Toward the end of Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion , Philo catalogues the ‘frivolous observances’, ‘rapturous ecstasies’ and ‘bigotted credulity’ of ‘vulgar superstition’, concluding that ‘true religion, I allow, has no such pernicious consequences: But we must treat of religion, as it has com monly been found in the world’ . This would be a mild enough sort of caveat were it not nigh on impossible to determine exactly what counts as true religion, and how it figures in Hume's argument. (...) Typically, answers to this puzzle have required identifying the positions of the discussants, and then arguing that one of them represents Hume's views. A catalogue of the options may prove instructive. (shrink)

This essay argues that Hume's political and historical thought is well read as skeptical and skeptical in a way that roots it deeply in the Hellenistic traditions of both Pyrrhonian and Academical thought. It deploys skeptical instruments to undermine political rationalism as well as theologically and metaphysically political ideologies. Hume's is politics of opinion and appearance. It labors to oppose faction and enthusiasm and generate suspension, balance, tranquility, and moderation. Because Hume advocate the use of reflectively generated but epistemically and (...) metaphysically suspensive general rules, his political thought is not intrinsically conservative. While it valorizes stability and peace, Humean politics accepts a contested and open-ended political order, one that requires continuous maintenance and revision but does not pretend to any ultimate or final progress or end. (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)