Pregledni rad
Understanding the Nature of the Concept of God in the context of Hume's empirism regarding Dialogues concerning natural religion
Dafne Vidanec
orcid.org/0000-0002-0991-7486
; Veleučilište Baltazar Zaprešić, Zaprešić, Hrvatska
Sažetak
The paper deals with understanding of the concept of God and the notion of
religion in the philosophical thought of David Hume, the Scottish philosopher. Some
commentators such as John M. Robertson think of Hume’s work as foreseen philosophy.
They argue that Hume›s theses published in the form of essays and treatises have been, in a
certain way, “mutilated”; that Hume deserves a more appropriate place in philosophical
discourse than he currently enjoys, and the same also applies to religion. Thisis explored
through an analysis of Hume’s understanding of the concept of natural religion, as laid
out in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. In terms of discussion of natural
religion in the history of philosophy, the author argues that this is the most significant
philosophical treatment of the topic since Pascal’s Pensées. Addressing Hume’s interpretation of natural religion, explained in the Dialogues, the paper describes this as a kind
of hermetically presented piece of work on the nature of belief in general. The structure of
the paper is threefold: the first part deals with Hume’s personal way of thinking about the
attributes of God; the second is focused on Hume’s empiricism, and the third is dedicated
to the concept laid out in the Dialogues.
It should be noted that reception of David Hume’s thought, in general and with
regard to his philosophy of natural religion, has been relatively weak and that his philosophy has not been widely explored in Croatian-language texts.
Ključne riječi
David Hume; God; Natural Religion; Empiricism; ‹Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion›.
Hrčak ID:
259919
URI
Datum izdavanja:
1.7.2020.
Posjeta: 1.146 *