Reductio ad absurdum

The cloning of the sheep Dolly created a controversial issue of using human embryos in research and cloning of humans. Roe vs. Wade made abortions legal in the United States. This led to researches legally experimenting on 20 live-born fetuses. Five years later, Steptoe and Edwards reversed infertility by creating Louise Brown, the “test tube” baby. They destroyed approximately one hundred human embryos inx5 Ntheir in vitro fertilization experiment. Elizabeth Carr was the first IVF baby born…

Many philosophers take simple facts to be the truth without evaluating them, simply assuming these things are true because others told them so. Philosophers who question the basic principles that are accepted worldly can be thought of as outcasts, but in reality, it is better to question everything than to assume anything. Two examples of philosophers who did not make these naïve assumptions are Parmenides and Zeno of Elea. They held the belief that motion does not exist, and were ridiculed for…

a definition of God that he believes everyone would be accepting of and that cannot be disputed. His definition is “something-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought” (Pg.15) or in simpler terms the greatest conceivable being. Anselm uses reductio ad absurdum to prove that the contrary to his belief would be absurd.…

The argument for the existence of God will always give rise to infinitive points of view. St. Anselm (c. 1033- April 21, 1109) was distinguished philosopher, scholar, theologian and an Italian monk who later went on to become the Archbishop of Canterbury. His thinking and writings about God and the disposition of faith has influenced and fascinated scholars and philosophers since the Middle Ages—some would even say he is the most important Christian thinker of the 11th century. In his highly…

for proving God’s existence; created by a plethora of theologists, psychologists, and philosophers, but I will be focusing on one: The Ontological Argument for God’s existence. The basic structure for the Ontological argument is set up as a reductio ad absurdum argument, which is essentially an argument which derives a solution by presenting the opposition to the desired solution, then formulating that it is absurd, or illogical, then in turn proves the desired outcome is the solution. The…

In this paper I will argue that St. Anselm’s ontological argument is not adequate in proving the existence of God. First I will discuss his ambiguous use of the term “God”. Then, I will move on to analyze the term “greatest” made in his premises. Lastly, I will also criticize Anselm's argument by demonstrating that Anselm’s reply to Gaunilo’s objections are unconvincing. Anselm was the first one who developed the ontological argument, an argument for God’s existence based on reason, not on…

of anything better than God. Although Anselm’s Ontological Argument will always be very significant in philosophy, he relies on the pre-existing belief of God without attempting to provide explanations making his argument weak. Anselm uses reductio ad absurdum as his method of argumentation,…

to his recourse of sophistry. This is most evident in his chain of necessity about his syphilis, ‘for if Columbus […] had not contracted this disease […] we would have neither chocolate nor cochineal’. He is merely resolved to arguments of reductio ad absurdum in an effort to locate good in an unfortunate event. Moreover, there is only one instance where ‘Optimism’ is mentioned, and that is when Candide and Cacambo encounter the black slave who tells them that his hand and leg being cut off ‘is…