June 26, 2019
Pruss and Rasmussen's Necessary Existence: Conclusion and Table of Posts
Pruss and Rasmussen conclude with an appendix providing "a slew of arguments" for the claim that there is a necessary being. These arguments are, for the most part, presented without defense or other comment, and it is clear that the authors do not actually endorse the premises of all of them. However, they contribute to the book's broader purpose of showing that the existence of a necessary being is difficult to avoid, and that determination to avoid it commits one to some substantive philosophical views. Every one of Pruss and Rasmussen's arguments leaves open certain paths for the opponent to...
Continue reading "Pruss and Rasmussen's Necessary Existence: Conclusion and Table of Posts"
June 25, 2019
Pruss and Rasmussen on Arguments Against a Necessary Being
Many philosophers find the premises of at least some arguments for the existence of a necessary being attractive, but regard the existence of a necessary being either as itself absurd or as having absurd consequences. Pruss and Rasmussen's ninth and final chapter therefore considers a series of six arguments against a necessary being. For the most part, the responses have a common structure. An opponent employs certain principles of logic, epistemology, or semantics connected with possibility and necessity to argue against the existence of a necessary being. Pruss and Rasmussen respond by showing how those same principles can be employed...
Continue reading "Pruss and Rasmussen on Arguments Against a Necessary Being"
June 24, 2019
Pruss and Rasmussen on the Gödelian Ontological Argument
Pruss and Rasmussen's eighth chapter focuses on the Gödelian ontological argument, which is so-called because it is based on some unpublished notes by the mathematician Kurt Gödel. Pruss has already written extensively on this argument, and it is safe to say that he is recognized as its foremost proponent today. The argument here (in contrast to Pruss's previous treatments, and also to the original Gödel notes, and the influential treatment by Sobel) is presented with the bare minimum of technical apparatus and should be accessible to anyone familiar with the basics of sentential logic. Along the way, the chapter includes...
Continue reading "Pruss and Rasmussen on the Gödelian Ontological Argument"
Topic(s):
Alexander R. Pruss
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Divine Attributes
,
Existence of God
,
Historical Thinkers
,
Joshua L. Rasmussen
,
Kurt Gödel
,
Metaphysics
,
Modality
,
Ontological Argument
,
Philosophical Theology
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Religion
Posted by
Kenny at
4:25 PM
|
Comments (0)
|
TrackBack (0)
June 21, 2019
Pruss and Rasmussen on the Argument from Necessary Abstracta
Pruss and Rasmussen's seventh chapter puts forward an argument for the existence of a necessary concrete being from the existence of necessary abstracta. They connect this strategy with an argument of Leibniz's. The Leibnizian argument, usually known as the 'argument from necessary truths', is to some extent known in the contemporary literature, but it has not become part of the standard list of arguments for the existence of God. (For instance, it is not discussed in Jordan Howard Sobel's Logic and Theism or Graham Oppy's Arguing About Gods.) Leibniz himself always seems to run through this argument very fast, and...
Continue reading "Pruss and Rasmussen on the Argument from Necessary Abstracta"
Topic(s):
Abstract Objects
,
Alexander R. Pruss
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Existence of God
,
G. W. Leibniz
,
Historical Thinkers
,
Joshua L. Rasmussen
,
Metaphysics
,
Modality
,
Ontology
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Religion
,
Truth
Posted by
Kenny at
6:42 PM
|
Comments (0)
|
TrackBack (0)
June 20, 2019
Pruss and Rasmussen on Modal Uniformity
Pruss and Rasmussen's sixth chapter is entitled "From Modal Uniformity." Based on the general format of the book, one might have expected a new argument for a necessary being from modal uniformity, but that is not exactly what happens in this chapter. Rather, a principle of modal uniformity is offered in support of the possibility premises employed by the previous arguments. The general idea behind principles of modal uniformity is that certain kinds of differences in propositions look modally irrelevant. That is, we don't expect these differences to lead to a difference in modal status. Pruss and Rasmussen focus on...
Continue reading "Pruss and Rasmussen on Modal Uniformity"
June 19, 2019
Pruss and Rasmussen's Second Argument from Possible Causes
Traditional cosmological arguments typically include a premise about what things have causes or explanations. Modal cosmological arguments rely instead on a premise about what things could have causes or explanations. The aim of Pruss and Rasmussen's fifth chapter is to uncover the weakest/safest/most modest principle about possible causes that can be used to construct a valid modal cosmological argument. They arrive at the following (I retain their numbering): The W Principle: normally, for any property P, if (i) P can begin to be exemplified, (ii) P can have instances that have a cause; (iii) P is basic or a determinate...
Continue reading "Pruss and Rasmussen's Second Argument from Possible Causes"
Topic(s):
Alexander R. Pruss
,
Causation
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Cosmological Argument
,
Existence of God
,
Joshua L. Rasmussen
,
Metaphysics
,
Modality
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Religion
,
Properties
Posted by
Kenny at
3:57 PM
|
Comments (0)
|
TrackBack (0)
June 18, 2019
Pruss and Rasmussen's First Argument from Possible Causes
Pruss and Rasmussen's fourth chapter discusses what the authors variously describe as a "modal cosmological argument" or "argument from possible causes". Although this type of argument has received some discussion in the recent philosophy of religion literature, it is much less well known than the classical argument from contingency discussed in chapter three, and the dialectic of objections and replies is much less well-worn. The idea behind this kind of argument is that since the modal system S5 defended in chapter two validates the inference from possibly there is a necessary being to there is a necessary being, it suffices...
Continue reading "Pruss and Rasmussen's First Argument from Possible Causes"
June 17, 2019
Pruss and Rasmussen on the Argument from Contingency
Pruss and Rasmussen's third chapter begins the book's main project, the examination of arguments for a necessary being. They describe the argument presented here as "classical," in contrast to the "newer, more sophisticated" arguments they will discuss later (p. 33). The argument they present is indeed pretty similar to versions that would be found in a typical survey of philosophy of religion. However, the discussion of the argument is careful and sophisticated, and it does show how the considerations about modality discussed in chapter 2 can help to improve our understanding of the argument, and in particular to answer some...
Continue reading "Pruss and Rasmussen on the Argument from Contingency"
Topic(s):
Alexander R. Pruss
,
Causation
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Cosmological Argument
,
Existence of God
,
Explanation
,
Joshua L. Rasmussen
,
Metaphysics
,
Modality
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Religion
Posted by
Kenny at
6:18 PM
|
Comments (0)
|
TrackBack (0)
June 14, 2019
Pruss and Rasmussen on Modal Logic
Chapter two of Pruss and Rasmussen's Necessary Existence can be seen as preliminary to the main project of the book. The core aim of the chapter is the explanation and defense of a picture of metaphysical modality that is already (so it seems to me) standard among analytic metaphysicians. The chapter concludes with a brief demonstration of a proposition that will be a crucial lemma in many of the arguments throughout the book: if a necessary being is possible, then a necessary being is actual. Those who are already immersed in analytic metaphysics and accept the modal system S5 could...
Continue reading "Pruss and Rasmussen on Modal Logic"
June 13, 2019
Introduction to Pruss and Rasmussen, Necessary Existence
One of my projects this summer is a review of Alexander Pruss and Joshua Rasmussen's Necessary Existence for American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly. I read the book for the first time a few months ago, but I'm now working through it more carefully in preparation for writing the review. I've often found it helpful in the past to write a blog post about each chapter of a book and then condense them into a review, and I'll be doing that here over the next couple of weeks. The project of the book is to investigate arguments for the claim that there...
Continue reading "Introduction to Pruss and Rasmussen, Necessary Existence"
Topic(s):
Alexander R. Pruss
,
Causation
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Creation and Conservation
,
Grounding
,
Joshua L. Rasmussen
,
Metaphysics
,
Modality
,
Ontology
,
Philosophical Theology
,
Philosophy
Posted by
Kenny at
9:59 PM
|
Comments (0)
|
TrackBack (3)
September 15, 2015
Sets and Possible Worlds
This semester I'm directing an independent study on modal logic with a couple of students with strong math background. Yesterday some questions about sets and possible worlds came up, so I wrote up some notes for my students on the subject. This blog post is adapted from those notes. Introduction The development of axiomatic set theory was launched by consideration of Russell's Paradox: let A be the set of all sets that do not contain themselves. Does A contain itself or not? (This was on Existential Comics just yesterday!) The collection of axioms mathematicians developed to avoid paradox has the...
Continue reading "Sets and Possible Worlds"
July 25, 2014
Regarding All Those Possible Arnaulds
One of the main topics of the Leibniz-Arnauld correspondence is the question how, on Leibniz's theory, it can be true that Arnauld might have had children and been a physician rather than being a celibate theologian (see Arnauld's letter of May 13, 1686). One of the curious things that happens in this discussion is that both Leibniz and Arnauld start talking about the many Adams and many Judases and many Arnaulds in the various possible worlds, with Leibniz insisting that none of them is identical to the actual Adam/Judas/Arnauld. In that May 13 letter, Arnauld even speaks of 'several mes',...
Continue reading "Regarding All Those Possible Arnaulds"
March 18, 2014
March 10, 2014
The Puzzle of Existence: Concluding Thoughts and Table of Posts
I have now completed my series of posts on The Puzzle of Existence. I'll conclude by saying that I enjoyed most of the essays in this book quite a lot, and found them interesting food for thought. Further reflection on the points raised by the various authors stands to enrich metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and the theory of explanation. Additionally, most of the essays are quite accessible for non-specialists, including advanced undergraduate students. Assuming that a less expensive paperback version becomes available, this book would be a great choice for graduate or advanced undergraduate courses covering explanation in metaphysics, the...
Continue reading "The Puzzle of Existence: Concluding Thoughts and Table of Posts"
March 6, 2014
McDaniel's Ontological Pluralism and the Puzzle of Existence
The very last essay in The Puzzle of Existence is the article by Kris McDaniel which examines the bearing of ontological pluralism on the question, why is there something rather than nothing? Ontological pluralism, as McDaniel uses that term, is the thesis that there is more than one kind of being, existence, or reality. (McDaniel usually prefers the term 'being,' but seems to use 'existence' and 'reality' as synonyms.) This is not simply the trivial thesis that there are many different kinds of beings (i.e., that there are things of many different kinds), and it is not a metaphysically deflationary...
Continue reading "McDaniel's Ontological Pluralism and the Puzzle of Existence"
March 4, 2014
Maitzen on the Explanatory Power of Penguins
In his contribution to The Puzzle of Existence, Stephen Maitzen defends the surprising claim that penguins hold the answer to the deep mysteries of the universe. Well, that's not exactly what he says. Maitzen's position is that the only interpretation of 'why is there something rather than nothing?' on which that sentence expresses a legitimate, well-formed question is one on which it is not a deep mystery at all, but a trivial empirical question to which 'because there are penguins' is a perfectly adequate answer. It is interesting to note that Maitzen's article is, in a way, just the reverse...
Continue reading "Maitzen on the Explanatory Power of Penguins"
Topic(s):
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Cosmological Argument
,
Existence of God
,
Explanation
,
Marc Lange
,
Metaphysics
,
Modality
,
Natural Kinds
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Religion
,
Philosophy of Science
,
Stephen Maitzen
,
Tyron Goldschmidt
Posted by
Kenny at
6:58 PM
|
Comments (7)
|
TrackBack (0)
March 1, 2014
Lange on the Natural Necessity of Something
Marc Lange's contribution to The Puzzle of Existence, begins with this remark: I read recently about a baby who was trapped during the night of February 26, 2011, in a locked bank vault in Conyers, Georgia. Naturally, I wondered why that had happened (235). In the article which follows this fantastic opening, Lange appeals to the theory of necessity and laws of nature from his 2009 book, Laws and Lawmakers, to argue that one can explain why there is something rather than nothing only by showing that something exists as a matter of natural necessity (or, in a qualification he...
Continue reading "Lange on the Natural Necessity of Something"
Topic(s):
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Cosmological Argument
,
Existence of God
,
Explanation
,
Marc Lange
,
Metaphysics
,
Modality
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Religion
,
Philosophy of Science
,
Tyron Goldschmidt
Posted by
Kenny at
3:35 PM
|
Comments (0)
|
TrackBack (0)
February 26, 2014
Kotzen on the Improbability of Nothing
When someone asks 'why p rather than q?', it is sometimes a good answer to say, 'p is far more probable than q.' When someone asks, 'why is p more probable than q?', it is sometimes a good answer to say, 'there are many more ways for p to be true than for q to be true.' According to a well-known paper by Peter Van Inwagen, the question 'why is there something rather than nothing?' can be answered in just this fashion: something is far more probable than nothing, because there are infinitely many ways for there to be something,...
Continue reading "Kotzen on the Improbability of Nothing"
Topic(s):
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Cosmological Argument
,
Existence of God
,
Explanation
,
G. W. Leibniz
,
Historical Thinkers
,
Matthew Kotzen
,
Metaphysics
,
Modality
,
Peter van Inwagen
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Religion
,
Richard Swinburne
,
Tyron Goldschmidt
Posted by
Kenny at
4:33 PM
|
Comments (0)
|
TrackBack (0)
February 24, 2014
Rodriguez-Pereyra on Ontological Subtraction
Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra's contribution to The Puzzle of Existence is the last of a series of contributions on the question whether there might have been nothing. Rodriguez-Pereyra defends a version of the subtraction argument for metaphysical nihilism. That is, he argues (roughly) that for any concrete being and any possible world at which that being exists, the world obtained by subtracting that being from that world is likewise possible, and that it follows from this that there is an empty possible world. (The empty world is to be obtained by subtracting all of the concrete beings from some possible world with...
Continue reading "Rodriguez-Pereyra on Ontological Subtraction"
February 11, 2014
Lowe on Metaphysical Nihilism
Like several other contributions to The Puzzle of Existence, the essay by the late E. J. Lowe is devoted to the question whether there might have been nothing. Lowe calls the view that there might have been nothing 'metaphysical nihilism,' and he offers an argument against a certain version of it. Lowe's paper begins with some very helpful context-setting. In 1996, Peter van Inwagen had argued that there is a possible world which was 'empty' in the sense of containing only abstract objects, and no concrete objects. However, according to van Inwagen, out of the infinitely many possible worlds, only...
Continue reading "Lowe on Metaphysical Nihilism"
January 27, 2014
How to Determine Whether there Might Have Been Nothing
Even those of us who think that necessary truths often need (and have) non-trivial explanations generally think that these explanations tend to look different from the explanations of contingent truths. Furthermore, one might well think that showing that p is necessary explains why p, even if one thinks that it is possible to show that necessarily p without explaining why necessarily p. Additionally, of course, there are those who hold that once one has shown a certain proposition to be a necessary truth, there are no further 'why' questions to be asked. Thus if one wants to know whether the...
Continue reading "How to Determine Whether there Might Have Been Nothing"
January 14, 2014
John Leslie's Axiarchism
Why is there something rather than nothing? According to John Leslie, because it is better that there be something. Leslie holds that ethical requirements themselves are 'creatively effective' and give rise to "an ocean of infinitely many infinite minds" which Leslie calls 'God' (p. 143). Leslie is a pantheist, holding that the world (including us) is in fact constituted by the thinking of these minds. His essay is devoted to arguing both that this is the best explanation for the existence of something rather than nothing, and that this view deserves to be regarded as a kind of (non-religious) theism....
Continue reading "John Leslie's Axiarchism"
January 6, 2014
Christopher Hughes on Contingency and Plurality
According to Christopher Hughes, arguments from contingency for the existence of a necessary being are standardly held to depend on two crucial assumptions: a contingency-dependence principle (which may be thought to derive from the Principle of Sufficient Reason), and the existence of a sufficiently inclusive being. The burden of Hughes's contribution to The Puzzle of Existence is to argue that the second assumption can be dispensed with. Let's start by seeing what these two assumptions are, and how they fit into standard arguments. A contingency-dependence principle states that any contingent entity must depend for its existence on some entity outside...
Continue reading "Christopher Hughes on Contingency and Plurality"
Topic(s):
Christopher Hughes
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Cosmological Argument
,
Existence of God
,
George Boolos
,
Jacob Ross
,
Metaphysics
,
Modality
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Religion
,
Tyron Goldschmidt
Posted by
Kenny at
4:01 PM
|
Comments (0)
|
TrackBack (0)
December 20, 2013
Jacob Ross on the PSR
Leibniz famously claimed that, once we have endorsed the Principle of Sufficient Reason, "the first questions we will be entitled to put will be - Why does something exist rather than nothing?" The answer to this question, he further claimed, "must needs be outside the sequence of contingent things and must be in a substance which is the cause of this sequence, or which is a necessary being, bearing in itself the reason for its own existence, otherwise we should not yet have a sufficient reason with which to stop" ("Principles of Nature and Grace," sects. 7-8, tr. Latta). In...
Continue reading "Jacob Ross on the PSR"
Topic(s):
Alexander R. Pruss
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Cosmological Argument
,
Existence of God
,
Explanation
,
G. W. Leibniz
,
Historical Thinkers
,
Jacob Ross
,
Metaphysics
,
Modality
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Religion
,
Tyron Goldschmidt
Posted by
Kenny at
7:03 AM
|
Comments (1)
|
TrackBack (1)
December 15, 2013
Kleinschmidt on the Principle of Sufficient Reason
Philosophers have perhaps more often assumed the Principle of Sufficient Reason than argued for it. Furthermore, this assumption has, in recent years, fallen out of favor due to the PSR's allegedly unacceptable consequences. Recently, however, the PSR has been defended by Alexander Pruss and Michael Della Rocca. Pruss and Della Rocca both argue that (a version of) the PSR is a presupposition of reason. Pruss defends a version of the PSR restricted to contingent truths and consistent with libertarian free will and indeterminism is physics as a presupposition of our scientific and 'commonsense' explanatory practices. Della Rocca argues that the...
Continue reading "Kleinschmidt on the Principle of Sufficient Reason"
Topic(s):
Alexander R. Pruss
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Cosmological Argument
,
Existence of God
,
Metaphysics
,
Michael Della Rocca
,
Modality
,
Ned Markosian
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Religion
,
Philosophy of Science
,
Shieva Kleinschmidt
,
Tyron Goldschmidt
Posted by
Kenny at
6:15 PM
|
Comments (0)
|
TrackBack (1)
December 9, 2013
Oppy on Theism, Naturalism, and Explanation
In his contribution to Goldschmidt's The Puzzle of Existence, Graham Oppy argues that, "as [a] hypothes[i]s about the contents of global causal reality" (p. 51), naturalism is ceteris paribus preferable to theism. Oppy's strategy for defending this claim is to consider three hypotheses about the structure of global causal reality, and argue that naturalism is superior to theism on each hypothesis. Here are his three hypotheses: Regress: Causal reality does not have an initial maximal part. That is, it is not the case that there is a part of causal reality which has no parts that stand in causal relations...
Continue reading "Oppy on Theism, Naturalism, and Explanation"
Topic(s):
Causation
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Cosmological Argument
,
Creation and Conservation
,
Existence of God
,
Graham Oppy
,
Grounding
,
Karen Bennett
,
Metaphysics
,
Modality
,
Philosophical Theology
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Religion
,
Shieva Kleinschmidt
,
Timothy O'Connor
,
Tyron Goldschmidt
Posted by
Kenny at
6:38 PM
|
Comments (0)
|
TrackBack (0)
December 6, 2013
O'Connor on Explaining Everything
Goldschmidt's volume opens with an essay by Timothy O'Connor who defends the traditional answer to the question of why there is something rather than nothing: God. More specifically, the traditional answer O'Connor defends holds that a necessarily existent immaterial agent chose that contingent beings should exist. There are several well-known difficulties for this kind of view. The first difficulty is, if there must be an explanation of why there are contingent beings, then mustn't there be an explanation of why there is a God? This is, of course, a version of the much-ridiculed 'what caused God?' retort, and O'Connor's (implicit)...
Continue reading "O'Connor on Explaining Everything"
November 27, 2013
Introducing The Puzzle of Existence
I am currently in the process of putting together a review of The Puzzle of Existence: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?, edited by Tyron Goldschmidt, for Faith and Philosophy. For edited volumes like this, reviews never allow enough space for substantive discussion every contribution, which is prima facie unfortunate. (I say prima facie because if the reviews were that long, I, at least, would probably read a lot fewer of them.) In light of this situation, I have resolved, before writing my review, to write blog posts with critical comments on each of the chapters. This post is...
Continue reading "Introducing The Puzzle of Existence"
May 20, 2013
Omnipotence and the 'Delimiter of Possibilities' View
Aquinas notes that some analyses of omnipotence have a serious problem: they reduce the apparently substantive claim "God is omnipotent" to the trivial claim that God "can do all that He is able to do." Now, perhaps it is true that to be omnipotent is to be able to do everything God is able to do (or at least that omnipotence entails this), but this is hardly an illuminating analysis. In several places in his Anselmian Explorations, Thomas Morris defends the view that the Anselmian God is the 'delimiter of possibilities.' This view has been endorsed by other Anselmians, and...
Continue reading "Omnipotence and the 'Delimiter of Possibilities' View"
Topic(s):
Alexander R. Pruss
,
Alfred J. Freddoso
,
Alvin Plantinga
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Divine Attributes
,
Divine Necessity
,
Historical Thinkers
,
James F. Ross
,
Metaphysics
,
Modality
,
Omnipotence
,
Philosophical Theology
,
Philosophy
,
Thomas Aquinas
,
Thomas P. Flint
,
Thomas V. Morris
Posted by
Kenny at
7:03 PM
|
Comments (1)
|
TrackBack (0)
November 30, 2012
Divine Power, Alternate Possibilities, and Necessary Frankfurt Cases
Much of the difficulty in analyzing the notion of power comes from the various limitations of creaturely power: our powers come and go, and they are not infallible (sometimes we have the power or ability to do something, and nevertheless fail to do it when we try). These are the sorts of cases which derailed conditional analyses of power. However, an omnipotent being would have none of these limitations. In our paper, Alexander Pruss and I exploited this fact to develop an analysis of omnipotence, or unlimited power, without the need for a prior analysis of power. This approach has...
Continue reading "Divine Power, Alternate Possibilities, and Necessary Frankfurt Cases"
Topic(s):
Abilities
,
Alexander R. Pruss
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Divine Attributes
,
Harry Frankfurt
,
Historical Thinkers
,
Metaphysics
,
Modality
,
Omnipotence
,
Philosophical Theology
,
Philosophy
,
Thomas Reid
Posted by
Kenny at
3:43 PM
|
Comments (0)
|
TrackBack (0)
September 28, 2012
The Value Component of Plantinga's Free Will Defense
A defense (in Plantinga's sense) against the logical problem of evil requires two components: a metaphysical component, which claims that a certain scenario is logically possible, and a value component, which claims that if the scenario in question were actual then it would be consistent with God's goodness to weakly actualize a world containing evil. In Plantinga's Free Will Defense (FWD), the scenario in question is one in which every creaturely essence suffers from transworld depravity (TWD). Now, in both The Nature of Necessity and God, Freedom, and Evil Plantinga's focus is squarely on the metaphysical component, defending the coherence...
Continue reading "The Value Component of Plantinga's Free Will Defense"
November 19, 2011
Counterpossible Reasoning in Philosophy of Religion (and Elsewhere)
The latest (July 2011) Faith and Philosophy contains an excellent article by Jeff Speaks on some difficulties related to establishing the consistency of certain claims (he uses as examples the existence of human freedom and the existence of evil) with the existence of an Anselmian God. The basic idea is this: since an Anselmian God is, by definition, a necessary being, establishing the possibility of an Anselmian God is tantamount to establishing the necessary, and therefore actual, existence of an Anselmian God. But these compatibility arguments typically, in one way or another, assume the possibility, and so the actuality, of...
Continue reading "Counterpossible Reasoning in Philosophy of Religion (and Elsewhere)"
Topic(s):
Alvin Plantinga
,
Conditionals
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Jeff Speaks
,
Logic
,
Metaphysics
,
Modality
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Religion
,
Ted A. Warfield
,
The Problem of Evil
,
Trenton Merricks
Posted by
Kenny at
12:51 PM
|
Comments (0)
|
TrackBack (0)
May 26, 2011
True and Immutable Natures in Descartes's Ontological Argument
In the Fifth Meditation, Descartes argues that "from the fact that I cannot think of God except as existing, it follows that existence is inseparable from God, and hence that he really exists" (CSM 2:46). Caterus famously replied with the 'existing lion' objection (parallel to Gaunilo's 'Lost Island'): we can't think of anything as an existing lion without thinking of it as existing, so the existing lion must exist (CSM 2:72). In fact, Caterus didn't need to add 'existing' at all: existence is a necessary condition for the exemplification of any property whatsoever. Nothing can be red, blue, five feet...
Continue reading "True and Immutable Natures in Descartes's Ontological Argument"
September 15, 2010
A Leibnizian Cosmological Argument
Sobel's sixth chapter is devoted to, as he says, "proofs
a contingentia mundi" (from the contingency of the world). The chief exponent here is Leibniz, though Sobel also considers Hume's Demea and his probable source, Samuel Clarke. Sobel argues that Leibniz's argument is valid ... by
contradiction explosion. That is, he argues that Leibniz's premises are inconsistent. In this post, I show how to fix the argument using Leibnizian resources. In the next post, I will give another version of the argument which uses premises which I consider to be anti-Leibnizian, but which I think are more widely held than...
Continue reading "A Leibnizian Cosmological Argument"
Topic(s):
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Cosmological Argument
,
Existence of God
,
G. W. Leibniz
,
Historical Thinkers
,
Jordan Howard Sobel
,
Logic
,
Metaphysics
,
Modality
,
Ontological Argument
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Religion
Posted by
Kenny at
10:40 PM
|
Comments (0)
|
TrackBack (1)
September 2, 2010
Modal Collapse: Sobel's Objection to Gödel's Ontological Argument
The last ontological argument Sobel discusses is the Leibniz-inspired argument put forward by the famous logician Kurt Gödel. Gödel sets up a formal system in third-order quantified modal logic with equality and abstraction (!) and proves within that system the theorem: □∃xG(x) Where the predicate G is defined as follows: Gx ↔ ∀φ[P(φ) → φ(x)] Where P is primitive. (Sobel includes the complete source texts for Gödel's proof on pp. 144-146.) Now, unsurprisingly, given that the proof was originated by Gödel, everyone agrees that the proof is valid in the formal system. The question is whether there are any interpretations...
Continue reading "Modal Collapse: Sobel's Objection to Gödel's Ontological Argument"
Topic(s):
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Dana Scott
,
Existence of God
,
G. W. Leibniz
,
Historical Thinkers
,
Jordan Howard Sobel
,
Kurt Gödel
,
Metaphysics
,
Modality
,
Ontological Argument
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Religion
Posted by
Kenny at
11:22 PM
|
Comments (0)
|
TrackBack (1)
August 25, 2010
Sobel's Argument Against Believing in the Possibility of a Perfect Being
My previous posts on
Sobel's Logic and Theism, have been pretty favorable and made only minor criticisms or qualifications. In this post, my criticism will be much more strenuous for, in his criticism of modern modal ontological arguments, Sobel has made a serious error.
Sobel wants to argue that there is no strong presumption in favor of the possibility of a perfect being, and that, because of contrary evidence (e.g. the problem of evil), if the ontological argument is to benefit the theist (by showing that, necessarily, there is a perfect being), rather than harm the theist (by showing that...
Continue reading "Sobel's Argument Against Believing in the Possibility of a Perfect Being"
Topic(s):
Abstract Objects
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Existence of God
,
Jordan Howard Sobel
,
Metaphysics
,
Modality
,
Ontological Argument
,
Ontology
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Religion
,
William Rowe
Posted by
Kenny at
10:48 PM
|
Comments (0)
|
TrackBack (0)
August 11, 2010
Some Odd Brute Contingincies in Plantinga's Free Will Defense
Once upon a time, many philosophers believed that there was a logical problem of evil. That is, it was held that the (obviously true) proposition that there is some evil in the world logically entails that there is no God. (Where God is conceived as omnipotent and perfectly good.) I imagine that a lot of philosophers still believe this, but today few are arguing for it in print. Instead, atheist philosophers now typically put forth an evidentiary problem of evil. That is, they propound an argument something like this: The more evil there is, the less likely it is that...
Continue reading "Some Odd Brute Contingincies in Plantinga's Free Will Defense"
November 21, 2009
Quote of the Day: A Science Fiction Thought Experiment in Aristotle
Therefore, however many things appear to come about in different types of material, for instance, a circle in bronze and stone and wood, it seems clear that neither bronze nor stone is part of the substance of a circle, since they can be separated. But even for things that are not observed to be separated, there is no reason why the same results should not follow, just as even if all circles that were seen were bronze, nonetheless bronze would be no part of the form, but it would be difficult to separate them in thought. For instance, the form human is always observed in flesh and bones and these sorts of parts. Are these parts therefore part of the form and the definition [of human]? ...
Continue reading "Quote of the Day: A Science Fiction Thought Experiment in Aristotle"
November 9, 2009
What Caused God?
In comments to my post on
Dawkins and the Philosophers, atheist blogger
Jonathan West has been pushing back against Michael Ruse's
claim that Dawkins' prominent use of the "what caused God?" question is, as Jonathan puts it, 'fatuous.' Jonathan has also pushed this point in a recent
blog post which considers this question in light of Swinburne's 'necessary being' arguments in
The Existence of God. I will first make a few remarks about Swinburne's work in this area, and then proceed to show why the "what caused God?" question is indeed confused. To be fair, I admit...
Continue reading "What Caused God?"
Topic(s):
Abstract Objects
,
Alvin Plantinga
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Cosmological Argument
,
David Lewis
,
Existence of God
,
Historical Thinkers
,
James F. Ross
,
Modality
,
Ontological Argument
,
Ontology
,
Peter Unger
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Religion
,
Plato
,
Richard Dawkins
,
Richard Swinburne
,
Sydney Shoemaker
,
Theology
Posted by
Kenny at
10:20 AM
|
Comments (19)
|
TrackBack (2)
July 22, 2009
The Master Zombie Argument
Berkeley's so-called 'Master Argument' and Chalmers' 'Zombie Argument' are two famous arguments that turn on the relationship between conceivability and possibility. I have been thinking for some time about an amusing (and perhaps somewhat troubling) way of putting the two together. First, let me give simplified versions of the two arguments. The Master Argument (MA): (MA1) Whatever is conceived is conceived by some mind. (MA2) Whatever is conceived by a mind is in that mind. Therefore, (MA3) Nothing can be conceived that is not in a mind. (MA4) Whatever is inconceivable is impossible. Therefore, (MA5) It is impossible for anything...
Continue reading "The Master Zombie Argument"
November 30, 2007
What Does Bayesian Epistemology Have To Do With Probabilities?
The answer to the question in the title of this post may seem obvious (after all, isn't Bayesianism
all about probabilities?), but I think that the long discussion that followed
Lauren's post on van Fraassen's objection to Bayesianism from quantum mechanics shows that it isn't clear at all - or at least, that it wasn't clear to either of us as we were discussing the issue. I think that I now understand why. In this post, I'm going to give three answers to this question, which I will call The Primitivist Account (P), The Kripkean Possible Worlds Account (KPW), and the Lewisian Possible Worlds Account (LPW). This post will discuss...
Continue reading "What Does Bayesian Epistemology Have To Do With Probabilities?"
August 8, 2007
Linguistic Ersatz Modal Realism and Types of Modality
David Lewis is best known for his
modal realism, the view that all possible worlds exist in precisely the same sense that the actual world exists. He holds this view because he believes that it solves all sorts of philosophical problems related to modality, counterfactuals, properties, and so forth. However, there are a number of philosophers who think that the benefits of modal realism can be had without actually supposing that the possible world really exist. These philosophers Lewis calls
ersatzers...
Continue reading "Linguistic Ersatz Modal Realism and Types of Modality"