Regress argument

Principle of Sufficient Reason and Aquinas’ assertion that an infinite regress is impossible. Regarding Aquinas’ use of the reduction and absurdum in his Third Way, Edwards argues Aquinas does not succeed in proving an infinite regress is impossible. Edwards asserts one can acknowledge God’s existence, and thus the existence of all which follows from God’s existence, without acknowledging God as “the first member of the series.” According to Edwards, by not denying the existence of God (even if God is not the first cause), one does not reduce the argument to the non existence of everything. Furthermore, according to Edwards, if an infinite regress is impossible, then it doesn’t mean there were not many different first causes or that the first cause is still in existence. Edwards distinguishes, on behalf of defenders of Aquinas’ argument, between “causes in fieri” and “causes in esse”. A “cause in fieri” is a direct cause of an…

justify their belief before they can acquire any knowledge. Since most of the time the beliefs we assume we have justified and are justified based on other belief. Consequently, this promotes the concept of regress argument where the philosophers are on the quest to truly justify a belief thus we can know for sure that we have knowledge. Coherentist attempts to solve the regress problem by suggesting a system of beliefs where the justification is done by referring to other beliefs within the…

order to obtain true knowledge, one must have justifications for every proposition that we have – this process could theoretically go on forever. The epistemic regress argument states that any and all propositions in an argument must be justified. It was first presented by Aristotle and has been debated in various forms since. The idea is that one has knowledge that comes in an epistemic chain. The epistemic regress argument states that: I am justified in believing P if only if I have evidence…

Charlotte Kang PHIL 110 Paper 1 Option 2: Foundationalist response to infinite regress argument for scepticism Sceptical arguments are designed to show that we lack any knowledge whatsoever. Such arguments have informed views about what knowledge is and whether we have any in the first place, by establishing the conditions that any acceptable knowledge claim must meet. This essay addresses the idea of radical, or global scepticism: that every statement is doubtful, and that information and…

Argument Against Standardized Testing President Bush is promoting annual standardized testing for all students in grades three through eight. This bill is currently being considered in Congress, and has garnered much support. As of right now, 15 states test students in those grades, and more than 20 have high school exit exams, which look only at the test score of a student, not at his or her academic achievements. Standardized testing is an unfair and inaccurate form of…

The feud between Apple and the FBI has received a substantial amount of media coverage lately. The legal arguments for each side appear to be equally laudable, which impelled investigate on my own. I decided to explore the question of whether or not Apple should produce a back-door to assist in the FBI’s investigation. The FBI, which initiated the debate, argued that Apple has to comply citing the All Writs Act of 1789. Apple refuses to comply stating that if the back-door was to be produced and…

York’s crime epidemic” (Gladwell, 287). Although Gladwell does not say it directly, he is implying that the reduction of crime was faster than previous years. For the purpose of this essay it may be unnecessary to show the audience the data that supports this claim, but to prove this theory’s credibility Gladwell would have to support his theory with defined data. Similar to Gladwell, Steven Pinker, is an influential cognitive scientist, psychologist, linguist, and author. In his essay titled…

fueling in future with the use of natural gas, oil, etc. Therefore, people have taken the opportunity with new developments such as fracking to essentially extract those natural resources from the very depths of the earth. However, there are potential complications that come with the extraction of natural gas as fracking inputs a vast amount of water, sand, and chemicals into deep layers of earth. Moreover, sovereign states must deal with these possible complications and are inquired to impose…

Invalid Forms of Propositional Arguments Pages 164 – 175 of the textbook focuses on assessing valid forms versus invalid forms of propositional forms. It provides a brief description of what would be considered a valid argument and invalid argument. A valid argument passes the proper form test, while an invalid argument fails it. Five of the nine most used propositional arguments discusses are valid arguments. These valid forms include: the denying a disjunct, affirming an exclusive disjuncts,…

Tamar Demby develops her position by stating that Applebaum relies too much on emotional appeal, doesn't back up her claims and doesn't support her ethos. Demby gives examples of everything she mentioned that didn't make Applebaum article and more effective. After mentioning this, Demby moves onto give examples of the writer's use of ethos by saying that she is only “journalist rather than a nuclear physicist or someone with credentials”. Next the student explains that the writer lacked a “fact…