Class I: April 5

A change from the overall course schedule: The reading for this class is limited to the chapters mentioned from Notes on Logic, plus the two arguments mentioned in #5 below. (We will take up the material from Summa Contra Gentiles in the class on April 19.

1. The nature of an argument. 

2. How to evaluate an argument: The difference between deductive and non-deductive arguments.

3. The distinction between an original premise and a derived premise. Original premises are any premises which are not conclusions of subordinate arguments. Original premises are the assumptions of the main argument. A derived premise of a main argument is the conclusion of a subordinate argument within the main argument.

4. Three ways to attack a deductive argument: Is it valid? Is each subordinate argument valid? Is every premise true? Is every assumption of the argument sufficiently evident to serve as a premise? 

If an argument is valid and one or more of its premises is false, the conclusion may be false or it may be true. If an argument is invalid and all of its premises are true, the conclusion may be false or it may be true. So to show that an argument is not sound is not to show that it's conclusion is false.

5. Time permitting, we will analyse two arguments which we are relevant for later classes. 

The first argument is from J. L. Mackie, "Evil and Omnipotence": "The simplest form of the problem is this: God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil exists. There seems to be some contradiction between these three propositions, so that if any two of them were true the third would be false. . . . To show [the contradiction]we need some additional premises, or perhaps some quasi-logical rules connecting the terms 'good', 'evil', and 'omnipotent'. The additional premises are that good is opposed to evil in such way that a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can, and that there are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do. From these it follows that a good omnipotent thing eliminates evil completely, and then the popositions that a good omnipotent thing exists, and that evil exists, are incompatible." [Excerpts from the article by Mackie will be reading for a class in the near future.]

The second argument is the first of Aquinas's "five ways" to show that God exists in the Summa Theologiae.  Summa Theologiae, I, q. 2, a. 3

 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Class II: April 19 Faith and Reason   Reading:  Alfred J. Freddoso,  "The Necessity for Revelation: A Primer on  Summa Contra Gentiles  1, Chaps. 1-9" )   Supplementary reading: Alvin Plantinga, "Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments" https://appearedtoblogly.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/plantinga-alvin-22two-dozen-or-so-theistic-arguments221.pdf   As Freddoso points out, Aquinas divides human knowledge of God (wisdom of the highest kind) into two kinds:  "In those things that we profess about God there are two types of truths. For there are some truths about God that exceed every capacity of human reason, such as that God is [both] three and one. But there are other truths that natural reason is also capable of arriving at, such as that God exists, that there is one God, and others of this sort. Indeed, philosophers, led by the light of natural reason, have proved these truths about God demonstratively" (quoted from Chapter 3 of  Summa Contra ...
Read more

Class III

An after thought about the class of April 19   The second meeting of the course dealt with the relation of natural human reason to divine revelation. We spent some time on #36 of CCC, which repeats the statement of the First Vatican Council, (A) "God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason," and adds, (B) "Without this capacity, man would not be able to welcome God's revelation." The statement quoted from Vatican I is clear enough, but the addition is puzzling. Why would "this capacity" be thought necessary for man "to welcome" divine revelation. This morning, I went carefully over the context of (A) in the documents of Vatican I. The relevant document is the Dogmatic constitution on the catholic faith, in Session Three, Chapters 2 (On revelation), 3 (On faith), and 4 (on faith and reason). Statement (A) in CCC is taken word for word from C...
Read more
Notes for Class V, May 31   Reading:  William L Rowe, "The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism." Can be found at https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil201/Rowe.pdf   Supplementary reading : excerpt from Alvin Plantinga,  God, Freedom, and Evil , Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974.   The class will begin with Plantinga's "free will defence," and then turn to the paper by William L. Rowe.   PART ONE: PLANTINGA'S FREE WILL DEFENCE   A: Some Background to Plantinga's Free Will Defence   From the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Plantinga borrowed the idea that God creates the world by freely choosing to  actualize a possible world . A possible world is a way the world as a whole might be. More precisely, a possible world is a possible state of affairs which includes or precludes every possible state of affairs. For example, (a) Ukraine's being invaded by Russia and Putin's being president of Russia, is a possible st...
Read more