This first-essay writing exercise consists of four parts.   Those four parts, and the respective due dates, are as follows:
 

Part 1:         Locating the inference-indicators.  (About 2.5%)

Due Date:      Friday, February 25

Part 1:          Analysis and preliminary evaluation of the argument.  (About 7.5%)

Due Date:     Friday, March 4

Part 2:          An outline of your essay on the argument in question.  (5%)

Due Date:     Monday, March 14

Part 3:          The completed essay, of about 1200-1500 words in length.  (15%)

Due Date:     Wednesday, March 30
 

Proportion of Final Grade for this Project as a Whole:   30%

        This handout contains the instructions only for Part 1.  The instructions for the other three parts will be set out in later handouts.

Instructions - Part 1: Inference-Indicators

1.  The philosophical argument that is set out in the following passage contains eighteen words, or phrases, that indicate that an inference is being made.  Circle each of those inference-indicators.  (1 point each, for a total of 18 points.)

2.  In looking for inference-indicators, remember that it is important to avoid mistaking such things as enumerative terms, contrastive terms, argument-indicators, proof-indicators, assertion-terms, and so on, for inference-indicators.

3.  Finally, unlike many arguments where inference-indicators are spread fairly evenly throughout the argument, the following passage has some longish stretches that do not contain any inference-indicators.
 

Topic:  A Proof of the Existence of God Based on the Idea of Necessary Beings and Contingent Beings

        The following proof of the existence of God combines some ideas found in related arguments that different authors have offered, but it is based mainly upon a combination of St. Thomas Aquinas's third proof of the existence of God, and an argument set out by John Duns Scotus.

        "One way of proving the existence of God turns upon the distinction between necessary beings and contingent beings.  Let me begin by explaining, then, that distinction.  The objects that one encounters in the world of space and time are such that their existence is not necessary, and one can easily imagine their not existing.  But one can also say something stronger - namely, that all of the things that exist in the world of space and time have a tendency to cease to exist, a tendency to break apart, to undergo destruction.  Let us define, then, a contingent being as one whose nature is such that it involves a tendency to cease to exist.  A necessary being, on the other hand, will be anything that, either because of its own nature, or because of its relation to some other thing, cannot cease to exist.  Given this distinction, the first question we need to consider is whether it is possible that absolutely everything is a contingent being, and when we do this, we can see that this is not possible.  In the first place, if something involves an inherent tendency not to exist, then at some point it will cease to exist.  Assume, then, that everything is a contingent being.  It follows that everything that exists will cease to exist at some time, and therefore that, at some time, absolutely nothing would exist.  But then there would be nothing in existence now, since nothing can come into existence unless there is some cause of its coming into existence.  Hence, if absolutely everything were a contingent being, then there would be nothing in existence now.  Since that is false, it must be the case that not everything is a contingent being.  So there must exist at least one necessary being.

        We now need, however, to introduce a second distinction - namely, a distinction between necessary beings whose necessity is caused by some other being, and necessary beings whose necessity does not depend on any other thing - and then we need to ask whether all necessary beings might have their necessity caused by some other being, or whether, on the contrary, there must be some necessary being that has its necessity due to its own nature, rather than having its necessity caused by any other thing.  And one can approach this question in the following way.  Consider anything that, as far as its own nature goes, would tend to drop out of existence.  That thing might be held in existence by something else.  But could there be an infinite series of things, each of which, of its own nature, had a tendency to cease to exist, but each of which was held in existence by something else?  Surely not.  Surely the series must contain, at some point, something whose nature is such that it cannot cease to be.  Consider the following analogy.   A boxcar may be part of a train that is in motion, but a boxcar has no power to move itself, and so, if the boxcar were not being pushed by something, it would gradually slow down and stop.  Moreover, adding more boxcars would not help.  A finite series of boxcars, if not being pushed by something, will, therefore, slow down in just the same way that a single boxcar will.  Would an infinite series of boxcars help?  Surely not.  Surely an infinite series of boxcars would not differ from a finite series of boxcars.  So we can conclude that a series of boxcars, be it finite or infinite, will always slow down, and eventually stop, unless they are being pushed by something that is a source of power - here, a locomotive.  Generalizing upon this example, we can conclude that the motion of a collection of things, all of which have a tendency to slow down and stop requires if it is to continue - and regardless of whether the collection is finite or infinite - the existence of something that is a source of power and that does not itself have any tendency to slow down.  Then, generalizing on the case of motion, we can draw the following, more abstract conclusion:  If one has a collection of things, each of which, as far as its own nature goes, would tend to do A, but where the things are not doing A, then there must be something outside the collection that does not have a tendency to do A, and that prevents the collection of things from doing A.  Consider now the collection of things that are necessary, but whose necessity is not derived from their own natures.  Each of those things would, as far as its nature goes, tend to cease to exist.  So we can apply the generalization that we just arrived at, and conclude that if there is a collection of things that, as far their own natures go, have a tendency to cease to exist, then, if they are not dropping out of existence, there must be something whose nature is such that it cannot cease to exist, and which holds all other necessarily existent things in existence.

        We saw earlier, however, that there must be at least one necessarily existent thing - a thing that cannot drop out of existence.  We can therefore conclude that there is something that is a necessarily existent thing, whose necessity derives from its own nature, and which holds any other necessarily existent things in existence.  But we also noted earlier that everything in space and time is contingent, and has a tendency to cease to exist.  The necessary being whose existence we have just proved cannot, therefore, be located anywhere in space and time.  Accordingly, it cannot be anything physical.  It must, therefore, be a pure mind.  So we have established that there is a necessary being, which has its necessity of its own nature, which holds other things - including the whole physical universe - in existence, and which is pure mind.  And what could this, but God?  We have therefore shown that God exists."