1 of 1- Paulo Juarez
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A Cosmological Argument from Composition
Hi everyone,
New here. I'd love to get your opinion on two cosmological arguments from composition that I find interesting. Both rest on the following thesis: "the simple is a cause of the composed". This strikes me as correct, but I could use your help developing this thesis in greater detail (provided you think it true, that is)
Version 1:
1. The simple is a cause of the composed
2. The world is made up of composite things
3. So, there is cause of the world, simple in nature
4. (divine attributes follow: immateriality, atemporal, one, etc.)
Version 2:
1. The simple is a cause of the composed
2. There is one composite thing X
3. So there is a simple cause of X
4. Every cause in the world is composite
5. So the cause of X, by virtue of being simple, transcends the world
6. (divine attributes follow: immateriality, atemporal, one, etc.)
Version 1 is open to the charge that it commits the fallacy of composition, namely, that from the fact that that the world is made up of composite things, it doesn’t follow that the world itself is composite. The charge, however, is dubious, since not all arguments from composition are false, and the composition here can be likened to that of a wall made up of red bricks: if every brick in the wall is red, it does follow that the wall itself is red. Version 2, on the other hand, sidesteps this criticism entirely, since it does not argue from the world to a simple cause, but from the existence of any one composite being (a car, a shoe, a tree, whatever.)
Any thoughts and suggestions as to how to develop/strengthen the argument would be greatly appreciated.
Paulo
- DanielCC
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Offline - Registered: 6/26/2015
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Re: A Cosmological Argument from Composition
Thanks for posting these interesting arguments Paulo,
Some very quick thoughts:
Might we not broaden 'cause' to the weaker 'explanation' in argument 2? Any being involving composition could be composed otherwise, thus if we are to avoid an infinite regress in explaining composition then the ultimate explanation must be non-composite. This of course makes the argument dependent on a variation of the PSR, albeit a restricted one, which is not bad as it spares us the task of dealing with criticisms
One thing does spring to mind: a critic might challenge what you mean by composition as in, they would grant the premise to you in terms of normal mereological parts but deny its applicability in terms of metaphysical parts?
Another question: granted the world is composed of composite brings what are these brings composed of? Are there any ultimate components? A mereological nihilist might claim yes and further argue that these 'atoms' are simple. We could still push ahead with the argument and claim that even if they are simple (mereological you) their organization still requires an explanation; however in doing so we would be conceding that the force of the argument lies in the explanation i.e. PSR part and not in the nature of composition specifically.
Re charges of the Fallacy of Composition, we could get round this by arguing that positing multiple perfectly simple beings would run into identity criterion problems i.e. that there would be no way in principle to tell them apart (this sounds rather too like the old Indiscernibility of identicals though surely we could run it on a weaker formulation).
- Paulo Juarez
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Re: A Cosmological Argument from Composition
Thanks so much for the comments!
“Might we not broaden 'cause' to the weaker 'explanation' in argument 2? Any being involving composition could be composed otherwise, thus if we are to avoid an infinite regress in explaining composition then the ultimate explanation must be non-composite. This of course makes the argument dependent on a variation of the PSR, albeit a restricted one, which is not bad as it spares us the task of dealing with criticisms”
That’s a fair point. ‘Explanation’ better conveys the idea that we are concerned with the ultimate explanation/cause/reason behind composite being X. In that sense I’m not quite sure why you think ‘explanation’ is weaker than ‘cause’. I have an inkling, but can you elaborate?
“One thing does spring to mind: a critic might challenge what you mean by composition as in, they would grant the premise to you in terms of normal mereological parts but deny its applicability in terms of metaphysical parts?”
That’s true, I do need some help outlining just what it means for something to be metaphysically composite. With that said, I think the argument can be carried out even on the basis of mereological parts alone (though some of the divine attributes might suffer from doing this.)
Another question: granted the world is composed of composite brings what are these brings composed of? Are there any ultimate components?
Right, so here I have in mind a hylomorphic account of composition. I mean that things are composite in the scholastic sense. Such an ‘atom’ would nonetheless be a composite of form and matter(?). I think the argument does still lie in the nature of composition, since form and matter still need to be conjoined. Maybe other senses of composition can be worked into the argument, I don’t know.
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Thread Starter- iwpoe
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Re: A Cosmological Argument from Composition
This looks like a gesture towards a standard classical Platonic argument to Unity or the One: I'll give one of those when I get home.
Does anyone familiar with any standard mereological symbolization know if this goes through?
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- Paulo Juarez
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Re: A Cosmological Argument from Composition
Yes, it very much is.
As I said before, the thesis upon which the argument hangs seems to me to be true ("the simple is a cause of the composed"). I'm not in a position to defend it at length, however. How would you guys defend this thesis?
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