Arguments Based On Observation

Question 1

What is teleological

Answer 1

Final/end

Question 2

What is a priori

Answer 2

What goes before

Question 3

What is a posteriori

Answer 3

What follows

Question 4

What are analytic statements

Answer 4

Statements which are true by definition (all bachelors are unmarried men)

Question 5

What are synthetic statements

Answer 5

Statements which are not true by definition and must be tested through empirical observation (all bachelors are lonely)

Question 6

What is contingent

Answer 6

Something that may or may not happen

Question 7

What is necessary

Answer 7

Something that must happen (eg, god)

Question 8

What happens if a necessary truth is denied

Answer 8

its a contradiction

Question 9

Good way of remembering the argument based on observation

Answer 9

Teleological = Telescope = Observe

Question 10

Where else can the teleological argument be found

Answer 10

In Aristotle’s four causes, everything is for a purpose

Question 11

What does the classical design arguments argue

Answer 11

The universe has order, purpose and regularity. Complexity of the universe shows evidence of a designer, this is God

Question 12

Who wrote the Natural theology

Answer 12

William Paley

Question 13

What were the two arguments in his book of natural theology

Answer 13

Design Qua Regularity
Design Qua Purpose

Question 14

What is design Qua Regularity

Answer 14

Relating to regularity,
The changing seasons, the balance of the food change and how planets rotate, could only come around through design as if one thing was off it wouldn’t work.

Question 15

What is deign Qua Purpose

Answer 15

Relating to purpose,
The universe can be compared to a machine with each part working together, this machine must have a designer.

Question 16

What are the 3 scholarly arguments of the teleological argument

Answer 16

William Paley, Natural theology
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
Richard Dawkins, The blind watchmaker

Question 17

What does William Paley argue

Answer 17

The watchmaker, if you stumble across something like a watch, it can be argued that it must have a designer as it has details and purpose

Question 18

What does Thomas Aquinas argue

Answer 18

An arrow hits a target with no mind of its own, the archer must aim the arrow and shoot. Things that lack knowledge must be moved with something with knowledge, this is God

Question 19

What does Richard Dawkins argue

Answer 19

Blind watchmaker, the universe is its own watchmaker and it is all down and due to chance.

Question 20

What is David Hume’s challenge to the teleological argument

Answer 20

1. The universe is ordered but this does not prove a designer
2. The analogy between the world and a human artefact is weak
3. Even if we can conclude the world is designed, it may not be the Catholic one

Question 21

The universe is ordered but this does not prove a designer

Answer 21

• The universe may be completely random, e.g. the Epicurean Hypothesis which argues that given enough time and all particles will form something

Question 22

The analogy between the world and a human artefact is weak

Answer 22

• The design argument fails as we cannot compare the world to a machine, because there’s no similarity

Question 23

Even if we can conclude the world is designed, it does not show it was designed by Catholic God

Answer 23

• Humans just don’t have the knowledge to know if it is a religious God

Question 24

Why does Paley’s watch argument fall through

Answer 24

Because how can a human creation be compared to one of a God

Question 25

What does John Stuart Mill Criticise

Answer 25

The teleological argument as there’s too much evil in the world, therefore God must be imperfect

Question 26

What does Darwinist’s challenge

Answer 26

The idea that its evolution not God

Question 27

What is the Anthropic principle

Answer 27

The idea that the world is constructed for intelligent life, put together to counter Darwinists, F.R Tennant claims that the universe allows for the evolution of humans.

Question 28

What is the cosmological argument

Answer 28

The idea that the existence of God comes through the world being perfect

Question 29

What is Aquinas’ cosmological argument

Answer 29

The five ways (but just the first three make up the cosmological)

• motion
• causation
• contingency

Question 30

Aquinas motion

Answer 30

Everything is moving and changing, there must be something moving it all, a prime mover

Question 31

Aquinas Causation

Answer 31

Everything has an efficient cause, as something must’ve created it, there must be a being which started this domino effect

Question 32

Aquinas Contingency

Answer 32

Everything can either exist or not exist, there must be something that rely on existence, this being brought us into it

Question 33

What does Kant criticise about Aquinas

Answer 33

Necessary being makes no sense, we cannot know beyond the empirical world

Question 34

What does Hume reject about the cosmological

Answer 34

We do not have knowledge because we have no experience about the universe.
How can we know that the first event caused the second, there’s a logical leap
(did the brick smash the window?)
This is the Fallacy of composition as it is not necessary for the universe to have one possible cause.

We cannot just guess the cause and effect.

Question 35

What philosophers are in the Arguments based on observation

Answer 35

Teleological:
William Paley
Thomas Aquinas
Richard Dawkins
David Hume
John Stuart Mill

Cosmological:
Aquinas
Kant
David Hume