Download PHIL/RS 335

PHIL/RS 335
THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
GOING BACK TO THE BEGINNING.
• The cosmological argument has its
origin in Ancient Greek Philosophy.
• We see versions of the argument in the
work of both Plato and Aristotle.
• There, of course, the argument was
not aimed at proving the existence of
a theistic divinity, but at explaining the
origin of the world.
THE CA IN THE HISTORY OF
PHILOSOPHY
• In the forms more familiar to us, the aim of the
argument is proving the existence of the God of the
traditional monotheisms.
• Historically, there are two periods of particularly intense
interest in the cosmological argument.
•
•
The first is in the 13th century, due to the influence of Thomas
Aquinas, whose first 3 proofs for the existence of God in the
section of the text entitled “The Five Ways,” are various
versions of the cosmological proof.
The second is in the 18th century, when the work of two
prominent advocates of the argument, Leibniz and Samuel
Clarke was at the zenith of its influence.
• Though there continue to be advocates of versions of
the CA, most contemporary philosophical theists have
voiced skepticism about the argument.
WHAT IS IT?
• As should already be apparent, the
cosmological argument is really a family of
arguments which share a basic structure.
• Though there are significant variations which
we will have to account for, the various
versions of the CA begin with certain relatively
non-controversial descriptions of the natural
world and infer from them the existence of a
necessary being, which they then argue must
be understood as God.
AQUINAS’S FIVE WAYS
• As already noted, only the first three
arguments offered by Aquinas are versions
of the cosmological argument.
1. Argument from Motion
2. Argument from Efficient Causality
3. Argument from the Existence of Contingent Beings
• An examination of these three arguments
reveals a common set of elements.
• They are all a posteriori arguments, starting with
observation and reasoning to conditions.
• They all assume the impossibility of infinite regress.
• Strictly speaking, they don’t quite get us to God,
but rather, to what, “…everyone understands to
be God.”
EVALUATION OF THESE ELEMENTS
• The class of arguments we are calling a posteriori arguments are
common and generally non-controversial, though they are most
frequently developed as inductive, rather than deductive
arguments.
• The claim of the impossibility of infinite regress is much more
controversial. Copleston, in the inset on p. 62, tries to rescue this
claim by insisting that Aquinas’s assertion is an ontological rather
than temporal or genetic claim, but set-theoretic mathematics
provides the resources for serious reservations here.
• The point of the last observation is to highlight that even if we grant
the force of the arguments offered by Aquinas, we don’t seem to
get the God of theism. We might get a first mover, a first efficient
cause, or a necessary being, but not the loving, personal God which
traditional theism is committed to.
A MORE MODERN VERSION
• Both Leibniz and Clarke combined an attempt to use the principle of
sufficient reason to establish the existence of a self-existent being and
then argue that such a being is best understood as the God of theism.
• The first step in the argument can be summarized as follows.
1. Every being is either a dependent being or a self-existent being.
2. Not every being can be a dependent being.
__________________________
Conclusion: There exists a self-existent being.
• Definitions
• Dependent Being: a being whose existence is accounted for by the
causal activity of other things.
• Self-Existent Being: a being whose existence is accounted for by its own
nature (what the Yandells refer to as “existential security”).
EXPLANATION OF PREMISE 1
• For Leibniz and Clarke (and the Yandells)
the truth of the first premise is established
by the Principle of Sufficient Reason.
• The PSR is commonly formulated as “Everything
has a reason,” though it can be formulated in a
number of more specific ways (see 69c2). What
does this mean? There are a number of
possibilities.
• There must be an explanation a)for the existence of any
being; b)of any positive fact whatsoever (73c2); c)of the
cosmic whole.
EXPLANATION OF PREMISE 2
• There are two ways commonly employed to
establish the second premise.
• The first is Aquinas’s: there can be no infinite series.
• The second is the assertion that there are no brute facts.
That is, there has to be an explanation of why there is
anything at all (82c1).
• Consider the following causal chain
• A1—A2—A3—An—An+1
• Relative to any A, the PSR is satisfied, but what about the
chain as a whole?
• Only the assertion of the second premise would seem to
satisfy the PSR for the chain.
CRITICISMS OF THE 2ND PREMISE
• There are two common criticisms of the second
premise.
• Makes a category mistake. Assumes that the series is of the
same ontological order of the elements of the series.
• Commits the Part/Whole Fallacy. All humans have mouths,
but that doesn’t mean that the category “human being”
has a mouth.
• Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Pt.
IX, “Did I show you the particular cause of each
individual in a collection of twenty particles of
matter, I should think it very unreasonable, should
you afterwards ask me, what was the cause of the
whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in
explaining the cause of the parts.”
CRITICISMS OF PREMISE 1
• Why should we accept the PSR?
•
Is it intuitively true? Does reason presuppose it? If an explanation
seems possible, does that mean there is one (Yandells 76c1)?
• Mackie identifies a number of arguments which call these
justifications into question (79c2-81c2).
•
•
•
Contra Clarke, the PSR doesn’t seem to fit with what we know of
human behavior.
What about the requirements of reason? Scientific inquiry
(philosophical or otherwise) requires causal inquiry of the intra-series
sort, but all such inquiry begins in posits, and these don’t seem to
require the PSR.
What about purposiveness? We often desire that there be an absolute
purpose, but surely thinking of our lives as purposeful doesn’t require an
absolute purpose.
• “We have no right to assume that the universe will comply
with our intellectual preferences” (81c2).
• See also the Rowe inset on p. 80.