Hume's Philosophy of Religion

1986 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 129-146
Author(s):  
Antony Flew
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature ◽  
Section Viii ◽  
Joseph Butler

I shall be dealing with not only Sections X and XI but also Part II of Section VIII and Part III of Section XII. Of all this material we have, anywhere in the originally anonymous and later emphatically disowned Treatise of Human Nature, Hume's first book, nothing more than at most hints. But in a surviving letter, written while he was still working on the manuscript of that Treatise, Hume wrote: ‘I am at present castrating my work, that is, cutting off its nobler parts; that is, endeavouring it shall give as little offence as possible, before which I would not pretend to put it in the Doctor's hands’. Enclosed with this letter were some ‘Reasonings concerning Miracles’, which must have anticipated what became Section X of our Enquiry. Presumably there were other excised anticipations also. The ‘Doctor’ mentioned was a Doctor of Theology, Joseph Butler, soon to be appointed Bishop of Durham; an office open in that period only to believing Christians.

Hume's Philosophy of Religion

1986 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 129-146
Author(s):  
Antony Flew
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature ◽  
Section Viii ◽  
Joseph Butler

I shall be dealing with not only Sections X and XI but also Part II of Section VIII and Part III of Section XII. Of all this material we have, anywhere in the originally anonymous and later emphatically disowned Treatise of Human Nature, Hume's first book, nothing more than at most hints. But in a surviving letter, written while he was still working on the manuscript of that Treatise, Hume wrote: ‘I am at present castrating my work, that is, cutting off its nobler parts; that is, endeavouring it shall give as little offence as possible, before which I would not pretend to put it in the Doctor's hands’. Enclosed with this letter were some ‘Reasonings concerning Miracles’, which must have anticipated what became Section X of our Enquiry. Presumably there were other excised anticipations also. The ‘Doctor’ mentioned was a Doctor of Theology, Joseph Butler, soon to be appointed Bishop of Durham; an office open in that period only to believing Christians.

Parsing the Frost

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjorie Levinson ◽  
Marjorie Levinson
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Frost Formation ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature ◽  
Sensory Register

The reading of Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight” at the center of this chapter opens up the cognitive and aesthetic stakes of seeing writing. It does so by analyzing the encounter with visible script, an experience that can be understood as a reworking of a previously unrecognized source, the scene of writing in David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature, Book 4. Just such an encounter is the activity in play with the figure of the window frost and with the entire poem. Broadly speaking, sentence formation is seen as analogous to frost formation. In this way, the discussion seeks to shift the sensory register of criticism of the poem from its traditional emphasis on the acoustic to a new appreciation of the visible.

Hume's Skepticism in the Treatise of Human Nature.

1988 ◽  
Vol 97 (2) ◽  
pp. 263
Author(s):  
Michael Williams ◽  
Robert J. Fogelin
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature

Hume and the Customary Causes of Industry, Knowledge and Humanity

2018 ◽  
pp. 184-207
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Berry
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Causal Analysis ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature ◽  
Scientific Analysis ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

Examines Hume’s account of economic development as a subset of the history of civilisation, which is presented by him as a history of customs and manners. Since Hume believes that the subject matter of ‘economics’ is amenable to scientific analysis, the focus is on his employment of causal analysis and how he elaborates an analysis of customs as causes to account for social change. This is executed chiefly via an examination Hume’s Essays, though the History of England (as a test case) and the Treatise of Human Nature for its expression of Hume’s seminal analysis of causation are also incorporated.

Hume and the Legacy of Academic Scepticism

2019 ◽  
pp. 39-76
Author(s):  
Peter S. Fosl
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
David Hume ◽  
General Framework ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature ◽  
Pierre Bayle ◽  
The Middle Ages

Chapter Two of Hume’s Scepticism charts the development of Academic scepticism from Cicero and Augustine, through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and into early modernity. The exposition is organized around sceptical ideas that anticipated or may have influenced David Hume, who describes himself an ‘academical’ sceptic. The chapter also sets out Cicero’s influence upon Hume, scepticism at the college in La Flèche where Hume wrote much of A Treatise of Human Nature, and Hume’s self-conception of Academic scepticism. Accounts of sceptical ideas in Marin Mersenne, Simon Foucher, John Locke, Pierre-Daniel Huet, and Pierre Bayle set the stage for Hume’s own Academicism. The chapter closes with a five-point General Framework defining Academic Scepticism.

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