Talk:Argument from beauty

Original research

This page reeks of WP:OR throughout. I see no evidence of anything called the "Argument from Beauty" which merits an encyclopaedia entry. All I see is one person indulging in some philosophical musing and trying to justify a particular stance on the (super)natural world. I will nominate for deletion as original research unless some evidence can be produced that the "Argument from Beauty" is a concept that has occurred in the literature, or is a phrase widely used as a justification for belief in a god. If the article started with (e.g.) "the Argument from Beauty is a concept that has been widely used in discussions on XXX by several philosophers, including YYY and ZZZ...", I could be convinced. But it jumps straight into a heap of original analysis, then mentions a couple of people who may or may not (no evidence is produced) have used the phrase. It is not sufficient to show that others have used something which equates (in your estimation) to an argument from beauty; you must show that the phrase itself ("argument from beauty") has some currency, if it is to merit an article of its own. Compare the discussion on Faith-sufferer, which has been nominated for deletion on similar grounds. Wikipedia is a tertiary source, not a primary one. This looks more like blog-material. Snalwibma 11:34, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

See also Argument_from_love for a similar argument. It too smacks of OR, though the Argument from love is a commonly used (if fallacious) argument. If I was a Hittite I'd probably question the logic that god loves me but then that depends on how you read Deuteronomy:20:17, with the bit about utterly destroy them because the LORD thy God hath commanded thee. I guess thats tough love in biblical times. Pity the Bible is a primary source (note you have to read Deuteronomy:20:16 and 18 for the full story of this non-love situation in certain translations). Ttiotsw 21:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry I didn't notice these comments before. Although I can understand why User:Snalwibma might have taken this view on 22 Dec when the article was (admittedly) a stub we now have something with lots of refs that two editors from opposing viewpoints have made substantial contributions to. Richard Dawkins devotes as much space to "The Argument from Beauty" (his title for the section) as he does to the first 3 of Aquinas's arguments put together. And the whole thing goes back to Plato, with the Christian viewpoint going back at least to St Augustine. So I really hope people are satisfied, and that we build on this article and not delete the work. NBeale 23:22, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree and this is largely copied from argument from love. It suffers from similar problems to the ones I outlined there and that includes not representing the form properly. They also both lack more obvious rebuttals.

In fact, this is almost identical to the argument from love article, substituting 'beauty' for 'love.' Someone needs to put in the correct form of both arguments. In this, it's mainly just premise #3 that differs, which not only makes the argument logically invalid, but is definitely controversial.

I should note that Nbeale needs to stop writing up his personal ideas as if they were other people's and needs to stop declaring things "not philosophy" because the doesn't like it or "invalid philosophy" because it doesn't come from someone with a degree in philosophy.

-Njyoder 72.75.49.245 09:28, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations on surviving the RfD :-)

Or rather I mean, great work adding so much material since I last saw this one! --Merzul 18:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Carl Sagan - not philosophical criticisim

I can't see how the quote from Sagan is a philosophical argument, let alone one against the argument from beauty. Sagan is not a philosopher, "Religion" is not the same as "theism". As a separate issue, what Sagan says is certainly not true of all Christian scientists, and the Psalmist specifically celebrates the wonders of creation, but that's not really the point. NBeale 08:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Changed to physicalism...

I was about to revert myself when I notices that now Physical had appeared in Swinburne's quotation, but then when I looked at the diff for my revert nothing had changed, Swinburne himself used the word physical. So I say let's go with physicalism, so it won't be so serious of a straw man argument. It's now only question-begging :P Respond at argument from love, so the discussion is focused. --Merzul 13:19, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Objection to the third premise

Simply being accepted by classical theology doesn't make a statement true. Classical theology also accepts the existence of God a priori. If statements as such are accepted for no other reason than they are made by classical theology, one might simply forgo the argument and simply conclude God exists.[1]

Utterly misses the point, doesn't it? It's a statement about classical theology, just as premise 2 is a statement about materialism, and neither is particularly controversial. --192.75.48.150 (talk) 18:58, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

What of deadly beauty?

Some things are perceived as beautiful which are deadly. Brightly colored frogs are poisonous. A walk in snowy woods can lead to hypothermia and death. Some murderers have murdered out of a distorted sense of aestheticism, seeing the torture and death of their victims as exquisite beauty. Torquemama007 (talk) 15:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Idealism

Keith Ward suggests that materialism is quite rare amongst contemporary UK philosophers "Looking around my philosopher colleagues in Britain, virtually all of whom I know at least from their published work, I would say that very few of them are materialists"

It's interesting, because in a talk on philosophybites.com he actually stated the exact opposite. Admittedly he doesn't refer to philosophers alone there, although to my understanding, what he says, remains quite the opposite of the statement given here; that is something like: '..today, we [idealists] are really somewhat rare'. That way, it also seems a bit more convincing, doesn't it? I see, the quote given here has been taken from his book "Is Religion Dangerous?" so I can only suspect that it's taken out of context, or maybe he just changed his mind? A podcast of the interview I'm relating to, you can get here:

http://philosophybites.com/2009/02/keith-ward-on-idealism-in-eastern-and-western-philosophy.html

Zero Thrust (talk) 02:42, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Drugs?

To me the argument concerning drugs (in the criticisms section) seem like misleadig nonsense. You abviously add something (the drug) but of course the drug might change neurochemical processes in a way that could be seen as a "subtraction" of some kind. Neurochemistry is not that simple however, and while some drugs might increase the levels of some substance, others decrease them. And these changes can in turn create more or less activity in the brain, but this is not specifically related to the increase and/or decrease of neurotransmitters. An increase in GABA levels for example, generally decrease neuronal activity. 192.36.34.248 (talk) 14:32, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Rewrite is needed

This article needs to be rewritten using the sources cited by many of the "keep" voters during the AFD. The best way to do this would be to trim the irrelevant OR and SYN material. Then, maybe someone eventually will expand this article properly. That's my opinion, but I don't plan to do this rewriting myself, so I'm not going to revert again if people really think NBeale's material is better than a trimmed down version. Actually, my impression is that NBeale is the only one who cares about this article. (I even made a query on the NOR noticeboard to get input on whether my trimming was appropriate and nobody bothered to answer.) I have made it abundantly clear that I think NBeal's material violates a host of Wikipedia policies, and my common sense understanding of what an encyclopedia (as opposed to debating website) should be all about, but if NBeale is the only one who cares about this article, it's only fair to let him have it his way. Regards, Vesal (talk) 10:38, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't care about this article (though I do think, as I said in the delete debate earlier this year, that it would be better subsumed within Teleological argument) - but I do care about the Wikipedia project, and I for one am not happy to see it turned into an extension of NBeale's blog and used as a means of promoting a particular world view! Well done on cutting out the egregious essay-writing and WP:OR. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 10:47, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion what was done to this article is intellectual vandalism. Where previously there was a detailed article with lengthy quotes from reputable sources, the article has been so pruned as not to even explain the subject matter. There was, for instance, a link to another article on the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. This tie in, which I think is important from an epistomological perspective, was summarily deleted for no rational reason. Scientists appeal to beauty all the time and it is a very hot topic. A book on this subject was, for instance, just published by Yale U Press entitled "Truth or Beauty: Science and the Quest for Order" by David Orrell. He presents the pros and cons of a very contentious debate. This at base involves the question what exactly does science (and maths)do. Most scientists would instinctively say they are discovering truths 'out there'. This is somewhat akin to Plato's archetypes. Those that think more deeply about the question tend to be uncomfortable about the implications of such a perspective. They would argue that we conjecture tentative mental hypotheses that are then projected upon the material facts of the universe. As the many recent books on this topic show there is still no agreement which side is correct. Since this is a major component of the argument from beauty, I cannot understand why it was edited out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Polambda (talk • contribs) 04:47, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with this sentiment (though as far as I can see the book in question doesn't come out until Nov. But the whole existence of beauty suggests existence of God argument is so well established in the literature that it's really foolish to supress it. Indeed my friend and opponent Colin Howson can write "almost all theists tell us it is not possible to explain salient features of human existence such as ... a sensitivity to beauty" without "a suitably intentioned creator" (my italics) NBeale (talk) 09:50, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to supress this argument, rather I'd like to see it presented as it is presented by its notable proponents. There are different ways of arguing from beauty, see this overview by Alexander Pruss, so we shouldn't assume they all share the same main premise and logical outline. As to the beauty in science section, do we have a reliable source for the claim that this is a major component of the argument from beauty to the existence of God? Vesal (talk) 15:59, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

The original article made clear that the argument from beauty is at base an argument for immateriality. It is therefore supportive for the existence of God but this is not a necessary correlate. Plato believed in the existence of the immaterial, eternal Ideals but was agnostic concerning the existence of the gods. The argument for beauty in science really concerns the existence of some immaterial plane of existence where universals can reside. This seems quite disturbing to the modern mind, but there is intriguing evidence that this may in fact be the case. Orrell's book BTW comes down as denying such an immaterial realm exists. I only cited it as proof that this is a substantive, current topic. Since Kant the pendulum has swung away from an intrinsic view of beauty to the view that it is a purely cognitive phenomenon. Actually Kant was convinced that beauty was a universal that could be reliably apprehended by all men; however, he thought that it was mediated by human minds -- a very reasonable and moderate view. Towards the end of the 19th century the cognitive approach to scientific truths increasingly held sway. The modernist view is that everything including beauty is relative. As the previous article showed, Einstein - the apostle of relativity - himself strongly felt that beauty was one of the surest guides in science. The previous article also had quotes from Werner Heisenberg and other scientists to the same effect. It doesn't make sense to suppress all this discussion just because you have a view concerning the existence of God. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Polambda (talk • contribs) 16:09, 19 September 2012 (UTC) I decided to go ahead and rewrite the article according to my lights. I used the old version as a template, but ruthlessly trimmed or added as I thought fit. I will leave it to the community to judge whether it is an improvement or not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Polambda (talk • contribs) 22:56, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I think your changes are an improvement. It may actually be a good idea to define this argument more broadly as an argument for dualism, but we are missing secondary sources that explicitly defines and discusses this argument. The problem was never neutrality or that I terribly minded the ideas presented here. The problems are entirely due to lack of appropriate sources, so please carefully read wikipedia policies on original synthesis of already published material to actually understand what the objections are. I want to see a faithful representation of the literature, not an amateurish concoction of irrelevant sources generalized into some supposed logical form that only appears on Wikipedia. Anyway, I think your version is a lot less problematic than what we had before, so thank you for your efforts. Regards, Vesal (talk) 11:59, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for cleaning up my sloppy formatting. I actually deleted a number of secondary sources from the old article because they tend to argue strongly for a given perspective. I wanted the article to be factual and dispassionate. I think that is the objective of the Wikipedia policies. One area where I think I did succeed is tying the topic into other related articles in Wikipedia. These are generally quite good. I could have cited the article on mathematical beauty but didn't because it is already linked into the other articles I cited. I think one could get a decent idea of the topic by consulting these related articles together with this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Polambda (talk • contribs) 01:38, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

References

One level of abstraction too far

The whole article is one level of abstraction beyond the actual Argument from beauty.

When you add that the word "God" is another level of abstraction from God, then no wonder that people like Dawkins don't get it.

Here is the actual Argument:

 The experience of beauty is a direct experience of God.

So that is a "proof", in the same way that Dawkins would not need proof that his finger exists, because he experiences it directly.

But there have been billions of false words written about God, and millions of false definitions, so the above may not be comprehensible given the usual "old man in the sky who judges me" concept.

This is why The Buddha decided to do the whole thing without the concept of God, because there was so many existing false ideas. And that was 2500 years ago - most of the false words and definitions have occurred since then.

By the way, "beauty" also needs to be defined, because the English language uses the same word for different things. "Beauty salon" and "Beauty products" refer to something else.

In this context, "beauty" is defined as an aesthetic experience which produces a feeling of "good" that is not due to instinct. For example, when we eat food, that produces a feeling of "good" which is due to a survival instinct. But when we see a sunset, it does not fulfill any survival or reproductive instinct.

Hence, seeing a member of the opposite gender that has physical signs of high reproductive value (e.g. youthful hair strands on the head) is not "beauty" in this context, even though the English language also uses the same word.

162.205.217.211 (talk) 19:44, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

It is not that simple. God is not a beautiful sunset, but seeing such a beautiful sight gives us a sign-post or intuition of what God is. God is at a second level of abstraction beyond concrete beautiful things that we experience. That is why not everyone "gets the argument." If you don't have an aesthetic sensibility you don't get the point anymore than someone tone-deaf appreciates music. When you bring a tuning-fork of the right pitch close to a vibrating object, it vibrates in unison. Just so a person with the right sensibility who sees a beautiful sunset, picture or experiences great music gets an intuition of what God must be like. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Polambda (talk • contribs) 23:25, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Generalizations and opinions

While Dawkins's argument belongs to the Criticism part - as that's what it is - the repeating of Russel's general attitude towards religion has nothing to do here. 87.116.176.129 (talk) 09:00, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Dawkins'quote is central to this whole article and should be kept as a counterbalance to the quote from Solzhenitsyn. People who edit without reviewing the history of this article do a disservice to Wikipedia. Thee was a tendency in the original article to slant it towards theism. It was also criticised for being a "made-up" subject that did not warrant coverage.As a result, it was very close to being eliminated. Dawkins states that the esthetic argument is the one he hears most frequently from people questioning his atheism. The Dawkins' quote, therefore, demonstrates that this is a very real argument that deserves coverage.Polambda (talk) 00:28, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

The Argument's history long predates Dawkins. It has a very real existence independently of any passing reference he might have made to it. Dawkins' anecdotal claims to have met with the argument certainly do not "[demonstrate] that this is a very real argument that deserves coverage". The fact that Swinburne has been a proponent of it is reason enough to merit the article's existence; he is a prominent figure in the contemporary philosophy of religion. Many other arguments mainly defended by just one person have articles dedicated to them (see for example Lewis's trilemma). The quote, as presented, is just a criticism, it doesn't properly explain the argument – as he makes clear, he feels there is nothing really there to be explained. So it just seems incongruous in the section in which it appears. You have also not explained why you think the second Russell quote is important or even relevant. In the context of the article all that matters is his opinion on the argument in question, not on theology more generally. Citizen Canine (talk) 17:09, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

(also, it's Canine, not Kane. I'm a labrador) Citizen Canine (talk) 17:11, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi Mr Canine. Sorry about the name. My brain just automatically went to a familiar reference. Believe me I am thoroughly aware of the history of the aesthetic argument. If you look at the Page history, you will see I wrote at least half the article. I did this in desperation when Wikipedia was seriously considering eliminating it. The Dawkins quote is the best concise justification that I know for the importance of the topic. If you have other contenders, please let me know. I don't feel strongly about the Russell quote although I greatly appreciate the man and how he expressed himself. I don't see any real justification for dropping it. I am repeating a typical comment from when the article was in jeopardy so you can get a flavor of the criticism: "This page reeks of WP:OR throughout. I see no evidence of anything called the "Argument from Beauty" which merits an encyclopaedia entry. All I see is one person indulging in some philosophical musing and trying to justify a particular stance on the (super)natural world. I will nominate for deletion as original research unless some evidence can be produced that the "Argument from Beauty" is a concept that has occurred in the literature, or is a phrase widely used as a justification for belief in a god. If the article started with (e.g.) "the Argument from Beauty is a concept that has been widely used in discussions on XXX by several philosophers, including YYY and ZZZ...", I could be convinced. But it jumps straight into a heap of original analysis, then mentions a couple of people who may or may not (no evidence is produced) have used the phrase. It is not sufficient to show that others have used something which equates (in your estimation) to an argument from beauty; you must show that the phrase itself ("argument from beauty") has some currency, if it is to merit an article of its own. Compare the discussion on Faith-sufferer, which has been nominated for deletion on similar grounds. Wikipedia is a tertiary source, not a primary one. This looks more like blog-material." Polambda (talk) 23:13, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

OK I've changed the sentence introducing the quote so it doesn't just repeat what the quote says and added another quote of Dawkins from the same book to the "Criticisms" section. Hope that'll please everyone. Citizen Canine (talk) 10:58, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

The latest change to this article by an unnamed contributor does not appear to meet Wikipedia standards. The supporting reference is part of a webpage by William Lane Craig listing multiple short arguments for God. The section on the aesthetic argument is scarcely longer than what was put in this article. Unless Craig can be shown to have written extensively on this topic, I feel this change should be reverted. Polambda (talk) 03:15, 20 November 2018 (UTC)