Dialogues Part II: Cleanthes’
argument a posteriori
• There’s amazing order and adjustment
in the natural world.
• This bears a strong resemblance to
works designed by intelligent humans.
• So, by analogy, we can conclude that
whatever is responsible for the natural
world is an intelligent designer.
Immediate responses
• Demea:
– Is this the best we can do to show God’s existence? Nothing
but “experience and probability”? What about a priori
demonstrations?
• Philo:
– This isn’t even a very good argument from experience and
probability.
– Such arguments are based on resemblance. And the weaker
the resemblance, the weaker the argument. (Example:
circulation.)
– The resemblance between the universe and a house is very
weak, very remote. So your argument is nothing more than “a
guess, a conjecture, a presumption”.
• Cleanthes:
– These aren’t weak resemblances: look at the adjustment of
means to ends, look at the order—this is not a stretch.
Philo’s restatement of
Cleanthes’ argument
• Completely abstracting from experience, anything can
cause anything, you can’t rule anything out.
• Even upon observing the world, without a stock of
experience available, you still don’t have anything to
go on.
– [As far as we can know a priori, order and adjustment might
come from anything]
• Only experience and observation can tell us what
causes what.
• So order and adjustment points to intelligent design
only insofar as order and adjustment tends to come
from intelligent design in our experience.
• [That is, there’s no a priori principle that says
intelligent design is the only possible explanation. It
all depends on experience and observation]
Philo’s restatement of
Cleanthes’ argument
• Experience tells us (according to Cleanthes)
that matter has no internal principle of order,
whereas mind does have an internal
principle of order.
• Of course, it’s possible a priori that matter has
an internal principle of order, and that mind
doesn’t.
• But this is where experience comes in and
tells us that the opposite is true.
• So when we see order in matter, we know it
must have come from mind.
Philo’s objections
• Now, arguments from experience work by
taking previously observed cases and
transfer them to currently investigated cases.
• But such arguments work only if the cases are
similar to each other.
• You have to be extremely careful about the
similarity of the cases.
• It’s reckless to take data from one kind of case
and transfer it to a completely different kind
of case.
Reckless transfer: parts to whole
• Parts
– We’ve learned some things about how parts of
the universe operate on each other.
– Nature operates by lots of different principles
(intelligence, heat/cold, attraction/repulsion, ...).
• Whole
– But you’re trying to take what we’ve learned
from observing the parts and transfer it to the
whole universe.
– But what about the disproportion?
– And why select intelligence? There are lots of
other principles available.
Reckless transfer:
distant parts, mature to embryonic
• Distant parts
– We can’t assume that nature works the same way
in other distant parts of the universe.
– Even here, intelligence has a very “limited sphere
of action”.
• Mature to embryonic
– What we’ve learned concerns a finished and
mature world.
– We can’t transfer that to the origin of the world—
who knows how nature works in such a situation!
Unparalleled case
• Again, arguments from experience
require that the cases we’ve observed in
the past bear a strong resemblance to
the case currently under investigation.
• But the current case is without parallel.
• There can be no analogy to the origin of
the universe.
• We can’t use what we’ve learned from
our experience to shed light on it.
“Experience”?
• Philo asks whether Cleanthes can seriously tell him we knows
what caused the universe because of what we’ve learned from
experience.
• Cleanthes responds that Philo is abusing popular talk of
‘experience’, and adds that the same objections would apply to a
Copernican (“Have you other earths... which you have seen to
move?”)
• Philo interrupts, crying out that yes, we have seen other earths:
the other planets and moons.
• Galileo spent a lot of time carefully establishing the similarity
between other celestial bodies and the earth.
• This is what a good argument from experience requires: carefully
showing that we have good analogies to go on.
Part III: Cleanthes strikes back
• Cleanthes responds with an appeal to
common sense.
– He doesn’t need to establish the similarity,
because it’s so obvious it strikes everyone who
pays the slightest attention.
– Philo’s objections are clever intellectual
curiosities, but they don’t carry any weight.
– They should be refuted, not head-on with
intellectual grappling, but by way of examples.
• So he gives two big examples to defend his
argument.
Voice from the clouds
“Suppose, therefore, that an articulate voice were heard
in the clouds, much louder and more melodious than
any which human art could ever reach: Suppose, that
this voice were extended in the same instant over all
nations, and spoke to each nation in its own language
and dialect: Suppose, that the words delivered not only
contain a just sense and meaning, but convey some
instruction altogether worthy of a benevolent Being,
superior to mankind: Could you possibly hesitate a
moment concerning the cause of this voice? and must
you not instantly ascribe it to some design or purpose?
Yet I cannot see but all the same objections (if they merit
that appellation) which lie against the system of theism,
may also be produced against this inference.”
Voice from the clouds
• Would you stick to your guns?
– This “extraordinary voice” is without
parallel, it bears no strong resemblance to
human voices, ...
– Perhaps it came “from some accidental
whistling of the winds, not from any
divine reason or intelligence”
Vegetating library
“But to bring the case still nearer the present one of the
universe, I shall make two suppositions, which imply
not any absurdity or impossibility. Suppose that there is
a natural, universal, invariable language, common to
every individual of human race; and that books are
natural productions, which perpetuate themselves in the
same manner with animals and vegetables, by descent
and propagation. Several expressions of our passions
contain a universal language: all brute animals have a
natural speech, which, however limited, is very
intelligible to their own species. And as there are
infinitely fewer parts and less contrivance in the finest
composition of eloquence, than in the coarsest organised
body, the propagation of an Iliad or Æneid is an easier
supposition than that of any plant or animal.”
Vegetating library
“Suppose, therefore, that you enter into your library, thus
peopled by natural volumes, containing the most refined reason
and most exquisite beauty; could you possibly open one of them,
and doubt, that its original cause bore the strongest analogy to
mind and intelligence? When it reasons and discourses; when it
expostulates, argues, and enforces its views and topics; when it
applies sometimes to the pure intellect, sometimes to the
affections; when it collects, disposes, and adorns every
consideration suited to the subject; could you persist in asserting,
that all this, at the bottom, had really no meaning; and that the
first formation of this volume in the loins of its original parent
proceeded not from thought and design? Your obstinacy, I know,
reaches not that degree of firmness: even your sceptical play and
wantonness would be abashed at so glaring an absurdity.”
Vegetating library
• Be consistent
– “But if there be any difference, Philo, between this
supposed case and the real one of the universe, it is
all to the advantage of the latter. The anatomy of an
animal affords many stronger instances of design
than the perusal of Livy or Tacitus; and any objection
which you start in the former case, by carrying me
back to so unusual and extraordinary a scene as the
first formation of worlds, the same objection has place
on the supposition of our vegetating library. Choose,
then, your party, Philo, without ambiguity or evasion;
assert either that a rational volume is no proof of a
rational cause, or admit of a similar cause to all the
works of nature.”
Common sense and skepticism
• I thought skeptics were only supposed to reject
really complicated ‘out there’ reasoning.
• When natural instincts take over, then you yield to
them.
• But the design argument is a “natural” and
“convincing” argument.
– “Consider, anatomise the eye...”
• It’s your objections that are complicated and
“abstruse”.
• [After a bit of this, “Philo was a little embarrassed
and confounded”]
Demea steps in
with some ‘mysticism’
• Examples with language
– Your examples suggest that we could ‘enter into’ the mind of
God, just as we can when we read a text.
– But God’s mind is not like ours—God’s nature is
incomprehensible to mere mortals.
– And nature is not like an intelligible text—it “contains a great
and inexplicable riddle”
• Incomprehensibility
– All the materials of human thought (sentiments and ideas) are
designed for human life. They have no place in God’s mind.
– And the manner of human thought (fluctuating and
compounded) is not suitable for a perfect being.
– We use ordinary terms only to praise God, not to describe him
accurately.
Part IV
• Cleanthes questions the distinction between
mystical theism and atheism.
• Demea replies with the charge of anthropomorphism.
• Philo presses another objection to Cleanthes’
argument a posteriori
– We gain nothing by introducing a designer to explain
the order and adjustment in the natural world.
– After all, the designer will also be amazingly wellordered and adjusted, so this ‘explanation’ only shifts
the problem back a step.
Mystic = atheist?
• Cleanthes levels the charge:
– “[H]ow do you Mystics, who maintain the absolute
incomprehensibility of the Deity, differ from sceptics
or atheists, who assert, that the first cause of All is
unknown and unintelligible?”
– Is it just a matter of “sublime eulogies and
unmeaning epithets”?
• Demea returns the favor:
– Name-calling, eh? How about “anthropomorphite”?
– Nothing like a human mind is compatible with the
“perfect immutability and simplicity, which all true
theists ascribe to the Deity”.
Mystic = atheist?
• Cleanthes sticks to his guns:
– Mystics are atheists without knowing it: your ‘God’ has no
‘mind’ at all.
– “A mind, whose acts and sentiments and ideas are not
distinct and successive; one, that is wholly simple, and
totally immutable, is a mind which has no thought, no
reason, no will, no sentiment, no love, no hatred; or, in a
word, is no mind at all.”
– To say that your God has a mind is an “abuse of terms”.
• Philo has a little fun:
– By your reasoning, you might be the only true theist in the
world.
– And then what happens to the argument from “the
universal consent of mankind”?
Philo’s new objection
• There’s no gain in positing a designer
– Using pure a priori reason, if an amazingly well-ordered
world requires a designer, then an amazingly well-ordered
designer also requires a designer.
– There’s no difference between the two cases, a priori
anyway.
– Drawing on experience and observation, we reach the
same conclusion: both minds and material bodies are
delicately adjusted and ordered.
• Here comes a regress
– If we bring in a well-ordered mind to explain a wellordered world, then we need another well-ordered mind
to explain the first.
– And then we need yet another well-ordered mind.
– So we’ll have a regress of Designers designing Designers.
Internal principle of order?
• You can say that orderly minds have an internal
order to them.
• But then why not say the same thing of orderly
material bodies?
• Sure, we have experience of minds falling into order
on their own.
• But we have tons of experience of material bodies
falling into order on their own (generation and
vegetation).
• We have experience of disordered matter (death and
rotting), and of disordered minds (insanity), so
neither one seems to have order essentially.
Empty explanations
• Scholastic Aristotelians used to give empty
explanations all the time.
• They’d say that “bread nourished by its nutritive
faculty” and that “senna purged by its purgative
[faculty]”.
• [Molière famously had a doctor explaining why
opium put people to sleep: it’s because of its ‘virtus
dormitiva’]
• If you can say that order in the mind of the Designer
comes from some “rational faculty”, then why can’t
we also say that order in the natural world comes
from some “faculty of order and proportion”
Final exchange
• Cleanthes: You can give a satisfactory
explanation, even if you can’t explain the
new stuff cited in the explanation. It’s not like
explanations have to go on forever, until you
reach ultimate explanations.
• Philo: It’s okay to “explain particular effects
by more general causes”, but there’s nothing
gained in “explain[ing] a particular effect by
a particular cause, which [is] no more to be
accounted for than the effect itself”
Part V
• Philo raises another sort of objection.
– In characterizing this designer, all we’re allowed to
rely on is what we find in the natural world.
– So we have no basis for saying the designer is infinite.
– We have no basis for saying the designer is perfect (or
even excellent).
– We have no basis for saying there’s only one designer.
– We have no basis for saying the designer is immortal.
– We have no reason not to completely anthropomorphize
the designer.
• You can’t base your theology on this argument.
Part VI
• Philo offers another hypothesis
– Cleanthes reasons from experience and concludes
that, since the natural world is like a machine, it
comes from something like intelligent design.
– But there are other hypotheses available.
– Why not conclude that, since the world is like an
animal, it comes from something like generation?
• Cleanthes responds with some worries about
the age of the earth.
Part VII
• Philo offers another hypothesis
– The universe is like a living thing, so it comes from
something like vegetation or generation.
– This is even better than the intelligent design
hypothesis.
• Demea raises worries for this hypothesis
– Can Philo explain how this vegetation and
generation works?
– Wouldn’t a vegetating universe itself be a
remarkable argument for intelligent design?
Philo, shifting the challenge
• Cleanthes’ two presuppositions
– Our experience favors a ‘machine-design analogy’.
– And we can take our experience as a guide to the
universe as a whole.
• Philo moves from the second to the first
– He’s now (for the sake of argument) allowing the
second (“But to waive all objections drawn from this
topic…”)
– Instead, he’s going to challenge the first—our
experience offers even more support for a ‘organismreproduction analogy’.
– That is, even in our limited experience, order and
adjustment are found to result from natural processes
at least as much as from intelligent design.
Demea’s objections, Philo’s replies
• Demea: But how could a world come from vegetation or
generation?
• Philo: We can say that the universe is like a “great vegetable”
producing world-seeds. Or that it’s like an animal laying eggs.
• Demea: But how can you take plant and animal life as a guide
to the universe as a whole? These are completely different
kinds of cases.
• Philo: That’s what I’ve been saying! But if you do want to take
our limited experience as a guide, then we’ve got no other
standard besides resemblance.
• Demea: Can you explain how vegetation or generation work?
• Philo: As well as Cleanthes can explain how intelligent design
works. We don’t have any insight into the various operations
used by nature. We only know their effects.
Demea’s objections, Philo’s replies
• Demea: But if order arises from vegetation, isn’t that very
fact evidence of intelligent design?
• Philo: No; order comes from purely natural processes all
the time. If you insist that these ultimately come from
intelligent design, then you’re begging the question.
• Philo, cont’d: Moreover, if you insist on a further
explanation for vegetation producing order, then I’ll insist
on a further explanation for intelligent design producing
order. Cleanthes said, “We’ve got to stop somewhere,”
because otherwise we’re off on a regress.
– Indeed, generation has advantages over reason: in our
experience, reason always comes from generation, never
the other way around.
Philo sums up
“Compare, I beseech you, the consequences on both sides.
The world, say I, resembles an animal; therefore it is an
animal, therefore it arose from generation. The steps, I
confess, are wide; yet there is some small appearance of
analogy in each step. The world, says Cleanthes, resembles
a machine; therefore it is a machine, therefore it arose from
design. The steps are here equally wide, and the analogy
less striking. And if he pretends to carry on my hypothesis
a step farther, and to infer design or reason from the great
principle of generation, on which I insist; I may, with better
authority, use the same freedom to push farther his
hypothesis, and infer a divine generation or theogony from
his principle of reason. I have at least some faint shadow of
experience, which is the utmost that can ever be attained in
the present subject. Reason, in innumerable instances, is
observed to arise from the principle of generation, and
never to arise from any other principle.”
Part VIII
• Philo offers one more hypothesis
– The Epicurean hypothesis: an infinite series of
different arrangements of particles.
• And then a variation
– It cycles through lots of different disorderly
arrangements.
– When an orderly arrangement shows up, it ‘sticks’.
• Cleanthes raises some worries concerning
advantageous traits in living things.
• Philo admits that any positive hypothesis
concerning the origin of worlds has serious
problems—which is a victory for skepticism.
Reviving the Epicurean hypothesis
• Philo says he can make up all sorts of hypotheses
– Given “the nature of the subject”, there’s no limit to the
number of wild hypotheses that can be dreamed up.
– So he’ll revive “the most absurd system” ever: the Epicurean
hypothesis.
• The Epicurean hypothesis
– A finite number of particles goes through a series of
arrangements.
– Given an infinite number of arrangements, it’s guaranteed
that something beautiful and orderly and well-adjusted will
show up eventually.
– Demea protests that this involves matter acquiring motion on
its own.
– Philo replies that there’s nothing impossible about that, and
that experience shows lots of cases where (as far as we know)
matter is in motion on its own, without any agent responsible
(or maybe motion has always been going on).
A variation on
the Epicurean hypothesis
• Order that ‘sticks’
– Suppose that an orderly arrangement would
preserve itself in order.
– If so, then once the cycling series of disorderly
arrangements reached an orderly arrangement, it
would stay that way.
– And it would look just like design.
– It would be useless to insist on how welldesigned living things are—how could they stay
alive unless they were so well-designed?
– [A lot of people see a foreshadowing of Darwin in
this passage]
An exchange between
Cleanthes and Philo
• Cleanthes: But why are there so many
“conveniences and advantages” in the natural
world? These aren’t necessary for the mere
preservation of the species.
• Philo: All hypotheses about the origin of the world
have problems. Look at yours:
– In our experience, ideas are copied from objects, not vice
versa.
– In our experience, thought has influence on matter only
when it’s intimately connected with it.
– In our experience, things with minds eventually die.
• Philo, cont’d: So we should be careful about
condemning each other. None of us knows for sure.