PHIL 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Moodle
23 Nov 2017
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Document Summary
It is not a thing, it"s the absence of all things. Why is there something rather than nothing?- (1740 was around the time this question was asked)- Why is there something rather than nothing? - why should they exist and not otherwise (principles of nature and grace). A state of affairs such that there was nothing at all (and no one to to even think this). Unlike any other question: it"s scope is total. It doesn"t ask why this or that exists rather than nothing. It asks why there is anything at all. Leibniz"s answer (based on aquinas"s argument from contingency 5 ways) Contingent being = something whose existence is dependent on other things; something whose non- existence is possible and conceivable; something that may or may not exist. Necessary being= something whose nonexistence is impossible and inconceivable something which may not fail to exist; something which does not need anything else to exist.
