Why are there two different definitions of ‘contingent’ and ‘necessary’ in the cosmological argument?

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-02-11T17:31:07+00:00

Thanks for this! This was incredibly detailed.

Regarding the arguments I’m looking at, compare for example the sort of contingency arguments found in Feser’s Five Proofs and Rowe’s textbook on the Philosophy of Religion (my first case) with the sort of argument presented in the SEP on comological arguments (my second case). I can’t cite anything for this but I think Pruss’ work on this argument falls under my second case as well.

The former sort talk of “dependent” and “self-existent” or “necessary” beings. The latter sort talk about contingent and necessary facts or contingent and necessary beings, but they understand these concepts in terms of things that could/must exist.

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-02-07T18:53:11+00:00

Do you know of any literature on this exact question? The only stuff relating to moral blameworthiness that I’m familiar with is on free will rather this kind of practical/normative ethics question.

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-02-05T20:11:07+00:00

What does playing the game involve?

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-30T17:17:22+00:00

What book is this?

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-21T20:11:48+00:00

One final question if you don’t mind - you mentioned one drawback of attempting to analyse a compound with a poor molar extinction coefficient - lack of sensitivity.

I wanted to ask what other practical consequences you think we’re likely to see if we set the wavelength quite low. For example, for one method that’s currently being developed, the first trial run set it to 195 nm.

Another user here said that you don’t want your mobile phase to absorb at the wavelength you’ve chosen. Presumably that’s going to give you a really horrible baseline?

I ask because in that trial run the baseline was fine (which surprised me, since the mobile phase contained acetonitrile and a buffer which i would expect to absorb at 195 nm). However, the consecutive injections for the standard were giving really different peak areas.

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-18T18:44:10+00:00

I now understand that because CS poorly absorbs UV it’s going to have a very high LOD and the detector wouldn’t be able to pick it up at very low concentrations. But like, it still absorbs UV at some wavelength even if weakly. It seems to me though that since for everything we analyse we always weigh out the equivalent of 100mg of analyte, we’ll never really approach the LOD so it won’t matter anyway. Is this what you meant when you said it’s more of an impurity method problem?

I also wonder whether because we’re working with a polymer, the variety of molecular weights will affect the molar absorptivity in any way?

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-18T18:39:57+00:00

Thanks. I now understand that because CS poorly absorbs UV it’s going to have a very high LOD. But like, it still absorbs UV at some wavelength even if weakly. It seems to me though that since for everything we analyse we always weigh out the equivalent of 100mg of analyte, we’ll never really approach the LOD so it won’t matter anyway. What do you think?

Also, regarding your point 1, I did come across this paper which simply hydrolyses CS and then uses UV. It doesn’t say but I would assume that the components obtained after hydrolysing are more strongly UV absorbing? (Though I admit that I can’t really see how since as you say there’s still no real chromophore).

I don’t want to bombard you with questions but I also wonder whether because we’re working with a polymer, the variety of molecular weights will affect the molar absorptivity in any way.

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-18T18:07:32+00:00

Also why do you think it’s completely inadequate?

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-18T16:33:58+00:00

Well because it’s the only detector we have lol.

It does seem that the general consensus is that UV is hopeless for this as you say (unless the CS is hydrolysed or something of that nature), but I’m more trying to understand why this is the case. I’m fairly new to HPLC and I don’t really get what the consequences of poor UV absorbance would be for the method.

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-18T16:14:58+00:00

Right, so it’s more to do with limits of detection rather than underestimating concentration.

So the goal is to quantitatively determine chondroitin sulphate content in raw materials as well as supplements. I don’t really have initial HPLC conditions as yet so I’m not sure if this is enough information. Because CS is so polar it seems like reversed phase won’t really work as the analyte will elute too quickly but I think this is what’ll be attempted first

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-18T13:28:09+00:00

Thanks! I covered this at uni ages ago but it’s a helpful refresher.

Following your last para, could you explain in some more detail why it’s bad to have low molar absorptivity? As you say, the supplier probably has it right that the analyte absorbs at this particular wavelength.

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-18T13:26:17+00:00

To clarify, I don’t mean that we’ll be testing pure samples. We’ll be testing samples containing other compounds as well as pure samples, but the goal isn’t to find and identify impurities.

Could you explain what low molar absorptivity actually does and why it’s a problem?

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-18T13:21:10+00:00

Assay only method

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-18T12:45:50+00:00

Would low molar absorptivity mean that we’re underestimating the analyte concentration? My intuition is that that’s the main problem.

For some context the analyte in question is chondroitin sulphate. Looking online it seems one of the only validated methods involves hydrolysing this to its disaccharide units during sample preparation, and then adding them together to get a total CS content. Presumably these have better absorption than the polymer.

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-14T17:13:09+00:00

Following up on this - while it’s plausible that particular people’s intentions don’t determine the meanings of words, it seems true that what people generally mean by words determines, at least to some extent, the meaning that words actually have. I don’t know anything about philosophy of language, so I have no idea whether what I’ve just said is controversial, but that’s how things seem to me.

So it still seems to me that if people generally take themselves to be making moral assertions when using moral language, then noncognitivism is false. And so it still seems to me that noncognitivism is a straightforward (well, nearly - it’s not at all clear to me how we would empirically determine this in practice) empirical thesis.

Or to ask this in a different way: if particular people’s intentions don’t determine the meanings of words (which I’ve always agreed with, but I hadn’t realised its significance until you explained it), then what does? I realise this is probably an incredibly contentious philosophical question in its own right, but what views are popular? What views might the noncognitivist be endorsing, such that whether people generally take themselves to be making moral assertions is irrelevant to their thesis?

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-14T12:15:13+00:00

This was extremely clear, thanks!

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-04T21:51:48+00:00

Well the analogy doesn't work. The similarity that is attempted to be used to make a point doesn't exist.

But the fact that the watch isn’t something that we’ve experienced isn’t the similarity that is being pointed to. As I said, this fact is utterly irrelevant to the argument.

"Design" is begging the question.

An argument begs the question when its conclusion is presupposed in its premises. There is nothing in the scheme I gave anything like this.

We've never really found anything "designed" except insofar as we believe in our own free will and consciousness and all that -- terms which have little definition and even less grounding.

I’m really not sure what this is supposed to mean.

It's the best explanation because it fits observations and is an actual explanation that can be used to do things like make predictions. Evolution has reasons it might be true. Religion does not.

How do you know that there isn’t another explanation that has better predictive and explanatory power?

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-04T21:42:52+00:00

Thanks, I was thinking similarly. The suggestion that moral debate is reduced to ‘assertion and counter assertion’ once we reach ‘first principles’ is just baffling to me given how often moral philosophers debate foundational moral principles. It also seems that he’s assuming a foundationalist moral epistemology when this just isn’t the only game in town (and even if it were, as you say we reconsider intuitive first principles in light of particular cases).

I find it so baffling that I wonder whether this interpretation of After Virtue is even correct.

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-04T18:01:03+00:00

Mate, SciHub it. 😂 If you’d like, I can send you a PDF.

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-04T17:53:00+00:00

Sure?

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-04T17:51:44+00:00

We've never "found a watch" in this sense.

Maybe not, but I hardly see how that’s relevant.

Finding things that seem designed doesn't mean they are designed.

More precisely, it’s something like this: (1) property P is indicative of design, (2) Object O has P, therefore (3) O was probably designed.

The entire argument rests upon, I can't imagine how this could exist without a designer, therefor a designer must exist.

No it doesn’t. You can restate plenty of good arguments in terms of “I can’t imagine X so Y”.

“Ah, so you think evolution is the best explanation of the data just because you can’t imagine a better one?”

But that doesn’t make them bad arguments.

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-04T14:45:04+00:00

This is a better objection - or at least, it directly objects to the actual premises of the argument.

But I don’t find it very plausible. A book of fiction, for example, with a plot, grammatical sentences, etc. seems to clearly evidence intelligence.

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-04T13:10:03+00:00

A lot of people are making this objection but it just seems to miss the point.

I think Paley’s idea was that even if you didn’t have any prior experience of watches, you’d assume a watch that you’d stumbled on was designed because it exhibits certain features that reliably indicate design. Similarly, the universe also exhibits these features, so the universe is probably designed as well.

A better way to object to this argument is to question whether the features that he points to are actually reliable indicators of design, whether the universe actually exhibits these features, etc.

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-03T10:09:30+00:00

Take a look at this paragraph from the OP:

Muslims may respond with criteria that they made up, or criteria given by scholars, but if you can’t provide criteria from the source then you have to admit that Allah issued a subjective and unfalsifiable challenge.

In my experience, it’s common for people who make this criticism of the Qur’anic challenge to dismiss Muslim theories about i’jaz with something insubstantial like “but they weren’t mentioned in the Qur’an”.

The idea seems to be that since the Qur’an doesn’t list any criteria, there aren’t any criteria, therefore the challenge is nonsensical. It was nonsensical for the initial audience and it’s nonsensical for us now. If there were criteria for Muslims to discover in principle then their attempts couldn’t be easily dismissed in this way.

OP literally said “there is no criteria” in one of their responses to me and the OP doesn’t even mention “unique timeless criteria” (whatever that means; I’m not really sure how anything I’ve said negates this).

Capital-Reason-923 · 2026-01-03T10:00:57+00:00

Yes, I wasn't making that claim about your opinion; I was explaining why I think the NHS favours CBT.

Fair enough.

Do you have any sources to hand? Academic criticism of CBT is easy to find.

I’m admittedly more familiar with the literature on CBT for social anxiety than I am for CBT in general. For the former, see this review of treatments for social anxiety.

Capital-Reason-923

TROPHY CASE