Nicely done. The glasses reflection and the unfocussed portions were minor distractions. Ignore the snobs and trolls. Your potential here is obvious to those able to hold two opposing thoughts simultaneously. 😊.
I really Appreciate your honesty in presenting this and acknowledging parts that are difficult and against your own belief are still rational thoughts and deserve being listened to and thought upon. I think your the first pastor I've ever listened to who has done this. You're an honorable man and an intellectual. We need more men like yourself.
Hume criticized the cosmological and teleological argument for the existence of God. However, many of Hume's objections can be answered. Objection (1) :"A great number of men join in building a house or a ship, in rearing a city, in framing a commonwealth: why may not several deities combine in contriving and framing a world?" Responses: "And, to jump ahead a bit, there are two further problems with polytheism as an explanation of the existence of not merely a universe but a universe governed throughout space and time by the same natural laws . If this order in the world is to be explained by many gods, then some explanation is required for how and why they cooperate in producing the same patterns of order throughout the universe. This becomes a new datum requiring explanation for the same reason as the fact of order itself. The need for further explanation ends when we postulate one being who is the cause of the existence of all others, and the simplest conceivable such-I urge-is God. And, further, the power of polytheism to explain this order in the world is perhaps not as great as that of theism. If there were more than one deity responsible for the order of the universe, we would expect to see characteristic marks of the handiwork of different deities in different parts of the universe, just as we see different kinds of workmanship in the different houses of a city. We would expect to find an inverse square of law of gravitation obeyed in one part of the universe, and in another part a law that was just short of being an inverse square law-without the difference being explicable in terms of a more general law." (Richard Swinburne "The Existence Of God") "If the physical universe is the product of intelligent design, rather than being a pure accident, it is more likely to be the handiwork of only one rather than more than one intelligence. This is so for two broad reasons. The first reason is the need for theoretical parsimony. In the absence of any evidence for supposing the universe to be the handiwork of more than one intelligence rather than only one, then, faced with a choice between supposing it the handiwork of one or of more than one intelligent designer, we should choose to suppose it to be the creation of only one. For it is not necessary to postulate more than one to account for the phenomena in question. The second reason for preferring the hypothesis of there being only one designer of the universe to supposing more than one is that the general harmony and uniformity of everything in the universe suggest that, should it be the product of design, it is more likely to be the handiwork of a single designer, rather than a plurality of designers who might have been expected to have left in their joint product some trace of their plural individualities. " (David Conway "Rediscovery Of Wisdom") Objection (2) :"[I]f we survey the universe ..., it bears a great resemblance to an animal or organized body, and seems actuated with a like principle of life and motion. A continual circulation of matter in it ...: a continual waste in every part is incessantly repaired: the closest sympathy is perceived throughout the entire system: and each part or member ... operates both to its own preservation and to that of the whole [I]t must be confessed, that... the universe resembles more a human body than it does the works of human art and contrivance [Y]et is the analogy also defective in many circumstances ...: no organs of sense; no seat of thought or reason; no one precise origin of motion and action. In short, it seems to bear a stronger resemblance to a vegetable than to an animal." Response: "Hume's argument seems weak. Hume's claim is that the physical universe - more specifically, our solar system - bears a closer resemblance to some animal or a vegetable than it does some machine or other artefact. The claim is unconvincing. In its manifest workings, the physical universe in general, and our own solar system in particular, exhibits a degree of regularity and predictability that far exceeds that which is exhibited by any animal or vegetable. After all, it is by the sun that we set our clocks and not by the comings and goings of sun-flowers or salamanders! That this is so suggests that the physical universe more closely resembles some regular and predictable machine or artefact, for example a clock, than it does any far less regular and predictable animal or vegetable. " (David Conway "Rediscovery Of Wisdom") Objection (3) :"But how this argument can have place where the objects, as in the present case, are single, individual, without parallel or specific resemblance, may be difficult to explain." Responses: "From time to time various writers have told us that we cannot reach any conclusions about the origin or development of the universe, since it is the only one of which we have knowledge, and rational inquiry can reach conclusions only about objects that belong to kinds, for example, it can reach a conclusion about what will happen to this bit of iron only because there are other bits of iron, the behaviour of which can be studied. This objection has the surprising, and to most of these writers unwelcome, consequence, that physical cosmology could not reach justified conclusions about such matters as the size, age, rate of expansion, and density of the universe as a whole (because it is the only one of which we have knowledge); and also that physical anthropology could not reach conclusions about the origin and development of the human race (because, as far as our knowledge goes, it is the only one of its kind). The implausibility of these consequences leads us to doubt the original objection, which is indeed totally misguided." (Richard Swinburne "The Existence Of God") "By tracing the origin of the physical universe to a supposed 'Big Bang', modern cosmology places Hume in the following dilemma. Either, he must deny that the physical universe as a whole is singular and unique, on the grounds that it resembles other things besides it that explode, such as grenades. Or, alternatively, should he insist on the uniqueness of the physical universe, he must concede that there are some unique things which are capable of standing as terms of causal relations. " (David Conway "Rediscovery Of Wisdom") "Hume's objection seems to involve two distinct principles. First, he assumes that we can infer from an observed A to an observed B only when we frequently see As and Bs together, and we can infer to a B only when we have actually seen other Bs. Such an assumption is simply false. Scientists often infer theoretical entities (electrons or quarks) which have never been seen and which may not be possible to see (e.g., a magnetic field). When observed As have a relation R to Bs, it is often reasonable to postulate that observed A *s similar to As have the same relation to observed and unobserved B*s similar to Bs." For example, the pressure of colorless gases varies with the temperature of those gases, and on this basis, one could infer that a change in pressure of a colored gaseous substance would likewise vary with the temperature regardless of the fact that he had never seen a substance of this sort. Second, Hume seems to assume that the universe is unique and conclusions cannot be reached about unique objects by analogy. But this is false as well. Astronomers reach conclusions all the time about the origin of the universe and this is unique. Furthermore, all events are unique in some sense, but no one would want to say that arguments by analogy do not apply to any objects whatever. The fact that the universe or some other object is unique does not rule out the possibility that it has properties in common with some other object, including some of its parts. For example, there may be only one object which satisfies the description "the tallest man in Maryland," but one could still compare this object with other objects and make judgments about the origination of the object. If one accepted Hume's principle it would seem to rule out the possibility of discovering a new culture and inferring that an utterly new and unique object in that culture was designed. But such an inference seems to be quite possible. " (J.P Moreland "Scaling The Secular City")
Wonderful, splendid first great job. Thank you for this great very useful summary. You must be a terrific pastor regarding God and evil. My response is that if God is all good, and his creation is all good then evil is simply a relative absence of good. In other wordslife is calibrated by a standard of goodness and love. It’s relative absence or minimal presence is evil.
Thank you for the kind words. The view you are presenting is very similar to the view that St. Augustine held regarding Good and evil. I would also agree that’s my personal view regarding evil.
Great account. Seeing as you are a pastor and kept out personal bias is great! Also Hume might have been autistic or something of the sort given his social activities lol
Dear Dr Jordan Vale: In the bit about Hume's "Bundle theory of self" you very briefly mentioned Buddhism. I think it is curious that the historical Buddha also had a similar view of the self about 2500 years ago. Indeed, the idea predates Buddhism and is Vedic. The no-self view of the self is one of the core ideas of Buddhism, the other being the idea of impermanence and the idea of emptiness (shunyata). In passing, may I recommend "The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought (Princeton University Press, 2017)". As an economist, the two towering figures of my discipline are Hume and Smith. Thank you. Atanu Dey
Hume probably came into contact with Buddhist concepts through a Catholic priest in France who had spent some time in Southeast Asia. Indeed, the bundle theory sounds very much like the skandhas, or 'aggregates' or 'piles' of thoughts, emotions and physical sensations that constitute the self in Buddhism. Hume saw right through Western philosophy's obsession with the search for an authentic 'self' that doesn't exist. This idea of an authentic self that we just need to find for true happiness has heavily defined Western culture, for good and ill.
I've heard that suggestion before. Others speculate the same about Nietzsche. Though in the latter case, there were physiological theories that might've informed Nietzsche's view of mind-self. But in any case, here is what has occurred to me for a long time. It's common to find famous thinkers who were influenced by others. Yet it's rare for them to acknowledge and specifically reference their influences. Why is that? Why not just be open that one's thoughts weren't merely invented out of nothing? Why are Western thinkers so obsessed with originality? Do they think their views would be dismissed or discounted if they were seen as merely building on the ideas of others? And is this a accurate concern? Would Hume's bundle theory of mind-self be as well known today if he had simply said he was repeating Buddhist psychology?
@@MarmaladeINFP It could be that this attribution and acknowledgement of prior work is a modern tradition (a contradiction of terms "modern" and "tradition"). In the past it may have been difficult for people to look up references compared to today. It's possible that important principles have been independently discovered by multiple people separated in time and place. This could attest to the universality of those ideas. In my own discipline, the so-called "Marginal Revolution" was almost simultaneously arrived at by three people -- Carl Menger, Leon Walras, and William Stanley Jevons.
@@AtanuKDey - But in this case, we know that Hume and Nietzsche were writing about these ideas at the precise moment missionaries were bringing back Buddhist ideas. And we know both were exposed to these returning missionaries. So, it's possible that they coincidentally came up with this idea on their own, but it seems unlikely. It's not similar to your example, as the Buddhist ideas had been around for more 2 millennia. Plus, Buddhism was familiar to Westerners all the way back to the ancient world. There were even Buddhist monasteries in the Greco-Roman world. And Manichaeanism, Augustine's first faith, was partly Buddhist.
Hume's main objection to the cosmological argument is also untenable. Objection:"In such a ... succession of objects, each part is caused by that which preceded it and causes that which succeeds it. Where then is the difficulty? But the whole, you say, wants a cause. I answer that the uniting of parts into a whole, like the uniting of several distinct countries into one kingdom, .. . is performed merely by an arbitrary act of the mind and has no influence on the nature of things. Did I show you the particular causes of each individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter, I should think it very unreasonable should you afterwards ask me what was the cause of the whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in explaining the cause of the parts." Responses: "Consider an illustration. Suppose that the series of contingent beings were merely a series of self-propagating robots, each one bringing the next into existence. No matter how far back in time you go, there was just one of these robots functioning. Each robot functions for, say, ten years, then, in the last few minutes of functioning, propagates a new robot. (Just as the new robot starts to function, the old one ceases to function and disintegrates.) Now, in this scheme, we have a cause for the existence and functioning of each of the robots. But we have not identified a cause of the robot series as a whole. For example, what causes (or caused) the series to be one of robots rather than one of rocks, roses, rats, or reindeer? What is the cause of there being any robots at all? That question has not been answered. In the same way, even if we know that each contingent being is caused to exist by some other contingent being, we still do not have an explanation for the fact that there are contingent beings. There might have been nothing at all or only necessary beings." (Stephen Layman "Letters To Doubting Thomas") "Moreover, it is simply false to suppose (as Hume does) that when, for each individual contingent thing, we’ve identified some further contingent thing as its immediate cause, then we’ve explained everything that there is to explain. To borrow an example from Leibniz, suppose there were an infinite series of geometry books, each one of which was copied from a preexisting one. We would have an immediate cause for each book, but obviously we would not have explained everything. For example, why does the series of books have the specific content that it has rather than some other content? Why is it that geometry is the subject matter of each of them? Why isn’t it instead a book of Shakespeare plays, or a coloring book, or an automotive repair manual, that gets copied and recopied infinitely? By the same token, even if we suppose that the series of contingent things that make up our universe in one way or other extends backward infinitely, we still have not explained everything. For example, why does the series consist of just the specific kinds of contingent things it does, rather than some other kinds? Why is it stones, trees, dogs, human beings, planets, stars, solar systems, galaxies, and so forth, that make up the infinite series of contingent things that we actually have? Why not some other sorts of contingent things entirely? Why is our infinitely old universe (supposing that it is infinitely old), or the infinite series of universes (if we suppose instead that there is such a series), or the multiverse (if we suppose that that is the correct scenario), governed by exactly the laws of nature which do in fact govern it, rather than some other laws? To answer such questions, we need to appeal to something over and above the series of contingent things, even if we suppose the series to regress infinitely. " (Edward Feser "Five Proofs Of The Existence Of God") "Hume's objection has force only if he is correct to suppose that the parts of any whole none of which exist necessarily in and of themselves can each and all be fully explained in terms of other members of that same whole. This supposition may be doubted. The causal explanations of the parts of any such whole in terms of other parts cannot add up to a causal explanation of the whole, if the items mentioned as causes are items whose own existence stands in need of a causal explanation. The fatal flaw in Hume's supposition has been well put by James Sadowsky. He asks, how any member [of any such causal series] can do any causing unless it first exists. B cannot cause A until D brings it into existence. What is true of D is equally true of E and F without end. Since each condition for the existence of A requires the fulfilment of a prior condition, it follows that none of them can ever be fulfilled. In each case what is offered as part of the solution turns out instead to be part of the problem." (David Conway "Rediscovery Of Wisdom")
The philosophy of speaking about the past, in the present tense, is a mystery to me, as is the need to wear a baseball cap back-to-front. I'll pass, thanks.
Nicely done.
The glasses reflection and the unfocussed portions were minor distractions.
Ignore the snobs and trolls.
Your potential here is obvious to those able to hold two opposing thoughts simultaneously. 😊.
Thanks for the kind words, really appreciate it.
I really Appreciate your honesty in presenting this and acknowledging parts that are difficult and against your own belief are still rational thoughts and deserve being listened to and thought upon. I think your the first pastor I've ever listened to who has done this. You're an honorable man and an intellectual. We need more men like yourself.
Very kind words. I appreciate that.
@JDBarker2 I concur with your appreciation of the host. Cheers. Atanu
I think Hume drove more people away from common religion than Nietzsche ever dreamed! Brilliant and likeable, who knew?
That is interesting point. You are probably right.
Hume criticized the cosmological and teleological argument for the existence of God. However, many of Hume's objections can be answered.
Objection (1) :"A great number of men join in building a house or a ship, in rearing a
city, in framing a commonwealth: why may not several deities combine in contriving and framing a world?"
Responses:
"And, to jump ahead a bit, there are two further problems with
polytheism as an explanation of the existence of not merely a universe but a universe governed throughout space and time by the same
natural laws .
If this order in the world is to be explained by many gods, then some
explanation is required for how and why they cooperate in producing
the same patterns of order throughout the universe. This becomes a
new datum requiring explanation for the same reason as the fact of
order itself. The need for further explanation ends when we postulate
one being who is the cause of the existence of all others, and the
simplest conceivable such-I urge-is God. And, further, the power
of polytheism to explain this order in the world is perhaps not as
great as that of theism. If there were more than one deity responsible
for the order of the universe, we would expect to see characteristic
marks of the handiwork of different deities in different parts of the
universe, just as we see different kinds of workmanship in the
different houses of a city. We would expect to find an inverse square
of law of gravitation obeyed in one part of the universe, and in
another part a law that was just short of being an inverse square law-without the difference being explicable in terms of a more
general law."
(Richard Swinburne "The Existence Of God")
"If the
physical universe is the product of intelligent design, rather than
being a pure accident, it is more likely to be the handiwork of only
one rather than more than one intelligence. This is so for two broad
reasons. The first reason is the need for theoretical parsimony. In the
absence of any evidence for supposing the universe to be the handiwork of more than one intelligence rather than only one, then, faced
with a choice between supposing it the handiwork of one or of more
than one intelligent designer, we should choose to suppose it to be the
creation of only one. For it is not necessary to postulate more than
one to account for the phenomena in question. The second reason for
preferring the hypothesis of there being only one designer of the
universe to supposing more than one is that the general harmony and
uniformity of everything in the universe suggest that, should it be the
product of design, it is more likely to be the handiwork of a single
designer, rather than a plurality of designers who might have been
expected to have left in their joint product some trace of their plural
individualities. "
(David Conway "Rediscovery Of Wisdom")
Objection (2) :"[I]f we survey the universe ..., it bears a great resemblance to an
animal or organized body, and seems actuated with a like principle
of life and motion. A continual circulation of matter in it ...: a
continual waste in every part is incessantly repaired: the closest
sympathy is perceived throughout the entire system: and each part
or member ... operates both to its own preservation and to that of
the whole [I]t must be confessed, that... the universe resembles
more a human body than it does the works of human art and
contrivance [Y]et is the analogy also defective in many circumstances ...: no organs of sense; no seat of thought or reason; no one
precise origin of motion and action. In short, it seems to bear a
stronger resemblance to a vegetable than to an animal."
Response:
"Hume's argument seems weak. Hume's claim is that the physical
universe - more specifically, our solar system - bears a closer resemblance to some animal or a vegetable than it does some machine or
other artefact. The claim is unconvincing.
In its manifest workings,
the physical universe in general, and our own solar system in particular, exhibits a degree of regularity and predictability that far exceeds
that which is exhibited by any animal or vegetable. After all, it is by
the sun that we set our clocks and not by the comings and goings of
sun-flowers or salamanders! That this is so suggests that the physical
universe more closely resembles some regular and predictable
machine or artefact, for example a clock, than it does any far less
regular and predictable animal or vegetable. "
(David Conway "Rediscovery Of Wisdom")
Objection (3) :"But how this argument can have place where the objects, as in the present case, are single, individual, without parallel or specific resemblance, may be difficult to explain."
Responses:
"From time to time various writers have told us that we cannot
reach any conclusions about the origin or development of the universe, since it is the only one of which we have knowledge, and
rational inquiry can reach conclusions only about objects that belong
to kinds, for example, it can reach a conclusion about what will
happen to this bit of iron only because there are other bits of iron,
the behaviour of which can be studied. This objection has the
surprising, and to most of these writers unwelcome, consequence,
that physical cosmology could not reach justified conclusions about
such matters as the size, age, rate of expansion, and density of the
universe as a whole (because it is the only one of which we have
knowledge); and also that physical anthropology could not reach
conclusions about the origin and development of the human race
(because, as far as our knowledge goes, it is the only one of its kind).
The implausibility of these consequences leads us to doubt the
original objection, which is indeed totally misguided."
(Richard Swinburne "The Existence Of God")
"By tracing the origin of
the physical universe to a supposed 'Big Bang', modern cosmology
places Hume in the following dilemma. Either, he must deny that the
physical universe as a whole is singular and unique, on the grounds
that it resembles other things besides it that explode, such as
grenades. Or, alternatively, should he insist on the uniqueness of the
physical universe, he must concede that there are some unique things
which are capable of standing as terms of causal relations. "
(David Conway "Rediscovery Of Wisdom")
"Hume's objection seems to involve two distinct principles. First, he assumes that we can infer from
an observed A to an observed B only when we frequently see As and Bs together, and we can infer to
a B only when we have actually seen other Bs. Such an assumption is simply false. Scientists often
infer theoretical entities (electrons or quarks) which have never been seen and which may not be
possible to see (e.g., a magnetic field). When observed As have a relation R to Bs, it is often
reasonable to postulate that observed A *s similar to As have the same relation to observed and
unobserved B*s similar to Bs." For example, the pressure of colorless gases varies with the
temperature of those gases, and on this basis, one could infer that a change in pressure of a colored
gaseous substance would likewise vary with the temperature regardless of the fact that he had never
seen a substance of this sort.
Second, Hume seems to assume that the universe is unique and conclusions cannot be reached about
unique objects by analogy. But this is false as well. Astronomers reach conclusions all the time about
the origin of the universe and this is unique. Furthermore, all events are unique in some sense, but no
one would want to say that arguments by analogy do not apply to any objects whatever. The fact that
the universe or some other object is unique does not rule out the possibility that it has properties in
common with some other object, including some of its parts. For example, there may be only one
object which satisfies the description "the tallest man in Maryland," but one could still compare this
object with other objects and make judgments about the origination of the object. If one accepted Hume's principle it would seem to rule out the possibility of discovering a new culture and inferring
that an utterly new and unique object in that culture was designed. But such an inference seems to be
quite possible.
"
(J.P Moreland "Scaling The Secular City")
Quoting from some good books here.
Wonderful, splendid first great job. Thank you for this great very useful summary. You must be a terrific pastor regarding God and evil. My response is that if God is all good, and his creation is all good then evil is simply a relative absence of good. In other wordslife is calibrated by a standard of goodness and love. It’s relative absence or minimal presence is evil.
Thank you for the kind words. The view you are presenting is very similar to the view that St. Augustine held regarding Good and evil. I would also agree that’s my personal view regarding evil.
Great account. Seeing as you are a pastor and kept out personal bias is great! Also Hume might have been autistic or something of the sort given his social activities lol
Thanks appreciate that!
Yeah it’s interesting if we had an understanding of the spectrum earlier how differently we might look back at history.
Thank you🥚
Thanks for watching, glad it was helpful!
18 Minutes much too short for Hume. But this YTuber did his best
Thanks for watching
The future is under no obligation to follow the past
True.
@@TheologyMade And the other way around, in that our view of the past often says more about us than it does about the actual past itself.
Regarding his surprising popularity in Parisian salons, it is not unusual to express a different personality when speaking a second language.
Possible
great vid but the green screen was a bit of a misstep
Thanks for watching
Dear Dr Jordan Vale:
In the bit about Hume's "Bundle theory of self" you very briefly mentioned Buddhism. I think it is curious that the historical Buddha also had a similar view of the self about 2500 years ago. Indeed, the idea predates Buddhism and is Vedic. The no-self view of the self is one of the core ideas of Buddhism, the other being the idea of impermanence and the idea of emptiness (shunyata).
In passing, may I recommend "The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought (Princeton University Press, 2017)". As an economist, the two towering figures of my discipline are Hume and Smith.
Thank you.
Atanu Dey
Thanks Atanu, I have always been fascinated by the relationship of Hume and Smith and how each influences the other.
Hume probably came into contact with Buddhist concepts through a Catholic priest in France who had spent some time in Southeast Asia. Indeed, the bundle theory sounds very much like the skandhas, or 'aggregates' or 'piles' of thoughts, emotions and physical sensations that constitute the self in Buddhism. Hume saw right through Western philosophy's obsession with the search for an authentic 'self' that doesn't exist. This idea of an authentic self that we just need to find for true happiness has heavily defined Western culture, for good and ill.
I've heard that suggestion before. Others speculate the same about Nietzsche. Though in the latter case, there were physiological theories that might've informed Nietzsche's view of mind-self. But in any case, here is what has occurred to me for a long time. It's common to find famous thinkers who were influenced by others. Yet it's rare for them to acknowledge and specifically reference their influences. Why is that?
Why not just be open that one's thoughts weren't merely invented out of nothing? Why are Western thinkers so obsessed with originality? Do they think their views would be dismissed or discounted if they were seen as merely building on the ideas of others? And is this a accurate concern? Would Hume's bundle theory of mind-self be as well known today if he had simply said he was repeating Buddhist psychology?
@@MarmaladeINFP It could be that this attribution and acknowledgement of prior work is a modern tradition (a contradiction of terms "modern" and "tradition"). In the past it may have been difficult for people to look up references compared to today.
It's possible that important principles have been independently discovered by multiple people separated in time and place. This could attest to the universality of those ideas.
In my own discipline, the so-called "Marginal Revolution" was almost simultaneously arrived at by three people -- Carl Menger, Leon Walras, and William Stanley Jevons.
@@AtanuKDey - But in this case, we know that Hume and Nietzsche were writing about these ideas at the precise moment missionaries were bringing back Buddhist ideas. And we know both were exposed to these returning missionaries. So, it's possible that they coincidentally came up with this idea on their own, but it seems unlikely.
It's not similar to your example, as the Buddhist ideas had been around for more 2 millennia. Plus, Buddhism was familiar to Westerners all the way back to the ancient world. There were even Buddhist monasteries in the Greco-Roman world. And Manichaeanism, Augustine's first faith, was partly Buddhist.
This could've been a blog post - with bullet points.
Great content though!
Thanks for watching
W
?
@@TheologyMade This video is a W
A Scotsman with a puckish sense of humour. The Billy Connolly of his age.
Haha, I can see it
It is not "Edinburg." It is "Edinboro"
There are actually a few ways to pronounce it depending on where you are from 😉
@@TheologyMade OK. The people who live there say "Ed in bur ow."
I was born there, really, who cares how it's pronounced?. Why don't you make a video about Hume and then you can tell the world how it's pronounced.
Hume's main objection to the cosmological argument is also untenable.
Objection:"In such a ... succession of objects, each part is caused by that
which preceded it and causes that which succeeds it. Where then
is the difficulty? But the whole, you say, wants a cause. I answer
that the uniting of parts into a whole, like the uniting of several
distinct countries into one kingdom, .. . is performed merely by
an arbitrary act of the mind and has no influence on the nature of
things. Did I show you the particular causes of each individual in
a collection of twenty particles of matter, I should think it very unreasonable should you afterwards ask me what was the cause of
the whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in explaining the
cause of the parts."
Responses:
"Consider an illustration. Suppose that the series of contingent beings were merely a series of self-propagating robots, each one bringing the next into existence. No matter how far back in time you go,
there was just one of these robots functioning. Each robot functions
for, say, ten years, then, in the last few minutes of functioning, propagates a new robot. (Just as the new robot starts to function, the old
one ceases to function and disintegrates.) Now, in this scheme, we
have a cause for the existence and functioning of each of the robots.
But we have not identified a cause of the robot series as a whole. For
example, what causes (or caused) the series to be one of robots rather
than one of rocks, roses, rats, or reindeer? What is the cause of there
being any robots at all? That question has not been answered.
In the same way, even if we know that each contingent being is
caused to exist by some other contingent being, we still do not have
an explanation for the fact that there are contingent beings. There
might have been nothing at all or only necessary beings."
(Stephen Layman "Letters To Doubting Thomas")
"Moreover, it is simply false to suppose (as Hume does) that when, for
each individual contingent thing, we’ve identified some further contingent
thing as its immediate cause, then we’ve explained everything that there is
to explain. To borrow an example from Leibniz, suppose there were an
infinite series of geometry books, each one of which was copied from a
preexisting one. We would have an immediate cause for each book, but
obviously we would not have explained everything. For example, why does
the series of books have the specific content that it has rather than some
other content? Why is it that geometry is the subject matter of each of
them? Why isn’t it instead a book of Shakespeare plays, or a coloring book,
or an automotive repair manual, that gets copied and recopied infinitely? By
the same token, even if we suppose that the series of contingent things that
make up our universe in one way or other extends backward infinitely, we still have not explained everything. For example, why does the series
consist of just the specific kinds of contingent things it does, rather than
some other kinds? Why is it stones, trees, dogs, human beings, planets,
stars, solar systems, galaxies, and so forth, that make up the infinite series
of contingent things that we actually have? Why not some other sorts of
contingent things entirely? Why is our infinitely old universe (supposing
that it is infinitely old), or the infinite series of universes (if we suppose
instead that there is such a series), or the multiverse (if we suppose that that
is the correct scenario), governed by exactly the laws of nature which do in
fact govern it, rather than some other laws?
To answer such questions, we need to appeal to something over and
above the series of contingent things, even if we suppose the series to
regress infinitely. "
(Edward Feser "Five Proofs Of The Existence Of God")
"Hume's objection has force only if he is correct to suppose that the
parts of any whole none of which exist necessarily in and of themselves can each and all be fully explained in terms of other members
of that same whole. This supposition may be doubted. The causal
explanations of the parts of any such whole in terms of other parts
cannot add up to a causal explanation of the whole, if the items
mentioned as causes are items whose own existence stands in need of a causal explanation. The fatal flaw in Hume's supposition has been
well put by James Sadowsky. He asks,
how any member [of any such causal series] can do any causing
unless it first exists. B cannot cause A until D brings it into existence. What is true of D is equally true of E and F without end.
Since each condition for the existence of A requires the fulfilment
of a prior condition, it follows that none of them can ever be
fulfilled. In each case what is offered as part of the solution turns
out instead to be part of the problem."
(David Conway "Rediscovery Of Wisdom")
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Empirically speaking, that was one ugly hat.
Lol
Was Hume insane?
How so?
Your glasses are interfaring with you green screen and it's hard to focus.
Yeah, unfortunately, that was the case for this one, you are totally right, wasn’t able to fix it in post-production
@@TheologyMadeit's fine dude, good feedback but great video
I do appreciate your use of a changing background image. The reflection on the glasses was very minor. Thank you.
@@AtanuKDey thanks!
@@TheologyMade It's fine. Keep it.
So basically he was delusional and stupid.
Why was he delusional?
@@TheologyMade he thought he could separate the senses from reason and develop a pure empiricism. That is delusional!
The philosophy of speaking about the past, in the present tense, is a mystery to me, as is the need to wear a baseball cap back-to-front. I'll pass, thanks.
Thanks for watching, but probably not the channel for you 😉
Three weird pronunciations in the first 45 seconds. Bodes ill.
Thanks for watching Peter