For Philo, the
design argument is based on a faulty analogy: we don't know
whether the order in nature was the result of design since,
unlike our experience with the creation of machines, we did not
witness the formation of the world. The vastness of the universe
also weakens any comparison with a human artifacts: although the
universe is orderly here, it may be chaotic elsewhere. Similarly,
if intelligent design is exhibited only in a small fraction of
the universe, then we can not say it is the productive force of
the whole universe. Philo also contends that natural design may
be accounted for by nature alone, insofar as matter contains
within itself a principle of order. And even if the design of the
universe is of divine origin, we are not justified in concluding
that this divine cause is a single, all powerful, or all good
being. As to the cosmological argument, Philo argues that once we
have a sufficient explanation for each particular fact in the
infinite sequence of facts, it makes no sense to inquire about
the origin of the collection of these facts. That is, once we
adequately account for each individual fact, this constitutes a
sufficient explanation of the whole collection.
The three characters in Hume's Dialogues are loosely based
on characters in Cicero's classic dialog, On the Nature of the
Gods and we may reasonably assume that Hume's audience recognized
this. In Cicero's dialog, a character named Cotta was a religious
skeptic, and his teacher was named Philo.
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