Sunday, July 24, 2016

Does "Every event has a cause" entail determinism?

Does "every event has a cause" entail determinism? This article by Anscombe suggests that this is not so.

6 comments:

Gyan said...

Determinism in the sense of physics is quantitative,
The claim "every event has a cause" is qualitative.
Hence, these two claims are not mutually exclusive.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

it must be the Lord I just wrote a piece why God can't be a brute fact, so the universe and god are not on a par, tie breaker for the brute act argument.


in that paper I fn article by Universe Smith saying universe is not eternal.Also one saying there are not Quantum particles coming from actual nothing.

everything but God has a cause

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

that should say Quentin Smith, not Universe Smith ;-)

IlĂ­on said...

Who, other than an 'atheist', would ever imagine that "Every event has a cause" entails (*) determinism?


(*) and in their case, it's because they start with the denial of persons, and thus the denial of agency/freedom, as being logically prior to matter; that is, due to their metaphysical commitment, for them *everything* entails determinism.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

true. in fact Laplace started that, he was an atheist.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

my Friday atheist challenge God argument,this is an argumemt from laws of nature and physics. It is couldcdraw fire from an argument om determinism.