In this paper, I examine the claim that Rawls’s overlapping consensus is too narrow to allow most mainstream religions’ participation in political discourse. I do so by asking whether religious exclusion is a consequence of belief or action, using conversion as a paradigm case. After concluding that this objection to Rawls is, in fact, defensible, and that the overlapping consensus excludes both religious belief and action, I examine an alternative approach to managing religious pluralism as presented by Adam Smith. I (...) show that Smith’s so-called “marketplace of religions” assumes and encourages religious conversion. I then offer objections to Smith’s approach from Rawls’s point of view, concluding that, while Rawls cannot adequately respond to the Smithian challenge, in the end the two positions are complimentary. (shrink)

David Hume wrote prolifically and influentially on economics and was an enthusiast for the modern commercial era of manufacturing and global trade. As a vocal critic of the Church, and possibly a nonbeliever, Hume positioned commerce at the vanguard of secularism. I here argue that Hume broached ideas that gesture toward those offered by Max Weber in his famous Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904-5). Hume discerned a strong correlation between economic flourishing and Protestantism, and he pointed to (...) a “spirit of the age” that was built on modern commerce and fueled by religious tolerance. The Roman Catholic Church, by contrast, came under considerable attack by Hume, for fostering intolerance and draining and diverting funds. Hume recognized several of the dispositions that later appealed to Weber: an increased work ethic and tendency to frugality, enterprise, and investment in Protestant regions. A neo-Weberian literature now points to additional factors, the spread of literacy and the fostering of a network of trust among strangers, both of which Hume noted. Insofar as modern commerce both feeds upon and fosters more liberties and representative government, Hume also linked these with the advent and spread of Protestantism. My aim is not to suggest that these arguments have merit—there is good reason to question each and every assertion under the historical microscope—but rather to highlight the broader religious and cultural context in which Hume’s economics was broached. (shrink)

RESUMO -/- Faz-se uma comparação entre as abordagens de Hume e de Matias Aires no que concerne à vaidade e seus efeitos sobre a vida humana. O propósito é divulgar as idéias do filósofo brasileiro Matias Aires e revelar o que poderia ser uma falha importante na explicação filosófica humiana da experiência religiosa. -/- ABSTRACT -/- A comparison is made between Hume's and Matias Aires' approaches concerning vanity and its effects on human life. The purpose is to divulge the ideas (...) of the Brazilian philosopher Matias Aires and to reveal what might be an important flaw in the Humean philosophical account of religious experience. (shrink)

While recent scientific discoveries and theories can be taken to provide additional evidence for some of the central critical realist claims, overall critical realism seems to be in need of reassessment, revisions and further developments. First, I argue that here has been an inclination among critical realists to prefer the language and model of philosophy to falsifiable science, creating a predisposition towards somewhat sectarian practices. These tendencies also account for the relative lack of substantive research based on, or inspired by, (...) critical realism. Second, I make a case for radicalising the critique of anthropomorphism and applying it to critical realism itself. Third, and in some contrast to the second point, I argue for rethinking the subject-object relationship and the concept of the intransitive dimension of science. The critique of anthropocentrism has been taken too far. We are implicated in and are a part of the object of our study. It even seems that we humans are a part of the process of the cosmos becoming conscious of itself, also through science. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Hume’s Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) describes a philosophical discussion on the validity of the argument from design. What Hume investigates, however, is not the rational grounds of religion, but human nature and its attraction to the idea of design. I argue that the key to understanding Hume’s Dialogues is his conception of the imagination as described in the Treatise. Hume characterizes the human imagination or mind as self-indulgent, with a strong drive to unite perceptions in relations of resemblance, (...) contiguity or causality, often adding fictional constructions to create an easy transition between ideas. Natural religion is a prime example, as the whole universe is united in orderly means-to-ends relations and provided with a familiar cause: something resembling the human mind. This reading of the Dialogues, however, does not warrant the conclusion that Hume provides a reductionist natural explanation of natural religion. Knowing human nature helps to understand religion’s attraction and the attraction of religion helps to understand humans, because it is paradigmatic of who we are. To connect perceptions, construct wholes and create meaning out of chaos is an essential feature of human nature, and a source of great pleasure. (shrink)

Hobbes on morality and the modern science of motion -- Freedom as the realization of desire -- Leviathan : the making of a mortal God -- John Locke : underlaborer of the new sciences -- Locke on the freedom of the human spirit -- From Berkeley to Hume : the radicalization of empiricism -- Hume's science of the dynamics of the passions -- Adam Smith deciphers the invisible hand of the market -- Contradictions of economic life -- I think : (...) Descartes' foundation of modern science -- God and the good society -- Leibniz's discovery of universal freedom -- The best of all possible worlds -- Justifying God's ways : Kant's progress from Leibniz through Pope to Rousseau -- Rousseau's reasoning of the heart. (shrink)

Philo's argument from evil in a much-discussed passage in Part X of Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) has been interpreted in three main ways: as a logical argument from evil, as an evidential argument from evil, and as an argument against natural theology's inference of a benevolent and merciful God from the course of the world. I argue that Philo is not offering an argument of any of these sorts, but is arguing that there is a radical disanalogy between (...) the meanings of terms like ‘merciful’ and ‘benevolent’ when applied to God and human beings respectively. Drawing on the new ‘Irreligious Interpretation’ of Hume's philosophy developed by Paul Russell (2002, 2008), I suggest that the underlying aim of Philo's argument appears to be to show, in opposition to Christian teaching, that these terms, when applied to God, are in effect meaningless. (shrink)

A Crítica de Hume ao Argumento do Desígnio José Oscar de Almeida Marques Dep. de Filosofia – UNICAMP -/- RESUMO: É comum considerar que o chamado “argumento do desígnio” (o argumento a posteriori para provar a existência de Deus a partir da ordem e funcionalidade do mundo) teria sido refutado ou seriamente abalado por Hume. Mas a natureza e o alcance dessa alegada refutação são problemáticos, pois Hume muitas vezes expressou suas críticas através de seus personagens e evitou assumi-las diretamente (...) enquanto autor. Em vez de supor que Hume procedeu dessa forma apenas para disfarçar suas verdadeiras convicções e evitar um conflito com as autoridades eclesiásticas, proponho que sua posição nesse assunto não é tão categórica como às vezes se supõe, e que os famosos argumentos de Filo nos Diálogos mostram apenas que é possível que a ordem e funcionalidade do mundo tenham surgido sem a intervenção de um desígnio consciente, mas não podem por si sós dar a essa hipótese o mínimo grau de plausibilidade necessário para torná-la digna de uma séria consideração. De fato, antes da revolução explicativa operada por Darwin um século depois, ninguém estava realmente em condições de vislumbrar uma alternativa plausível à atuação de algum tipo de inteligência na geração da ordem e funcionalidade do mundo. ------------ Some Remarks on Hume’s Critique of the Argument from Design José Oscar of Almeida Marques Dep. of Philosophy - UNICAMP -/- ABSTRACT: The so-called “argument from design” (the a posteriori argument to prove the existence of God from the order and functionality of the world) is commonly considered to have been refuted or seriously impaired by Hume. But the nature and scope of this alleged refutation is problematic because Hume often expressed his critics through other characters’ mouth and avoided to assume them directly as author. Contrarily to the supposition that Hume proceeded in this way only to disguise his true convictions and to avoid a confrontation with the ecclesiastical authorities, I propose that his stance on the matter is not, in fact, as clear-cut as it is sometimes supposed, and that Philo’s famous arguments in the Dialogues show only that it is possible for the order and functionality of the world to have arisen without the intervention of an intelligent design, but cannot by themselves lend to this hypothesis the least degree of plausibility needed to make it worthy of serious consideration. In fact, before the explanatory revolution inaugurated by Darwin a century later, nobody was in position to envisage a plausible alternative to the operation of some sort or other of intelligence in the generation of the order and functionality of the world. (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)

On the assumption that theistic religious commitment takes place in the face of evidential ambiguity, the question arises under what conditions it is permissible to make a doxastic venture beyond one’s evidence in favour of a religious proposition. In this paper I explore the implications for orthodox theistic commitment of adopting, in answer to that question, a modest, moral coherentist, fideism. This extended Jamesian fideism crucially requires positive ethical evaluation of both the motivation and content of religious doxastic ventures. I (...) suggest that, even though the existence of horrendous evil does not resolve evidential ambiguity in favour of atheism, there are reasonable value commitments that would preclude those who hold them from satisfying extended Jamesian fideist conditions for committing themselves to classical theism. I then begin a discussion of a possible revisionary theistic alternative (in the Christian tradition) which – one might hope – may meet those conditions. An earlier, shorter, version of this paper was delivered as a keynote address at the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God. (shrink)

In this dissertation I examine Hume’s secular re-definition and re-evaluation of the traditional Christian understanding of pride and humility as part of his project to establish a fully secular account of ethics and to undermine what he thought to be the harmful aspects of religious morality. Christians traditionally have seen humility, understood as receptivity to God, to be crucial for individual and social flourishing, and pride as the root of individual and social disorder. By contrast, Hume, who conceives of pride (...) and humility immanently in terms of our self-appraisals, sees pride as a key virtue that serves as the ultimate source of moral motivation and deems humility a ‘monkish virtue’ (i.e., a vice). Hume, moreover, sees religious appeals to a transcendent moral source to be a threat to individual flourishing in that they encourage the formation of what he calls ‘artificial lives’ (of which the monkish virtues are an expression) as well as a threat to social concord, insofar as they foster unnecessary religious factions, intolerance, and theologically sanctioned violence. In part to combat this, Hume promotes a wholly secular ethic rooted in common life. I uncover the real points of agreement and disagreement that underlie Hume and traditional Christian conceptions of pride and humility in order to articulate what is essentially at issue between these contrasting perspectives and, ultimately, to identify some of what is gained or lost in Hume’s secularization of ethics. I, thus, explore the reasons that Hume rejects Christian morality and seeks to replace it with a secular one. I then assess whether Hume’s secular perspective has sufficient resources for addressing the biased judgments and rivalries that can arise precisely because of what Hume sees as our natural desire for the ‘passion of pride’ (i.e., for a positive sense of ourselves before others). I conclude both that Hume identifies genuine dangers in attempting to go beyond the human and also that there are genuine dangers in Hume’s attempt to close the window to a transcendent moral source. I, therefore, contend that any adequate view of human flourishing must take account of both these dangers. (shrink)

David Hume has traditionally been regarded as a skeptic, perhaps the most formidable in the history of Western philosophy. Since the publication of Norman Kemp Smith's Philosophy of David Hume in 1941, however, there has been an increasing tendency to downplay the skeptical dimension of Hume's philosophy, in some cases to the point of denying that Hume is a serious skeptic, or even a skeptic at all. Much of the motivation for a nonskeptical reading of Hume comes from recognition of (...) his endorsement of empirical science and his own project of founding a "science of man." Recent scholarship has, in my opinion correctly, recognized Hume as a constructive rather than a purely destructive thinker. Yet this recognition has, in my opinion incorrectly, gone hand in hand with a tendency to overlook or deny the skeptical side of Hume's thought. In this work, I address the issue of Hume's skepticism. I believe that though the issue of Hume's skepticism is more complicated than is suggested by some of those who interpret him as a skeptic, nevertheless the traditional view is more true to Hume's texts than is a nonskeptical interpretation. I argue, on the basis of a reading of the Treatise of Human Nature and Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, that Hume is a serious theoretical skeptic with regard to much of our alleged knowledge. In saying that Hume is a serious theoretical skeptic I mean that Hume's skeptical pronouncements are in general sincere, not ironic, Hume's skepticism extends to a large part of our alleged knowledge, and Hume's skepticism is a result of his substantive philosophical views. In saying that Hume is a serious theoretical skeptic I mean that though Hume doesn't prescribe eschewal of beliefs that are not rationally justified, he thinks that much of our alleged knowledge essentially involves beliefs that cannot be rationally justified and that hence much of our alleged knowledge is not knowledge at all. (shrink)