3 posts tagged “argument”

These are a couple of articles I found thanks to Victor Reppert at Dangerous Idea.  I haven't read them yet as what little focus I have is directed elsewhere this week, however, I am eager to have the time to sit down and read them thoughtfully.

Beauty, Providence and the Biophilia Hypothesis (aka Argument from Beauty) by Mark Wynn (75k pdf)
On the Truth of Beauty by Sonia Sikka (120k pdf)

These along with several other promising links are posted at the Calvin College Resource Library.

Posting here as a reminder to myself to read.

From On Philosophy:

In philosophy arguments can either serve to establish a theory or tear it down. Here I am going to focus on the arguments that are meant to establish philosophical positions as true and leave discussing arguments against theories for another time. This might seem redundant, after all isn’t an argument still an argument no matter what it is about? But in philosophy at least the two are quite distinct. Arguments against theories proceed by tearing the theory down, by showing that its claims don’t measure up to some standard (whether it be accuracy or logical consistency). In contrast, arguments for theories focus on working upwards from simpler ideas so as to establish them as true. And so such arguments will proceed by different methods and be subject to different criticisms.

But before we bother getting into the details about how arguments for a theory might proceed let me come out right away and make a contentious claim, that arguments for particular theories can be unnecessary and detrimental, and that it is best to evaluate a theory by what it claims rather than how we might be led to hold that theory.

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