Hume: Philosophy of Religion, Misc

Long before the current dispute in the USA about the teaching of evolution, Hume's dialogues presented and critically analyzed the idea of intelligent design. What should we teach our children about the creation of the world? What should we teach them about religion? The characters Demea, Cleanthes, and Philo passionately present and defend different answers to that question. Demea opens the dialogue with a position derived from René Descartes and Father Malebranche — God's nature is a mystery, but God's existence (...) can be proved logically. Cleanthes attacks that view, both because it leads to mysticsm and because it attempts the impossible task of trying to establish existence on the basis of pure reason, without appeal to sense experience. As an alternative, he offers a proof of both God's existence and God's nature based on the same kind of scientific reasoning established by Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. Taking a skeptical approach, Philo presents a series of arguments that question any attempt to use reason as a basis for religious faith. He suggests that human beings might be better off without religion. The dialolgue ends without genuine agreement among the characters, justifying Hume's choice of dialogue as the form of presentation. (shrink)

Foreword from the Guest Editor to the special issue of Diametros – “Enlightenment and Secularism.”.

This article aims to illuminate the background and intention of Hume's Dialogues. It argues that ‘Cleanthes’ is significantly modeled after Butler's thought by showing the connection between Part IX of the Dialogues and Butler's early correspondence with Clarke regarding the concepts of probability and conceivability. This clarifies Philo's ‘reversal’ in Part XII. Butler's theory of probability provides a clue to Hume's moderate skepticism which stops short of endorsing atheism. Hume presents a philosophical narrative in which readers are invited to entertain (...) philosophical thinking on natural theology as a preliminary to identifying ‘true’ religion rather than affirming atheism. (shrink)

This chapter outlines an alternative interpretation of Hume’s philosophy, one that aims, among other things, to explain some of the most perplexing puzzles concerning the relationship between Hume’s skepticism and his naturalism. The key to solving these puzzles, it is argued, rests with recognizing Hume’s fundamental irreligious aims and objectives, beginning with his first and greatest work, A Treatise of Human Nature. The irreligious interpretation not only reconfigures our understanding of the unity and structure of Hume’s thought, it also provides (...) a radically different picture of the way in which Hume’s philosophy is rooted in its historical context. By altering our understanding of the fundamentals of Hume’s philosophy in this way, the irreligious interpretation also challenges the adequacy of the familiar and entrenched framework of “British Empiricism.”. (shrink)

Hume did not criticize Hutcheson’s moral-empirical argument in his published philosophical works, even though he forcefully denied, especially in Parts X and XI of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, that we could empirically prove the moral attributes of the Deity. Yet he seemingly rejected this particular reasoning in a famous letter to Hutcheson, dated March 16, 1740. Hutcheson’s claim that our moral sense is a likely to be expected effect of divine benevolence and Hume’s critique of this claim are analyzed (...) in this essay. It is argued that the particular criticism presented by Hume in that letter is not sufficient to refute Hutcheson’s argument. It is also suggested that Hume may be right after all in rejecting Hutcheson’s inference about God’s benevolent design on other grounds, that is, our deep-rooted knowledge of the annoying conspicuousness of evil in the world. (shrink)

Hume's thoroughgoing religious scepticism is set within the context of the Scottish Enlightenment. Against some interpreters, it is argued that, although elusive, his ‘attenuated deism’ (Gaskin) is not wholly dismissive of all forms of religious thought and practice. His position is further compared with contemporary expressions of ‘new atheism’. Despite some obvious similarities, Hume's position is judged more nuanced both in terms of content and rhetorical strategy.

David Hume: Religion David Hume (1711-1776) was called “Saint David” and “The Good David” by his friends, but his adversaries knew him as “The Great Infidel.” His contributions to religion have had a lasting impact and contemporary significance. Taken individually, Hume gives novel insights into many aspects of revealed and natural theology. When taken together, […].

Can an explanation of a set of beliefs cast doubt on the things believed? In particular, can an evolutionary explanation of religious beliefs call the contents of those beliefs into question? Yes - under certain circumstances. I distinguish between natural histories of beliefs and genealogies. A natural history of a set of beliefs is an explanation that puts them down to naturalistic causes. (I try to give an account of natural explanations which favors a certain kind of ‘methodological atheism’ without (...) begging any crucial questions against theists.) A genealogy is an explanation which somehow subverts the claims believed, usually by putting down the beliefs to unreliable causal mechanisms. Some genealogies are natural histories, such as Aquinas’s explanation of the prevalence of Islam and Gibbon’s explanation of the prevalence of Christianity. But not all genealogies are natural histories and not all natural histories are genealogies: witness the Primitive Christians’ explanation of the prevalence of Paganism which relies crucially on supernatural agencies and Hume’s explanation of our moral beliefs which defines moral truth in terms of the idealized outputs of our natural belief-forming mechanisms. However both believers and non-believers postulate a natural propensity of to devotion on the part of human beings a ‘sensus divinitatis’ which often results in false positives and is therefore unreliable. Thus the evolutionary explanation of this propensity does not add much to the skeptical case against religion. I conclude by arguing, as against Plantinga that since on his own showing our sensus divinitatis often malfunctions under optimum conditions, its unreliability constitutes a defeater for the claim that Christian beliefs are properly basic. (shrink)

For well over a century the dominant narrative covering the major thinkers and themes of early modern British philosophy has been that of “British Empiricism”, within which the great triumvirate of Locke-Berkeley-Hume are taken to be the dominant figures. Although it is now common to question this schema as a way of analyzing and understanding the period in question, it continues to command considerable authority and acceptance. (One likely reason for this is that no credible or plausible alternatives structures or (...) schemas of analysis have suggested themselves.) Be this as it may, the analysis of the rival systems of Clarke, Berkeley and Hume makes clear that this narrative, however deeply entrenched it may be, is wholly misleading and both distorts and obscures key themes and figures in the period in question. (shrink)

This essay reconsiders David Hume’s thinking on the fate of the British Empire and the future of established religion. It provides a detailed reconstruction of the development of Hume’s views on Britain’s successive attempts to impose or regain its authority over its North American colonies and compares these views with the stance taken during the American Crisis by Adam Smith and Josiah Tucker. Fresh light is shed on this area of Hume’s later political thought by a new letter, appended to (...) the essay, which at the same time provides an illuminating glimpse of his abiding preoccupation with the future of established religion. It is argued that this evidence of Hume’s privately held views belies the notion that his thinking on political and religious matters was fundamentally opposed to that of his friends among the philosophes. It is consequently misleading to regard Hume as an opponent of the more radical wing of the Enlightenment. (shrink)

My impression is that the fire-breathing atheists about whom we hear so much – the celebrated quartet of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Dan Dennett – think of religious commitments in terms of mistaken or at least hopelessly improbable and therefore irrational ontology. Believers think that something exists, but the overwhelmingly probable truth is that it does not. I may be wrong that this is what they think, but whether they do so or not, I am sure others (...) do. Yet this interpretation of the issue is itself mistaken, and indeed doubly so. It is mistaken, or perhaps it would be better to say unimaginative or off-key to think of religious frames of mind primarily in terms of belief. And it is similarly misdirected to think that the belief component primarily concerns the existence of anything. I read both these insights into Hume's celebrated works on the philosophy of religion, but their lesson seems never to have been properly absorbed. Even Wittgenstein, I think, although he came close and certainly flirted with more adequate views, failed to take their measure properly, although I will be unable to substantiate that opinion here. (shrink)

Spinoza and Hume are two naturalist philosophers who were among the first modern thinkers to study religion as a natural phenomenon. There undoubtedly are similarities in their accounts of the origin of religion in imagination and passion . But those who see Hume as a crypto-Spinozist are nevertheless confronted with serious differences between the two philosophers with respect to their understanding of religion and its various forms. These differences concern fundamental issues like the meaning and acceptability of the notion of (...) God and its function in different spheres, the possibility of a kind of philosophical religiosity, and the possible advantage of religion, at least in some of its forms, to individual and social life. The militant “Spinozism” of Hume belongs to a world perhaps made possible by Spinoza, but nevertheless alien to him. (shrink)

Despite his well-known criticisms of popular religion, Hume refers in seemingly complimentary terms to ‘true religion’; in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, his character Philo goes so far as to express ‘veneration for’ it. This paper addresses three questions. First, did Hume himself really approve of something that he called ‘true religion’? Second, what did he mean by calling it ‘true’? Third, what did he take it to be? By appeal to some of his key doctrines about causation and probability, and (...) to some key features of the characters and content of the Dialogues, I argue, contrary to important recent interpretations by Immerwahr and Falkenstein, that Hume's ‘true religion’ is a doctrine, enunciated by Philo, that he regarded as true in an epistemic sense. (shrink)

The European Legacy, Volume 17, Issue 4, Page 546-547, July 2012.

hay una importante contradicción en el pensamiento de Hume. Por una parte sostiene que las creencias religiosas son en el fondo bastante débiles, pero por otra parte se las hace responsables de importantes males a nivel social. Esto se complementa con una teoría donde se insiste en la hipocresía de la profesión eclesiástica. El resultado de la confluencia de estas tesis es una propuesta de tolerancia y de control secular de la Iglesia, porque es en ese contexto donde las creencias (...) religiosas pierden la fuerza que puedan tener y se convierten en inofensivas para los verdaderos intereses de la sociedad, que son siempre seculares. (shrink)

(2011). The Riddle of Hume's Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 348-353.

Review of Paul Russell's "The Riddle of Hume's Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion".

Paul Russell begins his book by rightly noting, "almost all commentators over the past two and a half centuries have agreed that Hume's intentions in the Treatise should be interpreted in terms of two general themes: skepticism and naturalism" (vii). The skeptical reading interprets Hume's principal aim as showing that "our 'common sense beliefs' (e.g. belief in causality, independent existence of bodies, in the self, etc.) lack any foundation in reason" (4). The naturalist reading interprets Hume's aims according to the (...) "science of man," derived from experience and observation. As described in the Introduction to the Treatise, this science is meant to explain the "principles of human nature" and thereby put the .. (shrink)

Spectres of False Divinity presents a historical and critical interpretation of Hume's rejection of the existence of a deity with moral attributes. In Hume's view, no first cause or designer responsible for the ordered universe could possibly have moral attributes; nor could the existence of such a being have any real implications for human practice or conduct. Hume's case for this 'moral atheism' is a central plank of both his naturalistic agenda in metaphysics and his secularizing program in moral theory. (...) It complements his wider critique of traditional theism, and threatens to rule out any religion that would make claims on moral practice. Thomas Holden situates Hume's commitment to moral atheism in its historical and philosophical context, offers a systematic interpretation of his case for divine amorality, and shows how Hume can endorse moral atheism while maintaining his skeptical attitude toward traditional forms of cosmological and theological speculation. (shrink)

The title of my book, Projection and Realism in Hume's Philosophy, might mislead. One might protest, with some justification, that since neither "projection" nor "realism" is Hume's term and that both carry a severe threat of anachronism, discussing them in connection with Hume is misguided. Why might the readers of this journal wish to read such a work?Well, the first thing to note is that Hume's name has come to be associated with the metaphor of projection, understood as having some (...) kind of "non-realist" connotations, and, at the same time, he attracted readings that make him a "realist" of some sort or another in different areas.1 So, there seems to be some tension here.. (shrink)

Peter Kail’s comprehensive, thoughtful, and challenging book focuses on Hume’s use of projectionFthe appeal to mental phenomena to explain manifest features of the worldFin his treatments of external objects, causation, and morality. Almost all interpreters of Hume acknowledge a role for projection, but Kail is the first to unpack the metaphor, and to show the different ways in which projection works in different domains.

This paper's aim is threefold. First, I wish to show that there is an analogy in section nine that arises out of the interaction of the interlocutors; this analogy is, or has, a certain comic adequatic to the traditional arguments about proofs for the existence of God. Second, Philo's seemingly inconsequential example of the strange necessity of products of 9 in section nine is a perfected analogy of the broken arguments actually given in that section, destroying Philo's earlier arguments. Finally, (...) I raise the question of the designer's intent in creating such a humourous piece. (shrink)

While numerous sources have been found for the ideas expressed by Cleanthes and Demea in the Dialogues, Philo’s thoughts have commonly been taken to originate with Hume. It is clear, however, both from internal and external evidence, that Hume drew for his (sometimes wayward) spokesman on that mid-century ferment in the life sciences that Denis Diderot described as a “revolution.” The restoration of this context—obscured by the late publication of the Dialogues—suggests that Philo’s celebrated critique of theism is merely one (...) face of a discourse that centres in new ideas about generation and evolution. On this reading the Dialogues emerges as a conjectural as well as analytic work, one that offers in addition to its demolition of the argument from design an argument about design, built on the premise that natural order can be independent of a creator. The philosophical definition that Hume brings to ideas that first surfaced in the works ofMaupertuis and Buffon makes the Dialogues the most potent pre-Darwinian work of its period. (shrink)

L’objet de cet article est de confronter les thèses de l’essai de Hume Superstition et enthousiasme, paru en 1741 dans le recueil des Essais moraux et politiques, à quelques-uns des développements que Hume consacre à ces deux formes de religion ou à ces deux modalités de la religion dans son Histoire d’Angleterre, parue entre 1754 et 1761. Il s’agira ainsi de contribuer à restituer, grâce à un examen de l’Histoire, l’intégralité de la position de Hume sur la question de la (...) superstition et de l’enthousiasme [1] Pour présenter l’intégralité de cette position, il... [1] . L’enjeu d’une telle restitution n’est pourtant pas seulement interne aux études humiennes : il consiste également à montrer comment une narration historique circonstanciée a pu permettre à un philosophe devenu historien de préciser – voire d’amender – une certaine critique « philosophique », à la généralité parfois ambiguë, sur l’enthousiasme et la superstition. Ce faisant, le présent article pourrait permettre d’ajouter un nouvel axe aux articles réunis dans le cadre de ce volume. La confrontation des « crises religieuses » et de la « critique philosophique » de l’enthousiasme s’entend en effet d’abord de la manière suivante : les critiques philosophiques de l’enthousiasme s’inscrivent sur fond de crises religieuses ou, mieux, sont suscitées par elles. Mais on peut penser aussi – et c’est ce que j’entends montrer, pour ma part, à travers l’évolution de Hume sur la question de l’enthousiasme et de la superstition – qu’une étude proprement historique des crises religieuses peut avoir pour effet de moduler ou d’amender une critique philosophique des passions religieuses, quand bien même cette dernière (comment en serait-il autrement pour une philosophie empiriste ?) entendait prendre appui sur l’histoire. (shrink)

This paper offers a new reading of Hume’s much discussed Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779/2000) which shows that, in contrast to what commentators tend to ascribe to Hume, the crux of the text is not epistemological-ontological – that is, not the arguments in favour of and against God’s existence – but moral. It is shown that, although most of the epistemologicalontological pro-and-contra arguments are quite weak, Hume’s interlocutors nevertheless cling to their theses from beginning to end, with the reason for (...) their dogmatism shown to be moral rather than epistemological-ontological. The paper is divided into four sections. The introduction to the argument is followed by a discussion of Hume’s rejection of substance as epistemologicallyontologically superfluous and as morally bad. Thereafter, it is first shown how the concept of a transcendental God undergoes deflation and consequently disappears. It is then shown that, even though their arguments are wrong, Cleanthes and Philo cling dogmatically to their starting points instead of trying to improve their claims and to rebuff the criticisms made against them. In conclusion, it is shown that the only way to account for their dogmatic inflexibility is in terms of their moral position: Cleanthes thinks that society and morals will collapse without the belief in a transcendental God, while Philo thinks it will function better if we discard this belief. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , September 2008, Volume 8, Edition 2. (shrink)