Hume’s articulation of the "Argument from Design"
Cleanthes, Hume’s proclaimed hero of the story, postulates a version of the Argument for Design in Part II of the Dialogues. The Argument from Design "proceeds from mechanical order and symmetry of the world to infer that there must be an intelligent cause responsible for the order and symmetry." In Cleanthes’ exact words:
Look around the world: Contemplate the whole and every part of it: You will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions, to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with accuracy, which ravishes into admiration all men, who have contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since therefore the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work, which he has executed. By this argument a posteriori, and by this argument alone, do we prove the existence of a Deity, and his similarity to human mind and intelligence.
Cleanthes’ position, as put forth above, can be summed up as follows:
1) We find the world to be one great machine.
2) This machine (the world) resembles human-made machines.
3) Humans use thought, wisdom, and intelligence to design machines.
*4) By analogy, the author of Nature (God) is somewhat similar to the mind of man.
Questions for you…