Abstract

This closely reasoned and clearly written volume presents an attempt to analyze and reassess the truth and validity of "the positions which the cosmological argument propounds and presupposes." Professor Reichenbach’s procedure is to begin by stating a plausible cosmological argument and then to defend it against criticism. The cosmological argument advanced begins with the existence of a contingent being and then argues, by means of principles of causality, to the existence of a necessary being. The first criticisms to be faced are those against the principles of causality and sufficient reason. Here Hume is the principle antagonist. Secondly, the author argues, against analytic philosophers like A. J. Ayer, that propositions can be simultaneously both informative and necessary. Thirdly, Russell’s argument that the application of the causal principle in the cosmological argument involves the fallacy of composition is contested. Fourthly, the types of necessity in the conclusion of the author’s formulation of the cosmological argument are analyzed and defended. Finally, the author rejects Kant’s contention that the cosmological argument depends on the ontological argument and formulates some suggestions about how one could go beyond the cosmological argument proper to show how the necessary being to which the argument concludes could be identified with God.