Hume's Social Epistemology and the Dialogue Form

Episteme:1-16 (forthcoming)
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Abstract

Hume begins his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by providing a discussion on what an ideal dialogue ought to look like. Many considerations that Hume raises coincide with similar concerns in contemporary social epistemology. This paper examines three aspects of Hume’s social epistemology: epistemic peerhood, inquiry norms and the possibility of rational persuasion. Interestingly, however, I will argue that the conversation between Philo, Cleanthes and Demea falls short of meeting Hume’s articulated standard of what an ideal dialogue ought to look like. From this analysis, I defend the less popular view that Demea’s decision to leave the conversation (in Part XI) was entirely reasonable and suggest an explanation for why Hume decided to make Cleanthes the ‘hero’ of the Dialogues.

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Daryl Ooi
National University of Singapore

Citations of this work

Permissivism and the history of philosophy.Daryl Ooi - 2025 - Metaphilosophy 56 (1):69-82.

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References found in this work

A Treatise of Human Nature.David Hume & A. D. Lindsay - 1958 - Philosophical Quarterly 8 (33):379-380.
Inquiry and Belief.Jane Friedman - 2017 - Noûs 53 (2):296-315.
The logic of deep disagreements.Robert Fogelin - 1985 - Informal Logic 7 (1):3-11.
Deep disagreement and hinge epistemology.Chris Ranalli - 2020 - Synthese 197 (11):4975-5007.

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