Today, were he still alive, would mark the great Empiricist philosopher,
David Hume's 302nd birthday -- an event which (as we know from his philosophy), since conceivable, is possible -- though far enough from likely that we would give it little thought, other than play within our imaginations and discourse.
Though I'm quite far from Hume on many philosophical matters, and even think him dead-off on some very important and implication-rich points, I have to admit that,
like Thomas Hobbes, he remains among one of my favorite philosophers to read, puzzle over, and to teach, perhaps in some part precisely because of our considerable differences of outlook. There is something stark -- both in the sense of being sharply clear because underdeveloped and reductive, and in the other sense of being robust, bold, daring -- to Hume's deliberately, deceptively mellifluous prose.
This last week in my Introduction to Philosophy class, we worked our way through one of my favorite works by Hume, his
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
(video of the first of two lectures available here) It has deservedly become a classic text within the field of Philosophy of Religion, often anthologized, frequently quoted or even lifted from (sometimes, perhaps, without the person citing realizing the provenance of their ideas). Once the students get past Hume's now-archaic vocabulary, and take a place to listen to the discussions carried out among the three interlocutors, they are confronted with the play and parry of philosophical arguments bearing upon acknowledgedly murky topics of religion -- God's existence and nature, creation and the universe, human and divine minds. . .