Arguments Based On Observation Flashcards
What is teleological
Final/end
What is a priori
What goes before
What is a posteriori
What follows
What are analytic statements
Statements which are true by definition (all bachelors are unmarried men)
What are synthetic statements
Statements which are not true by definition and must be tested through empirical observation (all bachelors are lonely)
What is contingent
Something that may or may not happen
What is necessary
Something that must happen (eg, god)
What happens if a necessary truth is denied
its a contradiction
Good way of remembering the argument based on observation
Teleological = Telescope = Observe
Where else can the teleological argument be found
In Aristotle’s four causes, everything is for a purpose
What does the classical design arguments argue
The universe has order, purpose and regularity. Complexity of the universe shows evidence of a designer, this is God
Who wrote the Natural theology
William Paley
What were the two arguments in his book of natural theology
Design Qua Regularity
Design Qua Purpose
What is design Qua Regularity
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.
What is deign Qua Purpose
Relating to purpose,
The universe can be compared to a machine with each part working together, this machine must have a designer.
What are the 3 scholarly arguments of the teleological argument
William Paley, Natural theology
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
Richard Dawkins, The blind watchmaker
What does William Paley argue
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
What does Thomas Aquinas argue
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
What does Richard Dawkins argue
Blind watchmaker, the universe is its own watchmaker and it is all down and due to chance.
What is David Hume’s challenge to the teleological argument
- The universe is ordered but this does not prove a designer
- The analogy between the world and a human artefact is weak
- Even if we can conclude the world is designed, it may not be the Catholic one
The universe is ordered but this does not prove a designer
- The universe may be completely random, e.g. the Epicurean Hypothesis which argues that given enough time and all particles will form something
The analogy between the world and a human artefact is weak
- The design argument fails as we cannot compare the world to a machine, because there’s no similarity
Even if we can conclude the world is designed, it does not show it was designed by Catholic God
- Humans just don’t have the knowledge to know if it is a religious God
Why does Paley’s watch argument fall through
Because how can a human creation be compared to one of a God
What does John Stuart Mill Criticise
The teleological argument as there’s too much evil in the world, therefore God must be imperfect
What does Darwinist’s challenge
The idea that its evolution not God
What is the Anthropic principle
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.
What is the cosmological argument
The idea that the existence of God comes through the world being perfect
What is Aquinas’ cosmological argument
The five ways (but just the first three make up the cosmological)
- motion
- causation
- contingency
Aquinas motion
Everything is moving and changing, there must be something moving it all, a prime mover
Aquinas Causation
Everything has an efficient cause, as something must’ve created it, there must be a being which started this domino effect
Aquinas Contingency
Everything can either exist or not exist, there must be something that rely on existence, this being brought us into it
What does Kant criticise about Aquinas
Necessary being makes no sense, we cannot know beyond the empirical world
What does Hume reject about the cosmological
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.
What philosophers are in the Arguments based on observation
Teleological:
William Paley
Thomas Aquinas
Richard Dawkins
David Hume
John Stuart Mill
Cosmological:
Aquinas
Kant
David Hume
