Let me here observe too, continued CLEANTHES, that this religious argument, instead of being weakened by that scepticism so much affected by you, rather acquires force from it, and becomes more firm and undisputed. To exclude all argument or reasoning of every kind, is either affectation or madness. The declared profession of every reasonable sceptic is only to reject abstruse, remote, and refined arguments; to adhere to common sense and the plain instincts of nature; and to assent, wherever any reasons strike him with so full a force that he cannot, without the greatest violence, prevent it. Now the arguments for Natural Religion are plainly of this kind; and nothing but the most perverse, obstinate metaphysics can reject them. Consider, anatomise the eye; survey its structure and contrivance; and tell me, from your own feeling, if the idea of a contriver does not immediately flow in upon you with a force like that of sensation. The most obvious conclusion, surely, is in favour of design; and it requires time, reflection, and study, to summon up those frivolous, though abstruse objections, which can support Infidelity. Who can behold the male and female of each species, the correspondence of their parts and instincts, their passions, and whole course of life before and after generation, but must be sensible, that the propagation of the species is intended by Nature? Millions and millions of such instances present themselves through every part of the universe; and no language can convey a more intelligible irresistible meaning, than the curious adjustment of final causes. To what degree, therefore, of blind dogmatism must one have attained, to reject such natural and such convincing arguments?--Hume, Dialogues 3.
In her post yesterday, Helen de Cruz asserted that Cleanthes "makes an important empirical claim, namely that belief in a designer flows spontaneously, irresistibly and non-inferentially from our consideration of order in the natural world." Because Helen only quoted the sentence on with "anatomise the eye," she left me the straightforward rejoinder that according to Hume such anatomizing always presupposes expert judgment/taste/cultivation. In response, the up-and-coming Hume scholar, Liz Goodnick, pointed to more evidence for Helen's position. (I think it is a bit misleading to call that evidence "Later in Part III,"--it is the very same paragraph, and part of a single, non-trivial argument, but strictly speaking Goodnick is correct.) I am afraid that in larger context the claim by Helen and Liz cannot be sustained, or so I argue below the fold in some detail (apologies).
First, in eighteenth century terminology, 'natural religion' is opposed to 'revealed religion.' "Natural religion' refers to a religion based on 'the dictates of our natural reason' (as opposed to supernatural means). So, 'natural religion' doesn't mean a Rationalistic (in our post-Kantian sense) religion (although that could be an instance of natural religion). Now, what's at stake in my disagreement with Helen and Liz if natural religion could also include, as it were, bits that require no use of reasoning. This is not the only bit of terminology that needs to be cleared up; below I also focus on 'logic,' 'irregularity,' 'argument', 'stupidity' (yes!) and 'order'--these also have meanings that are not evident to modern readers.
Second, in context of the paragraph quoted above, Cleanthes is meeting Philo on his own ground by insisting that natural religion is part of common life and, thus, shares with a branch of skepticism (dialectically attributed to Philo) a rejection of "abstruse, remote, and refined arguments" of the sort commonly associated with metaphysics. (Earlier Philo had insisted that Cleanthes' species of Newtonianism relied too heavily on such arguments; so it is not just metaphysics that may belong in this category--an issue over importance to Hume's broader views, but let's leave that aside here.) So, this is partial evidence for Helen's and Liz's position because Cleanthes clearly rejects reliance on extensive arguments within natural religion. (I doubt he does so consistently in the Dialogues.) But the evidence is only partial because Cleanthes insists that "to exclude all argument or reasoning of every kind, is either affectation or madness." (emphasis added.) So, within context Cleanthes is certainly also endorsing the position that I attribute to Hume (as Liz and Helen graciously acknowledged in response to my point about the meaning of 'anatomy.')
Third, the point of the whole quoted passage is to characterize the nature of "the arguments for Natural Religion"--they "are plainly of this kind." What kind is that? Well, it's not too metaphysical, that is abstruse (etc.), but falling within common life, that is, they "adhere to common sense and the plain instincts of nature." Now, this phrase might be thought to provide exactly what Liz and Helen need--'the plain instincts of nature,' are surely the embrace of non-inferential (etc.) 'natural beliefs' that Liz and Helen diagnose in Cleanthes' argument. (For the sake of argument I grant that 'natural beliefs' are important to Hume's philosophy.) But to put my response in Humean fashion, Hume doesn't say that such non-metaphysical arguments are nothing but plain instincts. That is he characterizes a species of argument that is compatible with common sense and such plain instincts--not that such "arguments" are reducible (and entirely so reducible) to plain instincts. He is not eliminating the need for argument or inference here.
Fourth, notice that the objections to the anatomy passage are said to be "abstruse"; they require "study," etc. So, at that stage of the paragraph we're still very much in the dialectic between abstruse/metaphysics arguments vs arguments belonging within common life. In Helen's original post this is missed.
As an aside, it is worth reflecting on who could be thought to have metaphysical arguments "which can support Infidelity." I think this is a rare allusion to Spinoza in the Dialogues. (Cleanthes is thought to be modelled on Colin McLaurin and he did use the authority of Newtonian science to argue against Spinoza; see here and here.) But nothing in this post turns on this speculative exegetical comment.
Fifth, now if Helen and Liz are right then in the middle of so characterizing the arguments that belong to natural religion, Cleanthes also embraces a species of 'argument' that does not require expert cultivation or inferential argument (of the sort that Helen plausibly attributes to Paley--some other time more about that, but recall this and Mohan's response). Interestingly enough, neither Helen nor Liz rest their claim on Cleanthes' very next example (that is, "Who can behold the male and female of each species, the correspondence of their parts and instincts, their passions, and whole course of life before and after generation, but must be sensible, that the propagation of the species is intended by Nature?") For that, too, requires considerable anatomical knowledge as well as knowledge of natural history, and quite a bit more of the (Humean?) "science of Man."
Sixth, what about Cleanthes' claim that: "Millions and millions of such instances present themselves through every part of the universe; and no language can convey a more intelligible irresistible meaning, than the curious adjustment of final causes"? It is a bit surprising that Helen nor Liz pause at the "curious adjustment of final causes." Cleanthes is describing here causal ascription (of a certain sort, that is, final causes) to the workings of nature. There is no reason to believe that Cleanthes thinks causal ascription is entirely instinctive. (He is no Humean! Of course, Hume thinks that when it comes to final causes there is no 'external' impression that gives rise to them.) We need to be trained up to discern final causes in nature. Of course, once so trained up all of nature can provide appropriate stimulus toward finding design. (This echoes an argument from Newton's General Scholium.) Now, this point may be thought to beg the question on Cleanthes' implicit cognitive science. In the next few paragraphs I suggest reasons for my position.
Seventh, in her comments, Liz calls attention to the passage in Cleanthes' next paragraph: "an orderly world, as well as a coherent, articulate speech, will still be received as incontestable proof of design." Liz glosses this as follows: "Here, he is claiming that [A] noticing order in the world, either by studying the eye or in one of the millions of other ways, provides the basis of an immediate inference to design. [B] It provides the "premise" in an "irregular argument"--one that isn't really an argument at all, but is better described as a natural (universal, irresistible) propensity to believe in design (or a designer)." Before I re-interpret Liz's [A] and offer an alternative to her [B], it might be useful to quote the full paragraph again:
Some beauties in writing we may meet with, which seem contrary to rules, and which gain the affections, and animate the imagination, in opposition to all the precepts of criticism, and to the authority of the established masters of art. And if the argument for Theism be, as you pretend, contradictory to the principles of logic; its universal, its irresistible influence proves clearly, that there may be arguments of a like irregular nature. Whatever cavils may be urged, an orderly world, as well as a coherent, articulate speech, will still be received as an incontestable proof of design and intention.
Okay, first on [A]: "noticing order in the world." This is also concerns the nub of my disagreement with Helen. Unfortunately, it is extremely hard to say if Cleanthes thinks that noticing order is a natural propensity. (In fact, it is only after this exchange that Philo starts the explore the very idea of order in part 4 of the Dialogues, and he calls attention to equivocations in the use.) Even so, in the very next paragraph there is evidence to think that Cleanthes thinks a stupid mind (one he associates with (so-called) savages and barbarians--the eighteenth century terms for what are thought primitive peoples) does not naturally discern order (although he could be trained to do so--Cleanthes is an elitist but not a racist). According to Cleanthes, the stupid mind is easily amazed (which is what leads to superstition; see the end of part 11). And amazement is a prototypical response to disorded appearances. (In an amusing twist, Philo then insists at the start of part 12, that order is, in fact, discernible even to the most stupid thinker! But that is not, I think, Cleanthes original view.) That is, Cleanthes is committed to an eighteenth century common-place thought that savages live in places without regular rule of law and such political stability is a necessary background to the perception of order in nature; in savage conditions nature seems disjointed (see an example from Adam Smith.)
Now, what about the "irregular" nature of the argument? Liz reads that as claiming it is not really an argument at all. But that is not what Cleanthes acknowledges; "if the argument for Theism be, as you pretend, contradictory to the principles of logic." It is not immediately obvious what Cleanthes could be referring to here. (I welcome suggestions!) For, I have not found a place where Philo makes this precise charge. But Cleanthes appears to be claiming that the charge is not that there no argument but rather one that violates the rules of logic.
Now Hume uses "logic" in a wider sense than we tend to do. He calls, for example, his rules for causal ascriptions at Treatise 1.3.15.11 a "logic." (So a Humean "logic" can be what we call an "inductive logic," or an organon.) With that in mind, I believe Cleanthes is referring back to the following argument by Philo (in part 2):
When two species of objects have always been observed to be conjoined together, I can infer, by custom, the existence of one wherever I see the existence of the other; and this I call an argument from experience. But how this argument can have place, where the objects, as in the present case, are single, individual, without parallel, or specific resemblance, may be difficult to explain. And will any man tell me with a serious countenance, that an orderly universe must arise from some thought and art like the human, because we have experience of it? To ascertain this reasoning, it were requisite that we had experience of the origin of worlds; and it is not sufficient, surely, that we have seen ships and cities arise from human art and contrivance...
Philo is here rehearsing some standard Humean themes. In particular, he is insisting that an argument from effects (so-called 'a posteriori') to the cause(s) when this involves highly unusual effects ("single, individual, without parallel, or specific resemblance") requires at least one experience of the relevant cause.
Cleanthes, in effect, partially concedes the point; there is no regularity or experience that can deliver us experience of the origin of worlds. He appeals to an argument, which like certain cases of beauty, "seem contrary to rules," (of good taste, and yet, reinforce beauty in those cases). So, an irregularity can only be so in the context of a pre-existing rule (that is being violated). (I think this is how "irregularity" is used more generally in the eighteenth century.) So, an irregular argument is not a proper argument (in Hume's sense); it is misleading to suggest that it "isn't really an argument at all." (Of course, by our lights that's true, but not in historical context.) An irregular argument is, in fact, an argument that misses, as it were, a crucial ingredient. (In other contexts, it would be proper to use 'anomalous' as a way to convey 'irregularity', but an 'anomalous argument pattern' probably also sounds weird to us.)
That concludes my exegetical response to Helen and Liz. (I skip Liz's other examples because both explicitly rely on the "analogy in their causes;" for Cleanthes and Philo this means some (analogical) reasoning takes place.)
I do want to add one methodological meta-observation. I think Liz's argument seems very plausible against the background of twentieth century scholarship that since Kemp Smith (1941) insists that Hume was somehow committed to the epistemic significance of what have come to be known as 'natural beliefs.' This generated a very lengthy debate over the so-called 'new Hume.' As it happens I am not a 'new Hume'-advocate. But nothing in my post hinges on this. Yet, it seems a bit awkward to attribute this crucial feature of the 'new Hume' to Cleanthes, who is supposed to defend the very best arguments au courant among Newtonians of the eighteenth century--to the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence that prior to Hume any of these (Clarke, MacLaurin, Bentley, etc.) would have embraced the epistemological significance of natural beliefs within natural religion.
This is not to deny that all of these Newtonians (and Newton) often also clearly intimate that the Divine presence could be felt and experienced anywhere and all the time (so it's possible that this is why it's in the Dialogues), but I am doubtful of the idea that they thought this an appropriate claim to pursue within natural religion. But given that I did not read the Newtonians with an eye to securing such a claim, I may have missed the relevant evidence.
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