Summary Of Philo's Argument From Design, Cleanthes

Through the Argument from Design, Cleanthes attempts to contemplate the complex order of the universe to arrive at knowledge about the nature of God. He establishes his a posteriori argument by way of analogy: Evidence from the natural world shows that the world resembles nothing so much as a work of human artifice (machine), which is perfectly and intricately ordered so that each part from smallest to largest is perfectly adapted to the harmony of other parts. All parts of a machine are related causally, in other words, have means-to-ends relations, and all causality must work together for a common purpose, that is, have coherence of parts. The second principle employed in the Argument from Design is “like effects like cause”: Every machine …show more content…
Although, some parts of the universe appear to have been designed: stone, wood, brick, iron, brass, have not an order or arrangement without human art and contrivance. However, the universe is not analogous to a machine even though it is ordered; it might be analogous to some other form of order and not to a man-made structure. Philo argued that these features are present not only in those cases where intelligence is the cause of design, but also when non-intelligent causes are the source of design. For instance, parts of the universe was rather formed by various forces acting on it; in the case of organic bodies, intricate order and adaptability are the results of reproduction rather than of an intelligent design. Only for the reason that there is order, we cannot conclude that such an ordered system is analogous to a man-made system, and it is therefore even less reasonable to assume that all order is the product of design. Hence, to show that the design of the world has an intelligent cause of design, Cleanthes must establish that the design of the world bears a sufficient resemblance to a particular type of machine, so that the world can be classified as a machine of that sort. Only in this way, Philo insists, can the principle 'like effects prove like causes' be employed to prove that God resembles human intelligence. Within the discussion, …show more content…
In general, an inductive inference is supposed to look like this: Let's take the example of a flame (denoted by A), we notice that it can 'cause water to boil' (denoted by B). Analogical argument vary in their capacity to persuade us to infer that there is a coincidental connection between A and B providing that we experience a constant conjunction of A and B. An inductive argument argues that we gain evidence by seeing repeated conjunctions, and are being reasonable if we expect that all future A's will cause B's. Inductive reasoning functions in the argument from design in that every time we see A (a machine), which has B (intelligent cause of design), we are further justified in inferring that whenever we see a machine in the future, we will find its intelligent cause of design. Hume’s theory of causality shows that we’re accustomed to a habit that anticipate causality. In the case of A (universe) has B (intelligent cause of design), there is no empirical feature that reveals its causality. If causality is not learned empirically, there must be a relation between cause and effect. The relations are: i) contiguity (things that occur near each other in time or space) ii) temporal priority (there must be a priority in the cause to its effect). According to Hume, these are the only features that reveal causality; observation never reveals causality, however,