response to Mills criticisms about the purpose of God‚ it may be that Paley and Aquinas’ theories are concerned with features of design in our world to prove the existence of God and were not yet concerned with the problems and flaws within nature. David Hume rebuked against Paley’s watch analogy by stating that you cannot compare something inorganic like a watch to our organic world as it is incomparable and therefore an invalid argument. Further stating that our worlds complexities are far more superior
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1. Hume’s Influences In a 1737 letter‚ Hume wrote that readers of the Treatise would benefit by looking at writings by Nicolas Malebranche‚ George Berkeley‚ Pierre Bayle‚ and René Descartes: I shall submit all my Performances to your Examination‚ & to make you enter into them more easily‚ I desire of you‚ if you have Leizure‚ to read once over le Recherche de la Verité of Pere Malebranche‚ the Principles of Human Knowledge by Dr Berkeley‚ some of the more metaphysical Articles of Baile’s Dictionary;
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David Hume was a Scottish philosopher who lived in the mid to late 1700’s. He wrote on a variety of topics‚ metaphysics‚ aesthetics‚ ethics‚ the self‚ and more. However‚ some of his most intriguing and significant work was done on the philosophy of religion. Though he was often very definitive and straight forward in his works‚ he never made a truly positive statement regarding his religious beliefs. Much evidence exists suggesting that he was an atheist‚ however he often seems to waver and frequently
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2014 November 17th‚ 2014 “The Empiricists: the importance of experience in the works of John Locke‚ George Berkeley‚ and David Hume” Empiricism‚ or the belief that knowledge is achieved through the senses‚ was a popular belief amongst some of the greatest modern philosophers. Perhaps the most prominent Empiricists were John Locke‚ George Berkeley and David Hume‚ all of whom are regarded as some of the most influential philosophers of the last 500 years. Each of those philosophers can be considered
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The design argument attempts to explain the existence of god through things we can see in the world around us. It is otherwise known as the “teleological argument”. “Telos” is the Greek word for purpose the teleological argument uses the idea of purpose‚ order and complexity which we can observe in the universe in order to explain and attempt to prove the existence of god. The design argument is an a prosteriori argument as it uses experience of the world which can be observed in order to reach
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intelligence. (Hume‚ and Smith 143) Cleanthes argues here that the universe is like a purposefully made machine––only an extremely intricate‚ big‚ orderly‚ and complex one. He asserts that since an intelligent‚ human creator must design every machine (as machines do not assemble themselves randomly nor by chance) we can justifiably assume that an intelligent creator‚ whom instead holds divine-like‚ rather than human-like‚ properties‚ must have designed the universe as well. However‚ Hume attempts to
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of him‚ Descartes and Paley suggest that we can know God and that he is within our understanding. Throughout the readings they describe and argue how we can now the existence of God and the attributes that are associated with him. However‚ David Hume would refute these claims saying‚ through his dialogues that we cannot know the attributes or even for that matter the existence. During this paper I will analyze Descartes and Paley’s arguments in comparison with David Hume’s arguments that
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causal power. In order to do this I will use one of his most important claims (NC) “We never observe any such causal power in any of our experiences” and see where (NC) fits into his attack and also give a better explanation of what (NC) means. Hume starts his justification of (NC) by stating that every idea we hold is inspired from an impression in the world. Thus‚ the concept of a circle comes from circular objects we observe in the world with our senses. It is this sensory experiences that
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have attempted to define miracles in their own way. In these definition they are usually for or against the existence of miracles‚ for example take two contrasting definitions Ward and Hume. Ward says miracles are events which god intervenes because he only knows the consequences of the action. On the other hand‚ Hume is a philosopher who is totally against the idea of miracles‚ he says miracles do not exist because they violate the laws of nature. Knowing this‚ god cannot intervene because he would
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Miracle is an event that goes against usual of nature or appearing to break the law of science. Hume defined miracles as a “violation of the laws of nature” and consequently rejected their occurrence as both improbable and impractical. Many philosophers back this view up to a certain extent‚ such as Wiles. However Aquinas rejects Hume’s arguments due to the lack of belief of people’s testimonies to be true. Hume (1771-1776) was initially known as an intellectual for his literary works. He was an empiricist
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