The purpose of this research is to examine David Hume's treatment of the design
argument for the
existence of God, contained
in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. The plan of the research will be to set forth the essential steps of the
argument made by Cleanthes, who in the Dialogues is advocating the design argument, and then to discuss various refutations of the argument made by Philo, with a view toward suggesting which line of argument seems stronger, whether within Hume's text or from the point of view of outside critique of that text. The argument from design for the
existence of God that Cleanthes makes derives from the rational human experience of the found universe.