Recently various religious leaders convened for an annual breakfast with NY Mayor Bloomberg to discuss community building. This year was the first to include atheists in the group.
According to the NY Times, it was Nazli Parvizi, the mayor’s commissioner of the Community Affairs Unit and an atheist, who “decided to invite atheists for the first time. She said she was inspired in part by President Obama’s inaugural address, which included a prominent reference to America’s nonbelievers.” Continue Reading »
Teleology is the study of the purposes of action, development and existence. Its practitioners believe nature is purposeful. An ancient and enduring form of inquiry that has been out-of-fashion among educated people for centuries, teleology’s slow, steady decline as a scientific theory began in the 17th century with the birth of modern empiricism and continued to plummet apace with the rise of the Enlightenment, Darwinism, and quantum mechanics. Nature is not purposeful, it was said, and those who continued to think it was were primarily spiritualists, artists, or madmen, who credited the guidance of gods, muses, or fate. Continue Reading »
As the new millennium began, I, bravely or naïvely, committed myself to this discredited branch of philosophy, officially submitting “teleological narratives” as my dissertation topic. Although I was working on a doctorate in English at City University New York (CUNY) Graduate School, I needed a scientific advisor on my dissertation committee because teleology and biological self-organization are so entwined. Continue Reading »
Telos is Greek for an “end” or function, which helps explain why something exists or why its previous actions occurred: in order to serve that function. Telic action requires some kind representation of the goal that helps achieve it. In short, teleologists argue that ideas, or something like mental concepts or thoughts, cause events in a way wholly different from the way that objects cause events (atoms, molecules or larger bodies hitting each other and/or reacting). Continue Reading »
Telos is otherwise known as final cause, one of four causes identified by Aristotle’s natural philosophy: Material cause describes how the physical properties of matter determine what a thing is and how it will react with other things. For example, an ivory ball will roll differently than a wooden ball, as the density and weight of the material determines how much resistance it has. Efficient cause describes how the agent (person, animal, or even a moving object like a billiard ball) acting on something determines what happens. For example, the pool player, the cue stick or ball hitting another ball at rest is the efficient cause of the latter’s moving. Formal cause describes how the “blueprint” or the natural laws of form determine what can be. Some forms are physically impossible; others are very probable. Experienced pool players have learned that certain types of moves can be expected to result in certain types of outcomes, and they may apply their knowledge of geometry to their game. Final cause describes how the “end,” or the function something ultimately serves, determines what happens or how something develops. The ball was struck so that the pool player might win the game and further develop his abilities and reputation. Continue Reading »
There is a new campaign in NYC subways. Various atheist and humanist groups have decided to give a “call out” to the others like themselves. The ads feature a serenely blue sky and the words, “Are you good without God? Millions are.”
I’d like to think I count among those millions so I am answering that call. Being godless can affect people in different ways, but we have some strong tendencies in common. We tend to be independent thinkers; an atheist’s values are not inherited; they are hard won and carefully evaluated. Continue Reading »
Do you remember in the nineties, when those enemies of progress decried the big box booksellers nudging independent stores out of business? They claimed chainstore dominance would ultimately decrease the diversity of titles sold. We might have listened. They were right. Once there were thousands of thoughtful, eccentric, and qualified people choosing which books should go on shelves, but that number shot down to just dozens, and the decisions went to people with marketing degrees, not elbow patches. But—I am first to admit it—at the time I was happy to have a cozy library-ish place to sip my espresso, and, even though there was nothing on the shelves for me other than the classics I already owned, I rationalized that I could always order the books I wanted. I sold out, I now realize. I sold my literary fiction down the river. Continue Reading »
While genre authors are better off sticking with the present publishing system, which is specifically design for the kind of books they write, literary fiction authors are better off seeking out new ways to produce and sell their work. Continue Reading »
