Introduction This essay will be explaining David Hume’s famous claim that induction depends on the “principle of the uniformity of nature. There are two ways to justify the principle of the uniformity of nature‚ inductively and deductively; Hume claims that PUN cannot be justified either way because to attempt to justify the principle inductively would be fallacious in the sense that it ends in a circular argument. To attempt to justify the principle deductively would also be impossible: one would
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Hume asked‚ "what reason do we have in thinking the future will resemble the past?" It is reasonable to think that it will because there is no contradiction in supposing the future won’t resemble the past. But it is also true that is possible for the world to change dramatically and our previous experience would be completely useless in judging future experience. We want to say that past experiences have been a good predictor. We are compelled to do so and it is almost as if we can’t help ourselves
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Miracles The question are miracles possible is a hard question for me to answer because while I am a believer in God I am also a believer in Scientific reasoning with a scientific and mathmatical mind. To answer this question to the best of my ability I am going to answer it both from a Christian and a scientific standpoint. To answer this question we must first know what is defined as a miracle. The dictionary defines a miracle as “an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that
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purpose. It infers the existence of God from a particular aspect or character of the world‚ namely the presence of order‚ regularity and purpose‚ and thus‚ is most commonly known as the design argument; it postulates the idea of a designer for all that has been designed. As its name suggests‚ the teleological argument attempts to seek the ultimate end or purpose. Furthermore‚ the teleological argument holds the belief that this designer is the primary cause of such existences‚ and is therefore what
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senses (paper burns) or by faith (God is all loving). As the period of the Renaissance came to a close‚ the popular paradigm for philosophers shifted from faith to reason and finally settling on the senses. Thinkers began to challenge authorities‚ including great teachers such as Aristotle and Plato‚ and through skepticism the modern world began. The French philosopher‚ René Descartes who implemented reason to find truth‚ as well as the British empiricist David Hume with his usage of analytic-synthetic
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Locke‚ Berkeley & Hume Enlightenment began with an unparalleled confidence in human reason. The new science’s success in making clear the natural world through Locke‚ Berkeley‚ and Hume affected the efforts of philosophy in two ways. The first is by locating the basis of human knowledge in the human mind and its encounter with the physical world. Second is by directing philosophy’s attention to an analysis of the mind that was capable of such cognitive success. John Locke set the tone for enlightenment
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Rene Descartes was a rationalist‚ meaning he thought that reason alone‚ not sensation or experience‚ was the source to attaining knowledge about the eternal truths of the universe‚ such as mathematics‚ epistemology‚ metaphysics and the existence of God. He excluded physics from this list‚ admitting that knowledge of physics only comes through experience (Descartes). Regardless‚ his rationalistic epistemology made it so that Descartes could only accept the truth about something if it was based upon
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Cleo Polyzou Cogito Ergo Sum The aim of this paper is to explain a central argument from Rene Descartes’ Meditations of Philosophy that encapsulates his views towards the existence of worldly things and to consider the strength and the significance of the idea within that argument. I think therefore I am‚ is the argument that will be discussed and analyzed in this paper. In the beginning of the first meditation‚ the meditator appeared skeptical of his beliefs and explained that since his beliefs
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The question about the existence of God or‚ more generally speaking‚ of a supernatural entity that steers the course of the world‚ is probably as old as humanity itself. Many great philosophers were concerned with this basic and yet so important question which remains to be a controversial issue to this day! In the following I will commit myself to the above-mentioned question by firstly reconstructing Anselm´s proof of God´s existence and secondly considering his position in the light of the critique
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the Existence of God Mardi Campbell PHI 208 Prof. Michele Clearman-Warner March 11‚ 2013 The Cosmological Argument is not a Strong Argument for the Existence of God The Cosmological Argument for the existence of God is one of the most famous of all philosophical arguments that address the existence of a supernatural being who created the material universe. The supernatural being whom created the material universe is the logical core of what is commonly meant by the word God within
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