Cosmo Mocks Cards Flashcards
(29 cards)
(Key feature) Causation
- attempt to show universe has a cause
- Hume: no repeated observation (C and E)
- Kant: arises in spatio-temporal world, confined to observable world (‘has no meaning whatsoever’)
- Mill: criticises uncaused first cause
(Key feature) A posteriori
- based on observation + experience
- all experience causation
(Key feature) Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason
- ‘ex nihilo nihil fit’ (of nothing, nothing comes)
- ‘Nothing will come of nothing’ (Shakespeare)
- to say the universe has a cause rejects this principle, means something came from nothing
(Key feature) Hinges on one fact
- Sheer existence of the universe
- desire to ask the question- ‘why is there a universe?’
(Key feature) Argument from contingency
- contingent=need not have occurred
- events in universe= contingent
- only occurs if caused to occur= chain of causes
- must have started by a necessary being/event
- must be God
- does not hinge on universe having a beginning
(Key feature) Kalam
- islamic scholars, C13
- beginning=cause, universe= cause
- must be distinct from effect
- non-physical identity
(Key feature) Chain of Causes
- caused by previous event, which also caused
- must originally have been 1st cause
- no uncaused first cause= infinite regress
(Key feature) Question of Time
- infinitude has already occurred and is being added to
- Aquinas: rejects infinite history- if there was no first cause how did the sequence occur at all
- ‘big bang theory’ (hot ball of neutrons explodes) suggests beginning of universe [proof: radiation, amount of elements account to calculations, no other way to account for helium]
- Hawking’s space-time curvature: finite in size, no beginning or end, self contained “what place, then, for a creator”
(Key feature) Question of Contingency
universe exists contingently
necessity and contingency connection between subject and predicate (triangle) relation of ideas
Hume: existential statements are synthetic
Kant: existence is not a predicate (performs a function), doesn’t change description or definition
Frege: x doesn’t have existence, at least one thing corresponds to the concept of x
(Strength) Causation
- Leibniz (pre H, K+ M) principle of sufficient reason: ex nihilo nihil fit
- science always believes in a cause
(Strength) Scientific theories
BIG BANG
- suggest beginning
- dense, hot, conc. neutrons ‘primeval nucleus’ -
exploded
neutrons began to clump together forming the first ‘heavy hydrogen’ nuclei
- evidence: (1948) traces of radiation from the initial explosion (1965) this radiation was shown to exist, Calcs of relative amounts of elements in the universe based on the theory accord well with observations in the universe,
no other way of accounting for inordinate amounts of helium in the universe
QUASARS
- opposes Hawking’s Space time curvature
- thought to represent past explosions
- implies ‘big bang’ beginning
(Strength) Philosophers
COPLESTONE
- rejected idea of infinite regress: contingent beings could not have brought about their own existence
- logical to look outside universe for its cause
- Copleston answer to Russel: an adequate explanation is one which cannot be argued against. God is a complete explanation
SWINBURNE
-considered God the simplest explanation
- ‘there could in this respect be no simpler explanation than one which postulated only one cause…‘
(Weakness) Causation
- HUME:
You can only infer a causal connection of an event type C leading to an event type E after repeated observation, haven’t repeatedly seen universes created, ∴against a posteriori reasoning - KANT:
Similar experiential objection: talking of causation outside of spatio-temporal world of existence has “no meaning whatsoever” (uncaused first cause would have to already be within universe) - MILL: (critique of chain of causes argument)
experience shows all events being caused by an antecedent one, so uncaused (First) cause can’t be hypothesised or proved a posteriori
(Weakness) Scientific theories
Model of space-time curvature: Stephen Hawking
- Alternative radical PROPOSAL [‘can’t be deduced from another principle’]
- 4 dimensions of space and time form a ‘surface’ which is finite in size and has no beginning or end, similar to the surface of a sphere
with quantum mechanics can explain all complex structures of universe
(Philosophers Support) Aquinas
- rejection of infinite regress (infinite chain of contingent beings could only ever consist of contingent beings, which would never be able to bring itself into existence)
- Aquinas and the Five Ways: (most famous Christian application of the argument)
ways he believed ‘demonstrated the existence of God, unlikely an atheist would be convinced by them - constant regression until beginning (God) is reached
- C13 Xian thinker “if no beginning/First cause then there can be no subsequent events”
(Philosophers Support) Leibniz
- predates Hume, Kant & Mill
- “Principle sufficient reason”:
- “ex nihilo, nihilo fit”
(Philosophers Support) Copleston
- Copleston and Russell radio debate 1947
- Russel doubted whether it was meaningful, let alone important, to argue the case for a cause of the universe, and, having established that for him it was ‘a question that has no meaning’, ‘What do you say- shall we pass on to some other issue?’
- For Copleston this was an unsatisfactory response and he later responded “if one refuses even to sit down at the chessboard and make a move, one cannot, of course, be checkmated.’
- Copleston supported Aquinas’ rejection of infinite regress
(Philosophers Support) Scientists- big bang
- Support big bang, shows the believe in a cause
- could argue that the big bang itself could’ve been caused and this cause could still be God.
(Philosophers Against) Hume
- Hume’s challenges to the cosmological argument
>Why presume the need for a cause?
>Why look for the explanation for the whole?
>Is the concept of a necessary being meaningful? - Hume argued that the notion of a necessary being is an inconsistent one because there is no being the non-existence of which is inconceivable. Even if there was such a being, why should it be God? Even if were reasonable to postulate a necessary being, why should it be a God of classical theism?
- Hume further observes that the argument begins with a concept familiar to us, the universe, but claims to be able to reach conclusions about things that are outside our experience.
- You can only infer a causal connection of an event type C leading to an event type E after repeated observation, haven’t repeatedly seen universes created, ∴against a posteriori reasoning
discuss logical necessity as relation between concepts
Maybe this isn’t only type of necessity; that a thing can be ‘necessary’ (e.g. could neither be other than it is, nor not be at all) without being logically necessary
(Philosophers Against) Kant
- Similar experiential objection: talking of causation outside of spatio-temporal world of existence has “no meaning whatsoever” (uncaused first cause would have to already be within universe)
- existence cannot be necessary: necessity is relation between subject and predicate but EXISTENCE IS NOT A PREDICATE (the word just performs a function). ∴to say that x exists, is to say there is a thing which corresponds to my concept of x. If existence is a predicate, then an existing thing (eg. Horse) can never correspond precisely with the concept of it (e.g. the concept of a horse) – for the concept does not have the property of existence.
- Maybe this isn’t only type of necessity; that a thing can be ‘necessary’ (e.g. could neither be other than it is, nor not be at all) without being logically necessary
e. g. Aristotle and Aquinas refer to eternal truths as ‘necessary’ - Kant talks of the necessity of laws and nature as a ‘factual necessity’
(Philosophers Against) Mill
- (critique of chain of causes argument)
experience shows all events being caused by an antecedent one, so uncaused (First) cause can’t be hypothesised or proved a posteriori
(Philosophers Against) Russell
- radio debate 1947
Russel doubted whether it was meaningful, let alone important, to argue the case for a cause of the universe, and, having established that for him it was ‘a question that has no meaning’, ‘What do you say- shall we pass on to some other issue?’ - the notion of a necessary being is an inconsistent one because there is no being the non-existence of which is inconceivable. Even if there was such a being, why should it be God? Even if were reasonable to postulate a necessary being, why should it be a God of classical theism?
(Philosophers Against) Aristotle
- Aristotle Prime/unmoved Mover, Argument : God initiated the universe but then left it to its own devices
- Aristotle and Aquinas refer to eternal truths as ‘necessary’
(Philosophers Against) Stephen Hawking
- Model of space-time curvature
