Anti-Sceptical Rhetoric in Hume's Dialogues concerning natural Religion

Abstract

In this essay, I examine the original motivating question of Hume’s Dialogues concerning Natural Religion: where does the propensity to the design argument get sufficient strength to prevail over the natural propensity to believe in the senses and experience? In my hypothesis, the Dialogues, notwithstanding their title, represent a failure in mutual understanding. Focusing on their drama, I aim to show that in Cleanthes they expose a proselyte bias in modern theism; and, more specifically, that they point out ad hominem subterfuges upon which theists rely to evade Philo’s irreligious skeptical arguments. Thus, with respect to philosophical arguments, the strength of the design, it seems to me, is due to poor rhetoric, a revealing sign of what I call the Proselyte Hypothesis, which is denounced by Philo in at least three moments of theDialogues. I believe this factor, little noticed in the critical literature, helps to explain the endurance of the propensity to natural religion, a phenomenon that always intrigued Hume.