PHL235H1 Final: PHL235 Final Study Notes
Sunday, April 22, 2018
1
PHL235 Final Study Notes
Arguments
- Set of statements in which one or more statements (premises) are offered in support of a
conclusion
- Types:
• Deductive = conclusive evidence
- Validity: an argument is valid if and only if it is not possible for the premises to be true
and the conclusion false
- Soundness: valid and all the premises are true
• An unsound arguments conclusion could be T or F
• Non-deductive = Not conclusive evidence
• Modus Ponens: If P, then Q. P, therefore Q.
• Modus Tollens: If P, then Q. Not Q therefore not P.
Religious Faith: Reason and Faith in Philosophy
- Josef Piper: To have faith is to believe, this is relational because it means to believe someone
and this relational component entails acknowledging the existence of a being that you are
believing, accepting it, trusting it and taking what it has to say to be true.
- Aquinas:
• 1. God cannot be known by reason alone since he can only be known by reason that He
creates
• 2. It is possible that God should reveal truths about himself, enriching reason.
- Kant on Enlightenement: courage to use own understanding, faith as self-incurred immaturity.
• Objections:
- reliance on guidance of others is not immature
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Sunday, April 22, 2018
2
- reason leads to the conclusion that there are truths that cannot be revealed by reason
alone
- Religious faith (Piper’s definition):
• only reasonable if it is reasonable to believe God exists and that we have testimony from
God
• religious faith is only reasonable if it is reasonably to believe that God cannot say what is
false
• Miracles?
- Attempts to show that religious faith is irrational:
• Logical Positivism (revival of Hume and Kant):
- theory about the “cognitive meaning” of statements whereby a statement can only be
cognitively meaningful if:
(a) it can be confirmed or disconfirmed by observation
(b) it is true or false by virtue of the meaning of the terms in its sentence
Objection: this position is self-referentially incoherent—i.e. how can we accept any
propositions? even the positivist propositions
• Scientism (Hawking and Mlodinow)
- Big questions must be answered by physics/science
- Scientific determinism and the “free will illusion”
Objection: Scientism is also self-referentially incoherent because it is not an answer that is
proved by science therefore it is not an answer to a big question
• Evidentialism
- Plantinga’s definition: religious faith is rationally acceptable only if there are good
arguments for it
- Forrest’s definition: Enlightenment evidentialism
• A belief is only justified if it is proportioned to the evidence (no religious beliefs are)
• What constitutes evidence? testimony?
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Sunday, April 22, 2018
3
• Classical Foundationalism**
Miracles in Monotheistic religions
- Hume’s definition of a miracle: A violation of a law of nature by a particular volition of the
deity or by the imposition of some invisible agent
- Mackie’s version***
- Aquinas’ definition: a miracle is an event that happens outside the ordinary processes of the
whole created nature
- Problem: a miracle is not an observable property
• Observed event X is a miracle is always an inference from an observation that has no
known natural cause
• Event could be determined either a miracle or an invitation for further investigation
- Grisez: It is reasonable to believe an event is a miracle only if one already believes in God
- Swinburne (opposite to Grisez): miracles reveal something about God
- Is it ever reasonable to believe a miracle has occurred based on the testimony of others?
• Hume’s argument pt. 1
- It is reasonable to accept S’s testimony that P if and only iff:
(a) experience shows that relative to the premise the conclusion P is probably to some
extent and more probable than not P
(b) not P is not as probably or more relative to any other part of experience
Conclusion: no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony is of a kind that
its flashed would be even more miraculous than the fact at hand
Objection: the testimony of others is not held to this standard of total evidence in order to be
reasonable
• Hume’s argument pt. 2
- Distinguish two cases:
(a) experience makes it probably that not P to exactly the same degree as S’s testimony
make it probable that P
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Set of statements in which one or more statements (premises) are offered in support of a conclusion. Validity: an argument is valid if and only if it is not possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. Soundness: valid and all the premises are true: an unsound arguments conclusion could be t or f, non-deductive = not conclusive evidence, modus ponens: if p, then q. p, therefore q, modus tollens: if p, then q. God cannot be known by reason alone since he can only be known by reason that he creates: 2. It is possible that god should reveal truths about himself, enriching reason. Kant on enlightenement: courage to use own understanding, faith as self-incurred immaturity: objections: Reliance on guidance of others is not immature. Reason leads to the conclusion that there are truths that cannot be revealed by reason alone.
