RE: Is Dialogues Part XII Hume's "death bed conversion moment" to theism?
June 24, 2014 at 1:30 pm
(This post was last modified: June 24, 2014 at 1:31 pm by Mudhammam.)
I pulled out Dan Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea (a book every free thinker should read in my opinion) because I remembered he discussed Hume's Dialogues briefly in the first chapter. Here's what Dennett states:
"Philo is surely Hume's mouthpiece in the Dialogues. Why did Hume cave in? Out of fear of reprisal from the establishment? No. Hume knew he had shown that the the Argument from Design was an irreparably flawed bridge between science and religion, and he arranged to have his Dialogues published after his death in 1776 precisely in order to save himself from persecution. He caved in because he just couldn't imagine any other explanation of the origin of the manifest design in nature." (Dennett's italics).
That pretty much answers it I guess.
"Philo is surely Hume's mouthpiece in the Dialogues. Why did Hume cave in? Out of fear of reprisal from the establishment? No. Hume knew he had shown that the the Argument from Design was an irreparably flawed bridge between science and religion, and he arranged to have his Dialogues published after his death in 1776 precisely in order to save himself from persecution. He caved in because he just couldn't imagine any other explanation of the origin of the manifest design in nature." (Dennett's italics).
That pretty much answers it I guess.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
