took it as nonsense to say that God was both intelligent and powerful, and yet "simple".

That is where Aquinas' doctrine of analogy helps. Intelligence and power still exist in God, but in God, they are not different things from each other. They are still "analogically" like the intelligence and power that are in me, being not exactly the same, while also not being completely different.

These concepts work out so that God's existence just is His essence, which just is His power, which just is His intelligence, and so on.

Now, as we branch out from God, we find things other than God MUST have an essence which is distinct from their existence. It is possible to have both incorporeal things as well as corporeal things in this realm. But corporeal things will be more complex than incorporeal things. That is because the "essence" of an incorporeal thing will not include matter at all, while still having elements belonging to the concept of a "form".

And it is argued that the only kind of "incorporeal substance" can be intellect (and will, but will is something that follows from intellect). So, intellect belongs in the region lying between the perfect simplicity of God, and the accident-prone complexity of corporeality. And we find ourselves as bridges between the incorporeal and the corporeal: rational animals.

Aquinas is not terribly long. I think you would get a lot out of it.

Hey, no need to promise beforehand to be convinced by them. :) Of course, if you read either of those books and are still interested, Pascal's writings themselves are obviously a good next step. Pensees.