3 ms·
I only dabble in formal logic so I haven't come across this before, but it sort of feels like this rests on a circular argument. You know, the "can God make a
by tunesmith 12y ago
I only dabble in formal logic so I haven't come across this before, but it sort of feels like this rests on a circular argument. You know, the "can God make a rock so heavy that he can't lift it" or "does God have the power to make himself even more Good". I wonder if it's possible to prove anything if one of your axioms is actually a hidden circular argument, much like how one can prove anything from setting true to false.
- davidgerard 12y agoAll ontological arguments for God are of the form: 1. I carefully define God as having to exist. 2. Therefore, God exists. All the work goes into the first part, however many volumes of obfuscation (hi, Dr Plantinga!) one hides it behind. There are a number of problems with this approach.
- dvt 12y agoWhat you're describing in the second part of your post is the Principle of Explosion[1]. It does not apply to Godel's argument as his axioms entail no contradictions. I'm not sure what you mean by "circular" in this context. However, what people usually mean is an argument where the conclusion is contained in one of the axioms. Godel's proof doesn't explicitly suffer from this but I will say that his fourth axiom, i.e. Good(phi) -> [Necessarily]Good(phi) is cutting it pretty close. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion