The Copleston, Russell Debate

Copleston’s Cosmological argument (1948 BBC radio

debate)

Copleston Vs. Russell• Think of this debate as a game of chess.• Both philosophers are trying to use their intellect to

‘win’ the argument.• Copleston’s argument is based on a combination of

Aquinas’ 3rd way and Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason.

• The argument is about trying to establish dependency in the universe.

• Russell wants to drag Copleston into an ontological debate.

Jargon Busting

• These individual are 2 very proficient philosophers. Some of their terminology can appear scary at first. Once you break the ideas down it is much easier to understand.

• The next slides are designed to be read side by side with the Copleston/Russell debate.

• The key principle is to break down the jargon to give you a clearer understanding of what on earth these two talking about!

Jargon Busting• Russell’s agnosticism – Russell is (in practise) an

atheist but because he cannot PROVE the non-existence of God he submits to being an agnostic so as not to lose early ground on Copleston (C: …would you say that the non-existence of God can be proved? R: No, I should not say that: my position is agnostic.).

• Russell has argued previously that because we cannot disprove the existence of God that we cannot truly be an atheist, BUT he states that in practise we can be an atheist (he cites the example of a teapot in orbit of the earth that is beyond our senses – we cannot prove or disprove the existence of such a teapot but in practise we are all teapot atheists!)

• Leibniz’s argument from contingency (principle of sufficient reason) – What is meant by contingency is the following – objects that do not contain within themselves the reason for their own existence. This means that they are ‘created’ or ‘caused’ by something other than themselves (as well as passing out of existence at some various point in time – depending on the object)

• Principle of sufficient reason – Copleston uses this to mean a total explanation, to which nothing further can be added. In the context of the debate Russell and Copleston talk about the lighting of a match against a box

Different spheres of logic• Much of the Copleston/Russell debate centres around

the issue of two different types of logic.• Analytical deductive reasoning (a priori) & Synthetic

inductive reasoning (a posteriori).• Russell is accused of being too dogmatic in what he

accepts as being meaningful because he is solely concerned with analytical deductive (a priori) reasoning.

• The point that Russell is trying to make is that you cannot jump from one try of reasoning to another type ie: begin in a posteriori reasoning then cross over into a priori reasoning (a point raised by Kant some 100 years plus earlier – that is to say ‘existence is not a predicate – a predicate being a quality or characteristic that something can possess).

Kant on analytical and synthetic knowledge

A priori – Analytic propositions

A posteriori – Synthetic propositions

There are certain definitions that a ‘thing’ must fulfil to be a cow…

It must be a mammal

It must be female

It must have udders

It must chew the cud

There are other things that can be said about specific cows…

It may be an Aberdeen Angus cow

It may be brown or black

It may have a scar from an injury it sustained

It may or may not exist

These two sets of statements demonstrate what Kant (and Russell) mean(s) by the differences between analytic propositions and synthetic propositions

• Necessary Proposition – A necessary proposition (Russell claims) is an analytic deductive proposition that can only be made of statements that exist in a priori reasoning.

• A bachelor is an unmarried man. It is NECESSARILY TRUE that the bachelor is both a MAN and UNMARRIED (because that is what the definition of a bachelor is!)

• Russell argues that the term ‘necessary’ has no real meaning outside of analytical deductive (a priori) reasoning. Implying that Copleston is cloaking his a posteriori synthetic inductive argument in an ontological sense (ie: crossing into a priori analytic deductive reasoning in order to establish that ‘God’ is necessary to provide the sufficient reason for the totality of contingent things – that means provide the reason for why things are here that cannot explain their own existence.

• Copleston is states that he is not suggesting that he means ‘necessary being’ in an analytical sense, BUT that if anybody were to experience God (a posteriori), God’s essence would be self-evident and therefore it would be obvious (a posteriori) that God was an existence necessary being.

• A repetition of the same meaning in different words; needless repetition of an idea in different words or phrases; a representation of anything as the cause, condition, or consequence of itself, as in the following lines:

The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers,

And heavily in clouds brings on the day. Addison.

Tautology

• Russell on brute fact – Although Russell does not use the phrase ‘brute fact’ he is suggesting that the whole universe itself lack meaning. He states ‘I should say that the universe is just there, and that’s all.’

• He means that there is no objective meaning to the universe NOT that it is unintelligible (because clearly it is to a certain extent), but that it does not make sense to ask the same question of the universe as we can do with contingent objects that go towards making up the universe.

• The nature of scientific enquiry – Copleston challenges Russell’s notion that the universe is without meaning after Russell cites the example of modern (quantum) physics.

• Copleston suggests that by very virtue of the fact that scientific investigation assumes that there is a particular truth to be ‘discovered’ that this must mean that the universe is NOT devoid of meaning.

Key point: If Copleston can establish that the universe is meaningful then the notion of sufficient reason makes a very strong case for the existence of a necessary being behind this

meaning…

One cannot be checkmated if you refuse to sit at the table

• Russell suggests that they are going to have to agree to disagree over the issue of the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of the universe.

• Afterwards Copleston stated that there was no way that he could have won the argument because Russell refused to deal with the central claim that the universe has meaning (through the disagreement over their different uses of logic).