Teleological Arguments Essay

In his third argument about arguing from mind to design, he states that using the mind as a representation is only a small part of universe (Paley, 1802, 197). For example, a watch must have had a watchmaker because such a complex idea and mechanism could not have just come from nature. A creator with prior knowledge of the watch must have created it. Therefore, the universe must have had a creator. This creator was God.

William Paley's argument for the existence of God is an important aspect of the Design argument, which argues that the universe is being directed towards an end purpose due to the a posteriori (subject to experience) evidence of an intelligent designer, who is God. This is because it is perhaps arguably the most famous version, and the theory which modern-day theories for the Design argument are built upon.

Intelligent Design is the idea that living creatures on Earth are so complex that, they could not possibly have been created through the natural selection. It is the belief that there must be an ?intelligent designer? that created us all. This creator is usually referenced as God. However, it may also be

In his discussion of the argument from design, which he links with teleological principles, the author refers to the concept of design in a way that alludes to the conviction that there are certain divine manifestations in the world that are so perfect that they must revolve around a grand architect who conceived them to be that way. Therefore, he says that proving such an argument requires "indisputable examples of design or purpose" (McCloskey, 1968, p. 64). However, this standard of indisputability that McCloskey is holding this argument to,

William Paley found a watch on the ground and assumed that the watch was put together for a purpose. His arguments, then, lead towards the teleological argument, which starts from relatively specific observations to the crucial notion of purpose where there is an intelligent cause to the universe. Paley’s whole argument discusses how there must be a maker of the universe since there is a maker of the watch, which must be God. In contrast, a telescope has a designer, so an eye must also have a designer,

William Paley’s teleological argument (also known as the argument from design) is an attempt to prove the existence of god. This argument succeeds in proving that while existence was created by an aggregation of forces, to define these forces, as a conscious, rational, and ultimately godlike is dubious. Although the conclusions are valid, the argument makes several logical errors. The teleological argument relies on inductive reasoning, rendering the argument itself valid, but unsound. The argument fails to apply its own line of reasoning to itself, resulting in infinite regression. Beyond the scope of its logical flaws, the arguments content lacks accurate comparisons. The argument hinges on a

b, The idea that God exists and that he is the architect to serve the

Paley's Argument For Intelligent Design and Its Criticisms Paley's teleological argument defends the idea of the existence of god through the idea of consistent and orderly design. Paley uses an example of finding a rock on the ground and then finding a watch. He argues that finding the watch, with all of its perfectly fit working parts, suggests an intelligent creator. In his argument, the watch is employed as an analogy for the universe.

Ultimately, Paley’s argument uses an inductive argument to suggest that all things with properties of intelligence and complexity must have an intelligent designer who designs them for a specific purpose.

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.

There are two basic theories in this debate. The first is the historical default, the creation model of origins. This theory maintains that the intricate design infiltrates all things, which implies a designer. The second theory is the more recent, atheistic explanation, the evolution model of origins. This theory suggests that the intricate design infiltrates all things and is a product of random chance and excessive time.

When considering the arguments in support of the theory for design a line can be drawn between those before and those after Darwin’s theory of evolution. This discovery heavily impacted on those arguments from the likes of Parley for example. In his analogy of the watch maker Parley argues that an incomplete watch has no function, all its parts must be in the exact places required for the cogs and mechanisms to turn in order for it to serve its purpose this requires the intellect of the watch maker to ensure this is the case. In turn the human body and all biological things in nature would not function if there internal workings were not just so. The arrangement of our bodies our organs and of the organic structures within nature require a complex balance to operate. Parley then infers that like the watch surely there has to be intelligence behind nature’s complexity. Darwin’s theory of evolution however very effectively removes much of Parleys argument. By defining existence through the imperative of

Though discussion of Intelligent Design (ID) often occurs in modern times, it is not a new theory. This paper is an exploration of the tenets of ID.

For example all objects that are compared may have many things in common, but inevitably they will also have many differences between them. Even if we are able to find a manmade creation and a natural object that are so similar that we can have grounds to support transfer of design attributions from the former to the latter, it all lies on exactly what the similarities actually are. They cannot be physical due to the grand scale of the universe, and the miniscule nature of a man made object. One could argue they are similar in creation, but of course we have no experience of how a universe is made, so we cannot know for sure if the comparison is a sound one. However the true weight of the arguments presented by Hume, rely upon the question of whether or not analogy is strong enough that one can create sound links between two separate objects, and if the characteristics that he presents of a cruel or unexperienced God are in fact the characteristics that the creator is in possession

Firstly, we shall focus on the Design (or to use its philosophically technical term, the teleological argument). There are numerous variants of the Design argument, however we shall be focusing on Paley’s version (reference 1) of this theory. Paley’s version of the Design argument is based upon the idea that by looking around at certain features of the world (for example an inanimate object like a rock or say a living creature like dolphin or a person like myself) and theorising that they are too complex and intricate to randomly just manifest. They must have been created by a higher, more intelligent power and thus, if this is accepted as being so, then this proves beyond doubt that God exists.