Evaluating Arguments from Observation
Evaluating Arguments from Observation
Agree Disagree
● Argument from Motion and ● Self-Defeating - The first two ways
Change (Aquinas) - The argument claim that everything has a cause or
that all things in motion require a a mover, and then concludes
mover, and since things cannot something must exist that is
move themselves (and there can be uncaused or unmoved. What
no infinite regress), there must be caused or moved God?
an unmoved mover that we call God
● Concluding Perfection (Hume) - It
● Argument from Causation is irrational to take our experience of
(Aquinas) - The argument that all imperfection and to conclude it was
things require a cause, and since caused by a perfect being or the
things cannot cause themselves Christian God. It could’ve been a
(and there can be no infinite committee of God’s or a ‘God in
regress), there must be an training’. Hume uses the example of
uncaused causer that we call God a set of scales.
● Argument from Contingency ● Causal Principle (Hume) - The
(Aquinas) - The argument that all Causal Principle, by making
things in the universe are contingent statements about the world, must be
and dependent on something, but justified on a posteriori grounds and
there cannot be an infinite series of cannot be analytic. It is not
dependency, so there must be a empirically justified to apply the
necessary being which all causal principle to the universe
contingent things are dependent on, itself, or things outside the universe,
which we call God since it is derived from observation
of things within the universe
● Principle of Sufficient Reason
(Leibniz) - All contingent truths ● Necessity is Impossible (Hume) -
require a sufficient reason for their Hume rejects the idea that
existence, but the sufficient reason necessary existence is possible
for contingent truths cannot be since, using Hume’s Fork, to make a
found within other contingent things claim about existence is synthetic
(even an infinite series of them), so yet necessary existence requires no
the only sufficient reason for all other possibility, making it analytic.
contingent things is a necessary This creates a contradiction within
being, God necessary existence as a concept
● Kalam Argument (Craig) - ● Mereological Nihilism (O’Connor)
Everything that begins to exist must - The Kalam Argument claims that
have a cause, and the universe everything that begins to exist has a
started to exist, so the universe cause, however when we say
must have a cause. This cause must something ‘begins to exist’ this is not
be God, since something cannot occurring ex nihilo. A table comes to
come from nothing meaning the exist by pre-existing matter being
cause of the universe must be rearranged into a certain form. The
, transcendent and atemporal only things that ever truly ‘begins to
(Godlike attributes) exist’ are fundamental subatomic
particles, but it is their coming into
● Actual Infinities (Craig) - Craig existence which is in question,
rejects the idea that actual infinities making the Kalam a circular
exist; he uses the illustration of a argument.
library with an infinite number of
books, half of which are red. There ● Fallacy of Composition (Hume +
are half as many red books as Russell) - Just because things in
books in total, but also the same the universe have causes / movers /
amount. Hilbert’s Hotel also works are contingent doesn’t mean the
as an example universe as a whole is. Hume gives
an example of twenty particles.
● Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit (Craig + Russel uses the example of a
Aquinas) - The basis of the Causal humans having mothers not
Principle going back to Parmenides, implying the human race has a
stating that it’s not possible for an mother
event to happen without a cause,
otherwise something could come ● Brute Fact (Hume + Russell) -
from nothing, which is absurd. Hume argues that an infinite series
Influenced Aristotle’s, Aquinas’ and of contingent things is possible, as
Craig’s arguments each thing is explained by that
which it is dependent on. To say that
● Aquinas’ Fifth Way (Aquinas) - the ‘series’ needs an explanation is
Everything in the natural world to make a fallacy of composition.
follows natural laws, even if the Russell called the universe a ‘brute
things are not conscious or thinking fact’, pointing to uncaused events in
beings; however, if a thing cannot quantum mechanics as examples.
think for itself it only has a purpose if
directed by an intelligent being. God ● Imagining Nothingness (Krauss) -
is the intelligent being that directs If we try to imagine what
things in nature. ‘nothingness’ is like, we are actually
conceiving of empty space. Empty
● Archer Analogy (Aquinas) - An space is, however, not nothing since
arrow hits a target even though it it has spatial dimensions. This
does not have a mind of its own highlights the absurdity of
because it followed the path that the suggesting that there could have not
Laws of Nature would state; the been a universe at all, suggesting
arrow was set on that path by the instead that the universe simply is.
archer, who is intelligent.
● Net Zero Energy (Krauss + Guth) -
Counter : Aptness of Analogy Modern theoretical physics implies
(Hume), the selection of analogy that the universe could’ve appeared
suggests a circularity to Aquinas’ from nothing, since the net energy of
reasoning. Naturally if you compare the universe is zero.
teleology within the universe to
teleology set into motion by a ● Unique Case (Hume) - We only
rational agent, you can draw a have experience of this universe,
similarity, but it is just as valid to making the universe a unique case.
draw an analogy with a rock rolling This means it is not empirically
down a hill, which has no justified to make inferences about
intelligence involved. the origin of the universe, and so the
rational thing to do is admit we don’t
● Watchmaker Analogy (Paley) - why the world exists
Evaluating Arguments from Observation
Agree Disagree
● Argument from Motion and ● Self-Defeating - The first two ways
Change (Aquinas) - The argument claim that everything has a cause or
that all things in motion require a a mover, and then concludes
mover, and since things cannot something must exist that is
move themselves (and there can be uncaused or unmoved. What
no infinite regress), there must be caused or moved God?
an unmoved mover that we call God
● Concluding Perfection (Hume) - It
● Argument from Causation is irrational to take our experience of
(Aquinas) - The argument that all imperfection and to conclude it was
things require a cause, and since caused by a perfect being or the
things cannot cause themselves Christian God. It could’ve been a
(and there can be no infinite committee of God’s or a ‘God in
regress), there must be an training’. Hume uses the example of
uncaused causer that we call God a set of scales.
● Argument from Contingency ● Causal Principle (Hume) - The
(Aquinas) - The argument that all Causal Principle, by making
things in the universe are contingent statements about the world, must be
and dependent on something, but justified on a posteriori grounds and
there cannot be an infinite series of cannot be analytic. It is not
dependency, so there must be a empirically justified to apply the
necessary being which all causal principle to the universe
contingent things are dependent on, itself, or things outside the universe,
which we call God since it is derived from observation
of things within the universe
● Principle of Sufficient Reason
(Leibniz) - All contingent truths ● Necessity is Impossible (Hume) -
require a sufficient reason for their Hume rejects the idea that
existence, but the sufficient reason necessary existence is possible
for contingent truths cannot be since, using Hume’s Fork, to make a
found within other contingent things claim about existence is synthetic
(even an infinite series of them), so yet necessary existence requires no
the only sufficient reason for all other possibility, making it analytic.
contingent things is a necessary This creates a contradiction within
being, God necessary existence as a concept
● Kalam Argument (Craig) - ● Mereological Nihilism (O’Connor)
Everything that begins to exist must - The Kalam Argument claims that
have a cause, and the universe everything that begins to exist has a
started to exist, so the universe cause, however when we say
must have a cause. This cause must something ‘begins to exist’ this is not
be God, since something cannot occurring ex nihilo. A table comes to
come from nothing meaning the exist by pre-existing matter being
cause of the universe must be rearranged into a certain form. The
, transcendent and atemporal only things that ever truly ‘begins to
(Godlike attributes) exist’ are fundamental subatomic
particles, but it is their coming into
● Actual Infinities (Craig) - Craig existence which is in question,
rejects the idea that actual infinities making the Kalam a circular
exist; he uses the illustration of a argument.
library with an infinite number of
books, half of which are red. There ● Fallacy of Composition (Hume +
are half as many red books as Russell) - Just because things in
books in total, but also the same the universe have causes / movers /
amount. Hilbert’s Hotel also works are contingent doesn’t mean the
as an example universe as a whole is. Hume gives
an example of twenty particles.
● Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit (Craig + Russel uses the example of a
Aquinas) - The basis of the Causal humans having mothers not
Principle going back to Parmenides, implying the human race has a
stating that it’s not possible for an mother
event to happen without a cause,
otherwise something could come ● Brute Fact (Hume + Russell) -
from nothing, which is absurd. Hume argues that an infinite series
Influenced Aristotle’s, Aquinas’ and of contingent things is possible, as
Craig’s arguments each thing is explained by that
which it is dependent on. To say that
● Aquinas’ Fifth Way (Aquinas) - the ‘series’ needs an explanation is
Everything in the natural world to make a fallacy of composition.
follows natural laws, even if the Russell called the universe a ‘brute
things are not conscious or thinking fact’, pointing to uncaused events in
beings; however, if a thing cannot quantum mechanics as examples.
think for itself it only has a purpose if
directed by an intelligent being. God ● Imagining Nothingness (Krauss) -
is the intelligent being that directs If we try to imagine what
things in nature. ‘nothingness’ is like, we are actually
conceiving of empty space. Empty
● Archer Analogy (Aquinas) - An space is, however, not nothing since
arrow hits a target even though it it has spatial dimensions. This
does not have a mind of its own highlights the absurdity of
because it followed the path that the suggesting that there could have not
Laws of Nature would state; the been a universe at all, suggesting
arrow was set on that path by the instead that the universe simply is.
archer, who is intelligent.
● Net Zero Energy (Krauss + Guth) -
Counter : Aptness of Analogy Modern theoretical physics implies
(Hume), the selection of analogy that the universe could’ve appeared
suggests a circularity to Aquinas’ from nothing, since the net energy of
reasoning. Naturally if you compare the universe is zero.
teleology within the universe to
teleology set into motion by a ● Unique Case (Hume) - We only
rational agent, you can draw a have experience of this universe,
similarity, but it is just as valid to making the universe a unique case.
draw an analogy with a rock rolling This means it is not empirically
down a hill, which has no justified to make inferences about
intelligence involved. the origin of the universe, and so the
rational thing to do is admit we don’t
● Watchmaker Analogy (Paley) - why the world exists
