Arguments From Analogy
Paley’s Watch
- A watch has complex functions that work together for a specific pupose
- Anything which exhibits these features must have had a designer
- The universe is like this but on a much more wondrous scale
- The universe had a wondrous designer – God
Problems With Analogies
- Dogs are warm blooded mammals
- Platypuses are also warm blooded mammals
- So they both give birth to live young
- The analogy looks good but …..
- Platypuses lay eggs and do not give birth to live young
Some Parts Of The Watch May Appear To Have No Purpose
- Paley dismisses the stone as having no purpose and not indicating a designer
- Isn’t the argument weakened if parts have no purpose?
- Paley though we should go with what we understand, we might never understand the purpose of some things
Hume
- Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1771) gives many criticisms of religious ideas that are still used today
- We have no experience of world making
- Remember that Hume states that all knowledge must come from experience
- We only know about watches because we have experienced human engineering
See Also
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- » Galapagos Finches
» From A Philosophy Crossword
» The Best Explanation
» Arguments From Analogy - Further Discussion
» The Designed Universe
[...] this to a mousetrap, which will not function if any of the parts are removed, suggesting an analogy with some living things which appear to have been designed for a purpose. He gives the eye as an [...]
[...] watch example compares the world to something we know: it is an argument from [...]