♣ Nine of Clubs
the moral, experiential and pragmatic family
The Argument from Intellectual Values
Arthur James Balfour
Theism and Humanism

EvidentialConcludes that a feature of the world is better explained by one hypothesis than by a named rival.
- Argument form
- Inference to the best explanation (naturalism cannot sustain trust in reason; a reasoning mind can)
- Concludes to
- Better explanation (trust in reason; explanans is a reasoning mind behind nature)
- Premise ground
- Epistemic (an origin where nothing reasons cannot sustain trust in reason)
- Modal strength
- None (comparative explanation)
- What it licenses
- Period
- Twentieth Century (1915)
- Tradition
- British philosophical theism
Further reading
- Source text, public domain
Theism and HumanismBalfourtheismhumanismbe00balf.pdf - A scholarly account
Read an exposition of the 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/intellectual-values
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