Arguments from Observation Flashcards
Who are the main scholars?
Thomas Aquinas
William Paley
David Hume
Gottfried Leibniz
F.R Tennant
What do supporters of the Design Argument point to?
The order in the world
The beauty of nature
Everything has an ultimate purpose
Complexity in the world
Who was Aquinas influenced by?
Aristotle and the four causes where he took the final cause to develop the design argument
What is Aquinas’ design argument?
Things which lack intelligence act for an end.
Hence it its plain that not fortuitously but designedly, they do achieve their end.
Whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being
As the arrow is shot is to its mark by the archer
Some intelligent being exists and this being we call God
Examples of design/purpose
The eye
Wings
Lungs
Giraffes neck
What is Paley’s design argument
Analogy of a pocket watch
What are the premises of Paley’s argument?
P1- If one found a watch on a beach, observation would suggest purpose and design in its manufacture
P2- Objects in nature can be observed which suggest purpose and design
P3- Anything that can be observed to be designed must have a designer
C- nature demonstrates the existence of a designer which we call God
Criticisms of Paley’s watch analogy?
We may be in ignorance of how watches are made
Watches sometimes go wrong
Some parts of a watch may appear to have no purpose
The watch cannot have come together by chance
Who was David Hume?
A hugely influential philosopher and historian, noted for his empiricism and scepticism
What is Hume’s first criticism of the design argument?
Analogy doesn’t work. Analogies can lead to mistaken conclusions. By choosing a machine as their analogy, thinkers like Paley have already determined the result they want
What is Humes second criticism of the design argument?
Fallacy of inference (God is inferred)
- In order to know what has brought something about we have to experience it. We have no grounds to conclude that God designed the universe
What is Hume’s third criticism of the design argument?
Assumption of God (God is assumed, not proven)
What is the anthropoid argument?
The universe is so exactly right for human life that it must have been designed
Examples of the anthropotic argument
Big Bang- had a 1/6^60 chance of occurring
Gravity- forces need to be balanced to an accuracy of ten thausand, billion, billion, billion, billion
Earth- precise distance from the sun
What are Aquinas’ five ways?
The unmoved mover
Uncaused causer
Contingency
Degree
Teleological argument
What is the argument from motion (unmoved mover)
From Aristotle’s idea of change from potentiality to actuality.
Nothing can be moved or changed by itself.
There cannot be an infinite regression of movers.
There must be an unmoved mover which itself cannot be moved but started the chain of events. The unmoved mover is God
