Richard Swinburne Aesthetic Argument for the Existence of God

  • Thread starter Thread starter IWantGod
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
o_mlly said:
Depression means overcome with emotion, i.e. irrational.
Click to expand...
That is not correct. Some of them rationally decide and try the best to overcome depredation. Some of them fight depression exactly because they are rational being.
o_mlly said:
Then how is that you know the worm does not think that the rose as food is beautiful?
Click to expand...
Of course they have a sense of beauty. They mate. I have never been one of them. So I don’t know whether they think or not.
o_mlly said:
Then you also let your emotion overpower your reason.

The point is that if there is objective beauty then all ought to admire it. As you are not an expert in baseball, we may dismiss your view as irrelevant.
Click to expand...
As you wish.
 
Beauty cannot be measured by the scientific method. Only qualities can be used to describe it: like harmony, proportion, fluidity. Love cannot be measured either yet it exists.

A Leonardo painting will still be beautiful regardless of who experiences it. The subjectivity of the experiencer does not take away its qualities.
 
Beauty and love are subjective. They don’t have any meaning in eyes of a depress person. The very fact that there is no objective method which can measure beauty means that it is relative.
 
Last edited:
Dan_Defender said:
Beauty cannot be measured by the scientific method. Only qualities can be used to describe it: like harmony, proportion, fluidity. Love cannot be measured either yet it exists.

A Leonardo painting will still be beautiful regardless of who experiences it. The subjectivity of the experiencer does not take away its qualities.
Click to expand...
So we have a blank canvass. Is it beautiful? Just a plain sheet of canvass? Then Leo slaps a little paint on it. Beautiful yet? Well, there no shape or form yet. It’s just some dull colours on a white background. But just sit there quietly while he adds more paint and tell us exactly when you think it becomes a thing of beauty.

Then we can discuss cubism versus neo classical versus pop art versus abstract and you can tell us which is more beautiful (or are they equally beautiful?).

Then we can move on to sculpture. And a big block of stone. And you have to tell Leo that yes, you have removed just the right amount of material to make it beautiful. Perhaps to make sure we have it right we can take a vote on it.

Can’t wait to get to music. Gilmore v Bach v Wagner v Muddy Waters. They must all produce music that is equally beautiful because, hey - it’s not relative. And each piece of music that Bach produced must be equal in beauty to all his other pieces. Because you can’t tell me that one is more beautiful than the other. That would make it relative!
 
STT said:
The very fact that there is no objective method which can measure beauty
Click to expand...
No, that would just be evidence that It cannot be measured in a physical sense, and if all things are physical what does it mean for beauty to be subjective?

I think, either way, there are certain ontological implications that favor a theistic point of view.
 
Bradskii said:
Because you can’t tell me that one is more beautiful than the other. That would make it relative!
Click to expand...
While i do see why someone would argue that beauty is subjective and therefore a projection, i don’t think the idea of something being less beautiful equates to evidence of subjectivity, although we may find something beautiful for entirely subjective reasons.
 
IWantGod said:
While i do see why someone would argue that beauty is subjective and therefore a projection, i don’t think the idea of something being less beautiful equates to evidence of subjectivity, although we may find something beautiful for entirely subjective reasons.
Click to expand...
Art is different from mathematics.
 
Last edited:
IWantGod said:
No, that would just be evidence that It cannot be measured in a physical sense, and if all things are physical what does it mean for beauty to be subjective?
Click to expand...
It appear to be beautiful because our experience is attached to a sense of beauty and ugly. This is required otherwise life doesn’t make any sense at all.
 
Last edited:
Bradskii said:
physical reactions.
Click to expand...
But if beauty is not a physical being, and if physical beings cannot be beautiful, what does it mean to define beauty as a physical reaction regardless of objective or subjective interpretations?

It does not make sense.
 
IWantGod said:
40.png
Bradskii:
physical reactions.
Click to expand...
But if beauty is not a physical being, and if physical beings cannot be beautiful, what does it mean to define beauty as a physical reaction regardless of objective or subjective interpretations?

It does not make sense.
Click to expand...
Beauty does not exist in itself. It is just a description that we use to describe how aesthetically pleasing something is to us personally. If I posted a picture or linked to some music, could you tell if I were likely to find either pleasing?

I’m sure that you’d agree that it would be impossible. And I’m equally sure that you’d know why.
 
Last edited:
Bradskii said:
It is just a description that we use to describe how aesthetically pleasing
Click to expand...
And what we find “aesthetically” pleasing is what we define as beautiful and it is a real experience regardless of whether it exist actually in physical objects or not.

The problem is if you are going to say that beauty is not a real representation of some physical object, and even further say that beauty is not actually physical, then you are going to run into an ontological problem assuming that metaphysical naturalism is your philosophical position. The reason i say this is because in a purely physical reality i wouldn’t expect a physical reaction to produce anything other than what is actually physical, and this is where we ultimately differ on this topic.
 
I admit my first thought is - I just cleaned out the litterbox and there wasn’t anything beautiful in there! And I don’t think that counts as “within the power of creatures to determine”, really.
 
These are the kinds of arguments that strike me more as looking to justify a preconception than actually drill down to the right way of thinking on a matter.
 
We are products of this world that we may, or may not, find beautiful. We have no knowledge of anything else. Therefore we are limited to judge beauty only in respect to the world we are born into. So it’s hardly a surprise that we find some things beautiful and others not. Nor that we find such variety in what we find beautiful.

Swinburne is begging the question.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top