It’s that time again! On Thursday, January 18, I’ll be hosting an exciting live discussion between two brilliant philosophers on one of the most fundamental questions one can ask. Graham Oppy and Josh Rasmussen will be discussing live the topic of “The Origins of Reality.” The format of this one will be a little different. We won’t be discussing a formal argument for God (like the Contingency Argument), instead we’ll have an open-ended dialogue on the origins of reality.
The discussion goes live at 8pm Central (6pm Pacific/9pm Eastern) on Thursday, January 18, 2018. Here’s the link to view live (and watch later):
Click Here to View the Live Event
Josh Rasmussen, Ph.D., is an American philosopher who works on aspects of fundamental reality, with an emphasis on mind and necessity. His latest book, Necessary Existence, is co-authored with Alex Pruss and forthcoming this spring with Oxford University Press. View his website here and his YouTube channel here.
Graham Oppy, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy, in the School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies (SOPHIS) at Monash. His dissertation was on semantics for propositional attitude ascriptions (philosophy of language). Some of his early publications were in the areas of philosophy of language and aesthetics. Most of his recent publications have been in philosophy of religion (though he has also published in metaphysics and philosophy of science). See his publications here.
Promo Materials
Included below is the promotional image for the event. Feel free to copy the photo and post it on your social media outlets! Or you can just share the link directly!
This should be interesting…. My bet is that Dr Rasmussen’s reasoning is going to force Dr Oppy to become incoherent in the “discussion”, i.e. Oppy will make an appeal to “brute facts” (a bit like his compatriot Armstrong)… unfortunately, a “brute fact” is NO different from early Wittgenstein’s “atomic facts”…. with this one proviso… Wittgenstein did not conflate “facts” and “things” (the world consisted of facts)… which is the BIG problem with Oppy’s world-view (the world consists of facts AND things)…. Though, to be fair Oppy’s position could be made to work… but, no where near how he could ever… Read more »
Could you elaborate? You said it is “incoherent” to invoke a brute fact. Could you define “brute fact” and then explain your problem with brute facts? Thanks!
Hi Ron….
Check out the forums… I addressed it there….
Hi Philip, what forum are you referring to?
Hi Barry
This one:
https://capturingchristianity.com/community/apologetics/necessary-and-brute-facts/paged/3/#post-192
Though the forum is closed down now.
Also Ron…. I did make some additional posts on that Counter Apologist topic; directly related to your last response…. in many respects the Kalam Argument provides the logic behind what Oppy would class as a “brute fact”…. Just that Cameron hasn’t posted them (but penultimate post would be directly related to your above comment here). As I mentioned, Oppy does not have the skills necessary to make his world-view escape from being lost-in-the-woods…. Rasmussen’s position will take advantage of this… this is why Oppy will be reduced to incoherency in the “discussion”…. it will be inevitable that one will find… Read more »
Q: Why is there something rather than nothing?
Oppy: “I don’t know.”
Q1: Would answering this question be a Good or a Bad?
If the answer is: It would be a Good; then it follows:
Q: Why is there something rather than nothing?
A: Because something allows the questing of knowledge, and this is a Good.
I thought this discussion was excellent, on both sides. I *wish* discussions went like this, instead of first having to argue why explanatory power and simplicity even matter (and generally be told they don’t). I was excited to think about the idea of irrelevant differences. That is a truly beautiful idea, and I think it’s right- or at least, I don’t see how it can be denied without being completely arbitrary. I strongly disagree with several ideas – that for example, brains are the only things which could conceivably have anything akin to mental properties. Things like information theory do… Read more »