RT Article
T1 Powers, possibility, and the essential cosmological argument
JF Religious studies
VO 58
IS 4
SP 745
OP 758
A1 Cook, Ben
LA English
PB Cambridge Univ. Press
YR 2022
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1820774074
AB One classical version of cosmological argument, defended famously by Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, deduces the existence of a First Cause from the existence of a particular sort of causal series: one that is ‘essentially ordered’. This argument has received renewed defence in recent work by Feser (2013), Cohoe (2013), and Kerr (2015). I agree with these philosophers that the argument is sound. I believe, however, that the standard defence given of the ECA in these philosophers can be complemented by a formulation that appeals to the powers theory of possibility. This approach to possibility has been defended in recent years by, for example, Pruss (2002), Jacobs (2010), and Vetter (2015). In this article, I show how this modal theory allows us to defend the ECA in a way that is dialectically advantageous as well as clarifying.
K1 Powers
K1 Causation
K1 Cosmological Argument
K1 essential order
K1 Possibility
DO 10.1017/S0034412521000317