David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

The existence of God has been a huge issue for many years. The main McCloskey's issue with the idea of God is the presence of many evils in the world. McCloskey implies that the "proofs" of the existence of God cannot establish a factual evidence which supports the existing argument of whether there is God or not. Some proofs explaining the existence of God should be dismissed because they are not valid. Such proofs include teleological and ontological. A proof is an unquestionable, factual statement that directs an argument to the final product and is based on a level of scientific factualness. The existence of the world is no guarantee for believing in the existence of a certain being (God). The cosmological and design only offer points and arguments towards the existence of God, but the

In this philosophical essay, I will be providing a brief introduction of David Hume’s skeptical argument against induction. Also, in order for Hume’s skeptical argument to make sense, I will also be referencing René Descartes’ theory of foundationalism and Sober’s categorization of beliefs into three distinct levels. Furthermore, I claim that both Hume and Descartes’ perspective of how rational justification is defined will always lead to skepticism being true. In addition, I will argue that there exists a valid, alternate perspective which will falsify David Hume’s skeptical argument and allow induction as a valid method of reasoning.

Faith is the root of many actions and thereby reactions in our society, and world today. These religious practices must go through many trials and questionings from the always cynical, ever searching individuals. Due to the questioning of God’s existence, St. Thomas Aquinas and Anselm devised three arguments as was of explanation for His existence. Ontological, cosmological and teleological arguments are put forth to hopefully one day prove God’s existence. We are a people who crave for simplicity, there is nothing simple about the devout in their faith, we will look to find simpler explanations, or Ockham’s razor, for the three arguments put forth by Aquinas and Anselm. Understanding Ockham’s razor, and the three arguments is essential before seeing if seeing if the three arguments can be simplified and will finally lead to better understand a religious person’s acceptance of faith, and all it encompasses.

Hume concluded therefore, based on his principles about empirical evidence, that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God cannot

Thought experiments can be useful scientific tools for attempting to understand situations that cannot realistically be tested for a variety of reasons. They have served as the basis for many scientific revolutions, from Galileo’s refutation of Aristotle by deducing that all objects must fall at the same rate to Einstein’s thought experiments which contributed to his formulation of the theory of relativity. While it may appear that such experiments use nothing more than cognition to arrive at facts about existence, they can in fact be decomposed into arguments. In this paper, I will demonstrate that although the Roman philosopher Lucretius’ thought experiment regarding the infinity of the universe appears at first to derive truths about

During the Middle Ages, the proof of God was a question that many philosophers of that time tried to answer. Despite many individuals already believing in God, the philosophers still wanted to answer the question of “does God exist”. A principle called Ockham’s Razor, which was developed by William of Ockham, was used by many of these empiricist philosophers to challenge or align with the arguments regarding the proof of God’s existence. This question still lingers with the philosophers of today, and it most likely will for some time in the future. In this paper, I will explain what Ockham’s Razor is and the perception of it from many empiricists, the Ontological and Cosmological

There have been an innumerable amount of arguments for the existence of God for hundreds of years. Some have become much more popular due to their merit, and their ability to stay relevant through changing times. Two arguments in particular that have been discussed for a very long time are the ontological and cosmological arguments. Each were proposed in the period of the high middle ages by members of the Roman Catholic Church. They each have been used extensively by many since their introduction. However, one of the arguments is superior ant that is the ontological argument. The Ontological argument is the stronger of the two due to the fact that it is based in pure logic and reasoning.

In the movie 12 Angry Men it showed many examples of Hume’s ideas such as skepticism, pluralism, relativism, and reasonable doubt. First let me explain what skepticism is, skepticism doubts the validation of knowledge or particular subject. Pluralism is the position that there are many different kinds of belief—but not all just as good as any other. Relativism is when the position that each belief is just as good as any other, since all beliefs are viewpoint dependent. Reasonable doubt is lack of proof that prevents a judge or jury to convict a defendant for the charged crime. They must provide proof beyond reasonable doubt to be proven guilty.

247) considers two solutions proposed for Hume’s argument. He writes, “One way that is frequently used is to maintain that what is commonly called evil is only an illusion, or at worst only the ‘privation’ or absence of good.” Nagel disassembles this proposition, noting in any case the suffering and misery are real; thus, this argument is insensitive to human suffering. The second proposal is, “the things called evil are evil only because they are view in isolation; they are not evil when viewed in proper perspective and in relation to the rest of creation.” Nagel concludes, if this is true, what specifically is the greater good? It is not sufficient to state some great may come about because of

Many philosophers believe that there are reasons to demonstrate the God does exist through arguments. There are three main types of arguments that explain the existence of God. These include Cosmological, Teleological, and Ontological, which are all traditional arguments. There are two groups that divide the arguments “An a posteriori argument is based on premises that can be known only by means of experience of the world (e.g., that there is a world, that events have causes, and so forth). An a priori argument, on the other hand, rests on premises that can be known to be true independently of experience of the world (Pojman 19).

The first definition of cause Hume presents in his Enquiry is ontological, whereas the second definition is psychological. The key blunder of the skeptic’s interpretation of the Enquiry is the supposition that both definitions are equal, and also the critical error of the supposition that from merely one experiment, an association of ideas can be derived. The aim of this paper is to try to attempt to summarise Hume’s position on causality as it relates to his works throughout his life’s entirety, as well as secondary views on this matter. The object will be to signal that much of the psychological basis for the casual

David Hume was a skeptic, naturalist, and an atheist philosopher who belonged to a movement founded by John Locke. He strived to apply the sensible procedures for observation to an examination of human nature itself to develop the consequences of Locke 's experimentation. Hume argues that at the base of any system of thought and any science, man is faced with his daily world. This goes beyond the scope of every possible rational project. Man cannot be separated from his experiences, just as there cannot be separate experiences of a thinking ego. Man and his world are mutually solicitous and radically inseparable. The centrifugal and experiential nature of human nature is organized according to Hume on two levels which he calls impressions and

Pascal offers a logical reason for believing in God: just as the hypothesis that God's existence is improbable, the

Descartes and Hume. Rationalism and empiricism. Two of the most iconic philosophers who are both credited with polarizing theories, both claiming they knew the answer to the origin of knowledge and the way people comprehend knowledge. Yet, despite the many differences that conflict each other’s ideologies, they’re strikingly similar as well. In this essay I will attempt to find an understanding of both rationalism and empiricism, show the ideologies of both philosophers all whilst evaluating why one is more theory is potentially true than the other.

In this argument we already assumed that there may be possibility that God exist and finally we reached where we started. So this argument does not give us the exact information about existence of God. There are many objections on this argument but still it is a powerful argument. In my opinion, this argument is not much satisfactory. It describes that existence is greater than imagination. That is right but here we are only imagining two situation one is just idea of God and another is idea plus reality. But how can we assume that God exists in reality even we don’t know about God’s existence. It seems just a logic which is self-contradictory. We can also apply this logic to other things, maybe this logic will not work. Let’s imagine that electricity is not available in a room, so fan, which is hanging there, is not working. Then we cannot say that fan is not working because electricity is not available. There may be some other problem with the fan. So reverse is not always true. So this argument is ambiguous.