Atheism And Theism - Blackwell - Philosophy

Atheism and Theism 27

axiarchic hypothesis were true the world would have consisted entirely of
these. In his Value and Existence, therefore, Leslie struggles with a form
of phenomenalism according to which stars and rocks, electrons and black
holes, are merely possibleentities: the world is as if they exist. In correspond-
ence Leslie has said that when in phenomenalist mood he is as if he believes
just in part of an eggshell, whereas the realist about the cosmos believes in
the whole eggshell. He holds that the structure of the part is carried over
to the structure of the merely possible whole: the axiarchic principle gives to
consciousness the patterns which it would have if it were integrated with the
non-conscious cosmos in which the realist believes. Leslie’s phenomenalism
(if that is what it is) is derived from his axiarchism: it does not depend on
the usual bad arguments on which phenomenalists have usually relied (or
on which Berkeley relied).
For those, such as myself, who believe that the best explanation of the
higgledy-piggledy regularities (or non-regularities) on the observational level
is the real actualexistence of the physical objects postulated by science (and
also those implicit in common sense) any sort of phenomenalism is unbeliev-
able. I concede that if one alreadyhad firm reasons for believing in the
axiarchic principle one might have some reason for believing in some sort of
phenomenalism, but even so it would seem odd that God, or the axiarchic
principle, should go about things in such an extravagantly roundabout way,
even though it was only an ‘as if ’ way.
The theory of extreme axiarchism has something in common with the
more usual argument to design. It has an additional and attractive feature,
namely that it purports to account not only for the general features of the
universe (the cosmological fine tuning as necessary also for the existence of
consciousness, the bearer of value) but also for the very existence of the
universe. In this it has something in common with the traditional cosmological
argument for the existence of God which I shall discuss in a later section. In
this section, however, I shall treat Leslie’s axiarchic principle mainly in its
capacity as a putative explanation of the apparent design of the world, as an
answer to the question ‘Why is the world as it is?’ rather than to the question
‘Why is there anything at all?’

Further Difficulties for Extreme Axiarchism

As I have remarked, if Leslie’s hypothesis did all that he claims, it could be
intellectually an immensely attractive one. It would explain not only the
appearance of design in the world but would explain the very existence of
the universe, though perhaps not its own existence. The hypothesis has the
advantage of at least the appearance of simplicity. It can be stated in a few
words. It may be attractive to religious believers who are dissatisfied with too