Corpus evidence — top 10 passages

Most-relevant passages from the entire indexed corpus (67,286 paragraph chunks across YouTube transcripts, PubMed, arXiv, archive.org, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, OpenAlex, and more) ranked by semantic similarity (bge-small-en-v1.5).

1. 01 · blog0.814

   We could admit an infinite regress of causes if we had evidence for such, but lacking such evidence, God must exist as the non-dependent cause. Many of the objections to the argument contend that God is an inappropriate cause because of God’s nature. For example, since God is immobile and has no body, he cannot properly be said to cause anything. The Naiyāyikas reply that God could assume a body at certain times, and in any case, God need not create in the same way humans do (Potter 1977: 100–07). René Descartes advances his version of the cosmological argument not only as a piece of natural t…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/cosmological-argument.md

2. 02 · blog0.803

   Underlying this viewpoint is a conception of the relationship between cause and effect as one of correspondence, which entails the consistency of an action with the essential nature of its cause (Kogan 1984: 249). Accordingly, a simple cause has one act and produces only a single effect. In keeping with this conception, and considering the absolute simplicity of the First Principle, al-Ghazali describes a cosmological scheme in terms of emanation, where the First Principle causes multiplicity of effects not directly, but through a series of emanative intermediary causes proceeding from one ano…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/isaac-albalag.md

3. 03 · blog0.799

   Let us consider all possible things as an “aggregate” ( jumlah) . This raises two assumptions: (1) the aggregate is self-caused, or (2) the aggregate is caused by an external cause (Avicenna, al-Najāt : 2: 89). Avicenna excludes the former assumption, explaining that the nature of what is possible in itself cannot change without a cause. Hence, an aggregate of possible things remains possible in itself; it must be caused by another cause to become necessary. Given that the series of causes and effects cannot progress ad infinitum , we must conclude that the existence of an aggregate of possibl…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/isaac-albalag.md

4. 04 · blog0.785

   On the other hand, God acts out of his nature; Swinburne (2004: 47, 114–23) emphasizes God’s goodness, from which we can infer possible reasons for what God brings about (although at this point the problem of evil has bite). God also acts from his intentions (Swinburne 1993: 139–45; 2007: 83–84), so that God could reveal his purposes for his act of creating (Richard Swinburne, The Evolution of the Soul : 309). Third, why do things continue to exist? This is the question that Thomas Aquinas posed. Aquinas was interested not in a beginning cause but in a sustaining cause, for he believed that th…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/cosmological-argument.md

5. 05 · blog0.777

   Whether causal relations are understood as Humean regularities, Lewisian counterfactual dependences, or necessary connections, the proposition that God is the sole cause of the existence of contingent beings does not entail that God is the only cause of events. It remains possible that contingent beings nonetheless have causal influence over the qualities and behavior of other such beings. The result is a cooperative picture of the evolving state of the world. “God and the lit match collaborate to produce the heated water: God provides the water, and the lit match provides the heat” (Quinn 198…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/creation-and-conservation.md

6. 06 · blog0.772

   (Pruss 2006: 157,158) One might reply that an explanation needs to be given for why \(x\) was attracted to \(R_1\) rather than to \(R_2\), and that if that explanation is given, \(x\)’s choice is not free but determined by the degree to which \(x\) is attracted to different reasons. However, Pruss might respond that being “attracted by” is not to be understood in any deterministic sense. One might freely consider an option to be the best without being necessitated to choose it. The debate hinges on how one understands how reasons function in human agency. Finally, some (disputedly, see below) …

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/cosmological-argument.md

7. 07 · blog0.769

   In the third part of the second essay, Crescas analyzes the true meaning of these three beliefs and asks whether we can prove them. He comes to the conclusion that he can prove the existence of God. In his opinion the only way to prove the existence of God is via the need for a first cause. If every single thing in the universe is caused, their existence is only possible (just as is their inexistence) and so we need a first cause that necessitates their existence as opposed to their non-existence. [ 15 ] In Crescas’s opinion, we can also prove the simplicity of God, but we cannot prove the uni…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/hasdai-crescas.md

8. 08 · blog0.769

   7.) Although the existence of some kind of First Cause was undisputed, religious and philosophical authorities disagreed about the nature of creation. The most common view was that the world came into existence, from God, after having not existed, but Ibn Rushd follows Aristotle in supposing that the world has always existed, eternally. His strategy for explaining how an eternal world can have a First Cause turns on distinguishing between two kinds of causal orderings, essential and accidental. Causes that are essentially ordered are simultaneous, such that the prior stages are a condition for…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/ibn-rushd-averroes.md

9. 09 · blog0.769

   The only case in Avicenna’s metaphysics where something exists through itself is God, the Necessary Existent in Itself ( wājib al-wujūd bi-dhātihi ). The Necessary Existent is also the only instance in which essence and existence are identical, as God’s essence confines itself to being existent (Bertolacci 2012; Mayer 2003; Adamson 2013a; Zarepour 2022). Avicenna argues that if God’s essence were distinct from His existence, it would imply that it causes its own existence (all other options would fail to account for God’s unique status as the Necessary Existent). However, Avicenna argues, noth…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/essence-and-existence-in-arabic-and-islamic-philosophy.md

10. 10 · blog0.767

    An example of this is a solar eclipse. Foreknowledge of this and similar events is correspondingly necessary with respect to the knower. In contrast, some natural causes, despite having an order, can be impeded by voluntary or accidental causes. In these cases, the effects are not necessary, and thus it is not possible to make predictions about their occurrence with certainty. I maintain that for any possible thing, if all its proximate an remote causes succeed each other essentially and maintain order in their actions, and no hindrance can prevent any of them, then it is to be judged the same…

    blog/plato-stanford-edu/isaac-albalag.md