Abstract

Very little scholarly attention has been devoted to Part 1 of Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. This lack has been addressed recently by Tweyman, who argues for the importance of this part in understanding the positions defended by the characters in the remainder of the dialogue, in accordance with the types that Hume discusses in part 12 of the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding—Cleanthes is a philosophical dogmatist who requires the application of excessive skepticism by Philo to turn to the approved position of mitigated skepticism, while Demea is and remains a religious dogmatist. In the present paper I will address the question of why the Dialogues continues beyond Part 1 in the face of the statement by Philo, who is generally considered to be Hume's spokesperson in the dialogue, that the inquiry being undertaken—the investigation into the nature of the Deity—is beyond human reason.