Paley Design Argument

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Paley William Paley (1743-1802) was an Anglican clergyman, he was well known for his writings in philosophy so much so that one of his books was regarded as very influential and required reading at Cambridge until the 20th century. His argument for the existence of God is not seen as original however it was still seen as important when looking at the existence of God. Paley’s book was published 23 years after Hume’s Dialogue of natural religion. In Paley’s book Natural Theology he put forward the idea that we could understand God by looking at the world which is God’s creation. Paley’s design argument is established on regularity, purpose and order and is divided into two parts; design qua purpose and design qua regularity. Natural Theology focus on Paley putting forward the idea that everything is designed for a purpose and everything in the world has had some kind of craftsmanship and skill put into it. He discusses his ideas of suitability referring to the conditions of animals and their life. All is referred to as the design qua purpose which is based on analogy. The analogy was very popular at this time when the topic of this argument of the existence of God came up. Many scholars made comparisons between the natural universe and man-made objects using the composition of the universe and the features such as the eye. At this time (18th century) the pocket watch had recently been discovered. Paley put forward an analogy of the watch and the watchmaker to compare it complication of the universe and complexity of this man made watch. However this design was not based on just purpose Paley referred to regularity in his argument observing the universe and concluding it demanded an intelligent mind and some explanation. He had evidence to support his view referring to Newton’s laws of motion and gravity and putting forward the idea that the rotation
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