RT Article
T1 The End of Eternity
JF Sophia
VO 56
IS 2
SP 147
OP 162
A1 Watson, Jamie Carlin
LA English
PB Springer Netherlands
YR 2017
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1565892763
AB A popular critique of the kalām cosmological argument is that one argument for its second premise (what I call the Impossible Formation Argument, IFA) illicitly assumes a finite starting point for the series of past temporal events, thereby begging the question against opponents. Rejecting this assumption, opponents say, eliminates any objections to the possibility that the past is infinitely old and undermines the IFA’s ability to support premise 2. I contend that the plausibility of this objection depends on ambiguities in extant formulations of the IFA and that we may resolve these ambiguities in a way that does not presuppose a finite staring point. I also argue that this disambiguation allows us to construct an argument demonstrating that the concept of an infinite past entails a contradiction.
K1 Cosmological Argument
K1 Eternity
K1 Infinity
K1 Kalām
DO 10.1007/s11841-017-0590-0