David Hume And The Cosmological Argumen
“Hume’s criticisms of the cosmological argument do not succeed.” Discuss (10 marks)
I believe that David Hume’s criticisms against the cosmological argument are insufficient. Hume’s argument is based around two main points, the idea that explaining the parts of the universe is sufficient instead of an explanation of the universe as a whole and that the causal principle is questionable.
Hume states that if you can explain the parts of something then you don’t need to explain the process as a whole or that there may not be a cause there for the process in total anyway. For example if there are twenty eggs, Hume states that you can explain the eggs individually and not need to explain the eggs as a whole. However there are flaws here that make Hume’s argument fall apart. The explaining of parts individually is not sufficient for example Hume would explain a chicken with an egg and an egg with a chicken. This presents the problem of circular logic in that we learn nothing of the process and instead have the infinite regression problem of the argument going back and forth between the two particulars. To have a satisfactory conclusion we need to explain the whole process.
The second of Hume’s points is that the causal principle is doubtful. His evidence for this is that we can conceive of things without a cause therefore things without a cause are possible this is also backed up by Mackie who says that the causal principle has no evidence and only exists in a methodological sense. However this argument also has severe faults that discredit it. If the arguments from causality are questionable then that means that the arguments from conceivability are questionable as well. This could also mean that a logically necessary truth could be conceived as false if you don’t completely understand it. This opens the problem that just because something is logically possible then that doesn’t mean it could happen in the real world. This basically disables Hume’s ideas on non-causal
I believe that David Hume’s criticisms against the cosmological argument are insufficient. Hume’s argument is based around two main points, the idea that explaining the parts of the universe is sufficient instead of an explanation of the universe as a whole and that the causal principle is questionable.
Hume states that if you can explain the parts of something then you don’t need to explain the process as a whole or that there may not be a cause there for the process in total anyway. For example if there are twenty eggs, Hume states that you can explain the eggs individually and not need to explain the eggs as a whole. However there are flaws here that make Hume’s argument fall apart. The explaining of parts individually is not sufficient for example Hume would explain a chicken with an egg and an egg with a chicken. This presents the problem of circular logic in that we learn nothing of the process and instead have the infinite regression problem of the argument going back and forth between the two particulars. To have a satisfactory conclusion we need to explain the whole process.
The second of Hume’s points is that the causal principle is doubtful. His evidence for this is that we can conceive of things without a cause therefore things without a cause are possible this is also backed up by Mackie who says that the causal principle has no evidence and only exists in a methodological sense. However this argument also has severe faults that discredit it. If the arguments from causality are questionable then that means that the arguments from conceivability are questionable as well. This could also mean that a logically necessary truth could be conceived as false if you don’t completely understand it. This opens the problem that just because something is logically possible then that doesn’t mean it could happen in the real world. This basically disables Hume’s ideas on non-causal