Free Will
LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end of this section, you will be able to: Though the presence of evil in the world suggests that we have free will, the idea of a first mover or an all-powerful divine being challenges the…
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Cosmology and the Existence of God
LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end of this section, you will be able to: Another major question in metaphysics relates to cosmology. Cosmology is the study of how reality is ordered. How can we account for the ordering, built upon many…
Self and Identity
LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end of this section, you will be able to: Today, some might think that atomism and Aristotle’s teleological view have evolved into a theory of cells that resolves the acorn-oak tree identity problem. The purpose, or…
Substance
LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end of this section, you will be able to: The Latin term substantia, translated as substance, is often used to refer to the basic reality of a thing. The notion that reason could lay bare the secrets of the…
Introduction
Figure 6.1 Being and Becoming. The acorn and the oak allow us to frame several metaphysical questions. Are there first causes? Do things have essences? Do things develop along a predetermined path? (credit: “Acorn” by Shaun Fisher/Flickr, CC BY 2.0) Chapter Outline…
Summary
Philosophical Methods for Discovering Truth Logic is the study of reasoning and is a key tool for discovering truth in philosophy and other disciplines. Early philosophers used dialectics—reasoned debates with the goal of getting closer to the truth—to practice and…
Informal Fallacies
LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end of this section, you will be able to: Reasoning can go wrong in many ways. When the form of an argument is problematic, it is called a formal fallacy. Mistakes in reasoning are not usually caused by…
Types of Inferences
LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end of this section, you will be able to: Inferences can be deductive, inductive, or abductive. Deductive inferences are the strongest because they can guarantee the truth of their conclusions. Inductive inferences are the most widely…
Arguments
LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end of this section, you will be able to: As explained at the beginning of the chapter, an argument in philosophy is simply a set of reasons offered in support of some conclusion. So an “arguer” is a…
Logical Statements
LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end of this section, you will be able to: Specific types of statements have a particular meaning in logic, and such statements are frequently used by philosophers in their arguments. Of particular importance is the conditional, which…