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    Diderot and later William James noted that Pascal's Wager... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→Pascal's Wager is not a gamble in the ordinary sense.

    Diderot and later William James noted that Pascal's Wager faces a 'many gods' problem: infinite payoffs are available from mutually exclusive deities, collapsing any single dominant option.

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    Key Terms

    Blaise Pascal(the philosopher behind Pascal's wager)
    A 17th-century French mathematician and philosopher famous for arguing that believing in God is a rational bet, even without proof that God exists.
    Denis Diderot(philosopher being discussed)
    An 18th-century French philosopher who criticized Pascal's Wager and pointed out a major flaw in its logic.
    Many gods problem(objection to Pascal's Wager)
    A criticism of Pascal's Wager pointing out that if you apply Pascal's logic, you could argue for believing in any number of different religions at once, which is impossible since they contradict each other.
    Pascal's Wager(Pascal's own framing of the Wager's role)
    An instrumental argument intended as a first step toward genuine religious faith, not as a substitute for it.

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    William James(the philosopher being discussed)
    An American philosopher (1842-1910) who founded a school of thought called pragmatism, which judges ideas by whether they work in real life rather than whether they're theoretically perfect.
    dominant option(in decision theory and ethics)
    A choice that is better than all the other available choices in every way that matters, so it's clearly the best thing to do.
    mutually exclusive(in logic)
    Two things are mutually exclusive when they cannot both be true or both happen at the same time.

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    2 topics

    Modality & Possibility1 linkedNatural Theology1 linked

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    Pascal's Wager is not a gamble in the ordinary sense.

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