Whatdidhumethink Notes

We know what Philo, Cleanthes and Demea think. What do you think Hume thought?

There has been a lot of debate as to which character, if any, in the Dialogues represents Hume himself. The most obvious character to choose would be Philo, who shares Hume’s sceptical attitude and presents the most sophisticated arguments; that is, if it weren’t for some confusing facts that obscure the issue – most notably that it is Cleanthes who ‘wins’ the argument in the end (with the spectator, Pamphilus, announcing that he has come ‘closest to the truth’), and that Philo appears to make a complete turn-around in the last part of the Dialogues, retracting his skepticism about the argument from design, claiming that ‘no one has a deeper sense of religion impressed on his mind [than me]’ and admitting that his skepticism amounts to no more than ‘a love of singular arguments’. Given these statements of Philo’s, another question is raised: did Hume believe in God?

In this essay I will argue that Hume is indeed Philo, though sometimes also putting his thoughts into the mouth of Cleanthes, and that the things Philo says are consistent with Hume’s religious skepticism, and lastly that the things Hume says through Philo and in other works suggest that any belief he has in a ‘deity’ amounts to no more than the admission that whatever original principle of order there is in the universe ‘bears some remote analogy to human intelligence’, a plain philosophical proposition from which nothing particularly more substantial or life-affecting can be drawn.

Pamphilus introduces Philo as the ‘careless skeptic’, Cleanthes as having an ‘accurate philosophical turn’ and Demea as ‘rigidly orthodox’. As for their roles in the Dialogues, Philo criticises the design argument, raises the problem of evil and maintains that the divine attributes are incomprehensible. Cleanthes puts forward and defends the design argument, offers some solutions to the problem of evil, attacks Demea’s ontological/cosmological argument and maintains that religion is nothing if we do not have a comprehensible deity with moral attributes. Demea advocates the ontological/cosmological argument and maintains that God’s nature is a mystery.

Commentators have come down on various sides of the debate, with some being certain that Hume is Philo, others suggesting that he is Cleanthes, and yet others claiming that he is all or none of the characters. Clearly there are many reasons that support each interpretation. I will consider some of the reasons why one might be led to think that Hume is Cleanthes or that he is not primarily any of the characters, and argue that in each case the best interpretation of all the evidence is still that Hume is Philo.

For one thing, there is the fact that the Dialogues attribute a lot of Humean-style argument to Cleanthes as well as to Philo. It is Cleanthes that has the privilege of refuting Demea’s a priori argument for the existence of God, and who maintains that the proper office of religion is as the handmaiden to morality. The Dialogues also attribute to Cleanthes something that sounds very like Hume’s doctrine of ‘natural belief, as in passages like this one: ‘tell me, from your own feeling, if the idea of a contriver does not immediately flow in upon you with a force like that of sensation. The most obvious conclusion, surely, is in favour of design; and it requires time, reflection, and study, to summon up those frivolous, though abstruse objections, which can support Infidelity’. Here it sounds as if Cleanthes is criticising Philo for the kind of excessive skepticism that Hume always warns against, and accusing him of disingenuously rejecting a natural belief. Although it looks this way, it must be noted that Cleanthes is not talking about the same kind of ‘natural belief’ as that which Hume describes when he talks of, for instance, belief in the external world and the continuity of the self and the reliability of induction. With these beliefs, it is actually impossible to live sanely without them and arguably psychologically impossible in any case to reject them. With the natural force of the argument from design, however, belief in a designer is not necessarily in order to function in life, and neither is it impossible to reject, according to Cleanthes, since he accuses Philo of rejecting it and blames it simply on ‘blind dogmatism’. Therefore Cleanthes is not really being the spokesperson for Hume’s doctrine of natural belief in the Dialogues, and the doctrine is not meant to be applied to the argument from design. As for the instance in which Hume does put his thoughts into the words of Cleanthes, however, such as the refutation of Demea’s cosmological argument, then in a sense we might like to say that Hume is partially Cleanthes. But if we can show that Hume fully identifies with Philo, then it makes more sense to identify Hume with Philo and say that Cleanthes occasionally says things that Hume agrees with.

There do however, seem to be difficulties with identifying Hume with Philo. One of the biggest reasons, as I mentioned, for inferring that the author is in fact represented by Cleanthes, or at least not Philo, is the fact that Cleanthes apparently triumphs at the end of the Dialogues and Philo seems to come to agree with him about the argument from design. Let us deal first with the fact of Pamphilus’ verdict on the debate. Pamphilus concludes ‘I cannot but think, that Philo’s principles are more probable than Demea’s; but that those of Cleanthes approach still nearer to the truth’. Surely, the character made to win the debate should be identified with the author?

This may be so, but the question is whether Cleanthes really wins the debate. If it weren’t for the turn of events at the end, it would be straightforward to conclude that Philo was meant to be the victor. Many of Philo’s points go uncontested during the dialogue, and he consistently makes the most careful and original arguments, leading the...

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