As we delve deeper into the Philosophical understanding of William Clifford and Blaise Pascal we gain a new understanding of evidentialism and non-evidentialism. Having studied both Pascal and Clifford I lean more with Pascal and his thoughts and teachings that you do not need to have evidence to believe in a higher power. This paper will continue to give more examples of Pascals teachings of non-evidentialism and why I agree with them.
Blaise Pascal was born on 19 June 1623 in Clermont Ferrand. He was a French mathematician, physicists, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher. He was a child prodigy that was educated by his father. After a horrific accident, Pascal’s father was homebound. He and his sister were taken care of by a group
…show more content…
Pascal believes that not all facts can be proven by evidence alone. His strong beliefs lead him to defend the Christian faith because reason can’t be given for God’s existence. He believes that existence of God relies solely on the individual faith. Faith is defined as firm belief in something for which there is no proof. Pascal defends the existence of God because we can’t see him but we are able to interact with him through our faith. One of his most famous statements was known as the “Pascal Wager” stating: “How can anyone lose who chooses to become a Christian? If, when he dies, there turns out to be no God and his faith was in vain, he has lost nothing—in fact, he has been happier in life than his non-believing friends. If, however, there is a God and a heaven and hell, then he has gained heaven and his skeptical friends will have lost everything in hell”. The philosopher thinks you should wager your bets. According to him wagering is not an option. Why would you want to possibly set yourself up for failure rather than living according to God’s will and potentially seeking eternal life? I agree with the philosopher because being of the Christian faith, God tells us in the Bible, (KJV Hebrew 11:6) but without faith it is impossible to please him: for He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that …show more content…
Therefore Pascal represents a better argument than Clifford. We live our lives seeking happiness. When someone plays the lottery they play with the intent to win but if they don’t they still did not lose anything. Well living your life for god is the same thing. Refusing to believe in god could only lead to a loss, lose situation. If you live your life with faith that god is watching over you, you will only live a much happier life. In (KJV John 15:7) god tells us: If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. That is gods promise to us that if we abide in him he will supply our needs. If there were anything in the world worth wagering for believing in god should be one of them. We were given the ability to act upon our faith with confidence to hopefully one day to have everlasting
-logically, the belief in God is there because the Wager shows the outcomes of each possibility, and only one is good, which is believing in God and he does exist. If that were to come true, then you can gain everything, while believing and the existence being false, you don’t lose too much.
William Clifford author of the “Ethics of Belief” creates the argument that it is always wrong for anyone to believe anything upon ‘insufficient evidence’. What does Clifford define evidence as and what is sufficient? Clifford’s argument is more scientific. Basing our beliefs off methodical approaches. If we base all our decisions off sufficient and what we declare to be reliable then what do we stand for? We have our own credentials to believe things even if we do not know why. These beliefs could be innate and
Pascal begins his argument by stating that everyone must make a wager. This wager everyone places is on whether or not God exists. Pascal believes everyone must make a wager based on two reasons, everyone eventually dies and God is a possible being. Of the two choices a person can make there are four possible outcomes that could happen to a person as result of the choice they made.
Modern debates over religion, more specifically God, focus primarily on whether or not sufficient evidence exists to either prove or disprove the existence of a God. Disbelievers such as biologist Richard Hawkins tend to point to the indisputable facts of evolution and the abundance of scientific evidence which seem to contradict many aspects of religion. Conversely, believers such as Dr. A. E. Wilder-Smith describe the controversial aspects of science, and how the only possible solution to everything is a supreme being. However, mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal refused to make either type of argument; he believed that it was impossible to determine God’s existence for certainty through reason. Instead, he suggested that rational individuals should wager as though God does indeed exist, because doing so offers these individuals everything to gain, and nothing to lose. Unfortunately, Pascal’s Wager contains numerous fallacies, and in-depth analysis of each one of his arguments proves that Pascal’s Wager is incorrect.
Blind faith is hard for many. Clifford takes the side of Evidentialism, which is the assertion t
Pascal’s wager is the name given to an argument that was present by Blaise Pascal who was a French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. Pascal had a strong belief for God’s existence. The argument hypothesizes and attempts to prove that there is more to be obtained from venturing on the existence of God rather than the rejection of the existence of God. Pascal’s wager states that man loses nothing in believing in God instead of reason through a game of chance. “You must either believe of not believe that God is – which will you do?” (Bailey, 99). Here, Pascal argues that reason and intellect cannot decide the question of whether God exists or not. Therefore, it makes logical sense to choose the option that would benefit us most even if it were considered to be right. Pascal states four options: one may live a religious and moral life and be rewarded by eternal happiness; one may live a pleasure – seeking life and be denied eternal happiness; one may live a holy live but there is actually no God or eternal life; and one may live a pleasure-seeking but it makes no difference because there is no God. The first of these options is the most important one because it represents the maximum gain and loss. If the turn out proves that there is no God, then the sheer risk of deciding against such a possibility warrants that we should take that option (99).
In this paper I will look at David Hume’s (1711-1776) discussion from the An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Of Miracles regarding whether it is a reasonable assumption to believe in the existence of miracles. I will first discuss why the existence of miracles matters and how miracles relate to our understanding of the laws of nature. Secondly, I will look at how Hume argues that it is never reasonable to believe in miracles. I will then provide objections to this argument which I feel support the idea that belief is not only reasonable but a necessary condition for a faithful life.
This paper will dispute that scientific beliefs are not the right way to accept a belief and it will question if we should let one accept their rights to their own beliefs. In Williams James article Will to Believe, we accept his perspective on how we set and fix our beliefs. This paper will first outline his overview on the argument that someone does not choose their belief but rather one just has them. Following, it will outline my perspective on how we set our beliefs and agreement with purse. Then it will explain how other methodologies such as science cannot conclude to one’s true beliefs. Science has been seen as a way to perceive life and taken to consideration as the truth. This paper should conclude that humans define ourselves by
Blaise Pascal was born in Clermont France on June 19, 1623 to Etienne Pascal. His mother died when he was only 3. He was the third of four children and the only boy. He was described as a man of: small stature, poor health, loud spoken, somewhat overbearing, precious, stubbornly persevering, a perfectionist, highly pugnacious yet seeking to be humble and meek. Pascal's father had somewhat unorthodox views on education, so he decided to teach his son himself. He forbade any mathematic teachings or material to be given to him and had any such texts removed from their house. Blaise became engulfed with curiosity due to this rule. He started to work with geometry on his own at the age of 12. He discovered that the sum of the three angles of a triangle is equivalent to two right angles. When his father discovered this he then allowed Blaise a copy of Euclid. At the age of 14 Blaise began accompanying his father to Mersenne's meetings. Mersenne was a member of a religious order of Minims. His cell held many meetings for the likes of Gassendi, Roberval, Carcavi, Auzout, Mydorge, Mylon, Desargues and others. By the time he was 15 Blaise admired the work of Desargues greatly. At 16 Pascal presented a single piece of paper at a Mersenne's meeting in June 1639. It held many of his geometry theorems, including his mystic hexagon. In December 1639 he and his family left Paris and moved to Rouen where his father Etienne was appointed tax collector for Upper Normandy. Soon after settling down in Rouen his Essay on Conic Sections was published in February of 1640. It was his first great work. Pascal also invented the first digital calculator to aid his father in his tax collecting duties. For three years he worked 1642 - 1545. Dubbed the Pascaline, it resembled a mechanical calculator of the 1940's. This almost assuredly makes Pascal second only to Shickard who manufactured the first in 1624. Pascal faced problems with the design of the calculator due to the design of French currency at the time. There were 12 deniers in a sol, and 20 sols in a livre. Therefore there were 240 deniers in a livre. Hence Pascal had to deal with more technical problems to work with this odd way of dividing by 240. Yet the currency system remained the same in France until 1799, but Britain's similar system lasted until 1971.
Blaise Pascal lived during a time when religion and science were clashing and challenging previous discoveries and ideas. Pascal lived from 1623 to 1662 due to his untimely death at the age of thirty nine. The scientific community grew enormously and Pascal was a great contributor to this growth. The growth in the scientific community is known as the Scientific Revolution. He lived in a time where an absolute monarch came into power, King Louis the XIV. Louis XIV was a believer in “one king, one law, and one faith” (Spielvogel, 2012). Pascal saw the destruction of protestant practices in France and the growth and acceptance of scientific discoveries. He used the scientific method to refine previous experiments that were thought to be logical but Pascal proved otherwise and eventually led to Pascal’s Law. He spent his life devoted to two loves: God and science. Within his book, “Pensees,” Pascal argues and shares his thoughts about God, science, and philosophy.
Instinctually, humans know that there is a greater power in the universe. However, there are a few who doubt such instinct, citing that logically we cannot prove such an existence. St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, wrote of five proofs for the existence of God. The Summa Theologica deals with pure concepts; these proofs rely on the world of experience - what one can see around themselves. In these proofs, God will logically be proven to exist through reason, despite the refutes against them.
1) Oxford Readings in Philosophy. The Concept of God. New York: Oxford University press 1987
Although Pascal had been raised as a Catholic, later in his life, Pascal had been converted to Jansenism in 1646 and moved to a monastery in Port Royal in France. But in 1658, he left the monastery to continue his mathematical work. Pascal then worked on many mathematical problems, including how fluids and gases behave (1646) this proved that the mercury in a barometer did not move because of a vacuum but rather because of barometric pressure, created “Pascal’s Triangle” which calculated the probabilities of winning in gambling (1654) which today has been important in the study of statistics and even modern day physics, and the theory of indivisibles (1658).
Some of the first major philosophical works that I read were Descartes’ Meditations. In his first Meditation, Descartes writes about the idea of skepticism. This is when I was exposed to the topic of skepticism and I found myself interested in the idea right from the start. Skepticism is one of the most popular topics in epistemology. It is also not a topic that only appeals to philosophers. Skepticism is a topic that draws many people’s attention because it is an idea that rocks the cores of many of the beliefs that are closest to us. After all, some of the concepts that follow from the idea of skepticism are ones such as we might not actually have any knowledge of the world or the world, as we know it, might not actually be real. Skeptical scenarios prove to be both intriguing and intimidating. Responses to skepticism usually turn out to be satisfying in some ways but carry unwanted baggage in other ways. Overall, skepticism is a topic that much thought has been dedicated to and one that has led to many philosophical developments. In this paper, I will touch upon
The argument that is used in the idea of skepticism has comparable and incompatible views given from Augustine and Al-Ghazali. Both monologues cover and explain the doubts one should have, due to the