Aristotle doesn’t deny Parminde’s DIlemma per se; he “solves” it by saying that parmenides was equivocating on the concept of “what is.” By offering that “What Is” is such-and-such by virtue of either essence or accident, he has granted that nothing comes from nothing, but that things can come into being, so to speak, by changing (which is Parm’s other dilemma).

Block becomes man-shaped when whittled, but that is a non-essential change. The essential existence of the man-shape can not change.

Parmenides’ Dilemma, as it is normally called, can be broken down formally like this:

1) if there is coming into being, it must come from what is or from what is not. [this argument exhausts the possibilities (or tries to) with two "horns" or "lemata", ergo a "dilemma"]
2) if it comes from what is, then it has not come into being, it already existed.
3) if it comes from what is not, that’s absurd; nothing comes from nothing.

.’. ergo there is no coming into being, since all possible situations are absurd.

I suspect that in your objections to his position however, you might slightly misunderstand what he’s trying to do. You write

“I am not sure that people can intelligibly disagree about certain moral principles found in the Natural Law. That is not to say that people don’t disagree (obviously). It is only to say that the disagreement on the part of those denying certain Natural Law principles is unintelligible.”

-Certainly, this is a fair point. However, it seems to be a claim that we have to remain agnostic about unless (as hint at) we accept the epistemological legitimacy of revelation.

Rather than argue with this position (which Stevenson can’t do if it is based on faith) I think that Stevenson is responding to a famous argument which supported objective moral validity that was made on precisely the grounds of the mystery of why moral statements can be intelligible (G.E. Moore’s open question argument).

If (and only if) we remain unconvinced of the grounds for accepting revelatory claims as moral knowledge (and I currently am, though that’s a separate discussion, obviously), I think it’s fair to say that Stevenson’s account does a good job of explaining all the relevant evidence.

Here’s a summary of Moore’s argument:

“If goodness could be thought to entirely consist in the definitions which other philosophers have ascribed to it—roughly, “pleasure” in the case of Mill and Bentham—than Moore points out that the proposition “Pleasure is good” is a tautology; for all the proposition means if good is entirely synonymous with pleasure is the statement that “Pleasure is pleasure.” Moore feels that there is clearly something more at work in this statement than a mere tautology. Hence, he claims that all definitions of the form “Good is x” are subject to the open question—which Moore feels will necessarily always be open—“But is x really good?”

Moore then concludes that

“there is a simple, indefinable, unanalysable object of thought by reference to which it [good] must be defined” (354).

His analysis above is perfectly correct (and that is why Stevenson attempts to respond to it). However, his final conclusion, Stevenson’s account has shown us (and this is why it’s valuable), is not necessarily true.

Moral philosophical discussion on that facebook website if you’re interested — it’s on precisely the sort question that you bring up — my Habermasian perspective perhaps approaches a moral objection to Catholic metaphysics. Your comments would be welcome.

Cheers!

-Matt

Yeah, I don’t like analytic philosophy either. I had a philosophy of mind course last semester, and it drove me up a wall. “um, excuse me, HOW exactly do you all expect to come up with a complete and objective explanation for consciousness and the mind-body problem? It’s not as though you can stand outside of consciousness and lived body experience and figure out that it’s ‘really nothing more than x.’” To me it would be better to stop worrying about stupid questions, and work out a phenomenology of lived body experience etc. instead.

Continental is way more fun!

*end rant*

I must call you soon. Sorry I’ve been a creep and haven’t talked to you in about five years!

I like your blog. I’m a newbie-Catholic, too, just this past Easter. What a joy it is!