Hume: Philosophy of Religion

My most general concern is to dispute the widely accepted Western view that philosophizing is primarily a matter of advancing arguments and making claims and that the reading of a philosophical text ought to be a search for claims and arguments. More specifically I show by extensive textual analysis of Plato's Phaedrus and Hume's Dialogues the extent to which these philosophers, though diametrically opposed on the answers to important metaphysical and epistemological questions, are nevertheless united in the view that philosophizing (...) ought to be a social activity. Though both philosophers are "men of the text" both see the philosophical text as an instrument for initiating philosophical conversation. Both repudiate the philosophical author, and with it, the idea that reading philosophy is the attempt to determine what position the author holds. ;I argue that Plato is serious in his criticism of art and writing but that he has a constructive position also. The Phaedrus is an example of acceptable art because it is constructed according to the principles of true speech given in the Phaedrus, which are, for the purposes of textual composition, the dialectical principles of collection and division. The Phaedrus has a "dialectical structure" and therefore engages the careful reader in dialectic through the process of reading. ;I argue that Hume cannot be identified with any of the characters in the Dialogues; the importance of establishing this is to emphasize that Hume is not attempting to win an argument in this work. Indeed he has removed himself entirely as an authorial presence. I argue further that the work is actually not a dialogue at all but a first-person narration by Pamphilus. There is overall trope for the text--the mind of a young philosophical novice. The twelve sections of the Dialogues can be seen as "ideas" based upon the twelve sections of the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding seen as "impressions". A section by section comparison of the two works shows their structural and thematic isomorphism. Hume is showing in the Dialogues what happens when a philosophical novice--Pamphilus--instead of engaging in a public philosophical discussion attempts to come to conclusions on his own, and worse, fails to trace his ideas to their philosophical foundations. (shrink)

In this paper I compare two models of expert judgment: the art critic in Hume’s “Of the Standard of Taste” and the “wise man” in “Of Miracles.” The art critic is a true judge of beauty because he has made himself into a person who is optimally receptive to beauty. He possesses the virtues of taste: “Strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice”. But the virtues of the art critic, I (...) argue, are also those of the “wise man,” the person who consistently “proportions his belief to the evidence”. Comparison of these two characters reveals that for Hume the virtues fundamental to the art critic’s critical competence are also epistemic virtues. Hume’s exposition of aesthetic excellences should thus be of interest for virtue epistemology. Because contemporary virtue epistemologists have tended to focus almost exclusively on the relationships between intellectual and moral virtues, Hume offers something new: an account of epistemic virtues based on aesthetic virtues. (shrink)

Popular religions are practical; they are used as guides to living. But philosophical religion has no implications for how we should live. Hume thought that philosophical theism and popular monotheism cannot be coherently united. Yet incoherent unification is precisely what has happened in our own culture.

Cet article se propose de montrer comment la critique de la théorie contractualiste opérée par David Hume est la conséquence politique de son analyse de la causalité. Hume rejette le contractualisme avant tout pour des raisons méthodologiques : une explication par les causes finales n’est jamais une explication satisfaisante. Or, le contractualisme applique au domaine politique l’argument du desseinprésenté dans les Dialogues sur la religion naturelle. La genèse du politique déployée dans le Traité de la nature humaine doit alors être (...) envisagée comme l’application particulière du seul mode d’explication pertinent des phénomènes, l’histoire naturelle, où la sympathie configure et reconfigure, de manière immanente, la société. À la causalité finale, il faut substituer la causalité efficiente. La théorie politique de Hume dans ses deux versants, négatif et positif, est indissociable de son épistémologie.This article proposes to show how David Hume’s critique of contractualism is the political consequence of his analysis of causality. Hume rejects contractualism mainly for methodological reasons: explanations based on final causes are never satisfying. Therefore, contractualism applies to the political sphere the argument from design presented in the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. The genesis of politics unfolded in A Treatise of Human Nature must be seen as a particular application of the only pertinent way of explaining phenomena, i. e., natural history, in which sympathy immanently configures and reconfigures society. The final cause must be replaced by the efficient cause. Hume’s political theory-either positive or negative-and epistemology cannot be dissociated. (shrink)

One of the most striking facts about Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is the fact that it has been subject to so many mutually contradictory interpretations. It is not, to be sure, unusual that a complex philosophical work be capable of a variety of interpretations. The case of the Dialogues is, however, surely an exceptional one, for the contradictory interpretations concern what is clearly the main subject of the book: the justifiability of world-hypotheses, and specifically the justifiability of the religious (...) world-hypothesis. According to some commentators, Hume's point in the Dialogues is that no world-hypothesis whatever is justifiable, perhaps none is even intelligible. According to others, Hume not only does not deny the possibility of a justified world-hypothesis, but actually proposes some particular hypothesis as the most reasonable one. Those who agree that Hume defends some world-hypothesis, however, differ radically about its content. For some, Hume's preferred hypothesis is that the explanation of order in the universe is a deity immanent in the universe. For others, Hume subscribes to a deity distinct from the universe whose order he explains, and possessing many, at least, of the traditional attributes of God, including wisdom, power, and benevolence. Still others hold that Hume's God, while distinct from the universe, possesses only the natural, not the moral, attributes traditionally assigned to him. Some commentators have even argued that Hume's purpose in the Dialogues is to employ scepticism in defence of religious faith. How, one must ask, is it possible that so many mutually contradictory interpretations have been proposed? How is this striking fact about the Dialogues to be explained? (shrink)

This book is a defense of Hume's philosophical principles in the Treatise of Human Nature. Nelson shows that Hume's new philosophy was a uniquely original and profound masterpiece in philosophical literature, worthy of serious study and acceptance. It is argued that Dialoguesis a reflective philosophical autobiography of Hume himself.

Offering a new approach to teaching the philosophy of religion, this anthology is organized around ten of the most widely read texts in the field. Presented in their entirety, these classics serve as a framework for a variety of accessible contemporary essays that are also included. The book's unique structure gives students the opportunity to study in depth complete historical works while also conveying a sense of how today's philosophers have explored related issues. Editor Steven M. Cahn has annotated each (...) text to clarify all unfamiliar references. He has also provided introductions that contain biographical profiles of the authors and philosophical commentaries on their writings. Ten Essential Texts in the Philosophy of Religion: Classics and Contemporary Issues may be supplemented by Questions about God: Today's Philosophers Ponder the Divine, a provocative collection of recent articles on the nature of God, edited by Steven M. Cahn and David Shatz (OUP, 2002). Ten Essential Texts in the Philosophy of Religion includes the following unabridged classic works: Euthyphro, Plato The Consolation of Philosophy (V), Boethius Proslogion, Anselm; On Behalf of the Fool, Gaunilo; and Reply to Gaunilo, Anselm Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas Of Miracles, David Hume Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, David Hume Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Soren Kierkegaard The Will to Believe, William James The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James Theology and Falsification, Antony Flew, R.M. Hare, and Basil Mitchell. (shrink)

In such a chain too, or succession of objects, each part is caused by that which preceded it, and causes that which succeeds it. Where then is the difficulty? But the WHOLE, you say, wants a cause. I answer, that the uniting of these parts into a whole, like the uniting of several distinct counties into one kingdom, or several distinct members into one body, is performed merely by an arbitrary act of the mind, and has no influence on the (...) nature of things. Did I show you the particular causes of each individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter, I should think it very unreasonable, should you afterwards ask me, what was the cause of the whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in explaining the cause of the parts. (shrink)

What does David Hume do with the dialogue form in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion? I pursue this question in the context of a partial taxonomy of uses for the dialogue form in philosophy in general—although I want to emphasize the word “partial.” My driving concern here is Hume’s use of dialogue, not to list all possible uses of dialogue or to draw conclusions about the uses of dialogue in philosophy in general. My question sits between two other related questions: a (...) biographical and historical question, “What did Hume intend to do with the dialogue form?” and a question about reception by his audiences, “What did Hume actually achieve with the dialogue form?” Both of these are worthwhile questions.. (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)

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)

David Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, first published in 1779, is one of the most influential works in the philosophy of religion and the most artful instance of philosophical dialogue since the dialogues of Plato. It presents a fictional conversation between a sceptic, an orthodox Christian, and a Newtonian theist concerning evidence for the existence of an intelligent cause of nature based on observable features of the world. This edition presents it together with several of Hume's other, shorter writings about (...) religion, and with brief selections from the work of Pierre Bayle, who influenced both Hume's views on religion and the dialectical style of the Dialogues. The volume is completed by an introduction which sets the Dialogues in its philosophical and historical contexts. (shrink)