Philosophy Criticisms

David Hume

Recognising when a line of argument disobeys the rules of logic and instead of moving from one step to the next makes a great leap.

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David Hume

This is the same as saying that because all humans have a mother, the Earth has a mother.

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David Hume Example

The example of the Bus. (Any link made would be a link made by you in your own mind) Fallacy of affirmation

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David Hume

Hume maintains that the Cosmological argument begins with familiar concepts of the universe and concludes with not-so-familiar concepts beyond human experience.

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David Hume

For Hume, God’s existence cannot be proven analytically (by definition), since the definition of God’s nature is not knowable.

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David Hume

Hume concludes that it is not possible to prove the existence of a being who is unknowable and existentially different from all other beings.

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Immanuel Kant

In ‘Critique of Pure Reason, opposed the theory that a chain of cause-effect events can be set in motion from outside the realm of the physical universe.

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Immanuel Kant

The cause-effect relationship is observed within the confines of the Temporal world. therefore any talk of the causal cycle stretching beyond the empirical world is non-sensical.

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Bertrand Russell

Russell however refused to accept the notion of a necessary being as one that cannot be thought of not existing, and concluded that the regress of causal events could not be held responsible for the existence of everything in the universe:

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Cosmological Argument (Motion 1)

Evident to our senses in motion—the movement from actuality to potentiality. Things are acted on. (Again, note that the argument proceeds from empirical evidence; hence it is an à posteriori or an inductive argument.)

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Cosmological Argument (Motion 2)

Whatever is moved is moved by something else. Potentiality is only moved by actuality. (An actual oak tree is what produces the potentitality of an acorn.)

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Cosmological Argument (Necessity 1)

Unless there is a First Mover, there can be no motions. To take away the actual is to take away the potential. (Hence, which came first for Aristotle, the chicken or the egg?)

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Cosmological Argument (Necessity 2)

(Aquinas is not rejecting an indefinite or an infinite series as such, the idea is that a lower element depends on a higher element as in a hierarchy, not a temporal series.)

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Cosmological Argument (Necessity 3)

Thus, a First Mover exists.

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Cosmological Argument (Necessity 4)

Since objects in the universe come into being and pass away, it is possible for those objects to exist or for those objects not to exist at any given time.

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Cosmological Argument (Necessity 5)

Since objects are countable, the objects in the universe are finite in number.

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Cosmological Argument (Necessity 6)

If, for all existent objects, they do not exist at some time, then, given infinite time, there would be nothing in existence. (Nothing can come from nothing—there is no creation ex nihilo) for individual existent objects.

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Cosmological Argument (Necessity 7)

But, in fact, many objects exist in the universe.

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Cosmological Argument (Necessity 8)

Therefore, a Necessary Being (i.e., a Being of which it is impossible that it should not exist) exists.

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Cosmological Argument (Necessity 9)

Although the Argument from Necessity is empirical, the concepts of necessary and contingent are logical. The crucial question is in Hume's words, whether matters of fact are being confused with relations of ideas in the argument.

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