The Most Important Question | Episode 1 

After re-watching every bit of content you've done on the youtubes several times I am thoroughly excited to have new, at least semi-regular, content! Thank you!

Man. I’m so happy to see you finally got a podcast! I’ve been looking out for new content from you every couple of weeks, consistently for the last two years!

This is so good. Dr. Jacobs has a way of pulling together data points I've learned over the years into an easy to understand summary. This deepens my faith, great stuff!

This is a masterclass. Extremely clear, comprehensive, and engaging. Such an important and underappreciated field.

So articulate. Discussing topics on a level I can really get involved with and easy understand. Thank you Nathan & God bless.

This was incredible. Glad I stumbled onto your page through Pageau.

Thank you! This is wonderful! I have a major in Philosophy but have never had it laid out like this, a condensed history. Love it! I'm grateful you're doing this, thank you, thank you!

Can't wait to listen to more!

Super underrated channel!

I made it through this! It wasn’t easy but it was worth it. I’m fascinated. My biggest challenge is grasping how belief in God is realism. Help me. I’m going to listen a second time. Keep it up!

great overview ❤ Nice paintings 😊

i’ve heard of this philosophical divide before but never heard it taught with such clarity. bravo and keep going!

Thanks for the excellent outline. The 4 steps that you talked about towards the end of the video I find of key importance. Your comments helped to solidify my own understandings about the crucial role that differing worldviews play in arguments, and you certainly helped me to crystalize that idea in my mind. I recently wrote an article for a print magazine on the subject of godlessness and how the difference in perception (a Christian typically sees human life/the soul as priceless, whereas a conflicting godless worldview might perceive humans as "hackable animals", as a certain transhumanist guru said in a famous talk) - it would have helped to hone my arguments and present them in a more clear way while referencing your podcast, if I had listened to it prior to writing the article, but alas maybe next time. Thank you and greetings from Eastern Europe.

100%, Dr. Jacobs. Thank you so much for laying this all out so clearly and succinctly. Long but absolutely necessary. We MUST reframe the conversation more at that third and fourth level.

I'm loving this but I'm almost an hour and a half into this and I don't think he's mentioned St. Thomas Aquinas, the guy who synthesized all Realism in the high middle ages. William of Ockham's Nominalism was primarily a reaction against St. Thomas Aquinas. Other than this huge omission, this is outstanding. Thank you.

Dr. Jacobs, thank you so much. This is priceless, and the best overall summary of our current dilemma that I've yet heard. I've been yelling about this to anyone who will listen for several years now, and have adopted the analogy that we're playing intellectual king of the hill while standing on different hills. The question I can't get my head around, and would love to hear a response to if you check your comments, is this: How do those who adopt materialism/utilitarianism, which functionally abolishes free will, still believe in any form of intentionality like social engineering? I can't understand for the life of me how those who preach the death of free will also seem to believe they've arrived at that conclusion via rational means. Doesn't rationality require free will? Please help me see what I'm missing. And really, thanks again, this is such a great summary of the history that's lead us to an absolutely untenable cultural situation.

I thoroughly enjoyed this! Thank you so much!

This was one of the best podcasts I've ever listened to. Knew it would be. I'll probably be referring to this video for a long time. Great work. Very clear. Now I have 3 channels I have subscribed to with notifications. Pageau, Curt Jaimungal, and Nathan Jacobs. Serious quality

So excited to see you’ve started a podcast!

Access to higher tiers of conversation require a rehabilitation of levels of knowing beyond the propositional.

Had a blast last weekend but I wish we could’ve hung out more. Really digging these podcasts too. Concise and easy to digest🍻☦️

I think it's interesting that it's not necessary to grasp an idea on a "3 and 4" level in order to espouse it on a "1 and 2", and yet the "1 and 2" espousal remains so consistent with the "3 and 4" foundation. Seems counterintuitive - usually the ability to portray something simply and accurately depends on a mastery of the fine print. I think the same thing is true often times in theology. People have surface level theological commitments without realizing their implications. The point is that those implications end up manifesting themselves anyway.

this is so lit i didn’t know you started this channel 😎☦️📿

Would it be correct to say that Darwinism is nominalism applied to biology? And therefor to be a realist one cannot accept the idea that biological kinds inevitably change into other kinds with enough time?

Very interesting podcast! Thank you! On the issue of universals: (I was thinking how to explain a philosophical issue of the universals in simple words. It concerns us in many ways and without true knowledge that gives us Revelation there may be a lot of opinions and confusion). Everything common (for example, it is easiest to consider the genera of living beings) from the point of view of the Christian faith and the Christian philosophy, that follows from it , exists quite realistically, but not in itself, but in specific hypostases. Catness exists! And the common human essence (nature) also exists! It is not a mental abstraction, as nominalists believe, and not an accidental temporary link in an eternally evolving protocell, as modern unscrupulous scientists believe, passing off their quasi-religious nominalistic views as science. And it is not even what Plato and Aristotle imagined, relying only on their observations and conjectures, and not on the truth of Revelation. Although both of them came close to the truth in their reflections, making this path, so to speak, from different sides. A completely different picture emerges if we take into account that the world was created by a personal triune and coessential God, and not by some impersonal force or arose by itself. 1) The eternal plan of God about the world to be created, which Saint Maximus the Confessor calls creative logoi (ideas, thoughts, verbs, etc. - this Greek word has many meanings), determines both everything common that unites the world and all its divisions. Each nature common to all creatures of one kind is the result of the realization of such a creative plan. The common nature is determined by the common logos of nature, but it is realized in specific hypostases - individual representatives of this nature - having their own trope (image, mode) of existence. Thus, it turns out that the cattish nature quite really exists in each specific cat. And the single human nature is realized in each specific person. This common nature is unchangeable, therefore, although its individual representatives may have some differences in the way of existence depending on the circumstances of birth and life (and for rational beings - and possible differences in the aspiration of the will - to be good or evil), but they cannot transgress the limits of their nature, turning into something else (from an "ape-like ancestor" into a person, for example). 2) Since man is created in the image of God, he is also given creative ability, although limited in comparison with God. So for clarity, we can draw a similarity with human creativity. We also create an engineering project or the simplest idea in our imagination before creating anything. This project is realized in the creation of the thing itself. We also first design a general idea of an automobile, a ship or an airplane, laying down various design principles, then we draw up a project for a specific ship or airplane and embody them in a specific product. We, of course, do not possess the omnipotence of God, our word cannot immediately become a deed, our creative process is divided into separate stages. Also, we cannot create out of nothing, but are only capable of transforming what has already been brought into being by God, in accordance with the laws of everything that exists already set by God. Nevertheless, there are many similarities between our creative process and God's creativity. Therefore, it is intuitively clear to us that at the basis of every work there must be a concept that determines the properties of a thing, and we can easily, seeing the amazing complexity of the world around us, guess that behind this superbly harmonious, finely tuned work there must be a Creator who surpasses all our ideas. The world, created by God from nothing, can be likened to the work of an artist, if it were drawn on water: as long as the artist continues the same movement of the brush (say, draws a circle), the work exists, but as soon as he takes away his brush, everything returns to non-existence. Likewise God also maintains His creations in existence if we keep in mind that He does not create from already available materials, as we do. He only has to take away His almighty hand, and all creation returns to its non-existence...

Spot on. Would love a lecture on this, analysing every step. Do you have any book/media recommendstions?

Dr Jacobs, I made my way over after your discussion with Pageau. I wanted to ask a question and hoped it would make its way to your attention as I'm quite intrigued by your hypothesis. Presupposing said hypothesis, how do individuals arrive in the place where they have imbibed either one of these sensibilities? To what degree do individuals reflect a mixture of these sensibilities and in what ways does that manifest? Thank you for your time and any attention you may give to this question.

Hi Nathan. Would love to talk metamodern spirituality/Christianity with you in a podcast sometime. Let me know if you'd be interested.

This was great, thank you. How do you think the realism / nominalism dichotomy maps to Iain McGilchrist's idea of the left and right brain hemispheres and their different ways of seeing the world (in his book The Master and his Emissary) ?

How would philosophical realism apply to adoption? Would it classify an adopted child as a second-class family member, because they are not from the substance of the parents? Nominalism would seem more amenable to making someone a family member by simply treating them like it, or by fiat.

Jackson Nancy Robinson Shirley Allen Larry

This podcast is a masterclass on entry level philosophy and metaphysics. I knew after watching your conversation with J Pageau, I would be hooked.

Hi Nathan thank you, love your stuff keep it up!!

This is one of the best summaries regarding the history of ideas I've ever heard!

Yes, I struggled through the plethora of nuanced twists in explanations - and suddenly I could see the almost heroic efforts of the Western mind in trying to understand the world and the mind. Am I right to narrow it down to the Western mind? Buddhism does not like to struggle any way, Islam grew such a different mindset (can I presumptuously call it childlike naivety?) Zen is observant (realism?) but does not like conclusions.... I am keen to hear more!

This was an incredibly enlightening way to conceptualize a lot of the hot button issues of the day -- trans rights, abortion, etc.

What! You started a podcast and I had no idea Downloading all episodes now

Excellent job of outlining the question and unpacking the history behind it. You have a talent for making the complex, clear.

There is one root cause, inequality

This is great, thank you

This is so amazing, i have been hoping for you to start your own podcast since i hear your interview with Hank so many years ago. Im happy it finally comes true.

903 views? Unbelievable. Make sure you support Dr Jacobs. Clarity meets explanatory power in the vocabulary non academics.