A Motivation Analysis of Hume’s Skepticism and its Affect on Hume’s Atheistic Reputation: an Attempt to Acquit Hume of Skepticism

Document Type : The Quarterly Jornal

Authors

1 Master of philosophy (corresponding author)

2 Associate professor at Payam-e Noor University

Abstract

There is always an inevitable conflict between Hume’s naturalistic ambitions and his skeptical judgments. Some of his contemporary critics accused him of atheism because the foundations of his naturalistic system restricted the human knowledge to the human nature, thus destroying his contemporary naturalistic apologies. After Hume’s death, his critics provided a naturalistic interpretation of his philosophical system. In this paper, we will first show that Hume’s ambitions for establishment of ethics led him to the human nature, making his research fall into a skeptical trap. We will then evaluate the truth or falsity of the atheistic or skeptical accusation through an analysis of the Humean thought, an investigation of his critics and advocates, and an exposition of hidden motivations behind his skepticisms. In the end, we seek to free his naturalism from skepticism, showing that even his skeptically-oriented research is in conflict with consequences of denying God. We have found that skepticism is not an instrument for undermining intellectual foundations; it is instead a bridge for reaching the goal. Thus, Hume deserves to be called a “Rational Moralist.”

Keywords

References

1. زاگزبسکی، لیندا (1392)، معرفت‌شناسی، ترجمه کاوه بهبهانی، تهران: نشر نی.
2. لازمی، فریده (1395)، بررسی تطبیقی شک در نظام فکری دکارت و هیوم، پایان‌نامه کارشناسی ارشد، دانشگاه تبریز.
3. هیوم، دیوید (1395)، رساله‌ای درباره طبیعت آدمی، ترجمه جلال پیکانی، تهران: انتشارات ققنوس.
4. Audi, Robert (1999), Epistemology: Acontemporary Introduction to the theory of Knowledge, New York: Routledge.
5. Baier, Annette C. (1991), A Progress of Sentiments: Refl ections on Hume’s Treatise, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
6. Flew, Antony (1961), Hume’s Philosophy of Belief, London: Routledge.
7. Fogelin, Robert (1985), Hume’s Skepticism in the Treatise of Human Nature, London: Routledge.
8. Fogelin, Robert J. (2009), Hume's Skeptical Crisis: A Textual Study, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
9. Gaskin, J. C. A. (1988), Hume’s Philosophy of Religion, London: Macmillan.
10. Grose, T. H. (1875), History of the Editions In David Hume, Essays: Moral, Political and Literary, edited with an introduction by T. H. Green and T. H. Grose. London: Longman.
11. Hendel, Charles (1925), Studies in the Philosophy of David Hume, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
12. Hume, David (1751). An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1 ed.). London: A. Millar. Retrieved 28. 2014. via Google Books.
13. __________ (1999), An Enquiry Concerning Human Understaning, edited by tom l. Beauchamp.
14. __________ (2009), A Treatise of Human Nature, Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects, First Published in 1740.
15. Huxley, T. H. (1894), Hume: With Helps to the Study of Berkeley, London: Macmillan.
16. Kemp Smith, Norman (1967), The Naturalism of Hume, Reprinted in Norman Kemp Smith, The Credibility of Divine Existence, A. J. D. Porteous, R. D. MacLennan, and G. E. Davie (eds.), London: MacMillan.
17. Kemp Smith, Norman (2005), The Philosophy of David Hume, with a new introduction by D. Garrett. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave, First published 1941.
18. Laird, John (1932), Hume’s Philosophy of Human Nature, London: Methuen.
19. MacIntosh, James (1837), Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, Chiefly During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, (2nd ed.), Edinburgh.
20. McAteer, John (2016), How to be a Moral Taste Theorist, Essays in Philosophy, Vol.1, Issue 1.
21. Mossner, Ernest C. (1947), The Continental Reception of Hume’s Treatise.
22. Norton, David (1983), “David Hume, In Robert Audi” (ed.), Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
23. Passmore, John (1980), Hume’s Intentions, (3rd ed.), London: Duckworth.
24. Popkin, Richard (1985), Hume’s Intentions, In Popkin, The High Road to Pyrrhonism.
25. Qu, Hsueh, Hume’s (Ad Hoc?) Appeal to the Calm Passions, 2000.
26. Rayner, Sam (2005), Hume’s Moral Philosophy, Macalester Journal of Philosophy, Vol.1, Issue.1.
27. Stewart, Dugald (1821), Dissertation: Exhibiting the Progress of Metaphysical, Ethical, and Political Philosophy Since the Revival of Letters in Europe; Second Part, Edinburgh; Reprinted in The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart.
28. Stroud, Barry (1977), Hume, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Wright, John (1983), The Sceptical Realism of David Hume, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Naqd Va Nazar
Volume 23, Issue 90 - Serial Number 90
September 2018
Pages 123-150

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics