Preview

David Hume The Design Argument

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
170 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
David Hume The Design Argument
I agree, the undiscovered corners of the Earth and the galaxy can only be attributed to a divine being. The Design Argument is an argument to support the existence of God; surmising that the unknown can only be explained by a divine power (Rowe, 2007, p.59). Alternate hypothesis' on the creation have been formed to deduce scientific evidence such as Darwin's principle of natural selection. Biologists, Kenneth Miller and Michael Behe, speak to the complexity of organisms on the cellular level, but fall short of attributing this information to a particular divine being. Nevertheless, Hume would criticize this point of view citing that there is no evidence to support this. Relying on physical and scientific evidence alone to explain such a complex

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Hume's counter-analogy does not succeed in undermining Paley's argument from design. Paley clearly explains to his reader that humans are so complicated that we must have been made by a designer. Hume argues that since the universe is not a human art, and is more like an animal, it does not need a designer. Paley argues that the complexity and functionality of a watch clearly shows that it was made by a designer. Animals are also complex and functional, therefore, Hume does not change the argument adequately enough to effectively counter it.…

    • 756 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    David Hume's changed the idea of skepticism in a very different way. While Descartes used doubt and skepticism as a way to find out the foundations and roots of knowledge,Hume used sleo contrast with what we saw as the ordinary claims of knowledge. Hume explains two types of skepticism: antecedent and consequent. Both of these come in a very moderate and extreme form. He explains antecedent skepticism by using the Descartes theory of universal doubt. He explains that there is no principle that is more self evident than doubt and even if there was we would not be able to advance ahead of it because we our still able to doubt and reason deductively. This would mean Antecedent skepticism is incurable.…

    • 304 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Determinism is defined as “the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. ”, there have been many cases where philosophers determine that determinism implies that beings that have no free will, cannot be held morally responsible for their actions. David Hume’s definition of necessity is similar to the definition of determinism because it shows that what is necessity is constant or always necessary, plainly put his definition states that necessity is the “constant conjunction of objects and the inference of the mind from one object to the other“ William James thought was that his will was free so he was considered a indeterminism. James believed that each being held moral responsibility…

    • 302 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    To him, if anything that has parts organized to serve a purpose is designed, and nature contains things which have parts that are organized to serve a purpose, nature certainly is designed. Consequently, assuming that nature was designed by a mind that is distinct from nature, such mind, or a higher being,…

    • 1278 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The most common and influential argument’s for the existence of God are design arguments. In the last fifty years design arguments have received the most attention philosophically. Design arguments are both empirical and inductive arguments. Design arguments identify properties of objects in nature and argue that the only way that they could have occurred or the best explanation for them is that there is some intelligent/higher being that created or conceived the object. William Paley was a Christian apologist in the eighteenth century who was known for his popular version of the teleological argument (“watchmaker analogy”). Paley stressed the idea that the world’s complexity and design is not based off luck or chance, but rather designed by…

    • 157 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Give an account of the fundamental ideas of the Design Argument for the existence of God…

    • 1541 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Teleological Argument

    • 1906 Words
    • 8 Pages

    “With such signs of forethought in the design of living creature, can you doubt they are the work of choice or design?” (Socrates) The Design argument looks at the order and purpose, or telos, in the world and states that it implies that there must be a designer who made the world ‘just right’ for human existence. Religious believers go on to state that this designer is God. The argument states that if one uses one’s senses to look at order, such as gravity and the motion of the planets, which exists in the world, it is likely that one will accept that there is a designer God who created the world and gave it this order. Thus, the argument is both a posteriori, based on experience, and inductive, containing a conclusion that we are likely to accept if we believe the premises to be true. Although the argument was one of Aquinas’ five ‘ways’ in his book, Summa Theologica, the most famous version of the Argument from Design was put forward by William Paley in his book Natural Theology (1802), and therefore, this essay will focus mainly on Paley’s version of the argument.…

    • 1906 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The anthropic principle proposes that the reason and purpose for the universe is the support of human life: ‘As we look out into the Universe and identify the many accidents…the Universe must in some case have know we were coming’ (Freeman Dyson, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle). It also demonstrates that the design argument need not reject the principles of evolution in order to assume a designing God. However, theistic supporters of evolution argue that scientific principles alone are not enough to explain a perfectly balanced natural order that…

    • 956 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Back in Hume’s time, there were mainly three schools of thought regarding the nature of morality. This debate was initiated by Thomas Hobbes’ view that moral obligations and duties came from self-regarding motives. In response to Thomas Hobbes’ argument, there are two schools of thought, namely rationalism and sentimentalism. Rationalists such as Samuel Clarke argued that morality could be explained by pure reason , and acting morally is just the same as acting rationally. Hume is on the side of the sentimentalists, as he rejects reason as the basis of morality . Hume argues, rather, that it is our moral sentiments that serve as the basis of moral approvals and disapprovals . In Hume’s picture, each action produces certain feelings in the recipients, be it pain or pleasure, and it is through sympathizing with the recipients which we have an impression of the resulting pain or pleasure in the recipients, and thus approve of or disapprove of the active person’s character trait which led to the action.…

    • 216 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Teleological Argument

    • 889 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The origin of life has been explained in terms of natural processes, but evidence of intelligent design is expressed by the mere fact that the universe allows life to exist above all other notions. It is still possible to sustain teleological arguments in light of modern scientific principles mainly because of the formation of right conditions to allow life. It is very unlikely that this happens by chance presenting evidence of an intelligent and supernatural being to produce life. Scientific discoveries show how complex and sensitive various conditions need to be for the origin of life for the universe (McGrath, 2010). The universe seems to have been fine-tuned from its inception to produce life on earth. Slight alterations of physical and cosmological quantities in nature would result to an imbalance that would destroy the existence of…

    • 889 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Design Argument Analysis

    • 1305 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Hume, an influential commentator on the successfulness of the argument from designed, summarized this argument into eight critical points, and then continued to criticize them. For example the fifth critical point states that "in a similar vein, there might be more than one divine designers just like there are many human designers". As an argument the teleological argument does not fully prove that only intelligent agency created all things. Rather it invites the idea that other lesser deities may have been involved.…

    • 1305 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the most recognized critiques of Aquinas is David Hume, who addressed the argument from design in his work Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Hume began by summarizing Aquinas' logic, and the many alterations that followed. Essentially, Hume argued that attributing design in the natural universe to an intelligent creator is flawed in two ways. First, he uses to analogy of a house to discredit Aquinas' inferences.…

    • 1584 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    David Hume is a renowned Philosopher that has shaped the ideas of cause and effect (causality) as we know them today. He suggested that true cause and effect relationship has to be the result of A causing B. The occurrence of B happening is contingent on the fact that A occurs before B, thus causing B to happen. Since he holds that this is the only rational way to conclude that one thing causes another to happen, he goes as far as to say that human beings will never know the exact cause that takes place in order for B to be the result. Hume comes to this conclusion because he maintains that there are secrete causes that cannot be observed by the human eye, thus it is impossible for humans to rationally conclude that one thing caused another…

    • 1897 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    I believe that David Hume’s criticisms against the cosmological argument are insufficient. Hume’s argument is based around two main points, the idea that explaining the parts of the universe is sufficient instead of an explanation of the universe as a whole and that the causal principle is questionable.…

    • 437 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Since the day immigrants landed on the shores of this Nation it has been a high priority of the government to ensure that all citizens have the opportunity to receive a equal and proper education. The Public school system is an opportunity for children of all social and economic backgrounds to obtain a standard education in this country. For the most part, if a student is willing to put in hard work and good effort, they are provided with the potential to take their education to the next level and then onwards to a fulfilling career. In order for the system to be as effective as possible, a consistent standard must be implemented around the country. The theory of evolution and creationism has become a sensitive issue as of late and many feel changes need to be made in how it is taught in public schools.…

    • 2712 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays