Re: William Paley

P.J. Gann wrote:
> "John Wilkins" <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:dg58l0$1g8j$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>>Gary Bohn wrote:
>>
>>>"*Hemidactylus*" <ecphoric@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
>>>news:1126410343.673288.183620@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Josh Hayes wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>"rja.carnegie@xxxxxxxxxx" <rja.carnegie@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
>>>>>news:1126392179.826545.178490@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>maff wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>William Paley
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Yes, we know. What about him? Is this an ongoing project whose
>>>>>>explanation I've missed?
>>>>>
>>>>>DATELINE: Lincoln, Lincolnshire, ENGLAND
>>>>>
>>>>>This bulletin: William Paley is still dead.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>He's been ex-Humed.
>>>>
>>>>I bet Wilkins at least gets that one. He's a philosopher, unlike the
>>>>resident bio-bunch.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>We now return you to your
>>>>>regular fetid and festering sewer.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Yes we know, Paley was more or less debunked by Hume. It was quite
>>>clever, but would have been much funnier had I thought of it.
>>>
>>
>>Ektually, Hume debunked Paley *before* Paley wrote...
>>
>
> How was Paley debunked?

Paley relies on an argument from analogy between the complexity of objects due
to human design and the complexity of living objects. Hume wrote:

"What I chiefly scruple in this subject, said Philo, is not so much that all
religious arguments are by Cleanthes reduced to experience, as that they
appear not to be even the most certain and irrefragable of that inferior kind.
That a stone will fall, that fire will burn, that the earth has solidity, we
have observed a thousand and a thousand times; and when any new instance of
this nature is presented, we draw without hesitation the accustomed inference.
The exact similarity of the cases gives us a perfect assurance of a similar
event; and a stronger evidence is never desired nor sought after. But wherever
you depart, in the least, from the similarity of the cases, you diminish
proportionably the evidence; and may at last bring it to a very weak analogy,
which is confessedly liable to error and uncertainty. After having experienced
the circulation of the blood in human creatures, we make no doubt that it
takes place in Titius and Maevius. But from its circulation in frogs and
fishes, it is only a presumption, though a strong one, from analogy, that it
takes place in men and other animals. The analogical reasoning is much weaker,
when we infer the circulation of the sap in vegetables from our experience
that the blood circulates in animals; and those, who hastily followed that
imperfect analogy, are found, by more accurate experiments, to have been mistaken.

If we see a house, Cleanthes, we conclude, with the greatest certainty, that
it had an architect or builder; because this is precisely that species of
effect which we have experienced to proceed from that species of cause. But
surely you will not affirm, that the universe bears such a resemblance to a
house that we can with the same certainty infer a similar cause, or that the
analogy is here entire and perfect. The dissimilitude is so striking, that the
utmost you can here pretend to is a guess, a conjecture, a presumption
concerning a similar cause; and how that pretension will be received in the
world, I leave you to consider."

....

"Were a man to abstract from every thing which he knows or has seen, he would
be altogether incapable, merely from his own ideas, to determine what kind of
scene the universe must be, or to give the preference to one state or
situation of things above another. For as nothing which he clearly conceives
could be esteemed impossible or implying a contradiction, every chimera of his
fancy would be upon an equal footing; nor could he assign any just reason why
he adheres to one idea or system, and rejects the others which are equally
possible.

Again; after he opens his eyes, and contemplates the world as it really is, it
would be impossible for him at first to assign the cause of any one event,
much less of the whole of things, or of the universe. He might set his fancy a
rambling; and she might bring him in an infinite variety of reports and
representations. These would all be possible; but being all equally possible,
he would never of himself give a satisfactory account for his preferring one
of them to the rest. Experience alone can point out to him the true cause of
any phenomenon.

Now, according to this method of reasoning, Demea, it follows, (and is,
indeed, tacitly allowed by Cleanthes himself,) that order, arrangement, or the
adjustment of final causes, is not of itself any proof of design; but only so
far as it has been experienced to proceed from that principle. For ought we
can know a priori, matter may contain the source or spring of order originally
within itself as well as mind does; and there is no more difficulty in
conceiving, that the several elements, from an internal unknown cause, may
fall into the most exquisite arrangement, than to conceive that their ideas,
in the great universal mind, from a like internal unknown cause, fall into
that arrangement. The equal possibility of both these suppositions is allowed.
But, by experience, we find, (according to Cleanthes,) that there is a
difference between them. Throw several pieces of steel together, without shape
or form; they will never arrange themselves so as to compose a watch. Stone,
and mortar, and wood, without an architect, never erect a house. But the ideas
in a human mind, we see, by an unknown, inexplicable economy, arrange
themselves so as to form the plan of a watch or house. Experience, therefore,
proves, that there is an original principle of order in mind, not in matter.
From similar effects we infer similar causes. The adjustment of means to ends
is alike in the universe, as in a machine of human contrivance. The causes,
therefore, must be resembling.

I was from the beginning scandalized, I must own, with this resemblance, which
is asserted, between the Deity and human creatures; and must conceive it to
imply such a degradation of the Supreme Being as no sound Theist could endure.
With your assistance, therefore, Demea, I shall endeavour to defend what you
justly call the adorable mysteriousness of the Divine Nature, and shall refute
this reasoning of Cleanthes, provided he allows that I have made a fair
representation of it.

When Cleanthes had assented, Philo, after a short pause, proceeded in the
following manner.

That all inferences, Cleanthes, concerning fact, are founded on experience;
and that all experimental reasonings are founded on the supposition that
similar causes prove similar effects, and similar effects similar causes; I
shall not at present much dispute with you. But observe, I entreat you, with
what extreme caution all just reasoners proceed in the transferring of
experiments to similar cases. Unless the cases be exactly similar, they repose
no perfect confidence in applying their past observation to any particular
phenomenon. Every alteration of circumstances occasions a doubt concerning the
event; and it requires new experiments to prove certainly, that the new
circumstances are of no moment or importance. A change in bulk, situation,
arrangement, age, disposition of the air, or surrounding bodies; any of these
particulars may be attended with the most unexpected consequences: and unless
the objects be quite familiar to us, it is the highest temerity to expect with
assurance, after any of these changes, an event similar to that which before
fell under our observation. The slow and deliberate steps of philosophers
here, if any where, are distinguished from the precipitate march of the
vulgar, who, hurried on by the smallest similitude, are incapable of all
discernment or consideration.

But can you think, Cleanthes, that your usual phlegm and philosophy have been
preserved in so wide a step as you have taken, when you compared to the
universe houses, ships, furniture, machines, and, from their similarity in
some circumstances, inferred a similarity in their causes? Thought, design,
intelligence, such as we discover in men and other animals, is no more than
one of the springs and principles of the universe, as well as heat or cold,
attraction or repulsion, and a hundred others, which fall under daily
observation. It is an active cause, by which some particular parts of nature,
we find, produce alterations on other parts. But can a conclusion, with any
propriety, be transferred from parts to the whole? Does not the great
disproportion bar all comparison and inference? From observing the growth of a
hair, can we learn any thing concerning the generation of a man? Would the
manner of a leaf's blowing, even though perfectly known, afford us any
instruction concerning the vegetation of a tree?

But, allowing that we were to take the operations of one part of nature upon
another, for the foundation of our judgment concerning the origin of the
whole, (which never can be admitted,) yet why select so minute, so weak, so
bounded a principle, as the reason and design of animals is found to be upon
this planet? What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain
which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole
universe? Our partiality in our own favour does indeed present it on all
occasions; but sound philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an
illusion.

So far from admitting, continued Philo, that the operations of a part can
afford us any just conclusion concerning the origin of the whole, I will not
allow any one part to form a rule for another part, if the latter be very
remote from the former. Is there any reasonable ground to conclude, that the
inhabitants of other planets possess thought, intelligence, reason, or any
thing similar to these faculties in men? When nature has so extremely
diversified her manner of operation in this small globe, can we imagine that
she incessantly copies herself throughout so immense a universe? And if
thought, as we may well suppose, be confined merely to this narrow corner, and
has even there so limited a sphere of action, with what propriety can we
assign it for the original cause of all things? The narrow views of a peasant,
who makes his domestic economy the rule for the government of kingdoms, is in
comparison a pardonable sophism.

But were we ever so much assured, that a thought and reason, resembling the
human, were to be found throughout the whole universe, and were its activity
elsewhere vastly greater and more commanding than it appears in this globe;
yet I cannot see, why the operations of a world constituted, arranged,
adjusted, can with any propriety be extended to a world which is in its embryo
state, and is advancing towards that constitution and arrangement. By
observation, we know somewhat of the economy, action, and nourishment of a
finished animal; but we must transfer with great caution that observation to
the growth of a foetus in the womb, and still more in the formation of an
animalcule in the loins of its male parent. Nature, we find, even from our
limited experience, possesses an infinite number of springs and principles,
which incessantly discover themselves on every change of her position and
situation. And what new and unknown principles would actuate her in so new and
unknown a situation as that of the formation of a universe, we cannot, without
the utmost temerity, pretend to determine. A very small part of this great
system, during a very short time, is very imperfectly discovered to us; and do
we then pronounce decisively concerning the origin of the whole?

Admirable conclusion! Stone, wood, brick, iron, brass, have not, at this time,
in this minute globe of earth, an order or arrangement without human art and
contrivance; therefore the universe could not originally attain its order and
arrangement, without something similar to human art. But is a part of nature a
rule for another part very wide of the former? Is it a rule for the whole? Is
a very small part a rule for the universe? Is nature in one situation, a
certain rule for nature in another situation vastly different from the former?

And can you blame me, Cleanthes, if I here imitate the prudent reserve of
Simonides, who, according to the noted story, being asked by Hiero, What God
was? desired a day to think of it, and then two days more; and after that
manner continually prolonged the term, without ever bringing in his definition
or description? Could you even blame me, if I answered at first, that I did
not know, and was sensible that this subject lay vastly beyond the reach of my
faculties? You might cry out sceptic and rallier, as much as you pleased: but
having found, in so many other subjects much more familiar, the imperfections
and even contradictions of human reason, I never should expect any success
from its feeble conjectures, in a subject so sublime, and so remote from the
sphere of our observation. When two species of objects have always been
observed to be conjoined together, I can infer, by custom, the existence of
one wherever I see the existence of the other; and this I call an argument
from experience. But how this argument can have place, where the objects, as
in the present case, are single, individual, without parallel, or specific
resemblance, may be difficult to explain. And will any man tell me with a
serious countenance, that an orderly universe must arise from some thought and
art like the human, because we have experience of it? To ascertain this
reasoning, it were requisite that we had experience of the origin of worlds;
and it is not sufficient, surely, that we have seen ships and cities arise
from human art and contrivance."

[From <http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/dnr.htm#A2> - the Dialogies were
pushumously published in 1779. Paley wrote in 1794. There is evidence Paley
had read Hume, but I suspect that he didn't think the work concluded against
his opinion.]

In short, order does not imply design, and the analogy is weak.

--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: evolvethought.blogspot.com
"Darwin's theory has no more to do with philosophy than any other
hypothesis in natural science." Tractatus 4.1122

.

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