Hume’s "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion": A Reader’s Guide

164 Pages·2006·0.972 MB·English

by  Andrew Pyle

HUME’S
DIALOGUES CONCERNING
NATURAL RELIGION
Continuum Reader’s Guides
Aristotle’sNicomachean Ethics – Christopher Warne
Heidegger’sBeing and Time – William Blattner
Hobbes’Leviathan – Laurie Bagby
Hume’sEnquiry Concerning Human Understanding – Alan Bailey
and Dan O’Brien
Nietzsche’sGenealogy of Morals – Daniel Conway
Plato’sRepublic – Luke Purshouse
Wittgenstein’sTractatus Logico Philosophicus – Roger M.White
HUME’S
DIALOGUES CONCERNING
NATURAL RELIGION
Reader’s Guide
ANDREW PYLE
Continuum International Publishing Group
The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane
11 York Road Suite 704
London SE1 7NX New York,NY 10038
www.continuuumbooks.com
© Andrew Pyle 2006
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means,electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying,recording,or any information storage or retrieval
system,without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
Andrew Pyle has asserted his right under the Copyright,Designs and
Patents Act,1988,to be identified as Author of this work.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 0 8264 7567 1 (hardback) 0 8264 7568 X (paperback)
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Typeset by Servis Filmsetting Ltd,Manchester
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Ashford Colour Press Ltd,
Gosport,Hampshire
CONTENTS
Preface vii
1 Context 1
2 Overview of themes 9
3 Reading the text 16
4 Interpretations of the Dialogues 122
5 Reception and Influence 133
i Hamann and Kant 133
ii Paley 135
iii Darwin 138
iv John Stuart Mill 141
v TheDialoguestoday 142
Notes 144
Guide to Further Reading 147
Index 153
v
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PREFACE
This Reader’s Guide is designed to be read as a close and detailed
commentary on the text. The most suitable version of the text for
students is Gaskin’s edition for Oxford World’s Classics (1998).The
advantages of Gaskin’s edition for our purposes are significant.The
Dialoguesare here bound together with Hume’s mini-autobiography
My Own Life, the Natural History of Religion, Section XI of the
Enquiry concerning Human Understanding,and an important letter
from Hume to his friend Gilbert Elliot. All the most important
textual materials are thus conveniently included in a single reason-
ablypriced volume.Gaskin also provides a wealth of valuable edi-
torial material and explanatory notes.Page references for quotations
will be given to Gaskin’s edition (e.g.G93).Students using other edi-
tions should still find it easy to locate quotations: the Dialogues
divide into short parts,and the Guide discusses those parts in strict
sequence.Quotations will also be prefixed with [C],[D] and [P] for
Cleanthes, Demea and Philo respectively: to understand the sub-
tleties ofHume’s arguments it is essential to know at any given point
of the discussion which of the three central characters is speaking.
vii
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CHAPTER 1
CONTEXT
I HUME’S LIFE
David Hume was born in Edinburgh on 26 April 1711,the younger
son ofa family ofminor gentry.His elder brother John inherited the
family estate at Ninewells near Berwick-upon-Tweed on the Scottish
borders, leaving David only a modest inheritance. He studied at
theUniversity of Edinburgh from 1723 until 1725 or 1726,leaving
without taking a degree. From 1726 until 1734 he read intensively
with a view to seeking a career in the law,but in fact devoted his time
and energy to his real loves – philosophy and the classics. After a
brief but abortive attempt to make a living in the commercial world
of Bristol,he settled from 1734 until 1737 in France,where he wrote
his Treatise of Human Nature in three books, dealing respectively
with the understanding,the passions,and morality.Hume returned
to Britain to publish the Treatise(1739–40),but its reception disap-
pointed him.He had hoped for violent attacks from the clergy and
asuccess de scandale,but received only neglect and indifference from
the learned world.
Hume’s reputation as a sceptic in matters ofreligion did,however,
prevent him from gaining an academic position. In 1744–5 he was
a candidate for the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh, but
the disapproval of conservative clerics blocked his appointment.
(Asimilar disappointment was in store for him in Glasgow in 1752.)
He spent a year as tutor and companion to an insane young noble-
man, then became secretary to General St Clair, first for a naval
attack on the coast ofBrittany in 1746,then on a diplomatic mission
to Vienna and Turin in 1748.These visits helped to turn Hume into
a well-rounded man of the world, with a cosmopolitan mentality
1