Start with these premises:
- It is a contingent fact that there are contingent beings.
- No one can believe that there is nothing.
- Necessarily, if p, then it is possible that someone believes that p.
- It is not possible that there is nothing.
- Necessarily, there is something.
- Possibly, there is a necessary being.
- There is a necessary being.
We can do one better. Replace (2) with:
- No one can believe there are no thinkers.
- It is not possible that there are no thinkers.
- Possibly, there is a necessary being who is a thinker.
- There is a necessary being who in at least some worlds is a thinker.
That said, I don't know if (2) and (8) are true.
I think that most who want to deny that there is a necessary being would attack (1). Why shouldn't we think that it's a necessary de dicto that something exists while there's nothing that necessarily exists?
ReplyDeleteThe view that there necessarily is something contingent has the following consequence: necessarily, if there were no non-unicorns, there would be a unicorn. If one is attracted to recombination as a guide to possibility, this is implausible.
ReplyDeleteLeibnez asserted: “Therefore, God alone (or the Necessary Being) has this prerogative that if he be possible he must necessarily exist, and as nothing is able to prevent the possibility of that which involves no bounds, no negation, and consequently no contradiction, this alone is sufficient to establish a priori his existence.”
ReplyDeleteHow does his a priori assertion relate to the a posteriori portion of your argument?
And does the assertion of “no one” (a universal claim) made by you in premise 2 confute your argument since you lack universal knowledge?
I think this argument is sound. What do you think about the gap problem here?
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about a similar argument which, albeit does not establish the existence of a logically necessary being, argues at the very least that a temporally necessary being exists. I add asterisks to each premise in order to distinguish the argument from Dr. Pruss':
ReplyDelete1*. Every existing being is either temporally contingent or temporally necessary. (Definition)
2*. Necessarily, something has always existed. (Premise)
3*. Possibly, there was a past time in which nothing temporally contingent existed. (Premise)
4*. Therefore, a temporally necessary being exists. (Conclusion)
Validity:
Assume (5*): a temporally necessary being does not exist. (5*) and (2*) imply (6*): necessarily, something temporally contingent has always existed. (6*) contradicts (3*). Therefore, (5*) is false.
The argument just seems too easy, but maybe I shouldn't think of ease of argument as a problem. Am I making a mistake somewhere?
Doug:
ReplyDeleteThis is kind of like the third way.
For the argument to work, the "Possibly" in premise 3 has to be a temporal possibly, which I assume means: "At some time or other". But why think that at some time or other nothing existed? Maybe time itself had a beginning, and with its beginning there was the beginning of all beings in time.
I think that's true. I suppose one could think of the temporally necessary being existing in a kind of undifferentiated time "before" anything temporally contingent was brought about. I'm not sure if that answers your question, though.
ReplyDeleteWhat justification do we have for premise 3?
ReplyDeleteAlso, as you said, 2 seems questionable. Null-world, yes?
ReplyDeleteKief:
ReplyDeleteMaybe some idea that propositions are believables?
My own reason for believing 2 depends on the conclusion of the argument. :-)
awatkins69:
It would be kind of weird to believe that nothing exists--not even oneself.
Suppose that p is "It's not possible that anyone has a belief." Then if p, it's not possible that anyone believes p. This appears to be a counter instance to premise (3).
ReplyDeleteThe antecedent is false, so the conditional is true. :-)
ReplyDelete