♣ Jack of Clubs
the moral, experiential and pragmatic family
The Argument from Desire
Clive Staples Lewis
Mere Christianity
DemonstrativeConcludes that something exists.
- Argument form
- Modus ponens
- Concludes to
- Transcendent source (something beyond the world capable of satisfying a native desire)
- Premise ground
- Empirical (for every native desire there exists something capable of satisfying it — inductive generalisation)
- Modal strength
- Actual
- What it licenses
- Period
- Twentieth Century (1952)
- Tradition
- Augustinian (Lewis)
Further reading
- A scholarly account
Read an exposition of the argument - A principal objection
Read the objection in full - Further reading
'The Weight of Glory' (1941) is a further primary statement of the same argument.
This formulation is ours, composed from the primary source and compressed to fit the card; the argument admits of other statements. Objections have been made to every argument in the deck; where one is linked above, it is chosen by us, not written by us.
ergocards.com/desire
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