The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.ค. 2024
- Does contingency give us reason to believe in God? The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument (LCA) answers in the affirmative. In this video, I explain Alex Pruss’ LCA from the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology.
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Video Outline
1 Introduction, background, and argument 0:00
2 Principle of Sufficient Reason 4:49
3 PSR: OBJECTION TIME 49:14
4 Global Causal Principles 59:57
5 Toward a first cause 1:09:19
6 The Gap Problem 1:26:14
Presentation Outline
1 Introduction
2 Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR)
-----2.1 Self-evidence
-----2.2 Koons-Pruss epistemological argument
-----2.3 Evolution (Induction in science)
-----2.4 Inference to best explanation
-----2.5 Precluding chaos
-----2.6 Nature of modality
----------2.6.1 Narrowly logical account of modality
----------2.6.2 Lewisian modal realism
----------2.6.3 Platonic account of modality
----------2.6.4 Aristotelian-essentialist account of modality
----------2.6.5 Aristotelian-causal account of modality
----------2.6.6 The argument
-----2.7 Philosophical argumentation
3 Objections to PSR
-----3.1 Modal imagination argument
-----3.2 Van Inwagen’s modal fatalism argument
-----3.3 Quantum mechanics
-----3.4 Contrastive explanation
4 Global Causal Principles (CPs)
-----4.1 Objection: causing the causing
5 Toward a first cause
-----5.1 The PSR
-----5.2 Objections
----------5.2.1 Can we even form BCCF?
----------5.2.2 HECP
----------5.2.3 Taxicab Problem
-----5.3 CP for wholly contingent states
6 The Gap Problem
-----6.1 Agency
-----6.2 Goodness
-----6.3 Divine Simplicity?
-----6.4 Gellman’s argument for uniqueness and omnipotence
Links
Pruss, “The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument”: alexanderpruss.com/papers/LCA....
Craig and Moreland, “The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology”:
www.difa3iat.com/wp-content/u...
Baddorf, “Divine Simplicity, Aseity, and Sovereignty”: philpapers.org/archive/BADDSA...
Della Rocca, “PSR”: quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/...
Bernaf and Kodaj, “Evil and the god of indifference”: link.springer.com/article/10....
Reluctant Theologian Podcast: www.rtmullins.com/podcast
Against the BCCF:
Tomaszewski against BCCF [I happen to think this argument is well-nigh decisive]: www.academia.edu/18318327/The...
Levey against BCCF: www.pgrim.org/philosophersannu...
Re: some of my stuff on divine simplicity/CT
(1) • Why Am I Agnostic?
(2) • The Aloneness Argument...
(3) • Classical Theism and t...
(4) • Is God an Angsty Teen?...
(5) • Answering Classical Th...
(6) • Is Divine Simplicity T...
(7) docs.google.com/document/d/1U...
(8) • Is Divine Simplicity C...
(9) majestyofreason.wordpress.com...
(10) • Dr. Ryan Mullins on Pr...
(11a) majestyofreason.wordpress.com...
(11b) majestyofreason.wordpress.com...
And, of course, the usual resources... :)
My book: www.amazon.com/Majesty-Reason...
My website: majestyofreason.wordpress.com/
Btw, the section from 1:38:56 onward also contains a whole host of responses to Feser's Neo-Platonic proof (mutatis mutandis)! :)
I am currently reading Pruss' chapter on LCA in Blackwell. Your explanation is helpful. Thank you.
The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology is heck of an effort.
Great! I will watch with great interest! Please make one on Josh Rasmussen's modal contingency argument 😉
Great vid. I really like this channel.
Much love❤️
Oh boy, not sure how you will address concerns here! Very curious! I will be replying soon.
The objection time song was beautiful.
Nice!! Great presentation Joe! Finally someone mentioned gellman's argument for omnipotence xD. What do you think about his argument, does it succed? It looks very plausible to me..
Great video as always! I've always found Van Inwagen's reductio quite compelling but I can't find any counter-response to Pruss' arguments for why explanations need not be entailing/contrastive anywhere, so now I'm questioning whether that critique of the PSR can be salvaged.
_“Hiccup”_
Thank you for giving me a way to say that easily without trying to spell the acronym HECP.
Great video!
I have a question. I agree that for an explanation, the explenan need not entail its explanandum, but then it seems that this explanations only has the necessary conditions for the explanandum to follow. But doesn't PSR say that the conditions must be sufficient, i.e., that the explanans-explanandum-relation is entailment? If there is a conditional statement, then with the sufficient conditions in place, the conclusion will be entailed, so what exactly is meant by a 'sufficient explanation' when only the necessary conditions need to be in place? I haven't read Pruss' book on this yet because of time-constrains, but I would like to see your answer!
22:00 Why is it a _"vicious"_ circularity ? Isn't that simply circular ?
Vicious circularity involves sets containing themselves does it not ?
Would you be able to do a video on how Craig attempts to cross the Gap Problem with his Kalam article in the Blackwell Companion?
I’m going to cover that in my Kalam series with Rationality Rules🙂
@@MajestyofReason Oh thats great. I was just reading the Kalam chapter today and I had a few responses of my own so it just generated an idea.
24:25 _"First we know from Kirt Gödel that for any set of axioms there will be truths of arithmetic that we cannot prove from such axioms in which case they aren't necessarily true according to this account in question but they would be they would then be contingently true but surely that's absurd right truths of arithmetic are not merely contingently true"_
I would need some clarifications about that.
In computer science we talk about "undecidability", and Gödel sentences are considered undecidable, NOT _"TRUE"_ ! In fact I am not sure what it means to say that a something is _"true"_ in arithmetic if it isn't provably so...
Great video! I was wondering if you could make a video about Ibn Taymiyyah on reason and revelation.
Much love
54:04 _"But and explanans need not entail its explanandum"_
But what if one takes the Aristotelian causal modality ? If metaphysical possibility is reduced to causal possibility, then doesn't a same cause produce the same effect ? Why wouldn't a necessary cause necessarily entail its effects ?
Hi Joe, I hope you are doing well. I wanted to thank you for making this video, I thought it was really informative and helpful. I have a point relating to the first route of 6.1. You deny premise 1 because you say that there are distinctly metaphysical explanations. The example you give to counter premise 1 is that of a substantial form which grounds the way in which a thing's parts are arranged in the way that they are. I think I would agree with this critique, but I'm wondering if it ultimately leads to a denial of the agency of the First Cause. Here is what I mean, and I may be wrong on some terms because I am not as familiar with metaphysics as you are so forgive me for that. The example you give of the substantial form of a thing grounding the ways its parts are arranged seems to be to imply that the substantial form is, at least in some way, concrete because it is able to actually ground the matter that makes up those parts of the thing. Now, it seems to me that if you say that something metaphysical which is not concrete, like the PSR for example, cannot actually ground anything things, it lacks the power to do so since it is not concrete. So it seems to me that this first cause, in order to ground the whole of contingent reality, must, in some sense, be concrete for if it were something like the PSR or other metaphysical principles or abstract objects, it would not have the power to do so. It seems to me, then, that the First Cause would have to be concrete in some sense. I think this would leave you with the options of saying that the First Cause either has agency or is an indeterministic concrete object. Further, it seems to me that the later could not be the case because if it were an indeterministic concrete object it would intrinsically change when it created the whole of contingent reality. It would be nice to see what you think of this. Thank you again and God bless.
Thank you!!! Much love
@@MajestyofReason Thank you.
@@MajestyofReason 1:52:11 Do you think finite numbers greater than one is monstrously arbitrary but one is not arbitrary? If yes why ?
Can you point me to the articles by craig on a denial of metaphysical composition? I looked for a while after watching the video and I can't find them due to the fact that craig just has so many publications.
So, one place he does so indirectly is in his extensive defenses of anti-realism. (See his two books on aseity.) For if there are no properties (including forms, accidents, etc.), then there are no properties, etc. that compose things. This is one reason Craig thinks immaterial human souls and God are both simple. Craig also talks about his view of God's simplicity (and metaphysical composition) in many places, e.g. I think he talks about it in his discussion with Bishop Barron, and I also think he might touch on it in his Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview.
@@MajestyofReason got it, thanks :) I'll check out his book on aseity when I get the chance.
My mayor issue with most of the counter objections (objection to the objections) is that they are ether a bunch of contingent things that can be explain by other contingent things (and therefore no addressing the issue of necessary existence) or examples of conjunctions (ODD and EVEN) without addressing issue in hands which is why this conjunctions require and explanation their self. Is like pushing back the necessary explanation for the original issue.
although probably I'm missing something....
Could you give an example?
Cool video- I love hearing how your mind works; and I love hearing these ideas talked about so fully & so seriously, & with such intelligence. However,I think that you're a bit too dismissive of the Aristotelian, Essence-based, view of Necessity & Contingency- which, as a kind of Aristotelian myself, I find a bit frustrating! (Possibly too dismissive of some of the others as well; i.e., I've never heard of the Possible Worlds as being things that exist, just as ways of mapping out Necessity & Contingency. But... I've never read this Lewis guy; maybe that's what he does think...? I dunno.)
But as for Aristotle:
1) I think that there are... so to speak, more general Essences (or Forms) & more particular ones; i.e., the Essence of Being Red-Colored, or of Being 2 Objects. In this way, there could be an Essence of Being an Essence. Maybe this is just too general to be called an Essence... I'm not sure; but if it DOES work, than all possible Essences would be grounded in that, & all other possibilities grounded in them (more or less), etc.
2) Even if it weren't true that there could be an Essence of being an Essence, I... don't get the impression that simply all Necessities in Aristotle, or for most Aristotelians, are base in Essences. Maybe Metaphysical Necessities work that way- but not Logical Ones, I think. I think. So... yeah.
Getting into your specific points:
Nothing can be a square & a circle at the same time, etc., because the Essence of a square excludes that of being a circle; so that example's actually based in essences, and not anything else!
Nothing can Cause Itself because, on the Aristotelian analysis, Causes move things from potential to actual, & must be based in something that is already actual (in some way), in order to bring this about- otherwise things would be either in continual flux, or else they'd never change. I.e., my brain needed Actual things, such as my keyboard, my hands, your video & the TH-cam platform, in order to bring this annoying comment into reality; & w/out them, it would have remained a mere fantasy (at best). That seems like a combo of my 1) & 2), here, thus (so far as I can make out), it's entirely consistent with Aristotle.
Surely, if it's possible for there to be such generally existing Essences, it would be possible for such things to exist in all possible worlds... wouldn't it? We wouldn't have to have Individual THINGS existent in those worlds- whether human beings, or God, or the planet Mercury (at least not on this argument- so far), just for the Essence of Being 2 Objects (say)- thus 2+2=4 holding true for all possible worlds, etc. What am I missing?
Cool vid otherwise; just had to get that off my chest!
Good presentation, as usual. I think an interesting objection always worth considering but rarely discussed in contemporary philosophy is roughly Kantian, viz. we have warrant for affirming synthetic _a priori_ propositions, such as the PSR, only insofar as they express conditions of the possibility of experience. If this is the case, the PSR won't get us to a transcendent being lying beyond possible experience, so the cosmological argument fails. Granted, this kind of view entails epistemological commitments we might find unattractive for independent reasons, but in contrast to some blithe dismissals of the PSR it at least fits with our intuitions that contingent objects of experience must have explanations.
That's an excellent point. Sounds like I need to make a video entitled "Kant DEBUNKED" or "Kant ABSOLUTELY DESTROYED"
@@MajestyofReason yes
Let's go!
Hey Joe what do you think of Feser’s argument that if the PSR weren’t true, we wouldn’t be able to trust our cognitive faculties?
Good question. So, I discuss a similar argument starting around 13:45 in this video, and my response to Feser's point is, I think, similar to the one I provide in the video. Essentially, I don't think it's true that we need the *full-blown* PSR in order to trust our cognitive faculties. But it's plausible that we need *some* kind of principle--albeit not necessarily a global, universal one--that at least bears some resemblance to the PSR.
@@MajestyofReason
Hi Joe,
I was wondering if the epistemological argument could be supplemented as follows, especially w.r.t. the question of objective probabilities. In most works I've read that take seriously non-inferential synthetic _a priori_ justification (e.g. BonJour, Bealer, Huemer) it's the apparent _necessity_ of the proposition that licenses accepting it _a priori_ , at least unless and until a defeater comes along. Now, the issue I see is that if one wants to claim the full PSR isn't apparently necessary, I don't see how they could, with a straight face, claim that it's seemingly necessary that _most_ contingent things have explanations. Surely this latter would be a contingent matter that would have to be determined via empirical inquiry, which poses a circularity problem the way Pruss and Koons frame their argument. The upshot is the argument might still go through without appealing to the more controversial thesis of objective probabilities being downstream of prior causal / explanatory factors.
I'm not positive but I wonder if a similar issue might work against the "all non-first contingent events have an explanation" variation.
Cheers
Nice video! My first article I read on the Leibnizian Argument was this article, the I read the Monadology and Necessary Existence. I think the Leibnizian argument is always one of my favorite arguments that I come back to. I do have some comments for discussion, as I've been pondering modality lately.
24:00 "Truths of arithmetic are necessary (wrt Godel)"
I take a pretty radical view about "why" truths of math are necessary that diffuses this objection. Note, when people say things like: 2+2=4 is necessarily true, they aren't exactly correct.
If we're in Z mod 3, and "2" is actually an equivalence class representative of all numbers who have a remainder of 2 when divided by 3, and "+" is addition on equivalence classes, then 2+2=1 (where 1 is the representative of the equivalence class of ... who have remainder of 1).
This point may seem a bit pedantic but there's a reason I bring this up. Technically, what's necessarily true is:
IF we define the natural numbers, and
IF we define addition in some manner equivalent to Peano's axioms, and
THEN we have 2+2=4.
This whole compound conditional statement is what's necessarily true. In fact ALL necessarily truths of mathematics take this exact form, i.e. the form: If we have a set of assumptions in which P holds, then P holds. Here are more examples.
IF we have a Euclidean space, and
IF we have a right triangle in that Euclidean space,
THEN the sum of the squares of the legs of the right triangle = the square of the hypotenuse (assuming we know what those words mean).
Here's one more:
IF we're talking about the Harry Potter novels written by our current J. K. Rowling (and not some counterpart),
THEN Snape kills Dumbledore.
Oh wait, that's not mathematical, however it's a proposition which takes the exact same semantic form, and is necessarily true for the exact same reason. Namely, the sentence contains its truth bearer in the first part of the condition. For any proposition in which: "If we a set of things which logically entail P, then P" this proposition must be necessary, and not for some "mystical" reason, really. So what are we to make of Godel? The way I take Godel, really, is that even undecidable truths in some axiomatic system, are necessary relative to some OTHER axiomatic system. Let's take a classic example, The Continuum Hypothesis.
The Continuum Hypothesis isn't undecidable, simpliciter. It's undecidable under ZFC axioms (and others). So, to be meta for a second, the proposition: "Under ZFC axioms, The Continuum Hypothesis is undecidable" is a necessarily true proposition. Further, if we do find some set theoretic axioms which would entail The Continuum Hypothesis, then it would be necessarily true that: given those axioms, The Continuum Hypothesis is true.
I've never seen a necessarily true statement that didn't, once properly analyzed, take this form. Even so-called "a-posteriori" necessary truths seem to take this form. Instead of saying: "All horses are mammals", we could instead say:
1. If a horse is defined as...
2. If a mammal be defined as...
3. Then all horses are mammals
In this way one would know the truth of this proposition without ever having seen a physical horse. Now that seems like a copout maybe, but I want to point out that this is how math works a lot of the time. How long did it take us to discover Quaternions? Octonions? Homology Groups? Thousands of years. These, just like horses, are in a sense just as a-posteriori. You don't understand the pythagorean theorem until you've seen at least one right triangle drawn for you, with legs and hypotenuse labeled, and you don't fully understand why horses are mammals, perhaps, until you've seen a horse.
Metaphysics? Let's look at the cause example. I argue we cannot fully understand the sentence "nothing can cause itself" until we fully understand the definition of the word "cause", or in other words, to the extent that we think this sentence isn't deductively necessary, but we think it necessary in some other sense, we haven't defined the word "cause" in such a way that the definition matches our intuition such that deductive entailments match our intuitive entailments. For example, implicit in the definition of cause could be that the cause must be ontologically distinguishable from the things it produces (this is a cause, this is an effect, they're always different). Then saying X causes itself would be saying: X causes an effect which fails to be ontologically distinguishable from itself. So X causes, and X fails to cause (by definition) forcing a formal contradiction.
I outright deny 4. What I think people get confused is that axioms describe possible universes of discourse (i.e. possible worlds). And to the extent that axioms are necessary, it's because all possibilities are necessarily possible by S5. Now we could say that about, say, principles like the principle of sufficient reason. But I don't think that principles are necessary either. I guess I'm more of a pragmatist in this regard. It's useful for us to act as if the principle is true, but we may find a better principle that does what we want without certain other burdens, etc.
For example, if Pruss's PSR here is necessarily true, then why would he talk about another one involving natural facts with Koons? What if people hold PSR's which are logically incompatible with one another? Well if they're both necessarily true but also inconsistent, what does that even mean? Are there necessarily true contradictions? I just don't think that's right. On my view, I think what's going on is something like this. Axioms / principles consider possible worlds in which they are true and things are derived from their being true (in that world). And then we decide, based on our experience, etc. whether those we live in a world more consistent with principle A or B (if they compete).
So yeah, this comment has become 3x as large as I expected, I didn't realize I've come to disagree with Pruss so strongly about modality since I read this last. It's crazy how your views can change in 2 years.
Nice Art(TM)
Putting my thoughts here as I watch the video :)
8:26 - Here is a thought wrt explanation being irreflexive: my intuition is that we generally think of explanation as the relationship between something (the explanans) which reduces puzzlement about why something else (the explanandum) holds. However, perhaps there are some truths such that once you sufficiently understand *what* the thing is, you are left with no puzzlement about *why* that thing is, and we would call such a truth "self-explanatory", rather than brute. Perhaps this is possible with things whose essence have a special tie to their existence.
1:19:19 - I came up with this exact even-odd argument about a year ago, and I didn't know it was any good, so I was surprised when I saw it in Pruss a few months later. This was my version which I gave to some of my friends on Discord:
--
Assuming an anti-circularity principle like "if A and B are contingent, then if A explains B, B does not explain A" it seems there is no self-explaining infinite regress in the BCCF. Suppose a self-explaining infinite regress exists in the BCCF, where c0 is explained by c1, c1 is explained by c2, c2 is explained by c3, and so on, and (c0 & c1 & c2 & c3 & ...) explains itself. So we could say something like:
Let c_even be the conjunctive fact "c0 and c2 and c4 and c6 and c8 and c10 and …"
Let c_odd be the conjunctive fact "c1 and c3 and c5 and c7 and c9 and c11 and …"
It seems that c_even explains c_odd and c_odd explains c_even, although both are contingent. This also would follow from the HEP, since every conjunct of c_even is explained by a conjunct of c_odd, and every conjunct of c_odd is explained by a conjunct of c_even. Thoughts?
--
I think that my atheist friend replied by suggesting that circular explanation might not be a problem for infinite propositions in the same way that it is for finite ones.
1:43:13 - (in reference to (5)) I don't think that appealing to the metaphysical necessity of a thing to explain it can work if you reject self-explanation. If for any p, []p explains p, then A is explained by []A, []A is explained by [][]A (by S4), [][]A is explained by [][][]A, and so on. Now consider an infinite number of necessity-boxes of A: ....[][][][][][][][][]A. This infinite modal claim will explain itself. So you have to reject "If for any p, []p explains p". But why in the world is the metaphysical necessity of a thing a valid explanation for some things and not others? I asked Graham Oppy a similar question, but got a bit of a rambly answer: th-cam.com/video/rpxaF2PAE4c/w-d-xo.html
(in reference to (6)) What exactly do you mean by explaining by constitution?
(in reference to (7)) Idk, the unity of consubstantial hypostases in a divinely simple ousia, and the unity of proper parts in a composite whole, seem relevantly different enough such that the former would be self-existent and the latter not. The former would be explained by the ousia, and presumably, if (3) false, the unity of the parts cannot be explained by the whole.
1:52:12 - Furthermore, (in reference to (3)), if N were finite, then there exists exactly one being with infinite power. For not every being could possess finite power, as a finite number of beings with a finite amount of power cannot get you to an infinite amount of power. And in virtue of Gellman's argument, there cannot be multiple necessary beings with infinite power. Hence, if N is finite, we still get exactly one infinitely powerful necessary being. And N is surely not infinite.
Thanks for the lovely comment!
So, w.r.t. your last question, note that I never claimed that necessity is automatically and always an explanation, such that for any p, []p explains p; indeed, I emphasized the opposite in the video. It's a good question as to where we demarcate the validity of an appeal to necessity as an explanation, one that deserves far more attention (as far as I'm aware, there is no scholarly work on this question.) Secondly, you can actually appeal to metaphysical necessity while rejecting self-explanation. This is because p is not logically equivalent to []p and hence can be non-circularly explained by it; but []p *is* logically equivalent to [][]p under S4, and hence to explain either in terms of the other would be circular. Hence, it seems to me that we actually have a principled reason to reject your regress and cut it off at the stage of []p's explaining p.
@@MajestyofReason I suspect that when we appeal to metaphysical necessity as an explanation, we aren't really concerned with what is being explained. "Why is it the case?" seems to be answered by "because it must be the case", regardless of what "it" is. But this collapses into self-explanation. So unless we have already (1) identified a non-ad-hoc way of deciding that modal claims aren't explained by their necessity, yet non-modal claims are, or (2) accepted self-explanation, it seems illegitimate at this point to appeal to explanation by necessity in our arguments.
I guess your idea for (1), based on your second point, is to say that []p explains p whenever []p and []p p?
I'm not sure we should say that the explanatory conditions of p and q are identical if they're logically equivalent, but rather use something like relevant equivalence. "All races should be treated with equal dignity" explains "racism is wrong", and it explains the relevant equivalent "racial prejudice is wrong", but is doesn't explain the logical equivalent "racism is wrong and Fermat's last theorem is true". We could adopt something like: if p explains q, and q is relevantly equivalent to q', then p explains q'. So assuming [][]p explains []p, then since []p is *relevantly equivalent* to [][]p, [][]p explains itself, which you say is absurd. This seems to me to be a bit more accurate than saying that because [][]p is *logically equivalent* to []p, then assuming [][]p explains []p, [][]p explains itself.
(Also, it turns out that if Maitzen's idea in "Stop Asking Why There's Anything" is right, then each necessary fact is explained by "I'm writing this comment", if we use logical equivalence to equate explanatory relations. But this is far off topic lol)
Then your idea for (1) would become that []p explains p whenever []p is not relevantly equivalent to p. But I'm not sure what justifies this. Maybe strict self-explanation is impossible, but I don't think your intuitions against strict self-explanation carry over to a proposition explaining a relevantly equivalent one. We might just be saying "p is true because of this relevantly equivalent q which illuminates p", rather than "p is true because it is". [][]p seems to explain []p in this way just fine.
Zoinks is powerful
Damn I was reviewing this video, and I completely miss, the first time i saw it, that the counter-example for 5.2.2 is contradictory. If during the time (12:00, 12:01) the cannonball was already flying, then asking for an explanation in that set as to why it was flying is ridiculous cuz the moment that explanation occurs is not in the time frame, this is the same as UDP.
1.- the ball is already flying and only an event during that time t can be used to explain
2.- explain an event before t
Nonsense!!!
First!!
Wait, is there any good reason to think the explanation is an agent?
I discuss that later in the video :)
@@MajestyofReason yes I saw that part of your video, I was thinking if you had any reasons for/against it outside of the paper. The paper by pruss doesn’t seem to present every possible argument for it.
If stage one of the argument was absolutely successful do you see any other reason to conclude the being is/is not an agent? Alone from the paper of course
@@doggoslayer5679 I myself don’t find the attempts to infer that the explanation is an agent successful; but there are some other attempts. For example, Feser tries to give some in his 2017 book; Josh Rasmussen tries to give some in his How Reason Can Lead to God book; and so on
@@MajestyofReason ayyy thanks for the resources mate. I appreciate what you think on this stuff, I probably wouldn’t have understood that paper if you didn’t explain it lol so thanks.
@@doggoslayer5679 much love❤️
I think Schmid is too fast to think that substantial forms are extra-scientific. They may not be quite the same as an ordinary scientific object, but they are, traditionally and in contemporary Neo-Aristotelianism, often fleshed out as having strong relevance to scientific explanation. We can think of them as analogous to scientific laws, which, again, are not quite the same as ordinary scientific objects but are nevertheless featured in scientific explanations. We can see this feature of hylomorphism in terms of its rejection by early modern thinkers--they certainly took the theory to be a quasi-scientific one.
His use of "metaphysical explanation" is a bit idiosyncratic as well. Metaphysical explanation, in the literature, is often understood to be a non-causal sort of explanation. Forms are definitely causal in nature.
2.7 brought up another interesting thought that I've been wondering about, and that is the relationship between the PSR and the Difference Principle. It seems to me that the Difference Principle is more basic than the PSR, and might do the work you'd want PSR to do in other arguments, while being less controversial.
In the moral argument for example, if there's a difference in moral duties, and moral duties are indirectly the result of facts about some world, then one would expect (via the difference principle) that there'd be some difference in worlds to appeal to if, say, torture is wrong in world X but a duty in world Y.
3.2 strikes me as a little unfair. The modal fatalism argument might be objecting to the very general PSR, but might have a more restrained substitute in mind - one that would be compatible with their ideas of explanations. I do agree that explanations don't have to entail the thing they explain. I do take a view that says that an explanation must point to a possible something which could possibly entail the thing being explained. I think that's more reasonable. It's perfectly consistent, for example, with Pruss's example of the dog barking or not barking. It's also consistent with probabilistic explanations. To explain something probabilistically is to point to a possible mechanism by which an outcome can be possibly (as a matter of probability) entailed by that mechanism.
What this also does is bring back Inwagen's argument. I think no necessary truth explains a contingent truth because a necessary truth cannot point to a possible particular thing, which possibly entails the thing being explained, even in principle. Further, most arguments for the PSR seem to actually hinge on the difference principle (imagine if world W was identical to how it is now, but P pops in uncaused, i.e. in virtue of no difference in W). Leaning on the Difference Principle, then, if there's some difference in effect which needs explaining, we're going to look look toward some system with differences corresponding to the effect or lack thereof. To do otherwise, is to hunt for an explanation in systems which are exactly the same as they would have been and assume that E happens (or doesn't) in virtue of no reason at all (relative to the system in question, not no reason in principle).
Finally, let's go "ad hom" a bit and work Pruss's conclusion backwards. It's not God that explains the BCCF. Full stop. It's God's "particular" choice to create "this" BCCF which explains the BCCF. Even Pruss knows at the end of the day, that to explain the BCCF, he's not going to appeal to something necessary, but instead he's going to appeal to a quasi-contingent particular (God could have possibly done otherwise) to explain his conjunction of contingent particulars. If that's how it's going to be, then I think he protests too much. Note, it's quasi-contingent because Pruss thinks that in some sense that Libertarian Free Choices in some sense are self-explanatory, however they could have been otherwise as well. So they're contingent enough that God isn't determined to act, but they're "not contingent" enough to dodge the PSR.
3.4 I don't want to harp on this too much, but now that you've verbally gone over this section there's definitely something I didn't think about as I read it (I think I need text and audio books, philosophy is about to get expensive). I don't think it's quite right how Pruss handles contrastive explanations. Let's consider two cases: a moral case, and a statistical case.
Moral case: A lifeguard is accused of letting someone die due to negligence. When asked why he didn't jump in to save someone drowning, he replies:
"Well I was talking to this cute girl, and my talking to this cute girl is sufficient to preclude my doing anything else, thus it sufficiently explains my lack of doing anything else."
But is that true? In a circular sense, yes. OBVIOUSLY negligence can be "explained" by what a negligent person does rather than doing their job. But the core of the explanation wanted here is "why didn't you do the thing we paid you to do?" and there's a sense in which "I did X instead and I couldn't do both" doesn't quite capture what is wanted. Put another way while a lot of guys might get distracted by talking to a cute girl, that's not sufficient to explain the contrastive element, given that someone was paid in order to carry out the contrastive element specifically. Any random guy might get similarly distracted, but a lifeguard on duty is not a random guy.
Probability case: suppose a casino has a dice game where you bet $3 and if you roll a 5 you get $5, if you roll a 1, you lose, and anything else is a reroll.
Now suppose the game is audited and it's found that in over 3000 rolls, the dice rolled {list of numbers with no 5's}. When asked about this, the manager of the casino just says "well the explanation for why the dice never rolled a 5 is explained by everything it DID roll instead." You think that's going to fly?
So while I don't take the hard position on this, I think the contrastive explanation people have a point. There is a sense in which sometimes you do need to deal with the contrastive part specifically. And if this PSR doesn't cover it, there's a sense in which people's intuition might be toward a stronger PSR. From talking to people, it seems people want a PSR stronger in terms of explanation, but more limited in terms of scope.
6.1 First, I just want to say you did a hell of a job laying out criticisms for the first argument. That was good TV right there. Another thing to think about for the second route, is that agency might be a barrier to solving Inwagen's problem if God is omniscient.
1. God necessarily knows his reasons for P, and his doing otherwise.
2. God necessarily knows which reasons will impress him.
3. God necessarily knows how God would act under all situations in which he was impressed by reasons for things.
C. God's agency, in light of his omniscience, still entails that God makes P, making the explanation an entailing explanation.
Now you can, and many people do, disagree with this argument. But, like you point out in the first route, what's going to do the work here is one's account of omniscience, not their assumption that God is an agent, simpliciter, to dissolve God's being an entailing explanation. So that's another tool that one might use.
Overall really good summary. Even having read the article a few times, there's still extra stuff I got out of listening to this because of the way you presented it. Definitely subscribing and checking out all the articles you go over. Really good stuff.
@@milos223 Find a few things you're passionate about and focus most of your free time on just a small few things. The more scattered your hobbies, the more divided your time will be in learning any of them. If you are going to have multiple hobbies, making sure they overlap is great. For example studying set theory overlaps with looking at Kalam arguments about infnites, or even Causal Finitism as a separate topic.
Next, engage often and think about what you've seen. So with conversations like this about the PSR, I've read Pruss's Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology article many times over the last 5 years, as well as Necessary Existence by Pruss and Rasmussen, Rasmussen's new article in the Contemporary Arguments for Natural Theology book (it wasn't great, not enough space to deal with objections) and listened to lots of conversations between Rasmussen and Malpass on this topic (and others).
The more you engage with the same topic from multiple perspectives, the more desensitized you get about the "lay of the land" so to speak. You know when time is spent doing set up for beginners, you know what's going to be said, and so you can "skip" that part mentally to save brain power for focusing on minutia you haven't heard before. The ear trained to distinguish wrote setup that always happens from new points to consider comes with a lot of experience and familiarity with the discussions around the topic. There is no rushing that process. If it means you have to watch the same videos over and over again or read the same articles over again until your brain stops being fatigued 1/3 or 1/2 through (happens to everyone!) then that's what it takes.
There is one exception for the "no rushing it" rule. One thing that actually did help me with stuff like this is to read the article, read each article section by section, and for each section in the article try to give a one paragraph summary, hitting all the high notes. If you can do that, then if you see the same section being set up in conversation again, you'll have "zipped" all that information (like you zip a file in a computer) to a simpler lower resolution version of the section to save mental space. Note that accuracy is key here so if you disagree with someone about an argument or objection, try to read the section together and come up with a summary that steelmans the other person's argument as much as possible. You should sacrificed exactness to save space, but you should never sacrifice charity to save space.
The last suggestion I have, which is general advice, is to learn some higher level math with philosophy. I'm not talking Calculus here, you can skip that. Go straight into set theory or group theory that don't have a calculus prerequisite. What's important is working with a "sterile" field that isn't emotionally attached like politics or religion, and learning to do proofs in the sterile environment, so you can carry over those rules and good habits to the topics you really do care about. That's a high bar for a lot of people but it really makes the difference.
On my youtube channel, in the description of my videos, is my discord server where you can find my discord handle (also logos). You can DM me there whenever you have questions. Always cool with having conversations with people about stuff. Hope some of this is helpful, take care!
@@milos223 It's pretty hard to recommend reading materials since I learned mostly by talking to people and reading articles directly for discussion. So I don't know any good beginner friendly "catch all" books to quickly catch someone up, but I can give it a shot.
When I took Philosophy of Religion at community college a long time ago, the book we used was "Exploring the Philosophy of Religion" by David Stewart. Mostly it had primary sources and arguments from other people, with short commentary before the articles, and a small number of discussion questions after to get you thinking. One thing you could do, to look at a more up to date intro book, is go to the bookstore of your local community college or university and see what kind of book they might use for a 100 or 200 level philosophy of religion course.
Two books I found doing this were:
"Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology" by Rea and Pojman
and
"Exploring Philosophy of Religion, an Introductory Anthology" by Cahn.
What you'll see with these books is that they're Anthologies, like my old book, which mostly consist of primary sources with some discussion, and they usually have "intro" in the title for complete beginners. From there, there's going to be a gap in your knowledge where you'll want to learn more about particular subjects and you won't have all the information you need to start looking at specifics.
For example, if you want to learn more about the Kalam and how to treat infinities, Pruss's "Infinity, Causation and Paradox" is a great book, but it is NOT for beginners. You're either going to have to painstakingly work through it and look up individual pieces as you need to understand them or learn more basic things first, like set theory, etc. What those more basic materials are depends on the subject. But start with an intro book, pick a direction that interests you once you read it, and then ask more questions.
@@milos223 I'm with Veblen on this one. Peope instinctively have idle curiosity. Some are really good with space, some are good with games, some with sounds and others wit. You know what your natural impulses and talents are after you try a lot of things, and maybe philosophy isn't for you after you play with it some.
I don't think IQ is necessary to like philosophy proper, but maybe some branches of philosophy. Analytic philosophy dealing with possible worlds and modality might not be a level of abstraction that lower IQ people have patience for. But maybe Stoicism, Existentialism, and other philosophies that have to do with man's relationship to suffering might be more interesting.
I have a friend whose eyes glaze over when I talk about these arguments, but he loved reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
@@logos8312 brilliant advice
Yeah I prefer Spinoza's philosophy, maybe you should do a video on him next. The argument relies heavily on the assumption that foundationalism is true. If a substance exists, it necessarily exists. .If a substance does not exist, its existence is impossible. Combining these conclusions, we reach (1): every possible substance necessarily exists. There is only one possible substance. Therefore, Substance Monism is true.
if something existed for no reason at all, the fact that it exists would be inexplicable, a violation for the PSR. The PSR cannot be a brute fact, if it were then it would be self refuting. If one claims it's an example of Russell's paradox, and the vicious circle principle should be invoked, it would still leave open the problem of a principle that has no reason why it is true. plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza-modal/
Also, explanations can be circular @8:12 Eg. P is true because P cannot be false.
If P, then -P
-P
Therefore, P
By this logic, foundationalism explains nothing either. What makes P true under Foundationalism? If justification is person based, the coherentism is just as acceptable.The line of thought that foundationalism should be favored over circularity heavily rests on Phenomenal Conservatism (PC) but was makes PC truth indicative.
Foundationalism is question-begging. Epistemic infinitism is where it's at.
Have you read the deterministic explanation of Qm you are talking of ? The most "determinate" still conform with reality that you cannot predict our outcome, it is random, do you call that deterministic ?
Note carefully that upon some theories of decoherence, the system variate without any external interaction. Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber theory.
Please explain how a atom disintegrated or not, according to your goalposts moved the fact that my cat puked on the keyboard is a good explanation, as it give the same predictive power...
And in neither cases you can give us the reason for the precise value of the quantum field fluctuations.
Go back to school, mate.
44:49 Very suspect. Let's plug in a concrete example:
E is uncaused, say "God"
F is contingent state that includes E, "God and my evil twin"
Since you define possible worlds as not actual because of a reason, there's a reason for my evil twin (sounds circular already), there's a reason for F.
Since F has reason, E must have a reason??
The step of creating F from a conjunction doesn't seem to preserve the "has no reason" property.
Mbappe missing that pk is proof the psr is false
Lolol