Name That Philosopher
This philosopher responded to the problem of evil by arguing that we cannot fully understand God’s plan, and that a planet without natural evils could not exist
Who is G.W. Leibniz?
"You should not be late to class" is an example of this type of claim
What is a normative claim?
This type of argument doesn’t require all true premises but must have a logically correct structure
What is a valid argument?
First introduced by Anselm, this argument for God’s existence begins with the claim “Nothing greater than God can be conceived”
What is the ontological argument?
Descartes compared imagining God without perfection to imagining this geometric figure without three sides
What is a triangle?
This medieval philosopher argued "Five Ways" for the existence of God including the First Mover and First Cause cosmological arguments
Who is Thomas Aquinas?
"Breastfeeding is natural so all new mothers must do it" is an example of this logical fallacy
What is a naturalistic fallacy?
A valid argument that has all true premises and a true conclusion
What is a sound argument?
Associated with Aquinas, this version of the cosmological argument holds that every event must have been caused by a prior event, and that God must be the first
What is the First Cause argument?
Paley’s design argument claims that if you found this foreign object in the forest, you would naturally wonder who designed it
What is a pocket watch?
When his belief in God led to him overcoming depression, this philosopher concluded that sometimes it can be rational to believe in something without sufficient evidence
Who is William James?
A claim or argument assumed to be true based on a lack of information
What is an argument from ignorance?
Arguments with conclusion that follow necessarily from the premises
What are deductive arguments?
When critiquing the design argument, Hume raised this challenge that questioned how an all-powerful, all-good God could permit suffering in the world
What is the problem of evil?
To show why it is immoral to believe without sufficient evidence, Clifford uses an analogy of a careless owner of this mode of transportation that leads to disaster
What is an old ship?
This logical fallacy involves misrepresenting or overstating your opponent's argument making it easier to attack
What is a strawman/strawfigure?
“I have never liked any coffee, so I will probably not like the taste of yours” is an example of this kind of reasoning
What is inductive reasoning?
Named after its French creator, the argument that you should gamble on the belief in God, as the potential upside is so big
What is Pascal's Wager?
In response to Anselm’s ontological argument, Gaunilo argued that using Anselm's logic, if he were able to imagine the perfect this, then it also must exist
What is a perfect island?
"This frozen yogurt is strawberry flavor, therefore it counts as a serving of fruit" is an example of this kind of logical fallacy
What is equivocation?
"If a shape is a cube, then it has corners. The Empire State Building has corners. Therefore, it’s shaped like a cube." is an example of this type of argument (must name two types)
What is an unsound, invalid argument?
Leibniz distinguished necessary beings from these dependent beings, like humans and animals, that could have failed to exist
What are contingent beings?
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