RE: Is Dialogues Part XII Hume's "death bed conversion moment" to theism?
June 24, 2014 at 1:48 pm
(This post was last modified: June 24, 2014 at 1:50 pm by Mudhammam.)
(June 24, 2014 at 1:36 pm)Cato Wrote: I always took it to mean that Hume was a deist and considered god as a placeholder for things yet unexplained. In no way does this admission invalidate his previous arguments and resulting conclusions that god is unprovable and unknowable.
Yeah, though I've read elsewhere that in his earlier works such as a Natural History of Religion, Hume was pretty clear in his stated disbelief in God, and usually is considered during his lifetime and in times past to have have been an atheist or agnostic. This is the first work of his that I've read so I'm only basing those points of view off Wiki and other things I've read on him.
In Part XII, Philo still points out the difference between "vulgar religion," derived from superstition, and "true" or "natural religion" derived from philosophy and logic. In the Introduction to the Dialogues I own, the editor Richard H. Popkin also notes that: "His friend James Boswell tried to find some evidence that Hume had some Christian sentiments--and failed. Boswell, who visited Hume on his deathbed, found him as negative as ever about Christianity."
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza