David Hume insists that one uses the empirical method- use facts- rather than unfounded intuitions, religious traditions, revelations and holy books. In this manner, people lead themselves to that more abundant life, Those others are non-starters, parasites on the presumption of empiricism!
The presumption of naturalism requires that we acknowledge that not only are causes and explanations necessary and efficient, they are also primary and sufficient; Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz notwithstanding, they themselves are the sufficient reason. They are that Necessary Being as it were1
Hume and Immanuel Kant remain the top philosophers to keel haul supernaturalist arguments,albeit Kant himself has the ridiculous moral one. Carneades, a pre-Socratic one, keel hauls supernaturalism, and all others are his expanded footnote!
Before Hume's devastating attack on teleological arguments, Carneades in response to Chrysippus notes that the latter begs the question of the word builder in his analogy of the builder of houses with the more than human one of the Universe.The neutral verb form is forms.Why presume that homes and the universe are comparable.
And as Hume brings up the problem of evil, Carneades inquires what would the about to be grilled pig think of the greater good defense?
Hume use the dysteleological argument - from imperfections- in eviscerating teleological arguments.
Richard Swinburne and William Lane Craig, notwithstanding, we find no personal explanation in any supernaturalist argument for His existence. Is it an incompetent God, a committee of gods, a manner like vegetation or some other manner. Otherwise one begs the question and uses the argument from ignorance.
To the viewers of this blog, please respond yea or nay in part or in whole at whatever length you so desire. It is for serious inquirers. As a fallibilist, I must admit that we naturalists can err!
Showing posts with label empiricism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label empiricism. Show all posts
Friday, August 6, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Hume that grand empiricist, humanist and naturalist
David Hume advocates the presumption of naturalism in effect that natural causes and explanations are not only necessary and efficient but also primary and sufficient. They are the Necessary Beings and the Primary Causes, contradicting Aquinas with the former and Leibniz with the latter. This hardly begs the question as it is no more than the honest demand for evidence as Einstein used evidence to overcome Newton.
Before his dementia, Antony Garrard Newton Flew advocated this presumption , but under the influence of an obscurantist science writer and his dementia , he forgot that Nature only reveals natural causes and answers as this presumption is akin to the presumption of innocence in the law , and Aquinas alluded to implicitly in making his five failed arguments.
Home advocates the presumption of empiricism that forbids revelations, religious traditions, unfounded intuitions and folk psychology.
He furthered the case against the existence of God that Carneades started.
He and Thomas Hobbes advocate wide- reflective subjectivism that of overriding mere whims with the reasoned moral sense. I contend that that underpins, paradoxically, objective morality!
He reasons that compatibilism - soft determinism - rules rather than contra-causal free will. That is, we have causes -determinants from our heredity and environment that cause our free actions.
My terminal shyness and slight paranoia causes me to seek therapy, thereby establishing new causes. And as Democritus notes, causes don't coerce us. Without causes, we'd be at the mercy of randomness, the inverse of what many think.
And Hume was a historian.
I wonder what my viewers have to maintain about any part of this, to which they can comment at whatever length they so desire.
Before his dementia, Antony Garrard Newton Flew advocated this presumption , but under the influence of an obscurantist science writer and his dementia , he forgot that Nature only reveals natural causes and answers as this presumption is akin to the presumption of innocence in the law , and Aquinas alluded to implicitly in making his five failed arguments.
Home advocates the presumption of empiricism that forbids revelations, religious traditions, unfounded intuitions and folk psychology.
He furthered the case against the existence of God that Carneades started.
He and Thomas Hobbes advocate wide- reflective subjectivism that of overriding mere whims with the reasoned moral sense. I contend that that underpins, paradoxically, objective morality!
He reasons that compatibilism - soft determinism - rules rather than contra-causal free will. That is, we have causes -determinants from our heredity and environment that cause our free actions.
My terminal shyness and slight paranoia causes me to seek therapy, thereby establishing new causes. And as Democritus notes, causes don't coerce us. Without causes, we'd be at the mercy of randomness, the inverse of what many think.
And Hume was a historian.
I wonder what my viewers have to maintain about any part of this, to which they can comment at whatever length they so desire.
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