Kant's Objection to the Cosmological Argument
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An explication of Kant's objection to the cosmological argument, including an outlining of the difference between Logical, Modal and Factual Necessity.
Comments
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I think since because god is not a logical necessity - in consequence. the 3rd premise of the Modal Ontological Argument must define god as a being that either exists in all OR does not exist in all possible worlds.
Since he is not a logical necessity - given the MOA's 3rd premise - god does not exist in all possible worlds.
The very failure of god being a logical necessity entails a defeat of his own existence. Too bad, poor god -
if God is modaly necessary but not logically necessary then he might not exist in any world. ahhh no that's illogical. if God is modaly necessary then God is modaly necessary. you are saying that a can be not a.
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"if God exists he would exist in all worlds" that's what you say but the argument is that god IS necessary in all possible worlds or at least in this universe because of the laws of cause and effect. so basically Kant is straw-manning.
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Thanks for your videos!For me this one is the strongest objection to the cosmological argument. I reject Russell's and Hume's objections but Kant's point is really strong here.
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And that specifically, the being is not a particular deity, but trying to prove that "something exists" as the necessary being.
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To clarify,I was reading on the Stanford-encyclopedia of philosophy on the cosmological argument and found this:
"Mackie replies that if God has metaphysical necessity, God's existence is contingent, such that some reason is required for God's own existence (Mackie, 84). That is, if God necessarily exists in the sense that if he exists, he exists in all possible worlds, it remains logically possible that God does not exist in any (and all) possible worlds. Hence, God is a logically contingent being and so could have not-existed. Why, then, does God exist? The PSR can be applied to the necessary being.
The theist responds that the PSR does not address logical contingency, but metaphysical contingency. One is not required to find a reason for what is not metaphysically contingent. It is not that the necessary being is self-explanatory; rather, a demand for explaining its existence is inappropriate. Hence, the theist concludes, Hawking's question “Who created God?” (Hawking, 174) is out of place (Davis)."
Wouldn't this break your argument if the PSR does not apply to the logical contingency? Or does this not address the problem of the "being" being contingent and not possibly existing in other worlds? -
Can you give an example of something that is modally necessary? Thank you.
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+Mitchell Witteveen
I draw my outline of the argument from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy which has modernized the argument using current equivalences to the terminology that Aquinas used as his language is often excessively archaic, and it represents the standard interpretation that is put forward by most of those who discuss this argument in an academic context. Similarly the objection here presented by Kant, and later defended by Mackie represents a common and unanswered objection to the argument that is offered by Aquinas. My original video on the subject is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX-2htH5wnM.
If you think that you have premises that more correctly interpret the argument than the SEP, feel free to offer them, I would love to look them over. But without premises and a conclusion, your claims are muddled, opaque and utilize terminology that has not been used in centuries by anyone other than those attempting to defend Aquinas. -
I'm not sure where you got your version of Aquinas' argument but it is a simplification. For example, Aquinas does not say that any necessary being must be God, for example, matter could be a necessary being. There just must be something that remains in existence so that everything does not come to nothing. However Aquinas further says " But every necessary thing either has its necessity caused by another, or not." (ST Ia q 2 a 3), And since this chain can not go for a infinite regress, just as an infinite train of freight cars can not gain movement without something akin to an engine, there must be Being which gets necessity from no other. This also lends itself to Divine traits, as said Being must be wholly simple, "because every composite has a cause, for things in themselves different cannot unite unless something causes them to unite." (ST Ia q 3 a 7). This would include matter, which is a composite of essence and existence. Those the only thing which can be the Truly Necessary Being, would be Existence Itself, and thus Pure Actuality, since potentiality is that which limits, and Existence Itself can not be limited. I'll admit I'm not sure how Aquinas' use of necessity fits with the kinds you give, especially as what is predicated of God is only analogous to that of other things (ST Ia q 3 a 3 ad 1), nevertheless the argument as you present it is not as found in the Summa Theologica.
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It really seems that logical necessity is a useless concept, after all, all we are doing is trying to imagine something that defies it's definition, but the whole point of definition is that it only covers things specified in a certain manner, why would we try do anything else with it is beyond me. At the end of the day, logical necessity is equivalent to modal necessity or at least is a subset of it. I can't seem to find an example of factual necessity.
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thank you. I have never heard of Kant's objection befor.
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