Sunday 31 October 2021

A New Onto-Omniscience Argument

1) For any proposition p, knowledge of is valuable.
2) If knowledge of a proposition is valuable, then that proposition ought to be known.
3) Ought implies can.
4) Therefore, for any proposition p, p can be known.

(4) actually implies the existence of an omniscient being. Take some proposition q that is only true in the actual world. According to (4), there is some possible world where someone knows q. But which possible world does this person who knows q occupy? Well, since the only possible world that q is true in is the actual world, this person is in the actual world! Now let r be whatever proposition you want. We can run this same argument with the conjunction of and r, So, there is a being in the actual world which knows the conjunction of q and r.

From this point, we have two routes we can take:
-Let r be the conjunction of all true propositions. Does such a proposition exist? Probably not. But if it does, then there's a being who knows all true propositions.
-Argue on the basis of parsimony that we should posit one being that knows all truths, rather than infinity beings that each knows a single proposition.

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