PHIL 1100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Watchmaker Analogy, Teleological Argument, Cosmological Argument

• School: Cornell University
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 1100
• Professor: Karen Bennett

Document Summary

Sees the mark of the designer, essentially baseline creationist theory. Takes as a premise that the world exists and is well ordered. 1. the world contains many things that are intricate/well-functioning/well adapted. 2. these things could not have come to be by chance. 1. they must have been designed by an intelligent designer who had foresight and a plan. 3 from 1 and 2 by inference to the best explanation. These arguments do not take into account evolution because evolution did not exist. It could have been any agent; does not say the argument still exists. Nature of the intelligent designer or the current existence of the intelligent designer. Watch is an analogy to a living creature. The world also contains some bad things (russell"s argument) Could counter-argue that these too serve a grander purpose. It doesn"t change that there are well designed things. Does everything intricate/etc. have to have a designer? (russell"s counter to the cosmological argument)