J. Ayer claimed that to speak of a designed universe is meaningless. Unless we could say what the world would have been like without a designer, we cannot reach the conclusion that this world is designed. Who establishes that there is beneficial order in the universe? How do we argue from that to the conclusion that god has designed it? Swinburne counted this by claiming that the order in the universe does require an explanation.
Aquinas argued that the definition of God cannot be comprehended by humans. As humans are finite, and God is infinite, it is impossible for humans to make an accurate definition of God. Another issue with the ontological argument is its problems with proving existence just from a description. David Hume claimed that it was impossible to derive existence from a definition. Hume was an empiricist, and therefore believes that for something to exist, there must be evidence that can be accessed by the senses.
Meanwhile, McCloskey believes that the only conclusion we can reach is that something caused the universe to exist. From reading his article, I feel that he does not formulate a valid argument as to how the power exists or how it created the universe. He goes onto to describe any creator that could exist is either a powerful being or a muddler and is not a god, but an evil spirit or a being that had very disastrous consequences due to their limitations ( McCloskey, pg.64). McCloskey closes his argument of the cosmological argument by stating that belief in either is not a source of strength or security ( McCloskey,
An adequate account of concepts is especially important (and challenging) for Empiricist philosophers (such as Locke, Berkeley and Hume), as they cannot rely on a Rationalist-style belief in ethereal, inbuilt intellectual content . Hume follows Berkeley in his rejection of general abstract ideas – both arguing that concepts are always connected to one
In contrast, Aristotle's theory of the natural world states that our world is reality. Aristotle thought the world consists of natural forms, not necessarily ideal or imperfect. Our senses can correctly perceive the natural forms. Basically, reality became a debate between Socrates' two worlds and Aristotle's single world reality. Second, Socrates and Aristotle contrast in their view of what knowledge we possess at birth.
Soft materialists agree to a point but their key belief is that everything emerges from the physical, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that everything can be reduced to the physical. They would argue that material is the base of everything and the mind emerges from the material - this is backed up by the example that while there would be no thoughts without brains, thoughts can’t be simply reduced to the brain as a material object. Gilbert Ryle is an advocate of Materialism and argues that talking of the soul is a ‘category mistake’. He argues that the soul is not a quantifiable phenomena that can be
However, until today, there is no proof of experimental work on how ordinary people actually think about it, nor ideas for why we should think of free will according to how they explain it, nor any activities with the experts of these things. Philosophers have argued free will as someone’s ability to act or make a decision in certain situation according to their desires, beliefs, or habits. Vargas thinks that free will is supposed to be, or what is supposed to be important about the property of free will. Second, he believes that the basic lessons about alternatives to skeptical views about free will generalize across alternative construal of the role of free will. So, Can there be free will if the universe is causally
In this case, the cause would be social conditioning – Baroch Spinoza said that although we may think that we are free, we are not, we are merely aware of our actions. “In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to will this or that by a cause, which has been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on until infinity.” This emphasizes the fact that we are contingent beings, and that although we feel that we have options in life, the choices that we make are in the end determined my one single factor, which started a chain reaction creating the world we live in today. The surrounding and environment we are brought up into and therefore the upbringing and social conditioning we receive it determined. Our actions are due to how
If determinism is true, then we don’t have free will. Discuss. It can be argued that if determinism is true, then we do not have free will. However, this argument really depends on which stream of determinism is being referred to. The argument that supports this idea the most is the fatalism argument - the idea that everything is predetermined before we are born and our actions do not affect this.
Moreover, the author suggests that life may just be a fluke, for what goes on in the world carries no explanation. He also goes on to suggest that the meaning of life is whatever each individual makes for themselves. If a person can pursue only a single goal, to which all other objectives are only a compromise to attain the bigger goal, then they can