Hume: Philosophy of Religion

In March 2010, Professor Tom Devine, widely acknowledged as the leading academic historian of Scotland, presented a plenary lecture for the Royal Society of Edinburgh's yearly symposium, "Connections between Scotland and Slavery." Publicly advertised as a reply to the question "Did Slavery Make Scotland Great?" Devine's talk was eagerly anticipated by the group of international scholars gathered at the University of Edinburgh. His answer, however, may have been more controversial than the audience anticipated. Devine said that the economic transformation of (...) eighteenth-century Scotland was a direct result of capital produced by slave labor, disproportionately financed and largely managed by Scots. The notion that... (shrink)

Understandably, given the interpretive challenges posed by the dialogue form, the focus of David Hume's interest in religion in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion can be difficult to pinpoint.1 Much Hume scholarship on the Dialogues has traditionally suffered from two major shortcomings. First, its treatment of Hume's interest in religion is primarily theoretical or speculative, as though Hume were concerned above all to determine the nature of "true religion," say, or to dismiss religious belief altogether as simply irrational. Such scholarship (...) regards the Dialogues as a vehicle for delivering a theoretical or epistemological treatment of questions concerning the nature and existence of God, and has little... (shrink)

Traditionally, Demea is considered to be the weakest character in Hume’s famous Dialogues concerning Natural Religion; the stage is completely dominated by Cleanthes’ optimistic theism and by Philo’s skeptical critical manoeuvres against that. Contrary to this traditional approach, however, the ‘orthodox’ Demea will be defended here by maintaining that Demea contributes—though neither consciously intended nor recognized by Hume—the most interesting observations concerning religious belief. He points to a position lying beyond the metaphysical fantasies of theism on the one hand and (...) Philo’s destructiveness, which seems to amount to a moralized minimal version of faith on the other. It will be clear that this defense is not exegetically orientated, but rather reacts to a constellation personalized in Hume’s ‘casting’ that lets us see on which topics we shall continue to work theologically as well as philosophically today. Accordingly, a conceptual critique of Cleanthes and Philo will be elaborated, using three concrete examples to show what religious belief lying beyond metaphysical hopes that explain God as a person, as well as reductionist concessions that regard ‘God’ merely as an expression of a moral attitude, could look like. Thus Demea represents a ‘postmetaphysical’ image of religious belief—and, eventually, we are invited to belong to the “friends of Demea”. (shrink)

In Part I of “Of Miracles,” Hume argues that belief in miracle-testimony is never justified. While Hume’s argument has been widely criticized and defended along a number of different veins, including its import on scientific inquiry, this paper takes a novel approach by comparing Hume’s argument with Thomas Kuhn’s account of scientific anomalies. This paper makes two arguments: first that certain types of scientific anomalies—those that conflict with the corresponding paradigm theory—are analogous to miracles in the relevant ways. Note, importantly, (...) that the argument applies only to the first definition of ‘miracle’ that Hume offers Second, it argues that we are sometimes rationally justified in believing testimony for scientific anomalies, because there have been several cases of scientists accepting such anomalies and—assuming certain criteria are met—we are rationally justified in believing these scientists. If both arguments are successful, then it is possible to be rationally justified in believing miracle-testimony, though the extent of justification depends on various criteria and comes in degrees. After examining a few objections, the paper concludes by contextualizing this argument in relation to Part II of Hume’s essay and in relation to broader apologetic concerns. In short, it is vital to recognize that this paper’s focus is Hume’s first account of ‘miracle,’ rather than his argument against miracle-testimony more broadly, but the argument could be coupled with other arguments against Hume’s broader attack on miracle-testimony. (shrink)

Os Diálogos sobre a Religião Naturalestão, certamente, entre as obras mais conhecidas de David Hume. Dividido em doze partes, o texto examina, por meio de um diálogo entre o místico Demea, o deísta Cleantes e o cético Filo, diversos argumentos acerca da existência e da suposta natureza da divindade. Trata-se de publicação que gerou enorme controvérsia. Hume afirma, em carta de 10 de março de 1751 a Sir Gilbert Elliot, que faz de Cleantes “o herói” da história. Ainda, em outra (...) correspondência, remetida em 8 de junho de 1776 a William Strahan, seu editor, Hume pretende convencê-lo a publicar os Diálogos, não sem apresentar a ressalva de que, ainda que o cético seja silenciado ao final, a obra apresenta, antes disso, tópicos que poderiam gerar comoção. (shrink)

Tradução para o português da obra "História natural da religião", de David Hume.Tradução, apresentação e notas: Jaimir Conte. Editora da UNESP: São Paulo, 1ª ed. 2005. ISBN: 8571396043.

Apresentação da tradução da obra "História Natural da Religião", de David Hume, publicada pela Editora Unesp em 2005.

Hume says we never have grounds to believe in miracles. He’s right, but many commentators misunderstand his theory of probability and therefore his argument. This book shows that Humean probability descends from Roman law, and once properly contextualized historically and philosophically, Hume’s argument survives the criticisms leveled against it.

David Hume’un Doğal Din Üzerine Diyaloglar kitabı, başlığının da ima ettiği gibi, vahiy metinlerine başvurmadan Tanrı’nın varlığına ve niteliklerine ulaşılıp ulaşılamayacağını araştıran bir metindir. Metin boyunca, felsefe tarihinde de gördüğümüz, iki ana yaklaşımı temsil eden iki temel argüman sunulur. Bunlardan ilki, a priori yaklaşımı temsil eden kozmolojik argümandır. Diğeri ise, a posteriori yaklaşımı temsi eden zeki tasarım argümanıdır. Bu yazıda, Hume’un, diyalogdaki Philo karakteri üzerinden ortaya koyduğu, kozmolojik argümana yönelik eleştirileri ele alınıp, böyle bir argümanın neden Tanrı’nın varlığı ve nitelikleri (...) konusunda bizi bir sonuca ulaştırmayacağı ortaya konmuştur. (shrink)

Hume's Critique Of Religion: ‘Sick Men's Dreams’. By Bailey Alan, Brien Dan O’.

One of the most popular accounts of the teleological argument for the existence of God is the analogical account that is the center of Hume’s knocker criticisms. Since Hume’s age, many theist scholars have attempted to propose convincing responses. Motahari is one of the rigorous thinkers who tackled the challenges which Hume posed. The purpose of this paper is to address Hume’s criticisms and assess Motahari’s rejoinders to them. It will be argued that Motahari’s responses do not seem successful. Although (...) Motahari has tried to refute Hume’s criticisms in some of his works, he implicitly endorsed Hume’s assessment of the analogical account of the teleological argument in other works, and came ultimately close to the Hume’s view. As Hume believed that the argument from design is not a successful philosophical argument to prove God’s existence that the theist contend, Motahari also admits at the end that this argument alone cannot prove God’s existence and emphasizes that the argument from design cannot prove God of Abraham’s religions, that is a person with necessary being, who is immaterial and eternal, is omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good, and the creator of the universe. Motahari ultimately believed in deficiency of the argument from design too, and assessed it as an argument with limited functions for God’s existence. (shrink)

David Hume escribió muchas obras sobre asuntos religiosos. Sus Diálogos sobre la religión natural presentan ideas de una teología natural y la así llamada religión natural. Mi objetivo en este estudio es subrayar algunos aspectos de su Historia Natural de la Religión, en la cual presenta una historia deductiva de las instituciones religiosas. Por “deductiva” quiero decir un método con una preconcepción del objeto de estudio que es interpretado dentro de este marco. Tal método usualmente produce una concepción muy limitada (...) del problema. Sin embargo, el estilo brillante de Hume y su aguda crítica, que se debe a los escritos de Bayle, han sido muy exitosos al modelar nuestra manera de dirigirnos a los asuntos religiosos. (shrink)

In professing to call attention to this often forgotten work of the great Scottish Philosopher one can- not help noticing how very similar the reception accorded to it by the outside world has been to its treatment at the hands of the author himself. During his lifetime he kept it in the safe obscurity of his study drawer, where it lay until the day of his death. The plan of the Dialogues had been clearly thought out by Hume as early (...) as 1750 and the active period of his contribution to philosophy proper having closed almost in the same year this excursion of his into natural theology might most fitly have been presented to his readers at once, especially if, as it seems to us now, it may he rightly regarded as the crown and consummation of his earlier speculations. indeed some such conception of the relation of the Dialogues to his other works underlies the outlining of his scheme upon its first page, where he founds his method "on the saying of" an ancient that students of philosophy ought first to learn Logics, then Ethics, next Physics, "last of all the nature of the Gods.". (shrink)

Nos proponemos llevar a cabo una aufhebung de la crítica a la religión de Hume. De un lado queremos «superar» la crítica humeana mediante el crisol del evangelio de Jesús de Nazaret. Pero no solo es necesario «superar», también hay que «recuperar» en un estadio superior la crítica que Hume realiza a la religión. El Dios de Hume, su concepción de la religión y su proyecto socio-político tienen una nada oculta pretensión legitimadora y sustentadora de la organización social liberal-burguesa. Pero (...) Hume nos puede aportar un impulso para llevar a cabo el proyecto cristiano hoy: nos enseña que debemos «respetar» a Dios y no rebajarlo a un diosesito a la medida de nuestras necesidades; que la razón humana debe tener en cuenta sus propios límites sin absolutizarse; y que la religión puede ser una mediación de humanidad. El riesgo estriba en que, históricamente, las religiones han caído en una perversión de su ser, en una falsa creencia, alejándose de su verdadera tarea, es decir, ser un factor de realización del hombre en la sociedad, y ser el medio en el que se pueden relacionar el hombre y Dios. We propose to realize an aufhebung about the Hume’s religion critic. By one hand, we want to “overcome” the Hume’s critic through of the Gospel of Jesus from Nazaret. But it is not just necessary to “overcome” it, but it is also necessary to “recuperate” in a superior way the critic that Hume makes about the religion. The Hume’s God, his conception about religion and his social-politic project have a very clear intention which is an authentic support for the social liberal-bourgeois organization. But Hume can contribute us with a thrust to realize the christian project nowadays. He teaches us that we must “respect” God ant not to reduce him like a little-god according to our necessities; what the human reason must remain its own limits without absoluting, and that religion can be an instrument for constructing the human society. Historically, the risk rest on the fact that the religions have become in a perversion of its being, in a false belief, moving away from its real task, that is to say, to be a factor of achievement of man in society, and being the way in which man and God con be related. (shrink)

David Hume puede ser considerado con toda justicia como el representante más preclaro de la crítica religiosa de la Ilustración. Su diálogo con la tradición crítica desde Epicuro, así como la toma en consideración de la nueva filosofía nacida al calor de la ciencia newtoniana, le hacen acreedor de una toma en consideración más avisada en el contexto actual. Tanto si queremos dialogar con la modernidad secularizada, como si queremos hacerlo con el amplio espectro de las religiones mundiales en un (...) contexto de crisis de la razón moderna, Hume se convierte en el mediador necesario. La crítica de las pruebas de la existencia de Dios –núcleo de este artículo– es la médula del pensamiento crítico humeano. Toda la filosofía de la religión se ha enfrentado con esta misma problemática y no ha hallado respuesta más coherente y filosóficamente estructurada que la de Hume. Él es el gozne de todo el pensamiento crítico de la religión desde Epicuro. (shrink)

Humean philosophy has been defined in the following ways. A system based on the classical influence of Cicero. An attempt to offer a parallel in moral philosophy to Sir Isaac Newton's contribution to the physical sciences. Intuitionism based on the Shaftesbury/Hutcheson tradition. If we consider Hume's scholarly output as a whole, it would appear difficult to select one work and claim that it represents a definitive, final position. The approach which is taken in this study is that of following the (...) development of Hume's thinking, from his early education through to that stage in his career which saw the completion of his major philosophical works. For a significant part of the later period of his career he broke no new ground in his philosophical studies; but was content to revise his earlier works, turning attention instead to literature, history and religious disputes. When this approach is followed it becomes obvious that the secular interpretation of Humean philosophy, which has gained a great deal of acceptance this century, is far from convincing. Hume in fact wrote a fairly conservative work on natural Religion. Moreover, his Intuitionism makes little sense without the religious foundation which Shaftesbury and Hutcheson had taken for granted. What new, significant contribution did Hume make? His work can be looked upon as a fine example of 'applied philosophy', anticipating the insights of modern clinical psychology at a number of points. It is important to see Hume as working in an educational tradition. Scottish, humanistic, Reformed. His family was Presbyterian, and the young Hume would have received a good Christian training. Although he was not considered an outstandingly bright pupil, he attended Edinburgh University at an early age, and soon developed a voracious appetite for reading scholarly literature on his own. The deeply introspective side of his philosophical studies may well have come from his Presbyterian background. (shrink)

In his The Everlasting Check: Hume on Miracles, Alexander George claims to provide readers with a single unified interpretation of Hume’s ‘Of Miracles’ that demonstrates Hume’s actual argument is philosophically rich and far more robust than is generally thought. This response argues that George is unsuccessful, ignoring crucial passages and misinterpreting others.

Resumen: Este artículo discute la tesis negativa de Hume sobre la religión; en segundo lugar, examina el intento kantiano de refutarlo con un argumento que apela a una supuesta superación del conflicto entre virtud moral y felicidad, y finalmente retoma la tesis humeana con Kierkegaard, para quien el cristianismo auténtico está fundado en la aceptación del absurdo. Esa dialéctica entre los tres pensadores es crucial: primero, la tesis del filósofo escocés de que la religión descansa sobre una paradoja; en seguida, (...) la antítesis kantiana asociada a cierta reinterpretación nouménico-ética del cristianismo, y, por último la restauración kierkegaardiana de la posición de Hume a través de una interpretación existencial del cristianismo.: This paper discusses, first, Hume’s negative thesis about religion; secondly, it deals with Kant’s attempt to refute him with an argument which appeals to a supposed elimination of the conflict between moral virtue and happiness; finally, it revisits Hume’s thesis with Kierkegaard, for whom authentic Christianity is founded on the absurd. This dialectic among the three thinkers is crucial: first, the Scottish philosopher’s thesis that religion rests upon a paradox; then the Kantian antithesis associated with a certain noumenic-ethical reinterpretation of Christianity; and finally Kierkegaard’s restauration of Hume’s position by means of an existential interpretation of Christian faith. (shrink)

In the third volume of the History of England, David Hume considers the political ramifications of the Protestant reformation with a “Digression concerning the ecclesiastical state.” He advocates the establishment of a state church, believing it will dampen religious “enthusiasm” in the polity. Unlike later secularization theorists, Hume assumes an intractable basis for religion in the human passions. Tensions in Hume’s “cooptation” strategy are evident from Adam Smith’s famous attack upon it in section five of The Wealth of Nations, and (...) in Hume’s own treatment of seventeenth century independency in the fifth volume of the History. Smith argues that public competition among sects facilitates political moderation. In History V Hume stresses the positive role of enthusiasm in fostering civil liberty. This article traces Hume’s indecision to his “external” mode of moral and historical analysis, arguing that a secular policy on religion cannot proceed fruitfully without engaging the theological particulars of the religions at issue. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es revisar las posturas de Pierre Bayle y David Hume en torno al problema del mal, para determinar si la postura de Hume se reduce a la de su predecesor o si existen diferencias más profundas entre ambos. Bayle propone una solución fideísta, declarando que se trata de un misterio que está por encima de la razón al que debemos adherir a partir de la creencia, mientras que Hume se limita a suspender el juicio al (...) respecto. En primer lugar, se reconstruye el planteo del problema del mal y sus consecuencias sobre la moral en los dos autores. Luego, se revisan sus críticas a la teología racional y el papel que juega el escepticismo respecto de la religión. Se concluye que la influencia de Bayle sobre Hume está centrada en mostrar las limitaciones de la razón humana para abordar el problema, y que el aporte original de este último se vincula con la defensa de la filosofía como un tipo de especulación autónoma. (shrink)

This book is primarily a textual analysis that demonstrates the close relationship of David Hume's The Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion with David Hume's central philosophical writings and its centrality to his relationship with scepticism.

In his Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume offers an elaborate account of the origins of property and suggests modesty has a similar origin. In this paper, I draw on Hume’s discussions of modesty and property to extract his account of the origin of modesty. Modesty and property are ultimately regulated by pride and selfishness according to Hume. I argue that these choices of passions, as the grounds of their related virtues, express an intentionally irreligious and anti-Christian approach. Furthermore, I (...) argue that reading Hume in the context of irreligion not only helps understand his own theory, but also explains his different relationships to Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. I conclude that readers of Hume must consider his irreligious motives alongside his skeptical and naturalistic methods if they are to understand him in a historically accurate way, and make sense of how he approaches his project in the Treatise. (shrink)

W niniejszej pracy staram się osłabić gruntowną krytykę Dawida Hume’a dotyczącą „teizmu empirycznego” : a) odróżniam „realizm empiryczny”, który przypisuję Kleantesowi, od „idealizmu empirycznego”, koncepcji, co istotne, nie stwarzającej dodatkowych trudności teoretycznych, oraz b) wykazuję, że jeżeli przez „teizm empiryczny” rozumieć się będzie także to drugie stanowisko, ów teizm okaże się w istocie niepodatny na część zarzutów wysuniętych przez Hume’a.

Com base na crítica que Hume faz ao argumento do desígnio, especialmente nas partes 10 e 11 dos Diálogos sobre a Religião Natural, meu objetivo neste artigo é, a partir de uma análise da relação entre a existência do mal no mundo e a suposta existência de uma divindade possuidora dos atributos tradicionais do teísmo, defender a tese segundo a qual o tratamento que Hume dá ao problema do mal corresponde, digamos assim, à cartada final – o último e decisivo (...) recurso que Philo personagem que articula essa crítica) aciona para mostrar que o argumento do desígnio não fornece bases suficientemente sólidas e consistentes para dar suporte à crença na existência de um Deus maximamente poderoso, justo e benevolente; e que, portanto, a existência do mal no mundo tem uma força argumentativa tal que a improbabilidade da existência de Deus é maior do que com base nos argumentos apresentados nas partes 2 a 8 dos Diálogos. Isso significa que eu tomo aqui o problema do mal como o maior problema para o teísta experimental – cuja argumentação pretende provar a existência de Deus a partir da observação dos fenômenos do mundo. (shrink)

This paper rereads David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion as dramatising a distinctive, naturalistic account of toleration. I have two purposes in mind: first, to complete and ground Hume's fragmentary explicit discussion of toleration; second, to unearth a potentially attractive alternative to more recent, Rawlsian approaches to toleration. To make my case, I connect Dialogues and the problem of toleration to the wider themes of naturalism, scepticism and their relation in Hume's thought, before developing a new interpretation of Dialogues part (...) 12 as political drama. Finally, I develop the Humean theory of toleration I have discovered by comparison between Rawls's and Hume's strategies for justification of a tolerant political regime. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to establish the importance of what is sometimes called ‘the literary and dramatic character’ of Hume's Dialogues. This importance is such that not taking this specific character of the Dialogues into account leads to conclusions opposite to the ones Hume, in the special form he gave to his work, was trying to impart to his readers. I will offer my analysis in opposition to the one, voiced by, for instance D. W. Harward, in which (...) ‘the apparent philosophical inconsistencies in the Dialogues are resolved without appeal to Hume's commitment to “literary or dramatic balance,” an appeal few of us find convincing or philosophically interesting’. The last part of Harward's statement is of course only of biographical interest; however, the attempt to offer an interpretation of Hume's Dialogues in which the literary character of the work is wilfully set aside, comes to missing a basic understanding for the man and the work. In what follows I will make this explicit by a number of points, each of which shows the importance of this literary and dramatic character of the Dialogues. In each case the result could not be reached without taking this special character into account. (shrink)

‘Truly this is the sweetest of theologies’, William said, with perfect humility, and I thought he was using that insidious figure of thought that rhetors call irony, which must always be prefaced by the pronunciatio, representing its signal and its justification – something William never did. For which reason the abbot, more inclined to the use of figures of speech, took William literally….

In the autumn of 1915 at Princeton, the graduate student, Charles Hendel, and the professor, Norman Kemp Smith, went for a walk. Hendel thought the time auspicious to announce his desire to write a dissertation on Rousseau. As happens not infrequently between an adviser and a student, Kemp Smith attempted to dissuade his student from his intention and advised him to look into David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, instead. The professor noted that a ‘deadlock’ had long existed between those (...) who thought the sceptic, Philo, spoke for Hume, and those who thought the theistic views of Cleanthes most nearly echoed Hume's true opinions on religion. Perhaps through researching the problem, Kemp Smith suggested, Hendel could ‘resolve that impasse and establish Hume's position on the religious question’. (shrink)