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    If complex ideas like God's can be assembled from simpler... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→The objective reality of innate and adventitious ideas must originate in the formal reality of things existing independently of the mind.

    If complex ideas like God's can be assembled from simpler experiential components via reflection and amplification, the inference from objective to formal reality collapses into a psychological genetic account.

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    1 reason for
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    Reasons For

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    Reason for
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    • 1.Locke showed how complex ideas like 'unicorn' arise from combining simple ideas; God could follow the same compositional pattern via amplification.
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    • 2.If formal reality (objective existence) requires a non-psychological source, but the idea itself traces entirely to mental operations, the distinction becomes explanatorily empty.
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    • 3.Psychological genesis explains the *origin* of an idea; origin explains why we shouldn't infer the idea's source to a transcendent object.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against
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    • 1.Infinite amplification of finite components cannot yield genuine infinity; the psychological account fails to account for the qualitative gap.
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    • 2.Even if an idea's psychological genesis is complete, this doesn't entail that its formal cause (what grounds its truth-conditions) is merely psychological.
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    • 3.The inference from 'assembled from simpler parts' to 'has no objective source' commits composition fallacy; parts' origins don't determine the whole's.
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    Key Terms

    amplification(process of developing simple thoughts into complicated ones)
    Making something bigger, stronger, or more intense—in this case, taking a basic experience and building it up into a more complex idea.
    complex ideas(contrasted with simple, basic thoughts)
    Thoughts or concepts made up of multiple parts or elements combined together, rather than single, simple ideas.
    formal reality(Used in Descartes' causal principle in Meditation III)
    The degree of reality a thing possesses in itself, as an actually existing entity
    genetic account(explaining the origin or development of ideas)
    An explanation of how something came to be or how it developed over time, tracing its origins and growth.
    inference(Nyāya epistemology)
    A component of epistemology in Nyāya philosophy; a veritable inference yields knowledge about the world and must have premises that are themselves known
    objective reality(Contrasted with formal reality in Descartes' causal principle in Meditation III)
    The degree of reality belonging to the object or content represented by an idea, as it exists within the idea
    psychological(as used in ethics)
    Related to the mind, emotions, or individual desires—what a person actually wants or feels inside.
    reflection(Locke's epistemology; distinguished from sensation as a second source of ideas)
    An introspective kind of perceptual experience through which humans gain ideas of their own nature and faculties

    Connections

    2 topics

    Truth & Knowledge1 linkedNatural Theology1 linked

    Related

    Even if an idea's psychological genesis is complete, this doesn't entail that it...If formal reality (objective existence) requires a non-psychological source, but...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    Infinite amplification of finite components cannot yield genuine infinity; the p...
    Locke showed how complex ideas like 'unicorn' arise from combining simple ideas;...
    +3 moreShow less
    Psychological genesis explains the *origin* of an idea; origin explains why we s...The inference from 'assembled from simpler parts' to 'has no objective source' c...The objective reality of innate and adventitious ideas must originate in the for...