ad hominem (IV)

The next step is tricky. This is a line of argument i have tried in several settings, analytic to continental to layman, but never with success. It is the claim that there are true but trivial truths. It may just be, as George E Smith might say, an artifact of my approach to philosophy, especially to philosophy of science. In that field, from my stance, the truths of the Scholastic scientists are of this kind. They are logically sound. They merely are not "the kind of truth worth wanting" to borrow a Dan Dennett phrase.
Why does opium make men sleepy? It has dormitive virtues.
When we cash-out what the Scholastics mean by by virtues, roughly "Aristoteleon essential properties", the claim is little more than the claim that opium produces sleepiness because it has properties that produce sleepiness.

I have have stated it there it sounds merely viciously circular. The Scholastic claim is not quite just that, but the form is related. Circular truths are themselves an example of the class of trivially true, but they are generally easy to root out. The truths of the Scholastics takes a little more work.

[called into work ... more later]