Talk:Argument from beauty

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title: Original research

message: Or rather I mean, great work adding so much material since I last saw this one! --Merzul 18:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Congratulations on surviving the RfD :-) 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Carl Sagan - not philosophical criticisim 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Changed to physicalism... 

message: :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.[]
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)
thread_title:  Objection to the third premise 

message: 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)
thread_title:  What of deadly beauty? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Idealism 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Drugs? 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)Colin Howson Objecting to God (CUP 2011) p133-4 NBeale (talk) 09:50, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Rewrite is needed 

message: 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)
thread_title:  One level of abstraction too far 

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

text: 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)
thread_title:  Generalizations and opinions