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David hume's dialogues on natural religion analysis
Hume's essay
David Hume and his opinion of God
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An Analysis of Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
ABSTRACT: Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) may be read in the way Cleanthes (and Philo as well) reads Nature, as analogous to human artifice and contrivance. The Dialogues and Nature then are both texts, with an intelligent author or Author, and analogies may be started from these five facts of Hume's text: the independence of Hume's characters; the non-straightforwardness of the characters' discourse; the way the characters interact and live; the entanglements of Pamphilus as an internal author; and the ways in which a reader is also involved in making a dialogue. These and other analogies should reflect upon the Author of Nature as they do upon Hume's authorship: They do not prove the existence of their respective authors, but may well shed some light on the nature of these disparate beings.
The bulk of Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion is given over to two discussions of "the" so-called argument from design. (1) In Part 2 Cleanthes succinctly states an "argument a posteriori" that attempts to "prove at once the existence of a Deity, and his similarity to human mind and intelligence." According to this argument, the world and its parts are (like) intricate machines or human contrivances, implying "by all the rules of analogy" that their cause, "the Author of Nature," is a designing intelligence (all 2.5.Cleanthes to Demea and Philo). Philo then subjects this argument to various and withering criticisms in Parts 2-8, although he later ends up confessing, more than once, (2) his inability to deny the powerful attraction this form of argument and its natural theological conclusion has for everyone, himself included.
In Parts 10 and...
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...otelian Society Supplementary Volume 18, 179-228.
Tweyman, Stanley. 1986. Scepticism and Belief in Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Williams, B. A. O. 1963. "Hume on Religion," in David F. Pears, ed. David Hume: A Symposium. London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press, 77-88.
Wollheim, Richard, ed. 1963. Hume on Religion. London: William Collins Sons/Fontana Library. (editor's introduction, 7-30)
Wood, Forrest E., Jr. 1971. "Hume's Philosophy of Religion as Reflected in the Dialogues." Southwestern Journal of Philosophy II, 185-193.
Yandell, Keith E. 1976. "Hume on Religious Belief." In Livingston, Donald W. and James T. King, eds. Hume: A Re-Evaluation. New York: Fordham University Press, 109-125.
________. 1990. Hume's "Inexplicable Mystery": His Views on Religion. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Peterson, Michael - Hasker, Reichenbach and Basinger. Philosophy of Religion - Selected Readings, Fourth Edition. 2010. Oxford University Press, NY.
“Religion is the backbone of evolution.” Without the cultural differences and belief systems we would not have a regulated religious base. It is evident some religions can be both alike but yet still very different. The historical William Bradford and Jonathan Edwards demonstrate this theory. William Bradford portrays more leniencies while allowing for more religious tolerance within the puritan community. With some contrasting beliefs but familiar goals, Jonathan Edwards, pursued a stricter religious background. Both of these author’s play an important role in sculpting the puritan way of life.
Negative Impact of God on the Minds of David Hume, Christopher Smart, and William Cowper
Religion in May 1966. It was reprinted with comments and a rejoined in The Religious Situation.
Contrary to many critiques Hume does believe that there is a God, however he does not believe that God is all greatness like society commonly assumes and excepts. Hume argues that because one sees an effect that doesn't mean that we can automatically know or assume its cause. This argument can be used to explain the creation of the world. We know that the universe is here but we don't know if God make it or if there was a scientific reason for the creation of the world. Perhaps the most obvious example of Hume's argument is.
Fiero, G. K. (2011). The humanistic tradition, Book 4: Faith, reason, and power in the early modern world (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Boyer, Pascal. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2001.
Kothari, R., Jaunch, E., Broderick, J., Brott, T., Sauerbeck, L., Khoury, J. & Liu, T. (1998). Acute stroke: Delays to presentation and emergency department evaluation. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 33, 3−8. doi:10.1016/S0196-0644(99)70431-2
Plantinga, Alvin, "Religion and Science", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = .
A. “The Church in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution”. Verbal Conscience. March 2012. Web. The Web.
In Part II of David Hume’s Dialogues of Natural Religion, Demea remarks that the debate is not about whether or not God exists, but what the essence of God is. (pg.51) Despite this conclusion in Part II, in his introduction to the Dialogues Martin Bell remarks that the question of why something operates the way it does is quite different from the question why do people believe that it operates the way it does. (pg. 11) This question, the question of where a belief originates and is it a valid argument, is much of the debate between Hume’s three characters in the Dialogues. (pg. ***)
Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote one of his famous writings, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, in 1779, which is a conversation between three individuals discussing religion and the various aspects surrounding it. The three members of the dialogue are Philo, Demea, and Cleanthes. Demea represents fideism, which means that he believes that one has to rely on faith, not reason. Philo represents skepticism and is the individual whose ideas are closest to Hume’s own personal views on religion. Cleanthes represents theological rationalism, which is the belief that one can learn about God through evidence in nature. A major topic of discussion in Hume’s Dialogues between Philo, Demea, and Cleanthes is the argument from design.
For William James, his perspective on religious experience was skeptical. He divided religion between institutional religion and personal religion. For institutional religion he made reference to the religious group or organization that plays a critical part in the culture of a society. Personal religion he defined as when an individual has a mystical experience which can occur regardless of the culture. James was more focused on the personal religious experience, “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine” (Varieties, 31), and had a sort of distain for organized and institutional religion.
A Critique of the Telelogical Argument, 1779, David Hume. 199-205. The. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc, 2008. Pojman, Louis P., and Fieser, James. Introduction to Philosophy - Classic and Contemporary Readings Fourth Edition.
A. The implication of Goodman Brown’s religious ambivalence through Faith. The evidence is mentioned in the first quote by the Narrator.