Class notes through 10/23/2025
8/26/2025
Philosophy of Religion
10% Attendance
Maximum of 14 absences before failing course
You get 1.5 points for each day you come to class. There are 28 class meetings (= 42 points).
If you attend 21 class meetings, you will get 100% on your attendance grade (31 points). If you attend more than 21 class meetings (up to 28) you can earn 135% on your attendance grade.
8/28/2025
[Philosophy Club: Tuesday, September 2 at 5:00 in CAS 436 (“The Cave”)]
Do you think anything ever “just happens” for no reason at all?
First cause
What, exactly, is a cause?
Aristotle’s 4 causes:
-Efficient
- Material
- Formal
- Final
Nyaya’s inhering and non-inhering causes (emergent causation):
- Some effects inhere in (or reduce to) their causes (e.g., a brick wall is caused by an arrangement of bricks)
- Some effects don’t inhere in their causes (e.g., the strength of an arch, or chloramine gasses produced by mixing ammonia and bleach)
The view that nothing can ever “just happen” implicitly endorses the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR).
- “There is nothing without a reason.”
- Everything is explainable, at least in principle.
- Reality has an intelligible structure (even if only by an omniscient being).
- There are no “brute facts.”
- For any positive fact F, there is a reason why F obtains rather than not.
“Explanatory rationalism” accepts PSR (some version of it)
Rowe’s formulation of cosmological argument:
1. Everything that exists is either a dependent being (is explained by something else) or a self-existent being (is explained by its own nature).
2. It is impossible for everything that exists to be a dependent being.
3. Therefore, there is at least one self-existent being.
4. Only God could be a self-existent being.
5. Therefore, God exists.
Premise 1 presupposes PSR because it excludes “brute fact beings” (things that just happen to exist for no reason).
Premise 2 has two lines of justification:
(a) If there are only dependent beings, then there is an infinite regress of dependencies, which is allegedly impossible.
(b) Even if the chain of dependencies in infinitely regressive, the existence of the chain as a whole must be explained (“why is there any chain of dependent beings at all?”).
Premise 3: Is a “self-existent” being coherent?
Premise 4: Why is self-existence restricted to God?
Is there a fallacy at work in premise 2?
A depends on B
(B explains A)
Suppose B completely explains A.
In an infinitely regressive series, each member of the series is completely explained by its predecessor.
In an infinitely regressive series, there is nothing that is unexplained.
… E > D > C > B > A
^
A
^
B
9/2/2025
[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]
[Also today in CAS 436 = free snacks and meet at least one philosophy person]
Do you think other universes could exist besides the one we are in?
1. Something exists.
2. Therefore, God exists.
PSR: There MUST be a reason why things are as they are and not otherwise.
Short version of Leibniz’s argument from PSR:
1. PSR (There must be a reason why everything is as it is and not otherwise.)
2. The universe exists but could have been otherwise.
3. There must be a reason why the universe exists as it is and not otherwise.
4. An infinitely regressive series of reasons would not explain why the universe is not otherwise than it is.
5. There must be an ultimate reason for the universe that exists.
6. This ultimate reason must be necessary.
7. Only God could be necessary in this way.
8. Therefore, God exists.
There must be a reason why everything is as it is and not otherwise.
There must be a reason why “There must be a reason why everything is as it is and not otherwise.” And not otherwise.
Here is something that has no reason for it. (Here is a brute fact.)
Could we make do with a weaker version of PSR?
9/4/2025
[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]
[Also free snacks again today in CAS 436]
Our best estimates place the Big Bang at about 13.8 billion years ago. If God caused the Big Bang, why didn’t he cause it sooner?
1. Something exists.
2. Therefore, God exists.
PSR is true. (Every true claim must have an explanation as to why it true rather than not.)
What explains the truth of PSR?
Necessary truth = impossible to be false. (Defy logic to be false.) (Today is Thursday and today is not Thursday)(All dogs are canines.)(All squares have 4 sides)
Contingent truth = true, but possibly not true (as a matter of logic).
The Kalam Cosmological Argument
(defended by William Lane Craig)
(K1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its
existence.
(K2) The universe began to exist.
(K3) Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.
[The argument must be continued somewhat like this:
(K4) The cause of the universe must be immensely powerful, non-physical, outside of space-time, changeless, and have free will.
(K5) These characteristics describe God.
(K6) Therefore, God exists.]
K1 and K2 are both justified by appealing to both empirical and conceptual considerations. [defer discussion of K1 and K4 - K6]
Empirical justification for K2 appeals to Big Bang cosmology.
Conceptual justification mainly rejects the possibility of an “actual infinite”:
(KS1) An actual infinite cannot exist.
(KS2) An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.
(KS3) An infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist.
(KS4) If an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist, then the universe
began to exist.
(K2) Therefore, the universe began to exist.
A collection of things C is actually infinite at a time T if and only if C has an infinite number of members at T.
A collection of things C is potentially infinite if and only if at any time T, C has a finite number of members at T, but there is an infinite number of members that will be added to C at successive times (T1, T2, T2, ….).
K1 is a restricted version of PSR.
Several people have suggested that the distinction between actual and potential infinites is problematic.
A general strategy is to appeal to a symmetry between past and future: If the future can be infinite, so can the past.
-¥ past present future +¥
<…………………………….|………………………………>
E.g., William Lawhead
(NK1) An actual infinite cannot exist.
(NK2) If the series of future events is unending, then there exists an actual
infinite.
(NK3) Therefore, there cannot be an unending series of future events.
Craig rejects this symmetry.
An (existing) infinite past would be an actual infinite, while an infinite future is only a potential infinite.
There may be a particular difficulty for traditional theists who also accept “omni” attributes for God.
Lawhead suggests that omniscience is rendered problematic:
(NKS1) The series of future events in unending.
(NKS2) God has perfect knowledge of all future events.
(NKS3) The set of future events contained within God’s knowledge constitutes a
determinate, complete, actually infinite set.
(NK2) If the series of future events is unending, then there exists an actually
infinite collection.
Craig denies NKS3 because God’s knowledge is not made up of individual propositions/instances.
I suggest this is irrelevant because it conflates the MANNER of God’s omniscience with the OBJECTS of God’s omniscience.
I propose the afterlife argument as an example:
(AL1) God’s intellect apprehends Peter’s afterlife as
unending (God knows/”sees” all Peter’s future days).
(AL2) If God’s intellect apprehends Peter’s afterlife as unending, then God’s
intellect either apprehends Peter’s afterlife as potentially infinite or as
actually infinite. [object of apprehension rather than manner of apprehension]
(AL3) If God’s intellect apprehends Peter’s afterlife as only potentially
infinite, then there will be days of Peter’s afterlife that will come to pass
that are not included in God’s intuitive apprehension of it. (Because to see it
as a potential infinite would be to see it as finite.)
(AL4) There is nothing that will come to pass that is not included in God’s
intuitive intellect.
(AL5) Therefore, God’s intuitive intellect apprehends Peter’s afterlife as
actually infinite.
(AL6) If God’s intuitive intellect apprehends Peter’s afterlife as actually
infinite, then Peter’s afterlife is actually infinite.
(AL7) Therefore Peter’s afterlife is actually infinite.
(AL8) If Peter’s afterlife is actually infinite, then an actual infinite is
possible.
(AL9) Therefore, an actual infinite is possible.
[I no longer accept this argument. There is a serious flaw in it. But fixing the flaw creates different problems for Craig’s rejection of past-future symmetry.]
Is the KCA refuted by some models of quantum cosmology?
Could the following be a true story?
Once upon a time there was a “quantum-nothing (QN).”
A QN is a primal state in which purely random, uncaused, spontaneous events can occur (some such events are already known to occur within the universe), so long as the total energy of the event is zero (so there is no violation of energy-conservation (in a sense, it isn’t really ‘something from nothing’)).
One such event could be a Big Bang type event, because the total energy of the entire universe is zero. (“…our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time." – Alan Guth)
But wouldn’t this imply an infinite temporal regress?
Not necessarily.
Because a temporal sequence is only meaningful if events within it can be temporally ordered (before, during, after). But meaningful temporal ordering requires causal reciprocity (otherwise there can be no facts which determine temporal order).
In a QN there is no causal reciprocity of distinct events, so it is not meaningful to say that one occurs before, during, or after another.
It also means that there is no meaningful answer to the question of why any given event in a QN didn’t occur earlier or later than it did. (Leibniz was right in rejecting empty time and empty space.)
9/9/2025
[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]
What do you think ideas are, exactly?
Ontological argument(s)
“ontological” = having to do with existence
Better term might be “conceptual” or “definitional” or “analytic”.
Two main types of ontological argument:
(1) Definitional
(2) Modal (having to do with possibility, contingency, and necessity)
The word “contingent” is ambiguous in philosophy:
(1) It can mean “contingent upon” (relational sense)
(2) It can mean “true but possibly not true” (non-relational sense) (true in fact, but could have been otherwise)(logical contingency)
[There are analogous meanings for “necessary”:
(1) “Necessary for”
(2) “Necessary in itself” (logical necessity)]
Anselm of Canterbury
God = “that than which nothing greater can be thought”
1. Of two things that can be conceived that are exactly alike except that one exists only in the understanding while the other exists in reality, the one that exists in reality is greater than the one that exists only in the understanding.
2. God is that than which no greater being can be conceived.
3. Consider two beings: a God that exists only in the understanding, and a God that exists in reality.
4. Of these two (mentioned in 3) the God that exists in reality is greater than the God that exists only in the understanding.
5. Therefore, a God that exists only in the understanding cannot be that than which nothing greater can be conceived.
6. Therefore, a God that exists only in the understanding cannot be God.
7. Therefore, God exists in reality.
8. Therefore, God exists.
Parody response to ontological argument:
Can’t we use the same argument to prove the existence of anything whatsoever (so long as it is defined as the greatest conceivable ___)?
Main response to parody arguments: No finite/imperfect thing can be substituted for God in the argument. All finite things by nature suffer imperfections, and therefore cannot be legitimately prefaced by “greatest conceivable”.
What does it mean to EXIST in the understanding?
Is existing in the understanding really a manner of existing at all?
Perhaps we can reframe the argument so that it doesn’t make use of the notion of “existing in the understanding”.
(Based on Rene Descartes: Meditation 5)
1. The idea of God is of a being that possesses every perfect-making property. (= property that contributes to a thing’s perfection)
2. Existence is a perfect-making property.
3. The idea of God is of a being that possesses existence (i.e., God exists.)
Atheist: “I can conceive god as not existing.”
Theist: “no, you can’t.”
A: “I can conceive a triangle with fewer than three sides.”
T: “No, you can’t.”
That is, Descartes suggests that “existence is part of God’s essence”.
God has existence as an essential property, while everything else has existence only as an accidental property.
For Descartes:
Something S has property P essentially if and only if it is impossible to properly conceive S without P.
For Leibniz:
Something S has property P essentially if and only if it is impossible for S to exist without P.
Kant suggests that all ontological arguments treat existence as a property (a predicate): that is, as a concept that changes or adds something to the concept in question.
Existence is not a function of a concept, but is rather a function of whether or not that concept is instantiated.
Compare $100 to $100 existing dollars.
Is it coherent to consider some concepts as self-instantiating?
1. If God exists, then the concept of God is instantiated.
2. The concept of God is self-instantiating (the concept of God is, by definition, instantiated).
3. The concept of God is instantiated, therefore, God exists.
This argument is fairly clearly circular.
But what about this variation?:
1. The concept of God is self-instantiating.
2. If something is self-instantiating, then it exists.
3. Therefore, God exists.
This argument appears to presuppose that self-instantiation is possible. But what justifies this?
9/11/2025
[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]
Could there have been nothing at all?
(Is absolute nothingness possible?)
[Journal entries]
The so-called “modal ontological argument” can be expressed as follows (one version):
1. The concept of God represents a necessary being (a being whose existence is necessary).
2. God is a possible being. (God is possibly necessary.) (presupposes that a necessary being is possible)(A necessary being is possible)
3. If something is possibly necessary, then it is necessary.
4. So, God is a necessary being. [from 1, 2 & 3]
5. If anything necessarily exists, then it exists.
6. Therefore, God exists. [from 4 & 5]
Remember Kant’s claim that existence does not amplify the concept of a thing – existence is not a function of the concept of a thing. (You can’t conceive something into existence.)
In particular, we cannot legitimately contrast the concept of an existing God with a non-existing God. These are not different in respect of their concept.
But what about necessary existence?
Is God possibly non-existent?
Atheist: “I don’t think there are any necessary beings.”
Theist: “But a necessary being HAS TO exist, so you’re wrong.”
(Leibnizian definition: necessary being = being that exists in every possible world)
1. It is possible that God exists in every possible world.
2. If it’s possible that God exists in every possible world, then necessarily God exists in every possible world.
3. Therefore, God exists in every possible world.
4. Therefore, God exists in the actual world.
Atheist: “I can conceive a possible world in which God does not exist.”
Theist: “No, you can’t.”
Consider two Gods: one that exists in only one possible world, and the other that exists in all possible worlds. Is the 2nd God greater than the first?
Why would anyone think so? Why think God has to have necessary existence?
What, exactly, does it mean to exist in more than one possible world?
How do we individuate or identify things across different possible worlds?
Two different views on this:
(1) Cross-world identity: the VERY SAME THING can exist in multiple possible worlds (and can have at least some different properties in different worlds)
(2) Counterpart theory (world-bound individuals): Everything (or being) exists in only one possible world but has similar counterparts in other words.
Here’s a bigger problem:
Go back to Kant’s claim that existence isn’t a property of concepts, but of THINGS.
Could it also be a mistake to think that necessity is a property of things?
Willard van Orman Quine:
Necessity is not found in the world, but in the ways we talk about the world.
If Quine is right, the concept of a “necessary being” is a mistake. Necessity is a property of statements or conceptual relations but not BEINGS – it is a property of statements about things, rather than a property of the things those statements are about.
What if the following principle is true: Anything that exists can possibly not exist.
A unicorn exists.
A horse exists.
An existing unicorn exists.
An existing unicorn doesn’t exist.
Let ‘Zunicorn’ = an existing unicorn.
Let ‘Blunicorn’ = necessarily existent unicorn
One might think this is true because it is possible to say of anything that exists that it might not have existed without contradiction.
So, the atheist who says, “There is no God” does not thereby assert a contradiction.
Consider the case of a “contingent theist” who says, “I think God does exist, even though he might not have.”
9/16/2025
[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]
What evidence (if anything) would definitely convince you beyond reasonable doubt that God exists?
Design arguments (or teleological arguments) are putatively evidential. Their basic form is:
Certain things in the world have features that count as evidence for the claim that God exists. This evidence is strong enough to make it more reasonable to accept than to reject the claim that God exists.
Suppose you are lying out looking up at the stars when they suddenly arrange themselves to spell out “I exist”. Would this be enough to convince you that God exists?
Would this?
What kind, quality, and quantity of evidence is “enough”?
For that matter, what, exactly, is evidence?
Evidence is information that can be used in support of a claim (evidence is always evidence FOR or evidence AGAINST).
The Sober article uses evidence within the context of Bayesian probability.
The usual way of representing this is:
Pr(C | E) > Pr(C)
That is, E increases the probability that C is true.
The majority of design arguments take something I call “functional complexity” as the relevant evidence for the claim that God exists.
Functional complexity (FC): complex structure together with a function performed in virtue of that structure that would not otherwise be possible.
William Paley’s watch example:
Is this an argument from analogy? Traditionally it is considered to be.
1. Both artifacts such as watches and living structures such as the human eye exhibit functional complexity.
2. Artifacts have this because they are designed.
3. Probably, similar effects have similar causes. [analogical premise]
4. Therefore, living structures have functional complexity because they are designed.
5. Only God could have designed living structures.
6. Therefore, God exists.
Premise 3 is problematic, though. Here is a stronger candidate:
3*. Probably, similar effects have similar causes when there are no preferable explanations for the similarity of the effects.
Then we also need to add something like:
3.5. There are no preferable explanations for the FC of living structures other than design.
Sober suggests Paley’s argument should not be read an analogical, but rather as making a likelihood inference.
Sober thinks the watch-eye analogy is just a device. The real core of the argument is, rather:
The likelihood of finding FC in nature is greater if there is a designer than otherwise.
Pr(FC | Designer) > Pr(FC)
In particular, Sober suggests that the argument is intended to establish:
Pr(FC | Designer) > Pr(FC | Chance)
This supposes that there are really only two explanatory hypotheses for FC:
Designer: FC is the result of the intentional agency of an intelligent designer. (i.e., God)
Chance: FC is the result of purely random chance.
[“Spontaneous generation”]
Sober points out that another option exists:
Natural mechanisms (NM): FC is the result of natural mechanisms that can operate iteratively over time (especially biological evolution).
To succeed, a design argument must show that:
Pr(FC | Designer) > Pr(FC | NM)
The usual strategy is to try to motivate the claim that:
Pr(~FC | NM) > Pr(FC | NM)
(or even)
Pr(~FC | NM) !> Pr(FC | NM)
(where ‘!>’ means ‘vastly greater than’)
9/18/2025
[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]
If life were found to exist in abundance throughout the universe, would that INCREASE or DECREASE the likelihood of God’s existence?
Sober’s ‘likelihood principle’:
Observation O supports hypothesis H1 more than it supports hypothesis H2 if and only if O would be more likely given H1 than it would be given H2.
Alternatively (expressed in terms of evidence):
Evidence E supports H1 more than H2 if and only if E increases the likelihood of H1 being true more than it increases the likelihood of H2 being true.
Or, expressed in terms of expectation:
Evidence E supports H1 more than H2 if and only if E would be more expected under H1 than under H2.
Example:
E: Eric’s jacket is lying on the floor.
H1: Eric lazily dropped his jacket on the floor.
H2: Eric hung his jacket up, but a tornado swept through the house and blew the jacket off the hook onto the floor.
Let’s consider two design arguments employing the likelihood principle:
Naturalism: Only natural laws and forces operate in the universe.
Supernaturalism: There is more operating in the universe than only natural laws and forces.
Probabilistic design argument
1. Living structures exhibit functional complexity (FC).
2. FC is more expected under supernaturalism than under naturalism.
3. Therefore, probably, supernaturalism is true.
4. If supernaturalism is true, then, probably God exists.
5. Therefore, probably, God exists.
Fine Tuning design argument:
1. We live in a universe with Life Permitting Conditions (LPC).
2. LPC are more expected under supernaturalism than under naturalism.
3. Therefore, probably, supernaturalism is true.
4. If supernaturalism is true, then, probably God exists.
5. Therefore, probably, God exists.
Both of these accept the following comparative probability/likelihood judgment:
The probability/likelihood of FC/LPC is low under naturalism but is not low (or is at least higher) under supernaturalism.
Before evaluating this claim, here is another analysis:
An extremely common type of inductive argument is what I call “Arguments from defeated expectations” (these are basically the same as applications of Sober’s likelihood principle):
Version1:
1. If hypothesis H were true, then we would expect to find evidence E.
2. It is not the case that we find E.
3. Therefore, it is not the case that H.
Example: If my daughter is home, I would expect to find her shoes by the door, but I don’t see them, so she must be out.
Version2:
1. If hypothesis H were true, then we would not expect to find evidence E.
2. But we do find E.
3. Therefore, it is not the case that H.
Example: If Higgens was murdered, we would not expect to find all the doors and windows locked. But they all are, so he wasn’t murdered.
There are also “Arguments from confirmed expectations”:
Version1:
1. If hypothesis H is true, then we would expect to find evidence E.
2. We do find E.
3. Therefore, probably, H is true.
Example: I ask my son to put away the dishes. If he did, I expect to find the dishwasher empty, and I do.
Version2:
1. In most previous cases where we have found E, H has been true.
2. We find E in the present case.
3. Probably, H is true.
Example: In most previous cases where blood spatter has been found on the ceiling, the murder was committed by blunt force. Since there is blood spatter on the ceiling, the murder must have been committed by blunt force.
What do these have to do with design arguments?
In all these cases, the BASIS of the expectations is prior experience.
The likelihood of FC/LPC is low because prior experience with models of naturalistic processes shows that non-FC/non-LPC results of these processes occur with greater frequency than FC/LPC results.
That is, the probability judgments in these cases are (primarily) frequentist or otherwise empirically based.
But this is certainly NOT how judgments regarding the likelihood of FC/LPC under supernaturalism, because there are exactly zero cases of known supernaturalist causation.
So, let’s revisit this scenario:
It seems I can’t make a strong rational case that this is more likely under supernaturalism than naturalism.
In fact, it seems that there is no possible empirical evidence that could ever establish supernaturalism.
But is this right? Would it really be irrational to take the stars case as evidence for supernaturalism?
9/23/2025
[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]
If you could change one thing about the world, what would it
be?
Logical argument from evil:
The concept of God includes (among other properties) the properties of being Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent.
X is omnipotent if and only if for any logically possible state of affairs, S, if X wills S, then S.
(Stone paradox: Could God create a stone too heavy for him to lift?)
Once upon a time there was God. Then, because he willed it, the universe existed.
X is omnibenevolent if and only if for any two possible states of affairs G and B, if B is better than G, then God wills B rather than G.
1. If God exists, then he is omnipotent and perfectly good.
2. It is logically possible for a world to exist where creatures with free will exist, but where no evil exists. (= the Free No Evil World = FNEW)
3. FNEW would be better than any world that has evil in it.
4. If God is omnibenevolent, then he wills FNEW to exist.
5. If God is omnipotent, then if he wills FNEW exists, then FNEW exists.
6. FNEW does not exist.
7. Therefore, God does not exist.
The point of the logical argument from evil is to make a case for the impossibility of God given the existence of evil.
To defeat the LAE, the theist needs only to show the POSSIBILITY of God’s co-existence with evil.
Alvin Plantinga distinguishes two types of response to the LAE:
(1) The theist can provide a theodicy — this is an account of why God does, in fact, permit evil.
(2) The theist can provide a defense — this is an account of some possible situation (that may or may not actually obtain) where God and evil coexist.
Plantinga aims to develop a defense, rather than a theodicy.
First, Plantinga articulates a view of free will that is commonly called a “libertarian” view.
This is the view that in order to be free (or to have free will) in doing some action A, the person doing A must have the power at the time of doing A to do some other action instead.
Plantinga is not here arguing that libertarian free will does, in fact, exist. Rather, he is only going to argue that so far as anyone can prove to the contrary it does.
Next, Plantinga claims that (again, so far as anyone can prove to the contrary) goods obtained through the exercise of free will are very great goods. That is, free will serves to amplify the goodness of good actions (and also to amplify the badness of bad actions).
Could God have created a world in which creatures like us always choose the good? Yes: By creating us so that it is only in our power to choose the good.
But, Plantinga says, this world would be inferior to a world where all creatures choose to do the good of their own free will.
Couldn’t an omnipotent being create the latter of these possible worlds?
Plantinga says ‘for anyone can prove to the contrary, maybe not’.
Plantinga says that it is a mistake to think that God can bring about any possible world (this mistake is “Leibniz’s lapse”).
Libertarian free will brings it about that whatever possible world we end up with is not wholly up to God but is rather a “joint venture” between god and the creatures with free will.
This means the above definition of omnipotence must be rejected:
X is omnipotent if and only if for any logically possible state of affairs, S, if X wills S, then S.
Instead, Plantinga needs a different account of omnipotence.
Plantinga introduces the concept of a maximal world segment (MWS) which is the part of a possible world brought about solely by God’s agency (not including anything brought about by the free will of any creature).
So, a revised definition of omnipotence would be something like:
X is omnipotent if and only if for any logically possible MWS, M, if X wills M, then M.
9/25/2025
[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]
Complete the following:
“One thing I would never do is ___”
Objection: God is omniscient. This means he not only knows what people will in fact do, but also what they would or would not do in any given possible situation. So why doesn’t God design the situation in such a way that people will exercise their free will to choose only the good?
That is, why doesn’t God just will a MWS that results in FNEW?
Consider a set of circumstances into which a creature with libertarian free will is placed. The creature C has a choice regarding an action A that is performed in those circumstances. Suppose that it would be better if the creature does A than not.
Then, the possible world where C does A is a better world in which C does not do A. But God cannot simply create the world where the creature does A. God can create the circumstances for C’s doing A, but whether C actually does A is up to C.
But if God knows all the MWSs where creatures freely choose the good instead of freely sinning, then if MWS1 results in a better world than MWS2 (where both MWS1 and MWS2 contain creatures with free will), then it seems God would will MWS1 rather than MWS2.
Plantinga could have made life easy for himself here.
The objection based on divine omniscience is that for any free willed choice that God doesn’t want someone to make, God could have designed the circumstances (the right MWS) so that the person would have made the right choice, instead. Or, at least, God could have made it so that only the circumstances where people would exercise their free will for the good were the cases where God gave them free will (God could “cancel” all wrongful exercises of free will).
(“Why couldn’t God have given humans stronger inclinations to choose the good?”)
Plantinga could avoid this objection by denying that knowledge of free choices is possible even for God.
That is, he could reject the following definition of omniscience:
God is omniscient if and only if for any possible world W, if T is a truth in W, God knows that T is a truth in W.
And instead endorse something like this:
X is omniscient if and only if for any possible world W, if T is a truth in W that does not depend on the LFW of any creature in W, God knows that T is a truth in W.
Or he could endorse a definition like this:
God is omniscient if and only if God knows all truths in the actual world and for any non-actual possible world W, if T is a truth in W that does not depend on the LFW of any creature in W, God knows that T is a truth in W. (God knows what people WILL choose, but not what they WOULD choose in a different possible world.)
(Some HAVE taken this view.)
But Plantinga rejects both weakened definitions of omniscience.
My summary of Plantinga’s FWD:
(a) Suppose people have Libertarian Free Will (LFW) – this means not even God can make someone always choose the good in any given set of circumstances (to be forced is to remove choice).
(b) Suppose that God knows exactly what anyone would freely choose in any set of circumstances (not only what they could choose, but rather what they would choose)
(c) Suppose God creates someone (“Chooser”) with LFW and places them in circumstances where they get to use their LFW exactly once to choose between G and E. God wants Chooser to choose G (good), but instead they choose E (evil). The possible world where Chooser chooses G (PWg) is better than the world where Chooser chooses E (PWe). But God can’t just create all of PWg. God creates a “maximal world segment” (MWS) where Chooser chooses, and it is Chooser, not God, that brings about the remaining portions of PWg and PWe.
(d) This means that omnipotence can’t be defined as the ability to bring about any logically possible state of affairs, since PWg is logically possible, but it isn’t within God’s power to bring it about, since bringing it about is a joint activity of God and Chooser.
(e) Suppose that goods brought about by LFW are superior to goods that are brought about by creatures without LFW.
(f) So, the best God can do is to create circumstances (MWSs) where he knows that creatures with LFW will bring about more good than evil through their choices. (Let’s call any world where this happens a “free good world”.)
(g) A person is said to be depraved relative to a MWS if they use their LFW to make at least one evil choice from that MWS.
(h) A person is trans-world depraved if no matter what possible circumstances God places them in, they use their LFW to make at least one evil choice. (God is basically unlucky.)
(i) Plantinga: For all anyone can prove to the contrary, it is possible that all creatures God could have created that have LFW are trans-world depraved.
(j) If so, then God had to choose either a world where no creatures have LFW and are forced to choose only the good (only compelled goods would exist), or a world where creatures have LFW and make at least some evil choices.
(k) For all anyone can prove to the contrary, God cannot bring about the Free No Evil World (FNEW) because of the transworld depravity of creatures with LFW. (The best he can do is to create the MWS that he knows will result in the best free good world consistent with the transworld depravity of creatures with LFW.)
(l) That is, although the FNEW is logically possible, God cannot bring it about due to the transworld depravity of creatures.
There is a difference between a possible world and an available world. Not all worlds that are possible are available to God.
A world W is available to God if and only if there is some MWS that God could create where LFW creatures would, in fact, make choices resulting in W.
So another way to put things is that FNEW (or, for that matter, any world that is better than the actual world) is possible, but not available to God.
Plantinga’s concept of transworld depravity assumes that every possible person has a set of core properties that are essential to them (they have these properties in every possible world where they exist). And for all anyone can prove to the contrary, perhaps all possible persons possess transworld depravity as an essential property.
This is important to counter the objection that God could have created some MWS and then added a better set of creatures with LFW (creatures with better moral dispositions).
Suppose someone is saintly if they would resist all temptations to evil no matter how great the temptation.
And someone is transworld saintly if they are saintly in every possible world where they exist.
If there are any possible person essences that have transworld saintliness, then Plantinga’s FWD fails (because then God should have created a world filled with transworld saints instead of the depraved creatures that we are).
But Plantinga’s response is to say that whether or not someone is transworld depraved or transworld saintly isn’t up to God, because both derive from how the person WOULD exercise LFW and not from how they COULD exercise LFW.
A couple of weird consequences:
- Jesus might be a transworld saint. (It may be that not only DID he resist temptations in the actual world, but that he WOULD have resisted temptations in any MWS.) But it seems we have to accept that there are possible worlds in which Jesus DOES NOT RESIST temptation – in which Jesus sins. This is necessary in order for it to be true that Jesus was tempted at all. (What does this do to the Trinity?)
- The possibility of Jesus’ moral imperfection is bad enough; what about God? It seems that among the possible worlds God could have brought about are worlds that he knew would be morally horrific (for example, the “hell world”). But perfect goodness seems to be a property that is essential to God (there is no possible world in which God fails to be perfectly good). But this means that God could have created the hell world despite being perfectly good. Is this coherent?
Some people have distinguished between natural evil and moral evil.
Moral evil = evil that results from the exercise of LFW.
Natural evil = evil that does not result from the exercise of LFW (rather, from purely natural forces/causes).
How does Plantinga’s FWD deal with natural evil?
For all anyone can prove to the contrary, perhaps all natural evil results from the LFW of “devils and other non-human spirits.”
9/30/2025
[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]
What is something you DON’T believe exists?
“Loose end”:
For all anyone can prove to the contrary, God could have created a world of LFW creatures whose essences possess transworld saintliness.
Plantinga’s reply is, “True. But for all anyone can prove to the contrary, he couldn’t have.”
This means that IF transworld saintliness is possible, then Plantinga’s FWD fails.
But the bar is actually even lower than this. All the atheologian would need to prove is that (a) there exists at least ONE world whose MWS God could actualize where creatures with LFW are not depraved, and (b) this world is better than any world where depraved creatures exist.
Plantinga: “For all anyone can prove to the contrary, there is no such world.” (Alternatively, “Ok. I’m listening….”)
This means that Plantinga hasn’t actually proved that the LAE is unsound.
He has only made a case that it can’t be proved to be sound.
That is, his FWD can be “presumed innocent until proven guilty.”
This might seem to be a major weakness, but in fairness, there are LOTS of arguments whose soundness is ultimately unknown or even unknowable.
(This is one reason I think it is a mistake to speak of
“proofs” in philosophy apart from logic.)
Evidential arguments from evil
The concept of moral negligence is that moral responsibility attaches not only to actions (what we do), but also to omissions (what we fail to do or allow to happen).
Evidential arguments from evil (EAE) usually highlight cases of God’s apparent moral negligence.
Here is William Rowe’s version of EAE:
1. There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
2. An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
3. Therefore, there does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.
“…could have prevented…” in Premise 1 trades on the concept of moral negligence.
The “unless” in Premise 2 implicitly concedes that the LAE is unsuccessful.
Rowe formulated his version as a deductive argument (it’s really an instance of modus tollens: “If A, then B. Not-B. Therefore, not-A.”)
But it is actually an inductive argument, because the 1st premise is inductively defended as follows (I’ve added an implicit premise to save the logical structure):
1. There exist instances of intense suffering for which we have found no greater goods which would be lost or evils equally as bad or worse which would be permitted if a perfect being were to prevent those instances of suffering.
2. Probably, if we have not found such goods, then there are no such goods.
3. Therefore, probably, there exist instances of intense suffering for which there are no greater goods that would be lost or evils equally as bad or worse that would be permitted if a perfect being were to prevent those instances of suffering.
For various reasons, I dislike Rowe’s formulation.
Here is my version of EAE, which I think is entirely fair to Rowe:
Preliminary:
To say that an evil is ultimately justified is to say that when all considerations are taken into account, there are objective reasons showing that it is better (or just as good) that the evil be permitted than prevented.
To see whether or not some evil is ultimately justified requires omniscience. So, only God can know whether or not any given evil is ultimately justified.
To say that an evil is presumptively unjustified is to say that when all considerations available to S are taken into account, S has objective reasons for thinking that it would be better that the evil be prevented than permitted.
1. If God exists, then every evil is ultimately justified.
2. Many evils exist that are presumptively unjustified.
3. If some evil is presumptively unjustified, then it is implausible that it is ultimately justified.
4. It is implausible that every evil is ultimately justified. (Evils exist that are such that it is implausible that they are ultimately justified.)
5. Therefore, it is implausible that God exists.
This argument implicitly concedes the possibility of ultimate justification for any given evil.
In particular, it concedes a wide variety of scenarios that may be true for all anyone can prove to the contrary.
What is at issue in the EAE is not possibility, but plausibility. The concept of plausibility is used rather than probability to avoid the ambiguity between frequentist and Bayesian models of probability. But plausibility is essentially Bayesian probability.
(We could substitute “likely” or “expected” for “plausible” to match Sober’s language in connection with design arguments. (Oppy makes essentially this point.))
Premise 3 is intended to fit a concept of rational belief according to which one ought to believe what is best supported by the totality of one’s information. To believe something that is contravened by the totality of one’s information is not rational. (Remember that plausibility is Bayesian probability, which is supposed to capture the idea of subjective rationality.)
To put it another way, in order to think some presumptively unjustified evil is ultimately justified, one would have to have reason to think that reasons actually do exist that, if known, would defeat one’s presumptive justification for thinking the evil would be better prevented than permitted.
10/2/2025
[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]
Is there anything you would consider yourself an expert on?
Paul Draper’s version (my informal rendering):
1. Many evils exist that are presumptively unjustified.
2. This is more plausible on naturalism than on theism.
3. Therefore, naturalism is more plausible than theism.
Draper’s focus is on instances of pain that are expectable if they result from purely natural and morally indifferent mechanisms but would not be expectable if a benevolent God existed with the power to generate moral exceptions to such mechanisms.
(Example: Anesthesia)
Numerous responses to EAEs have been offered.
Rowe suggested that the best response for theists is the “G.E. Moore Shift” (fitting the saying that “One person’s modus ponens is another’s modus tollens.”)
Modus ponens:
|
If A, then B. A. Therefore, B. |
If God exists, all evils are justified. God exists. Therefore, all evils are justified. |
Modus tollens:
|
If A, then B. Not-B. Therefore, not-A.
|
If God exists, all evils are justified. Not all evils are justified. Therefore, God does not exist. |
Rowe notes that evil does not constitute the whole of relevant considerations bearing on God’s existence.
Theists might have other reasons for thinking that God exists than the nature and scale of evils. If these reasons are strong enough, they can over-balance the presumptive lack of justification for evils.
(We’ll come back to this.)
One of the most common responses to EAEs from theists is called “skeptical theism” (ST).
Suppose one wishes to argue from observed to unobserved cases. Something like the following principle is invoked:
If (i) all observed cases of X have property P and (ii) the observed cases are representative of all cases, then, probably, all instances of X have property P.
Some STs reject the 2nd condition on the grounds that God’s knowledge of justifying conditions so vastly outstrips ours that our knowledge of justifying conditions is not representative.
Here is my version of EAE again:
1. If God exists, then every evil is ultimately justified.
2. Many evils exist that are presumptively unjustified.
3. If some evil is presumptively unjustified, then it is implausible that it is ultimately justified.
4. It is implausible that every evil is ultimately justified. (Evils exist that are such that it is implausible that they are ultimately justified.)
5. Therefore, it is implausible that God exists.
The ST is challenging 3. The claim is that we cannot infer a lack of ultimate justification from a lack of presumptive justification, because we are likely massively morally ignorant compared to God.
Here is my reconstruction of ST:
ST1. If God exists, then his knowledge of the totality of goods and evils and the relations that obtain between them vastly outstrips ours.
ST2. If God's knowledge of the totality of goods and evils and the relations that obtain between them vastly outstrips ours, then it is very likely that at least one evil will exist that is presumptively unjustified but is ultimately justified.
ST3. If it is very likely that at least one evil will exist that is presumptively unjustified but ultimately justified, then given any particular evil E that is presumptively unjustified, then it is at least as likely as not that E is ultimately justified.
ST4. If given any particular evil E that is presumptively unjustified, it is at least as likely as not that E is ultimately justified, then it is not implausible that every evil is ultimately justified.
ST5. Therefore, if God exists, then it is not implausible that every evil is ultimately justified.
Is this argument compelling?
The weak point is ST3.
Sotnak-Smullyan ‘paradox.’
If Expert’s knowledge of Subject vastly outstrips Novice’s, then it is very likely that there will be at least one case in Subject that Novice thinks is wrong, but Expert knows is right.
So, given any particular case in Subject that Novice thinks is wrong, it is at least as likely as not that Expert knows it is right.
This is a bad inference unless Novice is completely (or almost completely) ignorant of Subject.
Preface (or proofreader’s) Paradox
There is at least one missed error in this book.
Therefore, given any element in this book, it is at least as likely as not that it is a missed error.
Back to Rowe’s Moore-shift:
Suppose I am watching a chess game online and Black takes White’s queen. Did White blunder or was it strategic? Suppose I cannot see any strategic benefit for White.
I think: “Well, if White is an expert, they probably see benefits I don’t.”
The problem is that I don’t know there is an expert playing White.
But now suppose I acquire independent information that White is Magnus Carlsen (World Champion).
This significantly increases the likelihood that the queen was strategically sacrificed.
Generalizing:
The ST response improves as the support for the existence of God improves. If perfect certainty of God’s existence could be obtained, it would become perfectly certain that all evils are ultimately justified.
But to justify a Moore-shift, the theist only needs it to be more plausible that God exists than that some ultimately unjustified evils exist.
In other words, done right, ST converges on Rowe’s Moore-shift strategy.
10/7/2025
[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]
[Challenge for today: Try to think of (and possibly ask) at least one question.]
Do you think it makes sense to suggest that something exists
“outside of time”?
Omniscience is standardly defined as follows:
God is omniscient if and only if for any proposition P God knows whether or not P is true.
Also, no defensible definition of knowledge permits anyone to KNOW something that is not true.
There are quite a few “paradoxes of omniscience”. Some think these render omniscience incoherent (similar to paradoxes of omnipotence).
Example:
(B) God does not know B.
Suppose B is true. Then there is a truth that God does not know, in which case God fails to be omniscient.
Now, suppose B is false. Then, God DOES know B, in which case God knows something false, which is impossible.
Earlier in the semester, I mentioned the view that God’s knowledge is not propositional, but “intuitive.” This doesn’t seem to help, though. B doesn’t require that ‘know’ be propositional. If God’s intuitive knowledge does not apply to individual propositions, then it doesn’t apply to B, in which case God doesn’t know it (so, B is true). But then there is truth that God doesn’t intuit.
God exists.
We have free will.
God is omniscient.
It would be bad for most believers if these 3 turned out to be incompatible.
Peter van Inwagen (PVI) thinks compatibility cannot be easily defended.
Libertarian Free Will (LFW) requires the truth of the following “alternative principle”:
(AP) S does A1 freely at T only if there is some alternative action A2 that S has the power to do at T instead of A1.
Remember that Plantinga’s FWD (as well as most others) hinges on creatures with LFW partly deciding which possible worlds become actual.
Consider:
(L) PVI will lie at T.
PVI’s lie is free only if PVI had the power not to lie at T. That is, at T, PVI had the power to bring about two different possible worlds:
PWL: A possible world where PVI lies at T
and
PWT: A possible world where PVI tells the truth at T.
But both PWL and PWT are exactly alike up to the moment of PVI’s choice.
Consider PWL:
Since God is omniscient, God always knew that PVI will bring about PWL by lying at T. In particular, God (fore)knew at every moment before T that PVI will lie at T.
Now consider PWT:
Since PWL and PWT are exactly alike up to T, it follows that in both PWL and PWT God knew at every moment before T that PVI will lie at T.
But this can’t be right because if PVI brings about PWT, then he brings about a state of affairs that includes either:
(i) God’s knowing something false (which contravenes the definition of “knowing”), or
(ii) God’s not knowing that PVI will lie at T (failure of omniscience).
PVI suggests that placing God outside of time may avoid the problem because when God’s knowledge is timeless, PWL and PWT are not exactly the same up to T vis-à-vis God’s knowledge.
Rather, in PWL, God timelessly knows that PVI will lie at T, and in PWT God timelessly knows that PVI will not lie at T.
Timeless knowledge cannot have temporal indices applied to it (“God knew at T that….”).
Freedom Denying Prophetic Objects
Nothing appears to prevent a timeless God from creating things that CAN have temporal indices applied to them that predict LFW choices.
Suppose God creates a stone tablet in 1900 with the words, “PVI will freely lie at T” carved on it (substituting specific information for ‘T’).
Now, if PVI freely tells the truth at T, then PVI has the power at T to do one of two things:
(i) Change what is written on the stone tablet from “PVI will freely lie at T” to “PVI will freely tell the truth at T”
(ii) Or, make what God timelessly “predicted” false.
Both of these seem unacceptable.
Response: “But if PVI tells the truth at T, then God would have written THAT on the tablet.”
In this case, though, PWL and PWT are not the same up to T. They may be similar (maybe even identical for all anyone other than God knows), but this seems to violate AP, because now in PWL, PVI does not have the power at T to tell the truth. He only has the power to do what is written on the tablet.
I said Plantinga could have offered an easier FWD by simply conceding that no one can know infallibly what someone with LFW will choose.
This is what PVI does.
If omniscience is suitably redefined, God can still be omniscient.
God is omniscient if and only if for any proposition P that is capable of being infallibly known (P is causally inevitable), God knows whether or not P is true.
Note that making God incapable of knowing free choices also requires abandoning the doctrine that God is outside of time.
Is PVI’s “retreat” necessary?
Maybe not.
When God creates the tablet in 1900, it seems that this is because God (being atemporal) is able to make events at an earlier time depend on events at a later time (“retrocausation”). Humans are presumably incapable of retrocausation.
But perhaps we could be by proxy.
If PVI freely lies at T, then he is causally responsible at T for what God inscribes on the tablet in 1900. That is, at T, PVI timelessly causes by proxy the inscription that is inscribed on the tablet in 1900.
This means that PVI has the proxy-power at T to make “PVI will freely lie at T” appear in the past and he has the power to make “PVI will freely tell the truth at T” appear in the past (because the inscription God creates in 1900 depends on what PVI does at T).
10/9/2025
[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]
[Challenge for today: Try to think of (and possibly ask) at least one question.]
Many of the problems in the Philosophy of Religion seem to be solvable by simply giving up the view that God is omnipotent, omniscient, or omnibenevolent.
Do you think this is an option that should be given more
serious consideration?
Newcomb’s problem
Two boxes sit before you on a table. One is clear and one is opaque. In the clear box is $10k.
You have the following two options:
Option 1: Take only the opaque box
Option 2: Take both boxes
You are told that the opaque box contains either $1,000,000 or $0 depending on the following condition:
If the person running the game (who is NOT God) has predicted that that you will choose both boxes (Option 2) then the opaque box is empty. But if the person has predicted that you will choose only the opaque box (Option 1) then the opaque box contains $1,000,000.
As it happens, you are not the first person to play the game. 1000 people have played the game before you. In each case, everyone who chooses only the opaque box has walked away with $1M, and everyone who chooses both boxes has walked away with only $10k. No one has walked away with $1,010,000.]
Will you choose only the opaque box or both boxes?
[discuss]
There are two rational principles at work.
The first is inductive reasoning: All previous 1-boxers have won $1M and all 2-boxers have won $10K.
The second is dominance: If the opaque box is empty, then it is better to choose both boxes. If the opaque box is not empty, then it is better to choose both boxes. Therefore, it is better to choose both boxes.
Here’s a theological variant:
God decides to play a game with Zeke who has LFW.
Zeke must choose one of two envelopes: A and B. There is also an envelope on the table labeled “Prediction” in which God’s prediction of Zeke’s choice has been placed. An impartial judge has read the prediction and placed a check for $1million in the envelope God has NOT predicted.
Suppose the prediction says, “Zeke will choose A”.
Since Zeke has LFW, there is a possible world in which he chooses A and another possible world in which he chooses B.
Is there a possible world in which Zeke wins the money?
It seems there can be no possible world in which Zeke wins the money. There is a PW where he chooses A and a PW where he chooses B, but both are worlds where he loses the money because it is logically impossible to falsify the prediction of an infallible being.
But:
What if instead of God’s prediction being inside an envelope, it is face up on the table where Zeke can read that it says, “Zeke will choose A”.
Now can Zeke win the money?
Again, since the prediction is infallible, he cannot.
But this highlights a serious problem with LFW.
If Zeke’s has no reasons for preferring to lose than to win, then choosing A despite knowing that this is the losing choice means that Zeke’s reasons and motives have no effect on his choice.
Reasons sensitivity principle:
(RS) S performs A freely at T only if the reasons S has at T explain why S performs A at T.
(This version does not require that S’s reasons explain A rather than any other action. That is, this version does not presuppose a strong version of PSR. )
This appears to create the following dilemma:
Either:
(i) Zeke is not free in choosing A, or
(ii) God cannot know infallibly that Zeke will choose A.
It doesn’t seem to help in this case to put God outside of time so that Zeke’s choice constitutes retrocausation by proxy (RBP).
- The prediction says that Zeke will choose A.
- God’s prediction cannot be wrong.
- This implies that the money is in envelope B (whether by RBP or not makes no difference).
- Zeke understands the rules of the game.
- Zeke knows the money is in envelope B.
- Zeke wants the money.
- Zeke wants to choose envelope B.
- Zeke cannot choose envelope B.
- If Zeke cannot choose envelope B, then Zeke’s choice of A is not free.
This line of reasoning could be resisted by rejecting the reasons sensitivity principle and letting completely irrational choices count as free.
But this seems to imply the irrelevance of rational competence and informed choice and consent.
Also, RS doesn’t have to imply that free choices are always rational in a strong sense. (Dumb choices can still be free.)
A really hard question here is what the minimal requirements are for RS to be satisfied.
(How dumb or uninformed or influenced by non-rational factors can a choice be before RS is not satisfied?)
This is especially important for many religious questions concerning responsibility (and divine justice).
Another game:
God has designated Zoe as his champion and has gifted Zoe with omniscience for the duration of the game. Zeke is Zoe’s opponent.
The game is simple. Each player must choose either to push or not push a button.
If both push their buttons, both players are sent to hell for eternity.
If Zeke pushes his button but Zoe does not, then Zeke is guaranteed a spot in heaven, while Zoe (no longer omniscient) must earn her place in the normal way, and vice-versa. If neither pushes the button, both must earn heaven the normal way.
Does Zoe’s omniscience give her an advantage?
[discuss]
Zoe’s omniscience is a DISADVANTAGE.
This is because she knows what Zeke will choose, and Zeke knows she knows this.
So, Zeke should choose to push the button.
If Zoe knows that Zeke will push the button, then she must choose, herself, between pushing the button (= going to hell), and not pushing the button (= status quo).
10/14/2025
[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]
[Challenge for today: Try to think of (and possibly ask) at least one question.]
If you were offered the opportunity to be reincarnated, would you accept or refuse?
Buddhism
Nirvana
No-soul doctrine
Karma
Karma & rebirth (karmic rebirth)
Karmic rebirth is considered a problem
(because all goods attainable in life are temporary)
Release for the cycle of KR is the goal of Indian religious philosophy
The Buddha – Siddhartha Gautama
4 noble truths
1. Life is misery/suffering (dukkha)(rebirth is part of this)
2. The root of suffering is selfish-grasping (trshna)
3. If the root is eliminated, so is what stems from it. (dependent-origination)(nirvana/extinction)
4. The truth of the Buddhist Path.
Along with #3 are:
- Universal impermanence (in particular, there is no permanent self/soul (anatman), and no God)
- The highest good is nirvana (elimination of the causes of KR = nirvana)
Nirvana/enlightenment: epistemological (knowing the true nature of things), metaphysical (the cycle of rebirth is ended), moral consequences
The Buddhist Path:
1. Right view/perspective/outlook
2. Thought/ideation
3. Speech
4. Actions/conduct
5. Livelihood (monastic/renunciate life)
6. Endeavor/effort
7. Mindfulness (single-focus)
8. Concentration (elimination of cognitive objects)
Enlightenment (bodhi)
If there is no (substantial/permanent) self, then who is reborn?
What we call the self is a dependently originated (D.O.) phenomenon.
The D.O. self depends on 5 aggregates (skandhas):
1. Form/matter (body)
2. Sensations/feelings
3. Perception/judgment (seeing things as good/bad)
4. Dispositions/habits (psychological entrenchments)
5. Consciousness (Buddhist view is that consciousness is also dependently originated)
What does attaining nirvana consist in?
Nirvana just is the elimination of the bases of dependent origination (especially of the self)
So, who is the Buddha after enlightenment?
The goal of Buddhism is just dying and staying dead?
Can there be a positive aspect to nirvana? If so, how?
10/16/2025
[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]
[Challenge for today: Try to think of (and possibly ask) at least one question.]
Do you think rehabilitation is a satisfactory response to wrongdoing?
What, exactly, is karma and how, exactly, does it work?
Karma is “moral cause and effect.”
Cosmic justice.
The moral quality of actions performed at time T1 determines (at least partly) the moral quality of consequences one experiences at a later time T2, where these consequences are not the result of intentional punishment.
Among the karmic consequences can be desirable or undesirable circumstances and characteristics of rebirths of the agent(s) acting at T1.
What moral theory determines the moral quality of actions and consequences?
Nirvana = highest good
Consequentialism (the morality of actions is a function of consequences) Virtue consequentialism (aretetic consequentialism)
“Carry-over” problem:
Karma is supposed to apply the consequences of actions to the same people who performed those actions.
How is this possible given the no-soul doctrine?
The inexact story is that there is a causal connection between two sets of skandhas, S1 and S2, where S2 bears enough resemblance to S1 that it is appropriate to say that S1 = S2.
The key here is the causal connection/propagation.
But what is the supposed mechanism for this propagation?
Exactly how does information carry over from S1 to S2?
Buddhist texts don’t really address this question in detail. The best-known treatment consists in some unhelpful analogies.
"How, venerable Nagasena, is it that one does not transmigrate and one is reborn? Give me an analogy."
"Just as, your majesty, if someone kindled one lamp from another, is it indeed so, your majesty, that the lamp would transmigrate from the other lamp?"
"Certainly not, venerable sir."
"Indeed just so, your majesty, one does not transmigrate and one is reborn."
"Give me another analogy."
"Do you remember, your majesty, when you were a boy learning some verse from a teacher?"
"Yes, venerable sir."
"Your majesty, did this verse transmigrate from the teacher?"
"Certainly not, venerable sir."
"Indeed just so, your majesty, one does not transmigrate and one is reborn."
The king
asked: "Is there, Venerable Nagasena, any being which passes on from this
body to another body?"
"No, Your Majesty!"
"If there were no passing on from this body to another, would not one then
in one's next life be freed from the evil deeds committed in the past?"
"Yes, that would be so if one were not linked once again with a new
organism. But since, Your Majesty, one is linked once again with a new
organism, therefore one is not freed from one's evil deeds."
"Give me a simile!"
"If a man should steal another man's mangoes, would he deserve a thrashing
for that?"
"Yes, of course!"
"But he would not have stolen the very same mangoes as the other one had
planted. Why should he deserve a thrashing?"
"For the reason that the stolen mangoes had grown because of those that
were planted."
"Just so, Your Majesty, it is because of the deeds one does, whether pure
or impure, by means of this psycho-physical organism, that one is once again linked
with another psycho-physical organism, and is not freed from one's evil
deeds."
This account merely asserts propagation without explaining it.
In historical context, this is less a problem than one might think, because KR was almost universally accepted.
There were some speculative/philosophical answers (e.g., pudgalavada).
But also:
Buddhism rejects the “invariant bearer” view of personal identity over time (the existence of some permanent unchanging thing that bears the identity).
So, if someone today can be responsible for what they did yesterday, then the same can be said for people across rebirths.
[discuss: Is responsibility consistent with rejecting an invariant identity bearer?]
10/21/2025
[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]
[Challenge for today: Try to think of (and possibly ask) at least one question.]
Which of these hypotheses appeals to you more:
A) Only one thing exists.
B) Infinitely many things exist.
Karma (some loose ends):
The “moral tracking” problem:
Karma can be understood as “natural justice”: one gets as good/bad as one gives.
What ensures that consequences are “as good/bad”?
Nyaya (and other theistic) philosophers used this as a basis for arguing for the existence of God (Ishvara).
But Buddhism is atheistic. The Buddhist solution is to make karma a function not of actions, but of intentions. Intentions are reflections of moral character and so are bundled into the skandhas.
The consequence is similarly not primarily a matter of good or bad things happening TO the agent, but rather the good consequence is moral improvement OF the agent. Progress toward enlightenment just is progress in moving toward the relinquishment of selfish-grasping.
Broadly speaking, good intentions = good karma = advancing toward nirvana. Bad intentions = bad karma = impeding the path toward nirvana.
(This view of karma as only affecting agent character is not consistent across Buddhist texts and developments.)
What if there seem to be no good solutions to the problems posed for the Buddhist view?
What if this represents entirely the wrong concept of God?
Monism
Monism is the view that, in some sense, there is only one thing, substance, or being.
But there are actually degrees of monism, or rather views that can be more or less monistic.
Monism is the view that at the most basic level of the hierarchy of things that exist there is a single most basic thing upon which everything else depends (or which grounds everything else, or of which everything else is a property).
Parmenides: Being
Spinoza, Ibn al Arabi: God
Shankara: Brahman (“God” maybe)(Nirguna)
Ramanuja: Vishnu (also “God” maybe)(Saguna)
Tillich: The ground of being
Schaffer: There is exactly one basic concrete thing that isn’t grounded in any other concrete thing.
Monism generally accepts the following claim:
It is possible (and rationally imperative) to conceive of Being/substance/(God) “in itself” apart from any properties.
This relates to some traditional concepts of God.
God is represented as saying to Moses, “I am who I am.”
Some have interpreted this as rejecting descriptions of God in respect of properties.
The Jewish Shema (central prayer) is “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!”
There is some disagreement over how Parmenides’ argument for monism works:
1. What is, is (“and must be”).
2. What is not, cannot be.
3. ???
4. Therefore, monism.
What do you think needs to be put in to get to the conclusion here?
[discuss]
Aristotle explains substance as (roughly) what HAS properties and is not itself a property of anything else.
Properties are always properties of something. This suggests that there is a hierarchy where properties are less basic than the things having those properties.
Aristotle has monistic leanings because he says that metaphysics is “the study of being qua being.” (“Qua” means “as” or “insofar as it is”.)
For Aristotle, substance is the unity at the heart of pluralities.
Spinoza defines substance as what is “in itself and conceived through itself”
But Spinoza may unintentionally reveal a major flaw in many varieties of monism.
- Everything that exists has at least one property (Shankara appears to deny this)
- Any property exists only by being had by some substance
John Locke notes that we have no direct concept of substance, as such. Rather, we conceive substance only in relation to properties: Substance is that in which properties exist.
That is, if we abstract all the properties of substance, what remains is nothing but “that which has properties.”
But this suggests that we CANNOT conceive substance “through itself”.
In fact, Spinoza defines the most basic kind of property (“attribute”) as what “the intellect conceives to be the essence of substance.” (We can only conceive a substance through its attributes – not “through itself.”)
Or, more charitably, to conceive substance through itself JUST IS to conceive it through its attributes.
Segal’s “Minimal monotheism”: There is exactly one god, a transcendent being that is the source of all things other than it, and nothing other than the one god even comes close.
10/23/2025
[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]
[Challenge for today: Try to think of (and possibly ask) at least one question.]
How many pencils do you see?
One of the main problems for any form of monism is having to bridge what I call the “appearance-reality gap.” That is, it APPEARS that many things exist. Monism holds that, in REALITY, only one thing exists (in some sense).
Bridging the appearance-reality gap requires an explanation of WHY there appear to be many things when there really aren’t.
One view is that “the many” are illusory (while “the one” is real). That is, the appearance of many is MERE appearance.
Parmenides and Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta take this view. (Maybe Ibn al Arabi, too?)
This still requires an explanation for WHY there is an appearance of many. (Why illusion?)
Shankara says illusion is the “play” of Brahman. Al Arabi says appearances are ways God manifests himself.
Spinoza takes the position that reality is one in substance (God is the only substance) and that multiplicity exists only in properties.
For Spinoza, the answer to the question of why there are many properties appears to derive from the following thread of inference:
- God has to exist (ontological argument)
- God is maximally real (by definition).
- Anything maximally real must be a substance (because properties presuppose substance and are less real than substance).
- Anything maximally real must have as much reality as possible.
- So, God has all the reality that is possible.
- This means a) God is the only substance and b) God has all the properties it is possible to have (whatever is comprehended in an infinite intellect).
So, it seems the one-many relation can be explained in several possible ways:
- The many are proper parts of the one.
- The many are properties of the one.
- The many are causal productions of the one.
- The one is a part of each thing in the many.
The last of these represents the position Segal advocates.
Before getting to that, consider the claim that the many are proper parts of the one.
This is problematic, because it seems that if p is a proper part of w, then p is more basic than w (w is composed of parts that include p). But this conflicts with the provision in monism that the one must be fundamental.
This leads us to gunk.
Gunk is the concept of a partless material whole: A material thing x is gunky if x has no proper parts, but is, instead, infinitely divisible.
For Spinoza (following Descartes) there can be no substantial divisions within matter, so matter is gunky. The entire universe is one gunky thing.
This corresponds to the cosmic monism of Shaffer in the Segal article.
Segal claims that “bottom-up monism” (BUM) is an alternative to cosmic/gunky monism.
BUM says that there is one concrete thing (the Null Individual, or the One) that is a part of each concrete thing making up the many.
But let’s just use “God” for the One.
The question for BUM is how the same (one) thing can be a part of each thing making up the many?
Segal rejects:
Weak Supplementation Principle (WSP): for any x and y such that y is a proper part of x, there is some part of x that doesn’t overlap y.
This means that God can be part of pencil1 even if there is no part of pencil1 that God isn’t also part of. (Pencil1 has no God-less parts.)
He also has to reject:
Exclusivity Principle: for any x and y such that y is a proper part of x, y is not a proper part of anything else z. (That is, y can’t be a proper part of more than one thing.)
Rejecting this means that God can be part of both pencil1 and of pencil2 even though pencil1 and pencil2 are distinct (non-overlapping).
In other words, God can be a proper part of everything without being the same as (a totality making up) everything.
This is how BUM is supposed to differ from cosmic monism, on which the One is the mereological sum (or fusion) of all concrete things.
But Segal also has to accept:
Comprehensiveness Principle: for any x and y such that y is a proper part of x, y is a proper part of every proper part of x.
It seems to me that this implies:
Singularity of Parts Principle: for any x and y such that y is a proper part of x, y is the ONLY proper part of x.
But this just seems to mean that y = x, which means that on BUM, the One is gunky, or alternatively that no parts of anything can be proper.
Segal surely wants to reject this, but the only way to do this is to hold that there is a difference between the mereological sum of all concrete things and God, who is nevertheless part of the mereological sum of all things.
The question here is, though, what can be the difference?
Or more basically, if I ask what is a pencil, how can Segal avoid the answer: “It is God and nothing other than God.”
Then how can it also be a pencil?
Suppose two possible worlds that are exactly alike, except
that in W1 God is a proper part of pencil1 and in W2 pencil1 exists without God
as a proper part. Exactly how is pencil1 different inW1 and W2?
Leaving this aside, though, there is the question of whether any form of monism can really be a form of theism.
Many philosophers of religion define God to include some kind of personhood.
Do you think God has to be some kind of person?
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