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The French Context of Hume's Philosophical Theology

The French Context of Hume's Philosophical Theology , pp. 221-236 The French Context of Hume's Philosophical Theology As a student of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries in France, I am struck by the change of landscape as one moves from commentary upon Cartesians, Malebranchists, Aristotelians, and Thomists to commentary upon Hume. The most striking topographical difference occurs in the adjectives that dominate the scholarly terrain. We say "systematic"; you say "modified." We say "unyielding"; you say "attenuated." We say "absolute"; you say "partial." We say "representative"; you say "a kind of." The adverbs also differ. Above all, we say "obviously"; you say "perhaps." What creatures of our subjects we are! In The Orthodox Sources of Disbelief, volume one of my Atheism in France, 1650-1729, Hume receives, in all senses, slight attention. The index refers the reader merely to two pages. Desiring glib rhetorical reinforcement of my main thesisÂ--that the debates of orthodox Catholic French learned culture, in the two generations following Descartes's death, had generated the arguments and motifs of disbelief well before the EnlightenmentÂ--I twice made ignoble use of the singular Hume. Thus, concluding a chapter on Cartesian and Malebranchist assaults upon proofs of God from the order, law and purposes of http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Hume Studies Hume Society

The French Context of Hume's Philosophical Theology

Kors, Alan Charles.
Hume Studies , Volume 21 (2) – Jan 26, 1995
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Hume Society
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1947-9921
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Abstract

, pp. 221-236 The French Context of Hume's Philosophical Theology As a student of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries in France, I am struck by the change of landscape as one moves from commentary upon Cartesians, Malebranchists, Aristotelians, and Thomists to commentary upon Hume. The most striking topographical difference occurs in the adjectives that dominate the scholarly terrain. We say "systematic"; you say "modified." We say "unyielding"; you say "attenuated." We say "absolute"; you say "partial." We say "representative"; you say "a kind of." The adverbs also differ. Above all, we say "obviously"; you say "perhaps." What creatures of our subjects we are! In The Orthodox Sources of Disbelief, volume one of my Atheism in France, 1650-1729, Hume receives, in all senses, slight attention. The index refers the reader merely to two pages. Desiring glib rhetorical reinforcement of my main thesisÂ--that the debates of orthodox Catholic French learned culture, in the two generations following Descartes's death, had generated the arguments and motifs of disbelief well before the EnlightenmentÂ--I twice made ignoble use of the singular Hume. Thus, concluding a chapter on Cartesian and Malebranchist assaults upon proofs of God from the order, law and purposes of

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Hume Studies – Hume Society

Published: Jan 26, 1995

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