This paper will be an analysis of David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and will provide the readers with an interpretation of various arguments made against Philo’s initial argument that was made to show that it is not reasonable to believe in the existence of God. Philo initially suggests that God is just a being that has been regarded in the Christian religion. Provided will be a more in depth analysis of this argument. Then, there will be an interpretation of Demea’s response to this argument, and Cleanthes’ criticism of this response. After the aforementioned argument and criticism, Cleanthes’ response to Philo’s initial argument will be provided, as well as Philo’s criticism of said response. We will then observe Cleanthes’ newly formulated argument from the beginning of part XI. Finally, Philo’s final criticism of Cleanthes’ last argument will be provided and interpreted. Philo initially provides an argument against the idea of believing in God, based on the fact that he thinks that the belief in God is based on Christian religious ideas that people have …show more content…
Demea also brings the words of a poet, Milton, into his argument to try and show the sadness and tormentors that pass through people’s minds. Demea also uses Charles V who publically stated that through his time on the throne he never truly felt satisfaction or contempt. The belief in a benevolent God is what makes life tolerable, and allows you to go through it. Cleanthes argues this by saying that he himself is not miserable which automatically invalidates the argument. This begs you to think that Cleanthes was an Atheist, or something similar to an atheist, so him stating that he is not miserable, without the belief in a God in his life, makes Demea’s argument
In Dialogues concerning Natural religion Hume explores whether or not faith is rational. as a result of Hume is AN philosopher (i.e. somebody WHO thinks that every one information comes through experience), he thinks that a belief is rational given that it's sufficiently supported by experiential proof. therefore the question is absolutely, is there enough proof within the world to permit North American country to infer AN infinitely sensible, wise, powerful, excellent God? Hume doesn't raise whether or not we are able to rationally prove that God exists, however rather whether or not we are able to rationally return to any conclusions regarding God's nature. He asserts that the primary question is on the far side doubt; the latter is ab initio undecided.
The human mind’s ability and innate desire to justify and explain the world and its phenomena has led to some of the most significant and world-altering discoveries and inventions, illustrated throughout the renaissance, enlightenment, scientific revolution, and industrial revolution. Logical pursuits comprise a significant capstone of human nature and progress. However, according to Rudolf Otto in The Idea of the Holy, these tendencies have created different dimensions of religion; the rational and non-rational, with the latter often times overlooked. The most significant difference between the rational and non-rational aspects of religion deal with their respective emphasis on reason and feeling. Rudolph Otto prioritizes the non-rational as offering a truer understanding of religion because he claims the core of all religious life revolves around experiences and feeling, not simply rational thought.
Philosophy 224 Monday/Wednesday 10-11:15 WORD COUNT In a small village, deep in the South American jungle of Guyana, two men overlook a massacre of over 900 people. Of these 900 people, about 300 were children. The men stand in silence, but only for a moment, they are philosophers… HUME: “This is truly astonishing… There is no way that Jim Jones could have been a prophet…”
The existence of God has been presented by a multitude of philosophers. However, this has led to profound criticism and arguments of God’s inexistence. The strongest argument in contradiction to God’s existence is the Problem of Evil, presented by J.L Mackie. In this paper, I aim to describe the problem of evil, analyse the objection of the Paradox of Omnipotence and provide rebuttals to this objection. Thus, highlighting my support for Mackie’s Problem of evil.
In Lara Buchak’s essay, Can It Be Rational to Have Faith? , she asserts that everyday faith statements and religious faith statements share the same attributes. She later states that in order to truly have faith, a person ceases to search for more evidence for their claim, and that having faith can be rational. Although she makes compelling arguments in favor of faith in God, this essay is more hearsay and assumption than actual fact. In this paper, you will see that looking for further evidence would constitute not having faith, but that having faith, at least in the religious sense, is irrational.
The European Enlightenment Project 2015: David Hume David Hume (1711-1776) was a native of Edinburgh, Scotland, being born there in 1711 to relatively well-to-do parents, and died there in 1776 at the age of sixty-five. In 1721, at the age of ten, he began down a road largely determined by his family when he enrolled in the University of Edinburgh, and left after three years destined to pursue a career of his own. The next decades saw him developing through his publications a brilliant theory of human nature and the extent of human knowledge.
The question that is asked time and time again is whether or not god exists. It is evident that people hold different beliefs. It is evident that through some of the beliefs of J.L. Mackie that it could be argued that God does not actually exist. I find this argument to be more agreeable. In Mackie’s Evil and Omnipotence, he argues many points to support why it should be believed that god does not exist.
Hume’s response to this is through is character Philo, Philo said that we should not judge the attributes of god on something like Paley proposes. Philo argues that we cannot judge the entirety of the universe on one single part of nature because nature has an infinite number of springs of principle. Also that we cannot base God on our
A lot of arguments have been known to prove or disprove the existence of God, and the Problem of Evil is one of them. The Problem of Evil argues that it is impossible to have God and evil existing in the same world. Due to ideal characteristics of God, evil should not have a chance to exist and make human suffer. In this essay, I will examine the argument for the Problem of Evil, a possible theodicy against the argument, and reply to the theodicy. First of all, to be clear, the Problem of Evil is an argument that shows that God cannot be either all- powerful, all-knowing, and/or all good.
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 essay I will argue against the previously mentioned statement using the following arguments: The inconsistency between theists, the dependence of morality on religion and finally, Euthyphro’s dilemma. One problem with the Divine Command Theory is that it assumes that all its followers agree on what
In this paper, I will deliver a reconstruction of Descartes’ Cogito Argument and my reasoning to validate it as indubitable. I will do so by justifying my interpretations through valid arguments and claim, by showcasing examples with reasoning. Rene Descartes is a French Philosopher of the 17th century, who formulated the philosophical Cogito argument by the name of ‘cogito ergo sum,’ also known as “I think, therefore, I am.” Rene was a skeptic philosopher amongst many scholastic philosophers of his time. To interpret his cogito argument as indubitable and whether it could serve as a foundational belief, he took a skeptical approach towards the relations between thoughts and existence.
In this essay, I will set out to prove that Thomas Aquinas’ First Cause Argument does not show that God exists and the conclusion that God exists does not follow from the premises of the first cause argument. I do think that the conclusion is valid and could be sound/or has the potential to be, but the premises fail to provide the basis upon which to reach such a conclusion. Hence, I will be raising some objections to the premises and will try to disprove any counter-arguments that could be raised in its defense. This would be done by examining Aquinas’ First Cause Argument and trying to disprove it whilst countering arguments in its defense.
In this paper, I will deliver a reconstruction of Descartes’ Cogito Argument and my reasoning to validate it as indubitable. I will do so by justifying my interpretations through valid arguments and claim, by showcasing examples with reasoning. Rene Descartes is a French Philosopher of the 17th century, who formulated the philosophical Cogito argument by the name of ‘cogito ergo sum,’ also known as “I think, therefore, I am.” Rene was a skeptic philosopher amongst many scholastic philosophers at his time. He took a skeptical approach towards the relations between thoughts and existence, to interpret his cogito argument as indubitable and whether it could serve as a foundational belief.
Even though David Hume and Edward Burke were writing in the same time period, at first glance their ideas seem completely isolated. David Hume describes a subjective taste, in which a person’s taste depends upon a number of circumstances, but primarily a person’s moral opinions. Burke, on the other hand, argues that it is beauty that is subjective, and it depends on the concepts of pleasure and pain, rather than morality. Initially, these may seem relatively different from each other, but the use of the idea of subjectivity, a general thought regarding morality, and the concepts themselves actually show that the two philosophers had similar ideas.