Thursday, November 03, 2005

Elsewhere on Idolatry as Philosophical Error

Bill Vallicella at "The Maverick Philosopher" has an interesting post, called Idolatry, Desire, Buddha, Causation, and Malebranche that builds on my previous post on idolatry as a philosophical problem in Malebranche, and which has produced some interesting comments.

One interesting thing that I'd like at some point to look at, and haven't been able to do as of yet, is to examine how Malebranche is adapting Augustine's distinctions between use and fruition (enjoyment) on the one hand, and between cupidity and charity on the other, because this is at least in the background of Malebranche's analysis of idolatry, and it would be interesting to look more closely at what he's accepting and what he's modifying from that account.