Essay 2
First we will consider the assigned baseball scenario under Leibniz's system of metaphysics. In the baseball scenario, the aggregate of the player, bat, pitch, swing and all the other substances in the universe are one and all contingent. There are other possible things, to be sure; but there are also other possible universes that could have existed but did not. The totality of contingent things, the bat, the player, etc., themselves do not explain themselves. Here Leibniz involves the principle of reason; "there can be found no fact that is true or existent, or any true proposition, without there being a sufficient reason for its being so and not otherwise." There must be, Leibniz insists, something outside the totality of contingent things (baseball games) which explains them, something which is itself necessary and therefore requires no explanation other than itself.
This forms Leibniz's proof for the existence of God; a version of Aquinas's cosmological......
Join Now or Login to view the rest of this paper.
Approximate Word Count: 1634
Approximate Pages: 7 (260 words per double-spaced page) |