The Research On Hume's Religious Epistemology

David Hume(1711-1776),as a thinker of the enlightenment,made unique contributions in metaphysics,epistemology,moral philosophy,aesthetics,religious philosophy,political science,economics,history,etc.,and was hailed as one of the most important figures in the history of Scottish Enlightenment and western philosophy.Hume's philosophy of human nature has a profound influence on utilitarianism,positivism and phenomenology.It can be said that "Hume research" is one of the most important topics in the academic field in recent years.In these studies,Hume's religious epistemology has attracted generations of scholars because of its inherent profundity,pioneering and complexity.H.E.Luther,commenting on Hume's religious thought,said: "Hume's two complementary works,namely,the Natural History of Religion and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,mark the beginning of the religious philosophy." Hume's religious philosophy also foreshadows two development paths of later religious philosophy,that is,the rational cognitive path and the emotional cognitive path of religion,which are full of glory in the development of later religious philosophy.Taking Hume's religious epistemology as the object,this paper makes a comprehensive and in-depth study of Hume's religious epistemology's ideological source,internal logic,two religious cognitive paths and their characteristics,and on this basis,explores Hume's true religious outlook,and finally discusses Hume's historical influence on religious epistemology.This paper holds that Hume's philosophy of religion is a part of his philosophy of human nature,and his research ideas and purposes are in the same line.Both of them are constructive,criticizing the old knowledge system first,and then seeking another foundation to rebuild the new knowledge system.The starting point of Hume's philosophy of human nature is empiricism.He takes the perception of the mind as the object,and through the implementation of empiricism principles,he comes to the conclusion of skepticism.This is the reason why some scholars regard Hume's philosophy of human nature as skepticism.However,this paper holds that the skeptical tendency of this empirical exploration process is Hume's revelation of the internal contradictions of British empiricism,which is the critical stage of his philosophical construction.Hume uses such a process to highlight the problem of the intellectual dimension of human nature,and then construct his human nature philosophy in another dimension of human nature-emotion.Hume formally startedhis philosophy of human nature construction project on the basis of emotion.He not only restored various concepts destroyed by previous skepticism tendency,such as the concept of self entity and the concept of external material entity,but also established a broader belief theory on this basis.The belief theory with emotion as its core can best embody its naturalistic characteristics,and it is also the last face of Hume's philosophy of human nature.The theory of religious belief is an important part of it.However,Hume's reliability of religious belief is not clearly stated.What he left us is more of a critical impression on religion,and the occasional positive discussion is often seen by scholars as a self-protection measure to avoid religious persecution,a satire on religion,or a negative of religion.Most of them despised or denied Hume's real religion,which made his religious view confusing.Scholars tend to analyze Hume's real religious view from the perspective of Hume's spokesman,or study Hume's religious thought from the rational cognitive approach advocated by the Enlightenment era,and then draw different conclusions.This paper holds that these traditional interpretations ignore Hume's investigation of religious phenomena from the perspective of emotion and his cognition,which including not only rational approach,but also more basic emotional approach.It is Hume's emotional approach that embodies his unique philosophy of human nature.Therefore,it is necessary to divide Hume's religious epistemology into two parts: rational epistemology and emotional epistemology,then discuss the relationship between them,and finally get the overall Hume's religious epistemology.It should be noted that the emotional cognition here is only the interpretation of religious phenomena and beliefs from the emotional perspective,not the cognition in the sense of strict epistemology.In fact,Hume's daily beliefs,including religious beliefs,are very obvious from the perspective of reason and emotion.First of all,the different effects of emotion and reason on human cognition,speech and behavior are reflected in Hume's theory of ideas.Secondly,it is also an obvious fact that Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and the Natural History of Religion discuss religious phenomena from the perspective of rational cognition and emotional cognition respectively.At last,Hume's demonstration process of naturalism,that is,the stage of rational criticism and the stage of emotional construction,also shows this distinction.This paper argues that Hume's religious criticism can be divided into three periods in the cognitive path of religious Rationality: the early stage of Christian religion,the middle ages and the enlightenment.Hume's religious criticism of thesethree periods is essentially based on the principle of naturalistic rationality to criticize the different rational basis of these religious beliefs,that is,to criticize the irrationality or lower rationality,the rationality serving the faith,and the rationality of supremacy in turn.The advantages of this division will help us to understand Hume's criticism of religious rationality in terms of hierarchy and internal logic.We can find that the cognitive status of rationality is gradually rising,even becoming an absolute standard,but these are not the rational argumentation forms recognized by Hume.Hume believes that our rationality should participate in the judgment,evaluation and formation of religious phenomena and beliefs,but not in the above-mentioned ways,but in the legal and reasonable way.There are two meanings in this way of participation.In the narrow sense,legal rationality refers to the nature of rationality,the scope of its legitimate use,that is,the principle of strict evidentialism;in the broad sense,legal rationality refers to the standard of a wider range,that is,the scope of human nature.On the cognitive path of religious emotion,this paper holds that Hume's religious view reflects the construction and exploration of his religious philosophy.This paper discusses Hume's cognitive thought of religious emotion from three stages: the emotional basis of the origin of religious belief,the emotional role of religious development and the emotional destination of religious rational speculation.On the whole,Hume's true religious view is based on reason and emotion as the essence of theism.In this regard,we can understand it from two levels,that is,determination level and possible level.At the determination level,Hume recognizes the existence of God,which distinguishes Hume from atheism and agnosticism.On the possible level,from the perspective of Hume's real religion's highly rational thinking foundation,it can be called a philosophy religion.From the essence of Hume's real religion,it can be called emotional religion.Based on the above analysis,this paper sums up four characteristics of Hume's Religious Epistemology: the cognitive principle of evidentialism,the possibility of religious emotional cognition,the organic interaction between emotion and reason,and the obvious criticism but insufficient construction.Finally,this paper discusses Hume's historical position and ideological influence of this religious epistemology.Because of the balance between the criticism of rational cognition and the possibility of emotional cognition,this framework of religious cognition shows a very strong religious attitude,which basically stipulatestwo religious research directions of later scholars.Its concrete argumentation in two aspects affects rational theology and emotional theology respectively,that is to say,to a certain extent,it ends the foundation of rational theology,and at the same time,it opens a new way of interpretation of emotional theology.