-/- Some phenomena within nature exhibit such exquisiteness of structure, function or interconnectedness that many people have found it natural—if not inescapable—to see a deliberative and directive mind behind those phenomena. The mind in question, being prior to nature itself, is typically taken to be supernatural. Philosophically inclined thinkers have both historically and at present labored to shape the relevant intuition into a more formal, logically rigorous inference. The resultant theistic arguments, in their various logical forms, share a focus on (...) plan, purpose, intention and design, and are thus classified as teleological arguments (or, frequently, as arguments from or to design). -/- Although enjoying some prominent defenders over the centuries, such arguments have also attracted serious criticisms from a number of major historical and contemporary thinkers. Both critics and advocates are found not only among philosophers, but come from scientific and other disciplines as well. In the following discussion, major variant forms of teleological arguments will be distinguished and explored, traditional philosophical and other criticisms will be discussed, and the most prominent contemporary turns (cosmic fine tuning arguments, many-worlds theories, and the present Intelligent Design debate) will be tracked. Discussion will conclude with a brief look at one historically important non-inferential approach to the issue. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction: Setting Up the Argument The Evidence for Fine‐Tuning Epistemic Probability Determining k′ and the Comparison Range Justifying Premises (1) and (2) The Multiverse Hypothesis Miscellaneous Objections Conclusion: Putting the Argument in Perspective References.

This is a condensed version of an in-process book on the fine-tuning argument for God’s existence. In this 48,000 word essay, I first develop a probabilistic framework for articulating the argument, and then use this framework to answer in detail many of the objections commonly raised against it. Along the way, I present some of the fine-tuning evidence itself and consider major objections against the evidence; further, there are two major sections dealing with the multiverse objection, particularly that based on (...) inflationary cosmology. (shrink)

This paper proposes to model legal reasoning asdialectical theory-constructiondirected by teleology. Precedents are viewed asevidence to be explained throughtheories. So, given a background of factors andvalues, the parties in a case canbuild their theories by using a set of operators,which are called theory constructors.The objective of each party is to provide theoriesthat both explain the evidence (theprecedents) and support the decision wished by thatparty. This leads to theory-basedargumentation, i.e., a dialectical exchange ofcompeting theories, which support opposedoutcomes by explaining the same (...) evidence and appealingto the same values. The winneris the party that can reply with a more coherent theoryto all theories of its adversary. (shrink)

The first section of Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals contains a teleological argument, the aim of which is to show that the natural purpose of human reason lies not in securing happiness but in morality. While the teleological argument is widely considered to be digressive and unconvincing in the secondary literature, in this article I attempt to show that the argument is neither digressive nor unconvincing. I argue that it fulfills an important synthetic task in the (...) Groundwork (even if in a preliminary manner), that it is consistent with Kant’s views on natural teleology at the time, and that the criticism of happiness contained therein is as convincing as Kant’s criticism of happiness in the rest of the treatise. (shrink)

Recent discoveries in physics, cosmology and biochemistry have captured the public imagination and made the Design Argument - the theory that God created the world according to a specific plan - the object of renewed scientific and philosophical interest. This accessible but serious introduction to the design problem brings together new perspectives from prominent scientists and philosophers including Paul Davies, Richard Swinburne, Sir Martin Rees, Michael Behe, Elliot Sober and Peter van Inwagen.

Prompted by questions raised in the public arena concerning the validity of arguments for the existence of God based on “design” in the universe, I explore a traditional teleological argument for the existence of God. Using the arguments offered by Thomas Aquinas as fairly representative of this classical line of argumentation going back to Aristotle, I attempt to uncover the hidden premises and construct arguments for the existence of God which are deductive in nature. To justify the premises (...) of Aquinas’s argument, I begin by presenting an argument to justify the existence of “final causes,” with a focus on answering questions about the biological implications of these causes for evolutionary theory. Then, I attempt to construct two teleological proofs for the existence of God. Finally, I offer some implications of this reasoning for the contemporary disputes over ID/evolution in education. (shrink)

Much has been made of how Darwinian thinking destroyed proofs for the existence of God from ‘design’ in the universe. I challenge that prevailing view by looking closely at classical ‘teleological’ arguments for the existence of God. One version championed by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas stems from how chance is not a sufficient kind of ultimate explanation of the universe. In the course of constructing this argument, I argue that the classical understanding of teleology is no less necessary in (...) modern Darwinian biology than it was in Aristotle's time. In fact, modern biology strengthens the claims that teleological arguments make by vindicating many of their key features. As a consequence, I show how Aristotle and Aquinas' teleological argument for an intelligent First Cause remains valid. (shrink)

The proofs for God's existence advanced in the most prominent theological work of Averroes (d. 1198), the Kita^b al-kashf, have been neglected, largely because the book has commonly – and correctly – been viewed as being meant for popular consumption. This article argues that although Averroes' arguments are non-technical, the Commentator nevertheless takes pains not to speak against his philosophical beliefs. Averroes distinguishes between inductive and deductive arguments, with conventional arguments from design falling into the former camp. Averroes also assigns (...) a place for teleological argumentation when assigning a special role for the prime mover within the hierarchy of unmoved movers. (shrink)

After a discussion of several concepts of explanation, in which the criterion of simplicity is emphasized and some interesting historical examples are used as illustration, this paper presents the cosmological and teleological arguments. The central claim is that the hypothesis of theism is more simple and elegant and so more rational than any of its alternatives.

In this article the author develops a framework for a pragma-dialectical reconstruction of teleological argumentation in a legal context. Ideas taken from legal theory are integrated in a pragma-dialectical model for analyzing and evaluating argumentation, thus providing a more systematic and elaborate framework for assessing the quality of teleological arguments in a legal context. Teleological argumentation in a legal context is approached as a specific form of pragmatic argumentation. The legal criteria that are (...) relevant for the evaluation of teleological argumentation are discussed and translated in terms of critical questions that are relevant for the evaluation of the various forms of teleological argumentation. (shrink)

Kant’s claim that we must postulate the immortality of the soul is polarizing. While much attention has been paid to two standard arguments in its defense (one moral-psychological, the other rational), I contend that a favorite argument of Kant’s from the apogee of his critical period, namely, the teleological argument, deserves renewed attention. This paper reconstructs it and exhibits what makes it unique (though not necessarily superior) in relation to the other arguments. In particular, its form (as third-personal or (...) descriptive, beginning from observations) and related force of assent (as a subjectively universal reflective judgment) set it apart from the other arguments. My goal is to establish that any engagement with Kant’s immortality postulate must include equal consideration of the teleological argument in order to be complete. (shrink)

One of the most popular accounts of the teleological argument for the existence of God is the analogical account that is the center of Hume’s knocker criticisms. Since Hume’s age, many theist scholars have attempted to propose convincing responses. Motahari is one of the rigorous thinkers who tackled the challenges which Hume posed. The purpose of this paper is to address Hume’s criticisms and assess Motahari’s rejoinders to them. It will be argued that Motahari’s responses do not seem successful. (...) Although Motahari has tried to refute Hume’s criticisms in some of his works, he implicitly endorsed Hume’s assessment of the analogical account of the teleological argument in other works, and came ultimately close to the Hume’s view. As Hume believed that the argument from design is not a successful philosophical argument to prove God’s existence that the theist contend, Motahari also admits at the end that this argument alone cannot prove God’s existence and emphasizes that the argument from design cannot prove God of Abraham’s religions, that is a person with necessary being, who is immaterial and eternal, is omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good, and the creator of the universe. Motahari ultimately believed in deficiency of the argument from design too, and assessed it as an argument with limited functions for God’s existence. (shrink)

AristotleÕs central argument for teleologyÑthough not necessarily his conclusionÑis repeated in the teleological arguments of Isaac Newton, Immanuel Kant, William Paley, and Charles Darwin. To appreciate AristotleÕs argument and its influence I assert, first, that AristotleÕs naturalistic teleology must be distinguished from PlatoÕs anthropomorphic one; second, the form of AristotleÕs arguments for teleology should be read as instances of inferences to the best explanation. On my reading, then, both NewtonÕs and PaleyÕs teleological arguments are Aristotelian while their conclusions (...) are Platonic. Kant and DarwinÕs arguments are likewise Aristotelian while their conclusions are unique. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: I. Kant's Practical Political Teleology II. Demands of Practical Reason and Nature's Will III. Perpetual Peace as the End of Right.

In this paper I argue that teleology and a proper teleological analysis of the uterus is important for a comprehensive understanding of the rights of the unborn. I argue that a right to life entails the right to use those organs that naturally function for an individual’s survival. Consequently, an unborn child has a right to his mother’s uterus. If this is accepted, bodily-rights arguments for abortion such as those proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson and David Boonin are completely (...) undermined. While Thomson and Boonin may be justified in arguing the right to life does not always entail the right to use another person’s body, I argue that the right to life of the unborn does entail the right to use their mother’s body. (shrink)

The famous triad of ‘rational proofs’ of God’s existence may, if their underlying intuitions are taken at face value, be reversed to prove the contrary, namely the non-existence of God. The ontological argument, for example, proceeds from the notion of God as the ‘real most’ or ‘absolutely real’ being. However, the existence of an entity thus defined must be beyond doubt, for if distinguishing between ‘levels of reality’ makes any sense at all, ‘more real’ must also mean ‘more manifest’. And (...) since a being whose existence is beyond doubt is greater than that whose existence is in doubt, God, to fit the definition provided by St. Anselm, must be a being the existence of which cannot be doubted or, more strictly, the existence of which can only come to be doubted if He did not exist to dispel all doubts. Hence it follows that God does not exist, because it is an undeniable fact that His existence is subject to doubt. This paper is not, however, about theexistence of God, it is about the inherent dialectic of theological reason that seeks non-natural or supernatural explanations for natural phenomena. (shrink)

Many things in the natural world work so well that they seem to have been designed. But by what? Could nature itself, by processes including those of evolution, be the designer? Or must their complex structure and function be attributed to some intelligent designer or God? Is natural design compatible with intelligent design? How good is the argument from the presence of design to an intelligent designer? And if we could legitimately infer the probable existence of an intelligent designer from (...) the presence of design in the natural world, what could we then infer about that designer's nature? (shrink)

Argumentation schemes are forms of reasoning that are fallible but correctable within a self-correcting framework. Their use provides a basis for taking rational action or for reasonably accepting a conclusion as a tentative hypothesis, but they are not deductively valid. We argue that teleological reasoning can provide the basis for justifying the use of argument schemes both in monological and dialogical reasoning. We consider how such a teleological justification, besides being inspired by the aim of directing a (...) bounded cognizer to true belief and correct choices, needs to take into account the attitudes of dialogue partners as well as normative models of dialogue and communicative activity types, in particular social and cultural settings. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Traditional Analogical Arguments Arguments to the Best Explanation Arguments from the Sciences Probability and World Hypotheses Is the Designer God? Works cited.

Design arguments make a case for the existence of God based on examples of apparent design or purposiveness in the natural world. Current versions of the argument proceed, not in terms of analogies between the universe and human artifacts, but as inductive arguments to the best explanation of the data. Theism is offered as the simplest hypothesis that can explain facts such as the mathematical elegance and intelligibility of the laws of the nature. The design argument has recently received new (...) life from discoveries regarding the fine-tuning required for any universe capable of sustaining life. (shrink)

Marjorie Grene has argued in a number of contexts that any attempt to reduce the explanation of human actions to “mechanistic” explanations is doomed to failure in advance because it is absurd. “This argument examines the status of the reductivist thesis in its own terms and reduces it to absurdity …” ; “the attempt to reduce human purposive, or ‘intentional,‘ action to physiology and ultimately to physics and chemistry is an absurdity rather than simply a confusion”. I wish to show (...) that this argument is fallacious because it involves a petitio principii; and if Plato can be credited with introducing the same argument in the Theaetetus, as she suggests, so much the worse for Plato. (shrink)

B F Scarlett; Formal and Teleological Elements in Hirst’s Argument for a Liberal Curriculum, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 18, Issue 2, 30 May 2006.

B F Scarlett; Formal and Teleological Elements in Hirst’s Argument for a Liberal Curriculum, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 18, Issue 2, 30 May 2006.

Desmond Clarke's remarks on “my” absurdity argument are puzzling. i) Although I do indeed still believe it to be a valid argument, I certainly would not claim credit for it. I believe that “Reducibility: Another Side Issue?” put the general problem of the reducibility of mind into a somewhat unorthodox context, but the particular claim Clarke is attacking forms only one very unoriginal step in the general argument of that essay. ii) Some points that Clarke makes I would certainly agree (...) to, and believe I have agreed to in some of the texts he cites, while others are far from anything I meant to convey. Under Clarke's, 1) of course the “antinomies” of the paper above referred to trade on ambiguities. That's one of the points of the paper. 2) in both “Reducibility … ” and “To Have A Mind …”, I have tried to specify the sense in which “mechanism” was being used. That I do not take such terms as self-explanatory should be clear, for instance, from the remarks in the latter paper that immediately follow the passage Clarke criticizes. 3) I have no idea how physics is to develop in the future, nor did I wish to suggest that I did. With the rest of Clarke's I entirely agree. As to his, I fail to see its relevance to my argument, unless it simply leads up to and, with which, again, I wholeheartedly concur. Nancy Maull's paper, which Clarke refers to, for example, seems to me to shed great light on what used to be thought the problem of reduction; I don't see how her argument conflicts with “mine.” iii) Clarke's two “interpretations” of “my” argument are even more puzzling. The first paragraph is clear, as far as it goes. But the second is entirely murky. Perhaps I may try to reconstruct it. “The question for the scientist of a reductivist disposition in this context,” Clarke writes, “is: would it be possible to construct an alternative theory which adequately explains the same phenomena as the human sciences?” Fair enough. But apparently one is not allowed to reflect about an answer to this question. One has to wait and see if such a theory does develop. And meantime to notice that any theory by its very nature is intentional: this is to use some part of the human sciences to establish the explanatory power of all the human sciences. Is that what is meant? If so, I would reply: that the claim that theories are inherently intentional is not a thesis of any “human science” but a philosophical thesis about the nature of intelligible discourse. If a wholly non-intentional theory of human action were stated it would invalidate itself as theory. Thus, to respond to the major accusation of, we would have an answer to Clarke's question such that the question could not have been asked. What we have, then, is not a petitio but a valid reductio ad absurdum. (shrink)

Teleology in biology is making headline news in the United States. Conservative Christians are utilizing a teleological argument for the existence of a supremely intelligent designer to justify legislation calling for the teaching of "intelligent design" (ID) in public schools. Teleological arguments of one form or another have been around since Antiquity. The contemporary argument from intelligent design varies little from William Paley's argument written in 1802. Both argue that nature exhibits too much complexity to be explained by (...) 'mindless' natural forces alone. We need to postulate the existence of an intelligent designer, a creator with forethought and purpose. The inference to an intelligent creator harkens back to Plato’s teleological argument for the order of the cosmos. Plato’s demiurge is a creator that imposes order on the cosmos. Yet, as we shall see when we analyze the distinctly biological form of the more contemporary teleological arguments we will find remanants of Aristotle’s distinctive argument from functional arrangement, but without his distinctive form of telos which is unconscious and immanent rather than intelligent and creative from on high. The aim of this article is to survey various teleological arguments since Antiquity. Since a variant on Paley's argument—ID—is getting so much recent press I will start with a discussion on the nature of Paley’s teleology. (shrink)

The ancient origins of teleological concepts are sometimes either conveniently forgotten or given a distorted appearance. On the one hand, ancient teleology has been obscured by the theological cloak of creationism. On the other, Darwinists have sometimes failed to give due consideration to the variety and subtlety of teleology's intellectual antecedents. The purpose of this book is to restore the balance by looking at the manifold ways in which teleology in antiquity was viewed. The volume, consisting of twelve essays (...) by leading authorities in their fields, examines the ways in which teleological arguments were used in antiquity and how these discussions inform and influence current debates on evolution, creationism and intelligent design. As well as examining philosophical contributions to the subject, a specific aim is to examine ancient medical thinking on this topic and its relationship to ancient philosophical ideas. (shrink)

The notions of purpose, goal, end and function are used in descriptions of a very wide range of human, animal and machine behaviour. Andrew Woodfield provides here a unified account of such teleological descriptions and explanations, their varieties, their logical structure and their proper uses. He concentrates his argument on the concepts of 'goal-directed behaviour' and 'natural function', and combines original philosophical criticism with a meticulous, detailed survey of the main competing theories in this diffuse and difficult field.

The article is devoted to the historical analysis of teleological argumentation evolution in the legal interpretation. The ideas of ancient Greek and Roman orators, philosophers and lawyers, which served as the basis for development of the idea of teleological interpretation in the European legal tradition, are examined. The history of teleological interpretation method development in European legal theory from Medieval jurists to sociological legal approach of the late 19 th and 20 th centuries is observed, as (...) well the existence of two main approaches in understanding the teleological method of interpretation, namely subjective-teleological and objective-teleological, is ascertained. The author states that there is a direct correlation between the concept of law and the approach to understanding of the teleological interpretation method. In conclusion, the author insists on the more progressive nature of the objective-teleological method of legal interpretation. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Reductionist Accounts of Teleology Non ‐ Reductionist Accounts Prospects and Consequences References.