Cleanthes In David Hume's Argument From Design

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In the Argument from Design, design is used to infer that there is an intelligent being, who designed the universe, and that this intelligent being is the first cause of humanity. Hume uses the character Cleanthes to communicate the Argument from Design, beginning on page 53 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Cleanthes describes the world as a machine that is composed of many smaller machines, each of which is made up of ever smaller machines, to a infinite point beyond our comprehension (Hume, 1990, pg. 53). Each of these machines runs with utter precision, adapting, adjusting, and they are the objects of man’s admiration, as they are beyond his abilities to create (Hume, 1990, pg. 53). Cleanthes then asserts that since the so-called machines are similar to one another, it is logical to infer that the first cause of the universe must be similar in mind to that of mankind, yet admits that the mind which created the universe must be much more grandiose than the mind of man, to have designed such a magnificent machine (Hume, 1990, pg. 53). …show more content…

57). Philo points out that despite Cleanthes observations being based in experience, and despite the observed correlations between similar causes and similar effects, that the correlation in this case isn’t reasonable (Hume, 1990, pg. 57). Philo’s argument against Cleanthes view states that with every change of an element in a circumstance, a new experiment is required to prove the previously presumed end result (Hume, 1990, pg. 57). Philo then expresses that only those of inferior thought processes would overlook the dissimilarities (Hume, 1990, pg.

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