Hume did not understand ship building. More than a carpenter was involved, and activity theory is definitely what I would use (have used) to understand when/how/why/by who/ a ship was built. Here's one of my favorite resources not far from me.
http://www.essexshipbuildingmuseum.org/museum.html
Shipbuilding (and even canoe making) today is quite amazing in it's development.
bb
-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Tony Whitson" <twhitson@udel.edu>
> Here's David Hume on "Intelligent Design"
> (from his DIALOGUES CONCERNING NATURAL RELIGION )
> Am I wrong, or is this not Activity Theory ?
>
> But were this world ever so perfect a production, it must still remain
> uncertain, whether all the excellences of the work can justly be ascribed to
> the workman. If we survey a ship, what an exalted idea must we form of the
> ingenuity of the carpenter who framed so complicated, useful, and beautiful
> a machine? And what surprize must we feel, when we find him a stupid
> mechanic, who imitated others, and copied an art, which, through a long
> succession of ages, after multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections,
> deliberations, and controversies, had been gradually improving? Many worlds
> might have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity, ere this system
> was struck out; much labour lost, many fruitless trials made; and a slow,
> but continued improvement carried on during infinite ages in the art of
> world-making.
>
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