Friday, February 18, 2005

No Infinite Regress Here

What are my philosophical interests? I'm interested in early modern philosophy because I'm interested in Malebranche and Hume. I'm interested in Malebranche because I'm interested in Hume. I'm interested in Hume because I'm interested in modern thought generally. I'm interested in modern thought generally because I'm interested in the extent to which a modern Aristotelianism is possible. I'm interested in that because I'm interested in Aristotle. I'm interested in Aristotle because I'm interested in medieval scholasticism. And so it goes. But eventually the line gets to Aquinas, and I'm interested in Aquinas because he's just awesome, the end. So when people ask me what my philosophical interests are, I either start at the end of the chain with early modern philosophy or at the beginning with Aquinas. The whole universe is in the middle.