1 : Philosophical issues and questions Flashcards
What is an Inductive Argument?
Design argument 1.1
A process of reasoning from particular instances to general - probable - conclusions.
What is a Posteriori Argument?
Design argument 1.1
- An argument based on sense-experience
- The evidence of our senses
Why is the Design argument considered an inductive argument?
Design argument 1.1
It argues that our experience of order and regularity in the universe is evidence for a universe that has been designed and offers the probable conclusion that their must be a designer God.
Why is the Design argument considered a Posteriori argument?
Design argument 1.1
- It relies on our sense-experience of the universe
- We percieve the order, beauty and complexity of the universe using our senses
- The evidence of design and order implies the existence of a designer - God
What is an analogy?
Design argument 1.1
- A comparison between two things or ideas with similar features
- Usually used to explain the less familiar idea
Explain William Paley’s argument from purpose:
Design Argument 1.1
- Paley argued that if we found a stone on a heath we would assume the stone had always been there
- However, if we were to find a watch we would assume it had not.
- The presence of the watch would require further explanation
- We would infer that the watch had been put together to fufil a purpose
- The watc contains evidence of design and therefore must have a designer
- Features observed in the watch are also observed in nature - the natural world
How did William Paley link the Watch on the heath Aanalogy to the natural world?
Design argument 1.1
- Everything seems to have been designed to fufil some function
- The way the natural world fufils these functions seem ordered and regular
- For example, the eye is intricately designed for vision; birds have wings and light bones so they can fly
Paley argued that, just as it is unreasonable to assume the watch came without a watchmaker, it is unreasonable to suggest the universe came without a designer - God
William Paley (Key Quotation)
Design argument 1.1
“When we come to inspect the watch, we percieve (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts and framed and put together for a purpose … The inference we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker.”
William Paley’s argument for regularity:
Design argument 1.1
- A watch works by having regular mechanical movements
- Regularity in the watch can be compared to regularity in the universe
- (For example the movement of the planets)
- Regularity in the mechanism of the watch points to a watchmaker responsible for that regularity
- Similarly, regularity in the universe leads us to infer the existence of a designer of the regularity
David Hume’s view on the design argument:
Design argument 1.1 - Criticisms
- Our experience of the universe is limited - we have no experience of universes being designed or built, so we cannot infer the cause
- Analogies do not work very well
- We cannot know anything about the cause from the effect
David Hume was an empiricism - Define Empiricism:
Design argument 1.1
The theory that all knowledge of the world is ultimately based on, and justified by experience.
Natural selection:
Design argument 1.1
The process by which organisms better adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and produce offspring. Sometimes known as ‘survival of the fittest’
- Natural selection is the mechanism for Evolution
Ockham’s (or Occam’s ) razor :
Design argument 1.1
The principle that the simplest explanation is the most likely
Regularities of co-presence
Design argument 1.1 - Richard Swinburne
- Accepts evidence of evolution leading to our complex world
- Argues that evolution requires particular natural laws
- In order to survive, organisms have to exhibit spatial order - All their parts have to work well together - Compared to machines humans make
- Swinburne infers from this that, in the same way as there is a creator of machines (human beings) there is a creater of nature, namely God
What does Richard Swinburne mean by ‘temporal order’?
Design argument 1.1
- The way in which the laws of nature are so absolute that one thing always succeeds (follows) another in a predicable order or ‘regularities of succession’
