PHIL 1100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Empiricism, Philosophical Skepticism
Document Summary
Basics of the dialogue: dialogue written by the famous british empiricist, david hume, empiricists believe that knowledge is founded on perception, told by the narrator pamphilus. Characters: demea: proponent of a priori or rationalist arguments for the existence of god, cleanthes: proponent of a posteriori or empiricist arguments for the existence of. God: philo: the philosopher, primarily against superstition, and willing to consider alternative explanations for the existence of the universe. According to cleanthes, it sounds like an effort to erect faith on the basis of philosophical skepticism: cleanthes argues that skepticism is an academic concern that has no bearing on real life. Part 2: cleanthes: the universe, and all in it, is a big machine made of smaller machines. However, the farther off something is, the less we are in a position to comment on it. Hence, it is far more appropriate to reason from what we are familiar with, even in the case of god.
