PHIL 347 Exam with verified answers
What is the basic structure of the cosmological (kalam, craig, plato-philoponus)
argument - ** VERIFIED ANSWERS **✔✔1. Everything that begins to exist has a
cause
2. the universe began to exist
therefore the universe has a cause
what is the first a priori argument regarding premise 2 of the Kalam - ** VERIFIED
ANSWERS **✔✔The universe has to have a cause as it cannot be infinite because
that implies there there is an actual infinity of real events
Why can there not be actual infinites of real events? - ** VERIFIED ANSWERS
**✔✔Because that would lead us to deny Euclid's axiom that the whole is always
larger than its parts
what is the second a priori argument regarding premise 2 of the Kalam - **
VERIFIED ANSWERS **✔✔Even if we allow for infinities of real events, the
universe cannot be eternal or infinite, as that would mean that it would've had to
have traversed all through a past infinity of events, which is a set of infinite steps
What are a posteriori arguments for premise 2 of the Kalam - ** VERIFIED
ANSWERS **✔✔Big bang cosmology, big bang singularity, empirically observed
background radiation, thermodynamics - if universe is eternal then we would have
run out of energy
Russells objections to second premise of the Kalam - ** VERIFIED ANSWERS
**✔✔Set theory has shown that there can be actual infinities of real objects,
therefore this undermines a priori argument that the universe needs a start date.
This is based on the assumption that numbers are real objects and that consistency
implies possibility
Arguments regarding premise 1 of the kalam - Hume's objection the the causal
principle - ** VERIFIED ANSWERS **✔✔Hume rejects intuitive knowledge, and
