Aquinas' Third Way Modalized ABSTRACT: The Third Way is the most interesting and insightful of Aquinas' five arguments for the existence of God, even though it is invalid and has some false premises. With the help of a somewhat weak modal logic, however, the Third Way can be transformed into a argument which is certainly valid and plausibly sound. Much of what Aquinas asserted in the Third Way is possibly true even if it is not actually true. Instead of assuming, for example, that things which
The problem of evil, as articulated by J.L. Mackie, concerns the consistency of the following claims typically accepted by theists: God is omniscient; God is omnipotent; God is omnibenevolent; evil exists. If God is omniscient, then he should know about all evil that exists. If God is omnipotent, then it should be within his power to prevent all evil from occurring. Finally, if God is omnibenevolent, then it should be the case that he would not permit the evil that he is capable of preventing. The
great” doesn’t necessarily refer to Aristotle (for example in a world in which Plato is the teacher of Alexander the great). Also his arguments for rigidity of proper names, rests upon our linguistic intuition i.e. language users use proper names in modal contexts as if they are rigid: One of the intuitive theses I will maintain in these talks is that names are rigid designators. (Kripke 1980, 48) Or elsewhere: In these lectures, I will argue, intuitively, that proper names are rigid designators
pp. 109–113. Smart, J. J. C., (2012) "The Mind/Brain Identity Theory", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Edward N. Zalta (ed.), [Online at http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/mind-identity/ 07/12/2013] Soames, S (1998). The Modal Argument: Wide Scope and Rigidified Descriptions. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
persistence itself. The argument posed by VanIwagen, a Threeist, against the Twoist is known as the problem of Essential Duration; and the counterpart argument given by the Twoist is referred to as the problem of Temporary Intrinsics. VanInwagen’s (modal) argument goes as follows: One could have lived longer than did in the actually world; this must be accounted for by either, one having been composed of more temporal parts that actually was, or at least some of one’s temporal parts had a longer duration
Week 1 - Logical Possibility vs Physical Possibility This week we covered a variety of different claims and a common fallacious argument used in their favour. Among the topics discussed were claims such as conspiracies, UFOs, homeopathy, Extra-Sensory Perception (ESP) and bigfoot. A common argument used to defend these claims is the assertion that the mere possibility of their existence makes them valid claims. In other words the fact that these things are not logically impossible makes them perfectly
Observation Observer:Valmire Korqaj Date:03.12.2 Class:VII Teacher:Miranda Agaj -In this paper I will describe a teacher and her students in an observation I did in Public school “Deshmoret e Kombit”.Through this paper a variety of pupils' class and teacher's behavior will be discussed. The observation did in ninth class in English lesson the teacher was Miranda Agaj. I arrived in the office ten minutes before the lesson started. So I had a chance to talk with the teacher. We briefly discussed
The legendary saxophonist John Coltrane made a lasting impression in North American jazz music by pioneering a new subgenre known as “modal jazz.” By examining Coltrane’s personal life, professional career, evolving style of music, and his legacy that endures to this day, one can better understand the importance of this individual’s contribution to American culture and reflect upon his creative genius. On September 23, 1926, John Coltrane was born in Hamlet, North Carolina, to a family of ministers
Realism is a theory that suggests the need for anarchy in the global arena, whilst at the same time realist doctrine suggests that stability can only be achieved through a “balance of power”. With this said, are the doctrines of Collective Security and Defense fundamentally different from realism or does the idea of a “balance of power” mean that even the anarchical law of Realism is destined to seek order or at the very least is at the mercy of its necessity? Evaluation of the bounds of realism
view is correct. There is nothing inherently wrong with this method. However, it does become a problem when a deductive argument is attempting to bring something into existence. We simply cannot do that, for it goes against the common sense laws of logic. Gaunilo offered us an example famously known as the “Isle of the Blessed” (Peterson 173). In this example, he attempts to use the same deductive form Anselm uses to bring an island into existence. “Because it is better that such a perfect island
Substitutivity The problem of substitutivity has always been a thorn in the side of the study of semantic logic. Why does it sometimes appear that terms that refer to identical objects cannot be replaced with each other in propositions without altering the truth value or meaning of said proposition? Leibniz's Law would seem to ensure that we could perform such an action without anything significant having changed, but this is clearly not so. I intend to look at the history, not only of this problem
Metaphors With the possible exception of completely formal exercises in logic, philosophy is thoroughly metaphorical and largely conditional. Moreover, the purposes served by metaphors and conditionals in it are similar. Metaphors ask us to imagine the world in a new way, while conditionals may ask to imagine a new world. Yet some conditionals and metaphors are incompatible. There are limits to how metaphors can occur in conditionals, and how conditionals can themselves be metaphors. Specifically
On the subject of knowledge and reality, we face many philosophers and their opinions on how one acquires knowledge. In my essay I will focus on the issue between skeptics and dogmatists. I will first explain what dogmatism about perceptual justification and knowledge is, followed by how the dogmatist responds to the problem of skepticism, and why the response to skepticism is not plausible. What is dogmatism about perceptual justification and knowledge? I will begin by breaking down this sentence
In Huemer’s The Problem Of Political Authority an argument is made against the idea of political authority. Political authority is defined as the feature that the government has that makes it morally permissible for them to do things that ordinary citizens cannot. The idea in this argument is that the government should not have rights that citizens do not have. The purpose of this paper is to show that Huemer’s argument fails by arguing a consent-based response to Huemer’s criticisms, which shows
Critical thinking takes consistent behavior in asking the right questions about the subject. In my life, I have come across people who ask many questions and some people who “go with the flow” and believe everything they hear because it is spoken with some sort of authority. Assumptions can be damaging to relationships and without critical thinking and communication, our thought process can assume the wrong idea entirely. When I speak with someone who is a critical thinker, they can be so convincing
Bertrand Russell, a renowned analytic philosopher, argues about the existence of God in his article “Is there a God?” (1952). For most of his life Russell held the opinion that religions are meant to instill distress and helplessness into people’s minds and belief in religion is the major cause for all the deadly conflicts that have occurred in the past. In his article “Is there a God?” Russell discusses how theologians have been presenting their arguments to prove God’s existence and then gives
In this paper I will present two differing views on the topic of the design argument. In particular, I will explain William Paley's view supporting the design argument and Bertrand Russell's view against the design argument. After a presentation of the differing views, I will then evaluate the arguments to show that William Paley has a stronger argument. There are several forms of the design argument. The general form of the design argument starts with the basic idea that certain parts of the universe
The Cove is a film of activism, a film meant to move the hearts of individuals who love and support the rights of mammalian sea-dwellers like that of whales, porpoises, and most importantly dolphins. Produced in 2009 by the Oceanic Preservation Society it offers a unique perspective, when compared with other activist documentaries. In The Cove the producer and co-founder of the Oceanic Preservation Society was actually personally involved in the filming efforts and worked directly with dolphin trainer
Donald Davidson identifies three forms of knowledge which he believes to be irreducible and interdependent: knowledge of self, which is immediately known; knowledge of the outside world, which is simply caused by the events and objects around you, and thus depends on sense organs to be semi-immediately known, yet open to uncertainty; and knowledge of the minds of others, which is never immediately known. The standard approach to philosophy tries to reduce one of these forms of knowledge to one or
In Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes illustrates that the objective reality of some of his ideas seems so great that he cannot be the cause of such ideas, thus something else also exists in the world (29). Though Descartes inquires particularly into adventitious ideas to support his claim, he does not offer the definitions of innate and adventitious ideas clearly, nor does he explain the differences of them in any detail. In this paper, I will demonstrate that the ambiguity of innate and