From this Moore claimed that it is impossible to derive an ‘is from an ought’. This criticism became known as the naturalistic fallacy. In addition to this G.E Moore claimed that naturalism was not able to stand up to the open question argument. ethical naturalism claims to be based on moral facts, it would therefore seem logical that these facts should stand up to scrutiny. Yet, if we observe that pleasure is good, we should be able to ask is good pleasure.
Berkeley was troubled by the opening of the door to atheism and skepticism as a consequence arising from Locke’s argument. Locke’s view proposed that all knowledge rested on the existence of material objects independent of minds or ideas. Locke held that objects produce ideas in our minds, and that our ideas resemble objects in the material world, but some qualities that objects appear to have are not in the objects but depend on our minds. Meaning, material objects may in reality possess measurable qualities, such as size and weight, but their sense qualities such as color, odor, and taste, depend on human perception. Berkeley felt the distinguishing between material objects and the ideas through which we perceive them does not provide
I disagree that Hume's arguments to causation are successful to a full extent due to the fact that Hume's challenges criticise causation from the point of view that empirical evidence is our only source of knowledge, suggesting we cannot know whether the effect due to cause can be discovered because "the effect is different from the cause, and so can never be discovered." Yet why should we apply the limitations of our ability to state that God does not exist? To further evaluate, Hume states we are bound by empirical data and so we will only be able to 'induce' that the regress of cause and effect exists and so this regress falls foul to Hume's Fork. The criticism of Hume's challenge is formulated in the sense that because philosophically and empirically "we will never know the true origins of the universe" it does not mean that "the universe is the "brute fact" as stated by B. Russell. A second challenge of Hume is that we are able to possibly imagine that something can cause itself into existence.
Innate knowledge is a view (that rationalists share) that claims that humans are born with information about the world which isn’t learned through sense experience, we gain this knowledge a priori. Empiricists (like John Locke) say that innate knowledge and ideas do not exist, when we are born the mind is a tabula rasa (blank slate) and we gain knowledge and Ideas through sense experience and if we have no experience of the world therefore it is impossible for us to possess any knowledge. Kant argues that we need innate knowledge and sense experience. Kant was a transcendental idealist. He was an idealist in the sense that we are aware of the real world and a transcendent because he thought that ultimate reality goes beyond our sense experience.
AJ Ayer in his book “language, truth and Logic” outlines what is commonly called the “emotivist” approach to ethical language. This approach supports the idea that ethical language is subjective. Ayer suggests that unless propositions and use of language is analytic or synthetic, such propositions carry no cognitive meaning. This approach to philosophical and ethical language (the concern of Analytic philosophy) was called the “verification principle” and was a development of David Hume’s work, “Hume’s fork”. Ethical statements, Ayer said, cannot be verified analytically or synthetically so the truth of such phrases is unknowable and the language used is non-cognitive.
Success of Aquinas’s Cosmological Argument Thomas Aquinas’s cosmological argument is a posteriori argument that Aquinas uses to prove the existence of God. Aquinas argues that, “Nothing can move itself, so whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this causal loop cannot go on to infinity, so if every object in motion had a mover, there must be a first mover which is the unmoved mover, called God.” (Aquinas, Question 2, Article 3). I do agree with Aquinas’s cosmological argument in proving the existence of God with several reasons. According to the cosmological argument, first of all, Aquinas claims that, “it is impossible that a thing should be both mover and moved, namely it should not move itself.” (Aquinas, Question 2, Article 3) This part of the argument is obviously correct.
Although he recognizes that the fact that people have certain intuitions in cases of logic or mathematical concepts could be used to prove naturalism wrong, he quickly dismisses this position by objecting that the concept of the a priori has not been able to offer satisfactory answers to the question of its justification, and without satisfactory answers this knowledge is left mysterious and deeply obscure. For this reason, he concludes that the attempt to understand necessary truths in the way apriorists suggest should be replaced by an explanation that makes
However, it does not take long to realise that Berkley appears to have not been careful with his choice of words and has committed various conflations leading to fallacies of ambiguity. It is my view that these fallacies play a large role in undermining the success of the Master Argument. In order to analyse the strength of what Berkeley saw as his most convincing argument against the existence of mind independent objects I intend to look specifically at Bertrand Russell’s discussion of the Master Argument in his evaluation of idealism in his book The Problems of Philosophy. I will then look into the nominalist interpretation of the Master Argument in order to see if Russell’s allegations can be sidestepped once we discern the assumptions that Berkeley arguably based the Master Argument on. The Master Argument was originally known as the inconceivability argument until Andre Gallois referred to it as the former in his 1974 article as a nod to the prominence that Berkeley gives it within his attack on materialism.
McCloskey attempts to make an argument for the non-existence of God and to give reasons why atheism is more comforting than theism. This paper is a response to that article which will address certain ideas raised by Mr. McCloskey. This author is a theist and will present arguments to show the reasoning for the existence and necessity of God. To begin with, McCloskey suggests in his article that the theist’s arguments are “proofs” which do not provide definitive evidence for the existence of God, so therefore, they should be discarded. This is not a justified argument due to the fact that theists do not try to definitely prove the existence of God.
It’s not clear as to whether Spinoza meant (a) there cannot be two substances with all the same attributes in common; or (b) there cannot be two substances with an attribute in common. Spinoza uses the phrase “nature or attribute” which suggests that he meant (a) because a substance’s nature constitutes sharing all of the same attributes not just some. This interpretation helps his argument for premise one the most because if substances are distinguished by their attributes, then substances cannot have all the same attributes in common. For Spinoza, substance is something self-conceivable, however, this conception of substance does not work if there are substances that share something in common because we would conceive one substance in terms of an extrinsic property. Hence, our conception of one substance would be understood via an external property in relation with the other substance.