Abstract
In this chapter, I discuss how Hume applies his normative theory of belief – consisting of a typology of beliefs and a set of rules to guide causal inferences – to the theses of natural theism in the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. Given the significant influence that Cicero’s De Natura Deorum had on Hume’s Dialogues, I begin the chapter by surveying the most important references to Cicero in Hume’s correspondence and philosophical works. After this, I draw a parallel between the two dialogues’ philosophical arguments and narrative strategies, to prepare the ground for the most detailed analysis of Hume’s application of his normative theory of belief in the Dialogues. The third section of the chapter, centers on determining what kind of belief, in Hume’s typology, is held by natural theism. I show that this belief is a probability based on an analogy by, first, examining the possibilities that it is a natural belief or a proof, and discarding both options based on Philo’s use of some of the rules for causal inferences in his skeptical objections. I close the chapter with a discussion of the last part of the Dialogues, usually referred to as “Philo’s reversal,” to evaluate whether Philo’s sudden profession of faith can be understood as an avowal of theism, fideism, or deism, or simply as a disguise of his atheistic inclinations. I claim that, after the skeptical examination of natural theism, Philo accepts a non-dogmatic adoption of a much less metaphysically robust belief—namely the belief that Gaskin called “attenuated deism” and that I would like to name “non-dogmatic, anti-religious deism.”
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
For Jones: “Every educated reader could discern, at the time of their posthumous publication, that Hume’s Dialogues concerning Natural Religion was modeled on Cicero’s De Natura Deorum” (Jones 1982, p. 3).
- 3.
Fosl argues: “Hume drew upon the Academica and De Natura Deorum in developing his own “Academical” philosophy of religion” (Fosl 1994, p. 104).
- 4.
According to Jones, in the first year of his undergraduate studies at Edinburgh University, Hume learned, “Greek grammar, and the rules of rhetoric, with special reference to Cicero and Ramus.” (Jones 1982, p. 10).
- 5.
For example, he refers to Terentia, Cicero’s first wife, perhaps to insinuate to his addressee, by analogy, that she is not behaving as well as he would wish (Letters, Vol. II, 8–11).
- 6.
Interestingly, this idea is quite the opposite of Hume’s final remarks in the Dialogues, where he sides with the Epicureans, although, of course, he omits their idea that we should emulate the gods.
- 7.
He argues this in the context of an assessment of Great Britain’s lack of grandiloquent oratory. For a good treatment of the ambiguities and the political implications of this essay, see: Potkay 1994, pp. 24–58.
- 8.
I cite here the 1826 edition of Hume’s Essays since, unfortunately, the Liberty Fund edition overlooked this footnote.
- 9.
As I show in this chapter, Kant considered Cicero as a Stoic in moral matters (VL-Jäsche, 31; VL-Vienna, 803).
- 10.
Jones argues that “[…] explicit allusion [to Cicero] was often unnecessary since Cicero was the one classical writer familiar to and admired by almost every educated person in France and England in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.” (Jones 1982, p. 30).
- 11.
I will refer to the influence of his metaphysical treatise De Fato, in this chapter, where I discuss Hume’s treatment of freedom in relation to Kant’s Antinomies.
- 12.
- 13.
According to Pyle (2006, p. 4), this position is also shared by Colin Maclaurin, Newtonian mathematician and defender of natural theology.
- 14.
- 15.
According to Gaskin: “Hume distinguishes at least three species of “natural instincts” or essential “natural beliefs:” (1). Belief in the continuous existence of an external world independent of our perception. (2) Belief that the regularities, which have occurred in our experience, form a reliable guide to those which will occur. (3) Belief in the reliability of our senses […]. (Gaskin 1978, p. 116).
- 16.
There is an interesting debate on this point. Gaskin claims that, given Hume’s views in the Natural History of Religion that there are atheistic communities, this belief cannot be universal. For M. Badía, however, Hume’s position in this text does not allow for such a clear-cut interpretation. He says: “While Hume appears to suggest that belief in an invisible and intelligent power is not strictly universal, he also recognizes in the same place that the “propensity to believe in an invisible, intelligent power” (NHR, 135) is a general tendency of human nature. In essence, Hume is conceding to this belief the universality that he seemed to deny it at the beginning of the work” (Badía 1996, p. 100, my translation). In fact, Badía’s quotation appears at the end of NHR, where Hume says that belief in God is not instinctive, although it does accompany human nature: “The universal propensity to believe in invisible, intelligent power, if not an original instinct, being at least a general attendant of human nature, may be considered as a kind of mark or stamp, which the divine workman has set upon his work.” (NHR, 135, my italics). On this basis, Badía claims that this belief is “natural” but not “instinctive.” (1996, pp. 96–109). However, at the beginning of the text, Hume had argued that, “this preconception springs not from an original instinct or primary impression of nature” (NHR, p. 125). Thus, despite the plausibility of Badía’s argument, I believe Gaskin’s view is more accurate.
- 17.
The same reference to the skeptic as a nomad will appear in Kant (A IX).
- 18.
There is yet a third thesis, advanced by Foley, according to which Philo is simply inconsistent and Hume wishes to portray him as such (2006, pp. 83–112).
- 19.
Kant himself offers this interpretation in his Prolegomena: “For let us assume at the outset (as Hume in his Dialogues makes Philo grant Cleanthes), as a necessary hypothesis, the deistic concept of the First Being […]” (Ak. IV, 359).
- 20.
I will not refer to the last point, namely the rejection of belief in the immortality of the soul, but an analysis of Hume’s essay “Of the Immortality of Soul” (E. 590–597) would easily confirm Hume’s deistic inclination.
- 21.
As Gaskin claims, Hume’s apparently fideistic avowal at the end of the Enquiry, where he says that “whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it [Christian religion], is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience” (EHU X, 131) is, in reality, ironic, and cannot be seen as an endorsement of fideism. Hume’s views, expressed in Philo’s apparently pious “reversal,” are consistent with this passage’s irony.
- 22.
However, he seems to have accepted “a tincture of deism” in his thought (Gaskin 1983, p. 168).
- 23.
This very complaint can be found in other essays by Hume, such as “Of Suicide” (E. 493–502), “Of Superstition and Enthusiasm” (E. 98–103), and “Of the Immortality of the Soul” (E. 503–510).
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González Quintero, C. (2022). Hume and Cicero on Metaphysics: Philo’s Non-Dogmatic Deism. In: Academic Skepticism in Hume and Kant. Synthese Library, vol 449. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89750-5_5
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