Cosmological Arguments

Cambridge University Press (2018)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The book discusses the structure, content, and evaluation of cosmological arguments. The introductory chapter investigates features essential to cosmological arguments. Traditionally, cosmological arguments are distinguished by their appeal to change, causation, contingency or objective becoming in the world. But none of these is in fact essential to the formulation of cosmological arguments. Chapters 1-3 present a critical discussion of traditional Thomistic, Kalam, and Leibnizian cosmological arguments, noting various advantages and disadvantages of these approaches. Chapter 4 offers an entirely new approach to the cosmological argument - the approach of theistic modal realism. The proper explananda of cosmological arguments on this approach is not change, causation, contingency or objective becoming in the world. The proper explananda is the totality of metaphysical reality - all actualia and all possibilia. The result is the most compelling and least objectionable version of the cosmological argument.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

Cosmological arguments.Graham Oppy - 2009 - Noûs 43 (1):31-48.
Branching actualism and cosmological arguments.Joseph C. Schmid & Alex Malpass - 2023 - Philosophical Studies 180 (7):1951-1973.
Are cosmological arguments good arguments?Bruce Reichenbach - 2022 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 92 (3):129-145.
The cosmological arguments.Donald R. Burrill - 1967 - Garden City, N.Y.,: Anchor Books.
Three cosmological arguments.Christopher Hughes - 2000 - Ratio 13 (3):213–233.

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-04-09

Downloads
2,119 (#6,154)

6 months
491 (#3,052)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Mike Almeida
University of Texas at San Antonio

Citations of this work

African Philosophy of Religion and Western Monotheism.Kirk Lougheed, Motsamai Molefe & Thaddeus Metz - 2024 - Cambridge University Press. Edited by Motsamai Molefe & Thaddeus Metz.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Naming and Necessity: Lectures Given to the Princeton University Philosophy Colloquium.Saul A. Kripke - 1980 - Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Edited by Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel.
Counterfactuals.David K. Lewis - 1973 - Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.
Does conceivability entail possibility.David J. Chalmers - 2002 - In Tamar Gendler & John Hawthorne, Conceivability and Possibility. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 145--200.
An Essay on Free Will.Peter van Inwagen - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Naming and necessity.Saul Kripke - 2010 - In Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel, Arguing about language. New York: Routledge. pp. 431-433.

View all 79 references / Add more references