Great was the saying of Aristotle: 'Suppose there were men who had lived always underground, in good and well-lighted dwellings, adorned with statues and pictures, and furnished with everything in which those who are thought happy abound. Suppose, however, that they had never gone above ground, but had learned by report and hearsay that there is a divine authority and power. Suppose that then, at some time, the jaws of the earth opened, and they were able to escape and make their way from those hidden dwellings into these regions which we inhabit. When they suddenly saw earth and seas and sky, when they learned the grandeur of clouds and the power of winds, when they saw the sun and learned his grandeur and beauty and the power shown in his filling the sky with light and making day; when, again, night darkened the lands and they saw the whole sky picked out and adorned with stars, and the varying lights of the moon as it waxes and wanes, and the risings and settings of all these bodies, and their courses settled and immutable to all eternity; when they saw those things, most certainly they would have judged both that there are gods and that these great works are the works of gods.' Thus far Aristotle.--Quoted from Ross's Works of Aristotle, quoting Cicero (who is quoting Aristotle), On the Nature of the Gods (2. 37. 95-96[see here for Cicero's latin].), pp. 85-6. [HT Eric Brown & Monte Johnson]
In the context of Balbus's articulation and further elucidation of what I have dubbed (recall) the 'Posidonian argument,' the passage attributed to Aristotle above is quoted. Bywater (1876; HT Eric Brown) offers compelling reasons to believe that this is a fragment of Aristotle's lost dialogue, "On Philosophy" (or can at least traced back to it; Bywater's essay is worth re-reading for more reasons).
Some other time I want to reflect on how we can read this passage as a comment on Plato's famous Cave (especially striking that Aristotle's cave dwellers have pictures and statues). Here I'll focus primarily on the passage itself (and the use Cicero makes of it). The inhabitants of the cave have everything that is thought needed for happiness. I am unsure, if we need to read into this Aristotle's disagreement with what is thought. But I am going to assume that this makes no difference to Aristotle's general claim.
What may well make a difference is that happy cave people have heard about God's will and power (numen et vim deorum). This is worth noting for two reasons: first, more speculatively, it may indicate that Aristotle is toying with the idea that stories about the gods (we may say that's the original sense of 'theology') arises naturally in any human community.* Elsewhere Aristotle connects the θεολόγοι with the circle around Hesiod (see Metaphysics 1000a9).
But earlier, okay here's some Plato: Aristotle allows that others (Plato) think that such ('theological' θεολογήσαντας) reflection on the gods predates philosophy greatly and goes back to earliest times (Met. 1.983b). So, it's possible that the whole Aristotelian thought experiment is meant to reveal something about Plato's anthropology/philosophy (for the political significance of this recall this post on Republic 427; and this one on the city of pigs).
Second, one wonders to what degree the fact that the cave-dwellers already had views on god influenced their judgment about the perception of the phenomena. That is, intentionally or not, Aristotle's thought experiment raises the question of confirmation bias (or theory mediated perception). Of course, I can't prove this claim, but it is worth noting that at least one of the perceptions they have -- orbits of astronomical bodies settled and immutable to all eternity --is not the product of mere unmediated impressions. Let's allow that the former cave dwellers can discover in fairly short notice that the planetary motions are sufficiently regular. But that their orbits are eternally fixed requires something which cannot be founded in such experience, but requires cosmological and physical backgrounds commitments.
To be sure, I am not denying that even without the supposition that the orbits are eternally fixed, the inference from celestial regularity to a providential god may still be likely. In particular, Cicero's Aristotle, relies on the grandeur of nature (and we are extremely close to the sublime here; yes, that is supposedly anachronistic, but I am capturing the repetitive magnitudinem pulchritudinemque.) Even so, in the thought experiment, the celestial bodies are made co-extensive in existence with the eternal god(s). That is to say, if you are properly primed, then the fact that nature is grandly ordered generates the natural, even inevitable inference that it (the order) is god(s)'s workmanship.
So, the way I read the Aristotle passage it could be part of an unmasking error theory,+ but it need not be so. After all, there may well be independent arguments for the existence of gods and their magnificent workmanship. In fact, Cicero's Balbus uses the passage in this latter (non-unmasking) way. For according to Balbus once you have been exposed to philosophical arguments for the existence of god -- and the previous passage offers a wonderful argument against the epicureans that (i) from start of great disorder random motions can never produce the particular order we have, and (ii) if they could, why not also houses and palaces (so much easier than a whole universe)? -- order in nature is evidently due to rational design.**
*This is pretty much Hume's view in his Natural History of Religion.
+To be clear, an error narrative that may well be intended to capture something important about Plato's position so not necessarily his own.
**Regular readers may know that this is not the version of design argument I find especially compelling. But if you like Borges you should read it!
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