Our aims in this last part of the course: To understand and evaluate the specific arguments advanced in this book. To consider how this work, taken as a whole, represents an application of Hume's principles, as developed in the Enquiry. In light of this understanding, to consider how the work as a whole might represent Hume's position on the epistemic status of religious belief.

Last Time: Skepticism and the Design Argument: Hume’s Dialogues I-III The Prologue: The main subject of discussion will be the nature and attributes of the Deity, not Its/His existence. All the participants (Cleanthes, Philo, and Demea) agree on the existence of God. What is at issue is the nature of God – and how far (if at all) human reason and experience can pronounce on this issue. Cleanthes believes that we can know much about the Deity through our experience in the world. Philo and Demea dispute this – but for very different reasons.

Philosophical Skepticism (Dialogues Part I) The Dialogues begin precisely where the Enquiry ends: with a discussion of skepticism. Unless “total” or “absolute” skepticism is dismissed from the start, the discussion cannot even get underway. None of the participants (not even Philo) wish to embrace total skepticism. So the discussion of the power of human reason and experience to know the nature of God can proceed.

The Design Argument (Dialogues Part II) Philo: We can know that God (i.e., a first cause of the universe) exists, but we can’t say anything beyond that about his nature. "[T]he question can never be concerning the being but only the nature of the Deity…. we ought never to imagine that we comprehend the attributes of this divine Being, or to suppose that his perfections have any analogy or likeness to the perfections of a human creature" (p. 14).

Cleanthes' Riposte: “The Design Argument” "Look round 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 lessr machines.... 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 at once the existence of a Deity and his similarity to human mind and intelligence" (p. 15).

Cleanthes' A Posteriori Argument: P1: The world is one great machine, composed of lesser machines. P2: The world and its parts resemble productions of human contrivance. P3: The "rules of analogy" instruct us that similar effects bespeak similar causes. C: Therefore, 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.

Philo's Critique: "[W]henever you depart, in the least, from the similarity of cases, you diminish proportionately the evidence; and may at least bring it to a very weak analogy, which is confessedly liable to error and uncertainty" (p. 16). In other words, unless the universe as a whole (and in all of its part) really does closely resemble a machine (or a set of machines), no convincing inference can be made from the universe to a Divine Designer like us, only greater (Cleanthes’ conclusion).

Cleanthes' Rebuttal (Dialogues Part III) Cleanthes' "Vegetating Library Argument": P1: Books bear the undeniable mark of intelligent design. P2: Natural objects (e.g., living things) bear even stronger marks of intelligent design than books. P3: If it must be admitted that books are the product of design, the same must be admitted for natural objects. P4: It must be admitted that books are the products of design. C: Therefore, it must be admitted that natural objects are the products of thought and design. Question: How does this argument avoid simply begging the question?

The Nature of the Deity (Dialogues Parts IV-VI) Part IV -- God's Nature: Comprehensible or not? Demea (pp ): God is completely unlike human beings, or even persons as we understand that term. Doubt this? Think about it: Humans: the soul/mind is composed of various faculties, passions, sentiments, ideas, all in continual state of change. The Deity (according to all true theists): Perfect immutability and simplicity – no succession, no change, no acquisition, no diminution.

Cleanthes’ Response (p. 29): Demea's ascription to all “true theists” of the belief that God is utterly simple, immutable, etc. is equivalent to atheism in its results, because it would force us to deny that God is intelligent, or a person. A mind which is utterly simple, immutable, etc. would not be a mind at all. Right. But … how then are we supposed to imagine the mind of God? Is the mind of God utterly different from human minds, or just like them?

The Theist’s Dilemma: Mysticism or Anthropomorphism Either: The mind of God is utterly unlike human minds. But if so, then we cannot ascribe to God attributes like thought, intelligence, etc. In short, it is problematic to think of God as a mind at all -- mysticism. The mind of God is very similar to human minds. But if so, then it is problematic to think of this mind as sufficiently different from human minds to merit the appellation “divine” -- anthropomorphism.

Philo’s Challenge: Cleanthes’ argument presupposes that the world as we encounter it requires an explanation of some sort. More precisely: Ideal World  Material World But, “a mental world or universe of ideas requires a cause as much as does a material world or universe of objects" (p. 30). Another World  Ideal World  Material World Philo’s Challenge: “Have we not the same reason to trace that ideal world into another ideal world or new intelligent principle? But if we stop and go no farther, why go so far? Why not stop at the material world?” (p. 31)

The Infinite Explanatory Regress Dilemma: First Horn: P1: To render something intelligible, either it must be explained in terms of a previous cause, or it is not necessary to explain that thing in terms of a previous cause. P2: If the former, then the material world can be rendered intelligible by tracing it back to an ideal world (God). P3: But then, if this ideal world is itself to be rendered intelligible, it too must be traced back to a previous cause, and so on ad infinitum. P4: But this is impossible. C: Therefore, attempting to trace the material world back to an ideal world, rather than satisfying our curiosity, simply relocates our puzzlement and ignorance.

The Infinite Explanatory Regress Dilemma: Second Horn: P1: To render something intelligible, either it must be explained in terms of a previous cause, or it is not necessary to explain that thing in terms of a previous cause. P2: If the latter, then the ideal world does not need to be traced back to a previous cause, and so on ad infinitum. We can stop at this ideal world, and consider it to just “be”. P3: But if so, then we could just as well stop at the material world, and consider it to just “be”. C: Therefore, there is no need to trace the material world back to an ideal world.

Cleanthes' Response, and Philo’s Retort: To explain something, we identify its cause. It is not necessary to identify the cause of the cause, etc. "I have found a Deity; and here I stop my inquiry. Let those go further who are wiser or more enterprising" (pp ). Philo's Retort: But explaining something we are familiar with (the world) by reference to something we are not familiar with (God), when the latter itself admits of no further explanation, does not take us any distance from our initial starting point. "An ideal system [i.e., God], arranged of itself, without precedent design, is not a whit more explicable than a material one which attains its order in a like manner; nor is there any more difficulty in the latter supposition than in the former" (p. 33).

Dialogues Part V: The "Inconveniences" of Anthropomorphism Cleanthes' Principle: "Like effects prove like causes" (p. 34). So, just as we can infer an intelligent human designer from well-made human artifacts, so too we can infer a perfect Designer from the perfect (machine-like) character of the world. Philo’s Principle: Fine, but our claims about the cause of any effect ought to be proportioned to the nature of that effect: "Now it is certain that the liker the effects are which are seen and the liker the causes which are inferred, the stronger is the argument. Every departure on either side diminishes the probability and renders the experiment less conclusive" (p. 34).

Thus (pp ): As the world itself in not infinite, we have no reason on this basis to ascribe infinity to any of the attributes of the Deity. As there are "many inexplicable difficulties in the works of Nature," we have no reason to ascribe perfection to the Deity. We know that many well-constructed human artifacts result not from intelligence, but from a long period of trial and error (cf. shipbuilding). Consequently, we need not consider the Deity to be intelligent. As many excellent human contrivances are the products of many working together (cf. ships, buildings, cities), we have no reason to think that the Deity is unitary.

Human artificers are mortal, and renew their species by generation. So we have ample basis for believing the Deity (or deities) to arise by generation, of being gendered, and of reproducing as in humans. Human artificers all have physical bodies. So we ought to suppose the deities to have noses, ears, and to be corporeal. In summary, if Cleanthes' principle ("Like effects prove like causes" ) were to be taken seriously, the world might, for all we know, be only "the first rude essay of some infant deity," or "the work of some dependent, inferior deity," or "the production of old age and dotage in some superannuated deity" (p. 37).

Again, Cleanthes' Dilemma: Cleanthes can either: Take his experience of nature as his guide to the nature of the Deity, and be prepared to embrace all the anthropomorphic consequences (and more) enumerated above. Reject his experience of nature as a guide to the nature of the Deity, but admit that we have no other basis for inferring the attributes of the Deity, and hence be prepared to embrace complete mysticism (a la Demea), or theological skepticism (a la Philo). Either way, however, Cleanthes' attempt to justify the orthodox conception of God fails.

Dialogues Part VI: The World as an Animal(?) Philo: Cleanthes compares the world to a machine. But doesn't it as much (or more) resemble an animal? "The closest sympathy is perceived throughout the entire system: And each part or member, in performing its proper offices, operates both to its own preservation and to that of the whole. The world, therefore, I infer, is an animal; and the Deity is the Soul of the world, actuating it, and actuated by it" (pp ). Question: Why might Philo's comparison of the world to an animal (rather than to a machine) be fatal to Cleanthes' argument?