I stumbled across this interview of Dr. Rachel Fulton Brown awhile ago, and it has helped me a lot in a number of ways. One of the ways in which this interview has really helped me was Dr. Rachel Fulton Brown's comments on Nominalism, and how it apparently leads to legalistic, negative thinking. I'm now trying to avoid Nominalistic approaches to prayer and conduct and it has helped quite a bit, but I'd like some more resources and help. Can anyone provide me with more information on Nominalism, it's refutation, and how to avoid thinking in Nominalistic ways?
The Catholic encyclopoedia will be a good start or a dictionary of philosophy. Edward Fesers book, The Last Superstition, will trace in a very readable manner the tragedy of the abandonment of the perennial philosophy especially since the 13th/14th centuries with the nominalisitic mindset gaining traction in the old universities right up to the horrors of Descartes, Locke, hume, kant etc etc. Basic premise: we cannot know any thing beyond our own fleeting sensory experiences. There are no essences, natures etc. Only the particular exists. The mind has no power to abstract the universal form of things. As such, all we can know is this dog, this tree, this person as opposed to abstract universals like dogginess, treeness, humanness etc. Transfer this mentality over to the realm of morality and you have big problems. If there is no human nature say, if we cannot say that x is right or wrong and the reasons why x is right or wrong then witness the swell of so called positive law and the appeals to freedom of the will. The practical consequences of this philosophy are devastating. Hope this does not confuse things even more.
Okay so I listened to the video above she is very good but is lost when speaking about the Catholic philosophical tradition. She needs to get good old Taylor Marshall or feser to give her the Aquinas 101.
Thanks, I was a bit confused about some of the things she said. I guess I just need to stick to Orare et Legere, and just take in things as they come for now. I definitely will look into the books you recommend though.
