22 Jul is an analytic truth that every effect has a cause
Cosmological Arguments
According to a presumably apocryphal story, Martin Heidegger asked G. E. Moore, “Why is there canada goose outlet eu something rather canada goose outlet store near me than nothing?” Moore replied, “Why canada goose outlet in toronto not?” A reader finds the response cheap and unphilosophical. Let think about this.
Canada Goose canada goose outlet boston online Suppose we ask a related canada goose outlet edmonton but canada goose outlet near me more tractable question: Why does the universe exist? and we get the response: Why not? Why shouldn it exist? interpreted, the response amounts to the suggestion that the question is gratuitous or unmotivated or unnecessary in canada goose uk site the sense of unneeded. Canada Goose online
Canada Goose sale Some explanation seeking why questions are gratuitous. (It is worth noting that grammatically interrogative formulations such as does anything at all exist? might be used merely as expressions of wonder that the, or a, universe exists, and not as requests for an explanation. Here we are concerned with ultimate explanations.) Canada Goose sale
Canada Goose Jackets Suppose it is 110 degrees Fahrenheit. walk into your house where the temperature is a pleasant 80 degrees. If I were to ask why the air official canada goose outlet conditioning is on, you canada goose outlet toronto factory would be puzzled. unit is on the fritz; the repairman should be here in a couple of hours.” Canada Goose Jackets
canada goose clearance My first question is gratuitous; my second question is not. things need explaining; other things don need explaining. Thus it does not exist of metaphysical necessity, the way God exists if he exists; nor is U existence metaphysically impossible. exists, but it might not have: its nonexistence is possible. is to say: U exists, but its nonexistence is not ruled out by the laws of logic or the laws of Canada Goose Outlet metaphysics. exists, but its nonexistence is neither logically nor metaphysically impossible. canada goose clearance
But if x is modally contingent, for short, it does not straightaway follow that x depends for its existence on something. It is a mistake to conflate modal contingency with contingency on canada goose outlet black friday sale something. That is an important conceptual/semantic point. If this is the case, then we say that the universe exists as a matter of brute fact. factuality of the fact resides in its existence; the in (a) its contingency and (b) its lacking a ground, cause, reason, explanation.
buy canada goose jacket I conclude that one cannot argue a contingentia mundi to a prima causa without a preliminary demonstration that our ultimate explanation seeking why question is not gratuitous. Before one can mount a cosmological argument from a contingent universe to a transcendent Cause, one must show or at least give a good reason to think that the universe needs an explanation. buy canada goose jacket
In my published work on this topic I argue that contingent particulars, taken by themselves as “independent reals” are contradictory structures. But they patently exist, and nothing can exist that is self contradictory. So there must be something transcending th realm of contingent particulars to remove the contradiction. Now I cannot go into the many details here and fill in the steps in the argument, but the main point I want to make, in answer to my reader query, is that it is not unphilosophical to take seriously the not? response.
canada goose coats on sale One needs to be able to show that the question, Why does the universe exist? is not gratuitous. canada goose coats on sale
Canada Goose Parka A reader claims that “to affirm that there are contingent beings just canada goose outlet in canada is to affirm that they have that whereby they are, canada goose outlet toronto location namely, a cause.” This implies that one can straightaway infer has canada goose jacket outlet a cause from is contingent. My reader would agree with Reginald Garrigou Lagrange who, taking the traditional Thomist position, maintains the following Principle of Causality (PC): Canada Goose Parka
… every contingent thing, even if it should be ab aeterno, depends on a cause which exists of itself. (Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought, tr. Patrick Cummins, O. S. B., Ex Fontibus 2012, p. 62)
canada goose deals So even if the physical universe always existed, and therefore never came into existence, it would nonetheless require a cause of its existence simply in virtue of its being contingent. find myself questioning both my reader and Garrigou Lagrange. it seems to me to be conceivable that an item be contingent but have no cause or ground of its existence. is precisely what Garrigou Lagrange denies: “contingent existence… can simply not be conceived without origin, without cause….” (p. 63) canada goose deals
canada goose black friday sale But it all depends on what we mean by and are my definitions: canada goose black friday sale
canadian goose jacket canada goose outlet woodbury D1. An individual or canada goose outlet winnipeg state of affairs x is conceivable =df x is thinkable without formal logical contradiction. canadian goose jacket
canada goose clearance sale Examples. is conceivable that there be a mountain of gold and a tire iron that floats in (pure or near pure) water. is conceivable that I jump straight out of my chair, turn a somersault in the air, and then return to my chair and finish this blog post. is inconceivable that I light a cigar and not light a cigar at exactly the same time. for formal logical contradiction, here is an example: cats are not cats. Some bachelors are married is not a formal logical contradiction. not? Because its logical form has both true and false substitution instances. canada goose clearance sale
D2. An individual canada goose outlet orlando or state of affairs x is contingent =df x is possibly nonexistent/nonobtaining if it exists/obtains, and possibly existent/obtaining if it canada goose outlet paypal does not exist/obtain.
Canada Goose Outlet The contingent is that which has a certain modal status: it is neither necessary nor impossible. example, me and my cigar are both contingent beings: neither is necessary and neither is impossible. smoking the cigar now is an example of a contingent state of affairs: it is neither necessary nor impossible that I smoke a cigar now. type of modality we are concerned with is broadly logical, not nomological. Canada Goose Outlet
Now is it conceivable that something exist contingently without a cause? seems so! nonexistence of the physical universe is thinkable without formal logical contradiction. physical universe is contingent: it exists, but not necessarily. nonexistence is possible. I encounter a formal logical contradiction when I think of the universe as existing without a cause or explanation? No. uncaused universe is nothing like non triangular triangle, or a round square, or a married bachelor, or an uncaused effect. Necessarily, if x is an effect, then x has a cause. is an analytic truth that every effect has a cause. negation of this proposition is: Some effects do not have causes. this is not a formal logical contradiction, it can be reduced to one by substituting synonyms for synonyms. Some caused events are not caused.
canada goose store Contrary to what Garrigou Lagrange maintains, it is conceivable that the universe exist uncaused, despite its contingency. If one could not conceive the uncaused existing of the universe, then one could not conceive of the universe being a brute fact. one can conceive https://www.goosesale.ca of the latter. is not to say that it is possible. is a logical gap between the conceivable and the possible. point is merely that the canada goose outlet buffalo of the universe existence is conceivable in the sense of (D1). To put it another way, my point is that one cannot gain a a priori insight into the necessity of the universe having a cause of its existence. this is because the Principle of Causality, if true, is not analytically true but synthetically true. canada goose store
cheap Canada Goose Of course, if one defines in terms of dependence on a cause then thing being contingent straightaway implies its being caused. But then one has packed causal dependency into the notion of contingency when contingency means only what (D2) says it means. has all the benefits of theft over honest toil as Russell remarked in a different connection. cheap Canada Goose
buy canada goose jacket cheap Garrigou Lagrange thinks that one violates the Law of Non Contradiction if one says of a contingent thing that it is both contingent and uncaused. thinks this is equivalent to saying: buy canada goose vest outlet canada goose jacket cheap
canada goose coats A thing may exist of itself and simultaneously not exist of itself. Existence of itself would belong to it, both necessarily and impossibly. Existence would be an inseparable predicate of a being which can be separated canada goose outlet washington dc from existence. All this is absurd, unintelligible. (p. 65) canada goose coats
canada goose Suppose that a contingent existent is one canada goose stockists uk that is caused to exist by a self existent existent. one then went on to say that such an existent is both contingent and uncaused, then one would embrace a logical contradiction. this presupposes that contingency implies causal dependency canada goose.