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Full Idea
Cleanthes tried to prove the existence of God, arguing that the ascending scale of living creatures requires there to be a perfect being.
Gist of Idea
The ascending scale of living creatures requires a perfect being
Source
report of Cleanthes (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by Teun L. Tieleman - Cleanthes
Book Ref
'Encyclopedia of Classical Philosophy', ed/tr. Zeyl,Donald J. [Fitzroy Dearborn 1997], p.145
A Reaction
Not a very good argument. Even if you accept its basic claim, it is not clear what has to exist. A perfect tree? If the being transcends the physical (in order to achieve perfection), does it cease to be a 'being'?
20771 | Six parts: dialectic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, theology [Cleanthes, by Diog. Laertius] |
6028 | Bodies interact with other bodies, and cuts cause pain, and shame causes blushing, so the soul is a body [Cleanthes, by Nemesius] |
20831 | The soul suffers when the body hurts, creates redness from shame, and pallor from fear [Cleanthes] |
5993 | The ascending scale of living creatures requires a perfect being [Cleanthes, by Tieleman] |