j*******7
发帖数: 6300 | 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_beauty
Argument from beauty
The argument from beauty (also the aesthetic argument) is an argument for
the existence of a realm of immaterial Ideas or, most commonly, for the
existence of God.
History of the Argument[edit]
The argument from beauty has two aspects. The first is connected with the
independent existence of what philosophers term a 'universal', see Universal
(metaphysics) and also Problem of universals. Plato argued that particular
examples of, say a circle, all fall short of the perfect exemplar of a
circle that exists outside the realm of the senses as an eternal Idea.
Beauty for Plato is a particularly important type of universal. Perfect
beauty exists only in the eternal Form of beauty, see Platonic epistemology.
For Plato the argument for a timeless idea of beauty does not involve so
much whether the gods exist (Plato was not a monotheist) but rather whether
there is an immaterial realm independent and superior to the imperfect world
of sense. Later Greek thinkers such as Plotinus (ca. 204/5–270 CE)
expanded Plato’s argument to support the existence of a totally
transcendent "One", containing no parts. Plotinus identified this "One" with
the concept of 'Good' and the principle of 'Beauty'. Christianity adopted
this Neo-Platonic conception and saw it as a strong argument for the
existence of a supreme God. In the early fifth century, for example,
Augustine of Hippo discusses the many beautiful things in nature and asks "
Who made these beautiful changeable things, if not one who is beautiful and
unchangeable?"[1] This second aspect is what most people today understand as
the argument from beauty.
Richard Swinburne[edit]
Richard Swinburne advocates a variation of this argument:
"God has reason to make a basically beautiful world, although also reason to
leave some of the beauty or ugliness of the world within the power of
creatures to determine; but he would seem to have overriding reason not to
make a basically ugly world beyond the powers of creatures to improve. Hence
, if there is a God there is more reason to expect a basically beautiful
world than a basically ugly one. A priori, however, there is no particular
reason for expecting a basically beautiful rather than a basically ugly
world. In consequence, if the world is beautiful, that fact would be
evidence for God's existence. For, in this case, if we let k be 'there is an
orderly physical universe', e be 'there is a beautiful universe', and h be
'there is a God', P(e/h.k) will be greater than P(e/k)... Few, however,
would deny that our universe (apart from its animal and human inhabitants,
and aspects subject to their immediate control) has that beauty. Poets and
painters and ordinary men down the centuries have long admired the beauty of
the orderly procession of the heavenly bodies, the scattering of the
galaxies through the heavens (in some ways random, in some ways orderly),
and the rocks, sea, and wind interacting on earth, 'The spacious firmament
on high, and all the blue ethereal sky', the water lapping against 'the old
eternal rocks', and the plants of the jungle and of temperate climates,
contrasting with the desert and the Arctic wastes. Who in his senses would
deny that here is beauty in abundance? If we confine ourselves to the
argument from the beauty of the inanimate and plant worlds, the argument
surely works." [2] | E*****m
发帖数: 25615 | 2 其實還是 Argument from Ignorance, 不知道為啥有美的東西，所以上帝就存在了。 |
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