philosopher fact file!

Anscombe

• Virtue ethicist

• Moral absolutist, critiqued consequentialism + teleological ideologies

• Followed Wittgenstein’s ‘Language Games’

• Viewed ‘Ontological argument’ as more important as a test of faith than a well thought out argument

Anselm

• Created ‘Ontological Argument’

• Wrote Proslogian II and III

• II: a priori theory

• III: contingency + necessity

Aquinas

• Natural Moral Law

• 3rd Way: Cosmological argument (Summa Theologica)

• Objected to ontological argument as he believed that the finite human mind cannot grasp God’s essence - making it impossible to prove God’s existence through definition.

• Principle of analogy

Aristotle

• Created virtue ethics (Nichomachean ethics)

Augustine

• Created theodicy for problem of evil

• True happiness is found in God, and virtue is a gift from God

Al Ghazali

• Kalam argument, universe has a beginning so it must have a cause

Ayer

• Logical positivist

• Verification principle

Barth

• Supported ontological argument: faith seeking understanding

• Objected to cosmological argument: faith beyond reason

Bentham

• Utilitarian

• Morality of something comes from its consequence

• Hedonistic calculus, optimising pleasure and minimizing pain

Bernadette

• Experienced apparitions of the Virgin Mary

Camus

• Against ontological argument: ‘no one died for the ontological argument’

Copleston

• Supported cosmological argument: everything in the universe is contingent, infinite regress makes no sense

• Debated Russell

Descartes

• Originated ontological argument.

• Rationalist, reason is chief source of knowledge as opposed to empiricism

Epicurus

• Formulated of problem evil

• Inspired Bentham’s principle of utility

Fletcher

• Created situation ethics

Flew

• Falsification principle

• ‘Invisible Gardener’ parable

Gaunilo

• Against ontological argument: reductio ad absurdum, ‘lost island’ parable

Griffin

• Process theodicy

Hare

• Created ‘bliks’

• Lunatic parable

Hick

• Eschatological verification

• Soul-making theodicy

• Experiencing as

Hughes

• For cosmological argument: we can see everything is contingent, unnamed cause is God

• ‘Probabilistic Proof’

Hume

• Criticised ontological argument: existence is not a predicate

• Criticised cosmological argument: fallacy of composition

• Criticised design argument: earth is more like an organism than a watch

• Created Hume’s fork

• Empiricist

• Viewed miracles as violations of the laws of nature, realist

• Miracles can never be true; problem of testimony, accounts come from uncivilised nations

Ireneaus

• Soul-making theodicy

• Humans go from being in God’s image to being in his likeness

Kant

• To act morally and obey moral law is one’s duty. Everyone has innate sense of reason to get to their ‘Summon Bonum’

• Against ontological argument: existence is not a predicate

• Criticised design argument: inductive and a posteriori

Kierkgaard

• Existentialist: believed profound truths are subjective

Lane Craig

Supports ontological argument: modal logic

Leibniz

• Supports ontological argument: two part modal proof

• Supports cosmological argument: principle of sufficient reason

Locke

• Empiricist, at birth the mind is ‘tabula rasa’ and all knowledge comes from experience

• ‘Locked room’ analogy

• Free will is a power of the agent to act according to their will

• Nature is inherent and we don’t make our own choices

Luhrman

• Against process theology: ‘God of PT is like a mad scientist’

Mackie

• Critiqued ‘free will defence’: it’s logically possible for God to create perfect, free beings

McIntyre

• Criticised ‘bliks’: religious statements are factual assertions of reality

McGrath

• Against ontological argument: relies on necessary existence, which is just as improbable as infinite regress

Mills

• Utilitarianism: actions are right when they promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number

Nagel

• Moral Luck

Paley

• Formulated design argument

• ‘Watchmaker analogy’

Pascal

• Pascal’s wager: rational to believe in God’s existence as rewards outweigh losses

Phillips

• Deontological over teleological: never okay to hurt someone to help them

Plantinga

• Supports ontological argument: modal logic

• Free will defence

Popper

• Formulated ‘falsification principle’

Ramsey

• Models and qualifiers: part of Aristotle’s ‘analogy’

Russell

• Critiques cosmological argument: fallacy of composition

• Universe is a ‘brute fact’

• Debated Copleston

• Critiqued design argument: complexity of life explained through evolution

Sartre

• Humans have no purpose, condemned to be free

• Attempts to deny this are ‘bad faith’

Spinoza

• Equates God with nature

• True freedom comes from rational understanding and acceptance

Swinburne

• Moral evil is a necessary consequence of free will

• Natural evil helps develop second order goods

• For cosmological argument: the interference of necessary being is the best explanation

• God is the ‘simplest explanation’

• For design argument: science can’t explain why science works

• Created principle of credulity and testimony

Tillich

• Existentialist

• Anti-realist

• God is being itself, beyond existence and completely unknowable

• Against all arguments for God’s existence

• ‘Symbolic language’

• Opposed ‘picture theory’

• Non-cognitive

Vienna Circle

• Group of logical positivists

Wiles

• Anti-realist miracles: realist miracles were unloving

• Only miracle was creation

Wittgenstein

• Tractatus: developed ‘picture theory’

• Philosophical Investigation: language games

• Philosophy is therapeutic activity, not theory generating

Whitehead

• Formulated process theology