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    Badness and disorder in the world are caused by the non-r... — Carmelics
    Home/Divine Attributes
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Badness and disorder in the world are caused by the non-rational aspect of the world soul

    Divine Attributes
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Badness such as accidents and natural catastrophes exists in the world
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    • 2.If God is the cause of such phenomena, God's goodness is compromised — which is the Stoic position Plutarch rejects
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    • 3.If such phenomena happen without cause, as the Epicureans maintain, God's ruling power is diminished
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Positing a non-rational world soul as co-eternal with God introduces a metaphysical dualism that undermines divine omnipotence more severely than the evils it explains.
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    • 2.Plotinus argues in the Enneads that evil is privation of form rather than a positive causal power, making a non-rational soul-principle explanatorily superfluous.
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    • 3.If the non-rational world soul is uncreated and independent, God cannot be the sovereign first principle, contradicting the foundational Platonist commitment to the One.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The disjunctive argument in P2-P4 commits a false trichotomy by excluding the Neoplatonist option that evil arises from matter's privative distance from the Good, requiring no additional soul-principle.
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    • 2.Proclus in De Malorum Subsistentia demonstrates that disorder can be accounted for through hierarchical emanation and degrees of participation without attributing causal agency to an irrational soul.
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    Topics

    Divine AttributesProblem of Evil

    Connections

    2 topics

    Against an attribute of God2 linkedNatural Theology1 linked

    Related

    Badness such as accidents and natural catastrophes exists in the worldIf God is the cause of such phenomena, God's goodness is compromised — which is ...If such phenomena happen without cause, as the Epicureans maintain, God's ruling...If the non-rational world soul is uncreated and independent, God cannot be the s...
    +5 moreShow less
    Plotinus argues in the Enneads that evil is privation of form rather than a posi...Positing a non-rational world soul as co-eternal with God introduces a metaphysi...Proclus in De Malorum Subsistentia demonstrates that disorder can be accounted f...

    Similar

    The remaining explanation is that a non-rational aspect of the world s...90%Therefore the world soul also has a non-rational aspect88%The world soul has a non-rational aspect that exists prior to the cosm...84%Even when rationality prevails in the world soul, there is room for di...83%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: plutarch
    View source passageHide passage
    Further, the existence of a pre-cosmic non-rational soul is suggested also if one considers the world soul and the human soul in conjunction. Already the Timaeus (34c, 41d-e, 69c) suggests a relation between the two. Plutarch takes the human soul to be derivative from the world soul, which means that their natures are similar (De an. procr. 1025A-D; see below, sect. 5). In Republic 4, in the Phaedrus and also in the Timaeus it is argued that the human soul has a rational and a non-rational asp
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    The disjunctive argument in P2-P4 commits a false trichotomy by excluding the Ne...
    The remaining explanation is that a non-rational aspect of the world soul causes...
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit