♥ Four of Hearts
the teleological family
The Argument from the Principle of Least Action
Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis
Essai de cosmologie (Essai de Cosmologie)
DemonstrativeConcludes that something exists.
- Argument form
- Modus tollens (laws could not be so imposed unless established by an all-wise being; they are so imposed)
- Concludes to
- Intelligent agent (a being all-wise and all-powerful who established the laws of motion)
- Premise ground
- Metaphysical (laws founded on one rule holding for all bodies cannot be imposed except by an all-wise, all-powerful being)
- Modal strength
- Actual
- What it licenses
- Period
- Eighteenth Century (1750)
- Tradition
- Natural theology (Leibnizian–Newtonian)
Further reading
- Source text, public domain
Essai de cosmologieMaupertuis_-_Essai_de_cosmologie,_1750.pdf - A scholarly account
Read an exposition of the argument - A principal objection
Read the objection in full
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/least-action
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