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Hume's Atheism: Peter Millican provides textual evidence

Peter Millican, who edits Hume Studies, has responded to some sceptical comments about David Hume on Mark Vernon's weblog (stimulated by Peter Millican's interview on Philosophy Bites). Millican provides some interesting textual evidence to support the contention that Hume was an atheist rather than, as sometimes claimed, an agnostic (or even some kind of deist). His key point is that the famous phrase that Hume puts in the mouth of Philo:

"that the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence"

is echoed by an earlier comment in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion:

"a certain degree of analogy among all the operations of nature ... the rotting of a turnip, the generation of an animal, and the structure of human thought [are] energies that probably bear some remote analogy to each other".

And this phrase 'remote analogy' occurs nowhere else in Hume's writings. If they were meant to be read together, as seems very likely, then it would be very hard to conclude that this is evidence for Hume being a theist!

Peter also gives a robust response to Vernon's other reservations about Hume. QED?

Read Peter Millican's comments on Hume's atheism here (the point about atheism is discussed in the second paragraph).

David Hume WAS an atheist

Hume specialist Peter Millican is the interviewee for the latest episode of Philosophy Bites on the topic of David Hume's Significance. In the course of the interview Peter explains why he believes that Hume died an atheist...

Listen to Peter Millcan on Hume's Significance

For textual evidence of Hume's Atheism, see this post (added April 27th)

Peter Millican has also provided a very detailed linked bibliography on David Hume:

Peter Millican's Bibliography on Hume

My thoughts on Alan Ramsay's portraits of Hume and Rousseau

Latest Philosophy Bites Podcast: Stewart Sutherland on Hume on Design

Is there evidence of intelligent design in the Universe? In the Eighteenth Century David Hume presented a series of powerful arguments against the Argument from Design.  Stewart Sutherland, Provost of Gresham College,  outlines these arguments and demonstrates their continuing relevance in this latest interview for Philosophy Bites.

Listen to Stewart Sutherland on Hume on Design

Podcast on David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

I've just posted the latest reading from my book Philosophy: The Classics, the chapter on David Hume's posthumous Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, one of my favourite books. You can listen to it here. You can either download it as an mp3 file or listen to it streaming on your computer.

Blackburn on Hume on Taste

Simon Blackburn has some excellent notes and a detailed reading list on David Hume on Taste here.
He makes a spirited case for the continuing relevance of Hume's writing to our understanding of judgements about works of art. These are his notes for an undergraduate course. I wish I could have attended it. I don't know of a better way in to Hume's thoughts on this area.