Concept
William Paley
Overview
William Paley (July 1743 – 25 May 1805) was an English Anglican clergyman, philosopher, abolitionist and utilitarian. He was at times referred to as a Christian apologist by his critics. He is best known for his natural theology exposition of the teleological argument for the existence of God in his 1802 work Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, which made use of the watchmaker analogy.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Philosophers who discussed William Paley
- Kitarō Nishida
- Alexander Bain (philosopher)
- Francis Hutcheson (philosopher)
- Richard Dawkins
- David Hume
- William Derham
- Abraham Tucker
Related ideas
- John Locke
- Joseph Butler
- Samuel Clarke
- Watchmaker analogy
- Natural theology
- Philosophy of religion
- Political philosophy
- Richard Dawkins
- University of Cambridge
- Solar System
- Thomas Henry Huxley
- Teleological argument
- Utilitarianism
- Cicero
- Existence of God
- David Hume
- Charles Darwin
- Deism
- Ethics
- England
- A. V. Dicey
- William Derham
Place in the tradition
Part of British philosophy.