Over at Hugh Hewitt's blog, Dean Barnett defines"cool" in the context of movies.

On last night’s show, I offered my list of “The Top 10 Cool Movies of the Past 20 Years.” Why only the past 20 years? Because tastes change, and what may have been very cool in another era is no longer cool today. For instance, “Gone with The Wind” was very cool in the 1930’s, but it is not cool today.
   So what is the definition of a cool movie? A cool movie has to be fresh and original. It also, by definition, has to be something that some people get and other people don’t. ... We all know “cool” when we see it. Oh, one other thing. “Cool” isn’t necessarily the same as “good”, although all the movies on our list are very good. By way of further elaboration, “Forrest Gump” was a great movie as was “Schindler’s List”. But obviously, neither one was cool.

 I will appropriate his definition for philosophy, and suggest that today Materialism isn't 'cool' but Aristotle is. He obviously was cool in the 13th century, dropped out of favor by the 17th, and to my knowledge, hasn't been cool for the last 400 years, except of course, to reactionary Vatican theologians.

But as I remarked in an earlier post on the Cardinal of Vienna, once in a while I find someone who understands the problem with Enlightenment, Kantian, Modernist epistemology, as ably represented by Richard Dawkins and the "New Atheists",  and invariably they identify the solution as Aristotle. That is, Aristotle had 4 causes, four explanations for every event: the material, the effective, the formal and the final. Think of this as a newspaper man's mantra that every story should have in the lead paragraph: Who, What, Where, When, Why and How.  So also every disciple of Aristotle was trained to ask: What/Where/When (material), How (effective), Who (Formal)  Why (Final). Materialism, invented by Democritus in the same Greek century, allowed for only the first two causes. This is not unlike reporting the number of dead soldiers in Iraq without saying who killed them or the reasons for their deaths. Aristotle pooh-poohed the entire materialist enterprise since he saw no point in compiling totals if they did not answer ultimate questions such as "Why?"

Yet this is precisely what Materialism advocated, though in an obviously contradictory way, since they denied purpose to everything but themselves, so that their theory could not contain itself. The Greeks had no use for Materialism, and it was not until the 16th and 17th centuries that it began to show limited usefulness in the sciences. It may never had had usefulness if it were not for a misuse of Aristotelean science, which claimed final causes trumped the other three. Only through a Materialist stubborn ignorance of Final Causes, could proper attention be brought to material and efficient causes again. But this progress came at a price, one that Dawkins is rediscovering afresh. For if there are no Final causes, then we cannot infer meaning from function, and if there is no meaning, there is no moral opprobrium.

At least, so said Francis Beckwith, a philosopher at Baylor University (a Baptist-affiliated institution), fellow of the Discovery Institute, and a 2007 convert to Roman Catholicism.

So if the theist is irrational for believing in God based on what turns out to be pseudo-design, Dawkins is irrational in his judgment of Wise and other creationists whom he targets for reprimand and correction. For Dawkins’ judgment rests on a premise that—although uncompromisingly maintained throughout his career—only appears to be true.

For some reason, this brought out the big guns, Richard Miller, from Villanova School of Law (a RCC-affiliated school) who take Beckwith to task for conflating function and purpose.  Appropriately stung from the 16th century criticism of Aristotle, Miller wants to make sure no one confuses function (take the first 3 causes lumped together) with purpose (final causes). It was this confusion, undoubtedly, that lost the battle to the Materialists 400 years ago, and like Kant, Miller thinks that we can keep theology pristine if we don't let some loony Deist start inferring purpose from function. You know the argument, you find a watch on the beach and notice its gears and wheels, and next thing you know you're inferring a watchmaker who understands time and perhaps is even trapped in time. "Not logically necessary" huffs Miller.
Which is true, as far as it goes, but confuses the logic of mathematics with the logic of final causes. That is, it makes the case that by finding a one in a zillion possibility that the function was an accident invalidates the proof that it was designed. As Beckwith knows, and perhaps Miller doesn't, probabilities cut both ways. If it were a one in two chance for watches to appear on the beach by accident, I'd agree with Miller, but if it is a one in a trillion, trillion chance, I'd side with Beckwith. As it turns out, I'd need to put down about 10 more trillions to approach the actual magnitude of the probability, but hey, if I can't convince MIller with two trillions, then no amount will be sufficient.

But to be fair to Miller, it isn't Deists he is attacking, it's Aristotle. Or perhaps I should say, it is an irreligious Aristotle he is defending. The idea is an old one among anti-Christians, that one can be a very well respected atheist and moralist without ever invoking the name of God. Dostoyevsky was just plain wrong when he said "without God, everything is permissible." Miller argues:

 More generally, there is no doubt that Aristotle had a moral system, and there is no reason Dawkins can’t be an Aristotelian in ethics consistent with his understanding of human origins and evolution. There is much wrong with what Dawkins says, but he doesn’t disable himself from making moral judgments, at least not ones couched in an Aristotelian form of natural morality.

Now I want to pause and consider the irony of the situation. Beckwith is a former Protestant who teaches at a Baptist college, converts to RCC and is defending a Medieval understanding of Aristotle. Miller is a Catholic at a RCC school, who is defending a liberal Protestant view that Aristotle is best understood through the filter of atheistic (chance-driven) evolution. 

Beckwith's position is that function can infer purpose, and even more strongly, if and only if there is purpose can function and morality follow. MIller's position is that function can't infer purpose, and in fact, purposeless chance-driven evolution can still drive function, as well as morality. Why would two writers for First Things come to such blows? Because Beckwith is attacking Dawkins' evolutionary materialism, whereas Miller has come to a Kantian truce with evolution.

Here's Beckwith's defense:

Beckwith "gets it". An Aristotelean universe is filled with meaning, with purpose. Some materialists have tried to appropriate Aristotle as an agnostic inductive scientist whose categories deny Plato's eternal forms. But this is a misreading of his entire "furniture" of essences, natures, and mind. As the 20th century required the mastery of mechanics, so the 21st century will require the mastery of mind. It is only the fool who denies Aristotle the place honor. (Discovery Institute, are you listening?) `Cause Aristotle is cool. Again.