Is ‘I like it’ the same as ‘It is good’? Tradition says no, but many people today say yes.

Is beauty in the eye of the beholder or an objective truth? Tradition says the latter, but if that is so, why do so many people think the opposite?

And anyway, does it even matter?

In this episode Charlie Deist and I get philosophical and talk about such things as beauty, goodness, truth, and consider why if we get this wrong it could spell misery for us as individuals and the breakdown of society. We also discuss how we might help persuade people who think otherwise of the error of their ways.

In the course of this I referred to the idea that a being, something that exists - for example a person or even a cup - is an entity. I referred to all these as ‘substances’ in the philosophical jargon. I realised later that in fact while the point is correct, each of things are entities and not just arbitrary collections of atoms, they come under different categories philosophically. A person is a substance while the cup, which is made by man and does not contain the principle for unity within itself and so can decay once made, is an artifact. This doesn’t change the point I was making, but it’s worth getting things right!

At the end of the podcast, I start to discuss the virtue of religion (which is the practice of the worship of God) and how this preserves right philosophy as well as right faith. I refer to a series of videos produced by Fr Brad Elliot and Fr Thomas Aquinas of the Western Province of Domincans. Here’s the first. You can find the rest if you Google ‘Virtue of Religion Brad Elliot OP West’.

If you Google, The virtue of religion Brad Elliot O.P you will find the others.