Summary Of Hume's Objections To The Argument From Design

In Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion we are introduced to three characters that serve the purpose to debate God and his nature, more specifically, what can mankind infer about God and his nature. The three characters; Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes all engage in a debate concerning this question and they all serve the purpose of supporting their views on the subject. It is the “argument from design” put forth by Cleanthes that is the focal point of the discussion, and it is Demea and Philo who attempt to discredit it.

Throughout many centuries philosophers have argued over the existence of God. In today’s society many people tend to hesitate in believing in a God because of the new scientific discoveries. For example, in the mid 1990s scientists built the Hubble telescope which revealed that there were billions of galaxies in our universe, this discovery led some people to question how can one divine being create so much and yet have a personal connection with everyone in the world. Which, in result, may take some scientific explanation to strengthen one’s belief in God, but for those who believe there is a benevolent God they do not need science to show proof that he exists because of their morals and beliefs they have been raised to follow. In this paper I will prove that God does exist by explaining the ontological, cosmological, and design argument.

What Came First: The Chicken or the Egg? David Hume moves through a logical progression of the ideas behind cause and effect. He critically analyzes the reasons behind those generally accepted ideas. Though the relation of cause and effect seems to be completely logical and based on common sense, he discusses our impressions and ideas and why they are believed. Hume’s progression, starting with his initial definition of cause, to his final conclusion in his doctrine on causality. As a result, it proves how Hume’s argument on causality follows the same path as his epistemology, with the two ideas complimenting each other so that it is rationally impossible to accept the epistemology and not accept his argument on causality. Hume starts by

The Anthropic principle is a key feature of the Design argument and suits the theory of Design qua Regularity proposed by F.R. Tennant showing that science and religion are one in the same. He argues that human life flourishes on earth, therefore there must have been a supreme designer, that designer being God. Tennant accepts the scientific reasoning of evolution as a fine balance of ‘’fine tuning’’ and God’s chosen way to support life. Tennant also argues that ‘’the world could so easily have been chaotic’’ and that ‘’the universe is not chaotic, nature is the outcome of intelligent design.’’ Others argue that the earth runs so smoothly and everything works together therefore ‘’The world is compatible with a single throw of a dice and common sense is not foolish in suspecting the dice has been loaded’’ cited by Vardy. James Lovelock of the 20th century furthered the anthropic principle in ways of the Gaia Hypothesis, ‘’engineering on a planetary scale’’ cited by Vardy. He suggests that the oxygen content in the air, the salt content in the sea and the temperature of the earth are all precise in order for human life to flourish. If the oxygen content in the air

David Hume is one of the world’s most well-known and relevant philosophers, in his time and still to this day. In one of his most famous writings, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, he dedicates a whole chapter to exploring the validity of miracles, based on his own premise (That they defy the laws of nature), a chapter so large, it is separated into two parts. Exploration of Miracles is a large topic for philosophical discussion as it has caught the attention and caused the works of many of the world’s most famous philosophers, such as David Hume, Richard Swinburne and Peter Atkins.

When evaluating Paley’s design argument, it is evident that it has its flaws. From the inductive argument presented, objections can be made in the first premise by claiming that not all processes have a clear purpose. For instance, when natural disasters such as earthquakes and tornadoes occur, what purpose do they serve exactly, and why would God’s work include such disaster? In fact, that leads us to ask why the universe would be designed with such imperfections? It is these types of questions that David Hume utilizes to undermine the design

The example of the watch exemplifies the order and complexity of the universe, and also is shown as evidence that the universe was designed. The universe is perceived to consist of many different parts functioning in harmony to accomplish some purpose, giving us reason to believe that an intelligent agent created it for a purpose. Also in this argument from design, Paley tries to show how the common objections some may bring to the argument are insufficient in disproving

A design argument is more commonly know as a Teleological one, which is an argument for the existence of a creator or god “based on perceived evidence of deliberate design in the natural or physical world”.The argument has been discussed all the way back to the time of Socrates and Plato. In my essay I will be evaluating one argument put forward by a famous philosopher, in this case William Paley, an English clergyman born in 1743, in which he tries to show similarities in the design of nature and the design of man made artefacts.

He setups the argument up with a brilliant idea. Whereas, when an individual observes a ship, they formulate the idea that the carpenter who constructed the ship is profoundly knowledgeable and complex. However, an individual surprisingly finds out the carpenter is wholly opposite from their prior idea of the creator of the ship. Correspondingly, assume the human body and Earth is resembling the ship. Hume goes on to say that the creation of the earth may have had multiple creations, many useless trials made, and the constructing continued with trial in order. Furthermore, the Earth could have had several designers and each designer could have mocked the previous designer. Moreover, each designer was probably unlikely to be heavily intellectual. Equally important, in order for the watch and the ships construction to be so unique the creator had to be greater than unique. Hume objection testes the idea that Paley suggest that the creator of the universe is not a remarkable intelligent being. The creator of the universe may have fed off the intelligence of the creator before. The argument presents this to show that creator of the ship is not a remarkable intelligent being and the creator likely utilized ideas from people prior to their creation. Likewise, the creator of the earth utilized ideas from people prior to their creation of the universe. Whereas, the creator did not develop their own construction which weakens their intellect on creating a complex Earth and human body. In order to create the two, one has to be an remarkable intelligent being packed with

Darwin states that, “natural selection will never produce in a being any structure more injurious than beneficial to that being, for natural selection acts solely by and for the good of each.” Darwin in fact believed that what Paley had attributed to design was random chance, he argued “we can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a brivale shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by a man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.” Darwin’s theory shows how random natural processes could,

There is no objective evidence to demonstrate the existence of nature’s creator. If we were to think the design argument was reasonable, then one must also take under consideration the amount of ‘creators’ are required

In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, David Hume challenges the existence of God by presenting three different arguments from the perspectives of three philosophers. First is that of the fideist, Demea, who presents the weakest argument. The reader is quickly aware that this perspective is the least believable according to Hume. Although Hume quickly dismisses the idea of faith as a basis for the existence of God, he uses faith as a wedge in the attempt to break apart the argument of for intelligent design presented by the second character Cleanthes. A majority of the Dialogues is dedicated to this cause, as the strongest argument is from the perspective of intelligent design. The third character, Philo, is the skeptic wielding the pickaxe, and believed to be the voice of Hume, has the most difficult time dismantling this concept. By the end of the dialogue, it is unclear as to the true position that Hume is taking concerning natural theology. It is my understanding that Hume would accept the existence of God through the perspective of natural theology, if it were not deterred by the misuse of a Deity through organized religion as a means to control the masses. Because of this misuse, it is understandable why Hume remained a skeptic (at least publically) for the duration of his life (Craig 486-512).

ABSTRACT: Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) may be read in the way Cleanthes (and Philo as well) reads Nature, as analogous to human artifice and contrivance. The Dialogues and Nature then are both texts, with an intelligent author or Author, and analogies may be started from these five facts of Hume's text: the independence of Hume's characters; the non-straightforwardness of the characters' discourse; the way the characters interact and live; the entanglements of Pamphilus as an internal author; and the ways in which a reader is also involved in making a dialogue. These and other analogies should reflect upon the Author of Nature as they do upon Hume's

Intelligent design is not a scientific theory but it is a religion. It does not qualify as a science because it fails to be part of any general theory of how the natural world operates, instead it offers a supernatural causation. Intelligent design postulates that there are structures that are so complex that they had to be designed rather than have evolved by natural processes. In other words, if something is ‘irreducibly complex’ it was a product of intelligent design. Although such a contention alludes to a designer (god), supporters of intelligent design are cautious not to mention anything about the designer or why he/she work. The opponents of intelligent design have valuable argument to prove that it falls on a religious stance.

In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume states, “there is not, in any single, particular instance of cause and effect, any thing which can suggest the idea of power or necessary connexion” (Hume, 1993: 41). Hume establishes in section II that all ideas originate from impressions that employ the senses (11). Therefore, in order for there to be an idea of power or “necessary connexion,” there must be impressions of this connection present in single instances of cause and effect; if there are no such impressions, then there cannot be an idea of “necessary connexion” (52). To illustrate his statement, Hume examines four situations: