• The role of the 'Natural history of religion' in Hume's critique of religious belief
    Belgrade Philosophical Annual 1 (34): 139-157. 2021.
    I argue that Hume's naturalistic explanation of religious belief in the Natural History of Religion has significant epistemic consequences. While he argues in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (and in other works) that belief in God is not justified on the basis of testimony or philosophical argument, this is not enough to show that religious belief is not warranted. In the Natural History, Hume provides a genetic explanation for religious belief. I contend that the explanation of religi…Read more
  •  20
    In this paper I present a novel view of the ontological status of possible objects for Descartes. Specifically, I claim that possible objects just are innate ideas considered objectively. In the act of creation, God creates possibilities—in all its richness—in the form of innate ideas. Thus, in acts of thinking, one may clearly and distinctly perceive, via one’s innate ideas, that such and such is possible. To argue this, I first analyze and critique two competing views—one from Calvin Normore w…Read more
  •  15
    In this paper I present a novel view of the ontological status of possible objects for Descartes. Specifically, I claim that possible objects just are innate ideas considered objectively. In the act of creation, God creates possibilities—in all its richness—in the form of innate ideas. Thus, in acts of thinking, one may clearly and distinctly perceive, via one’s innate ideas, that such and such is possible. To argue this, I first analyze and critique two competing views—one from Calvin Normore w…Read more
  •  48
    Cleanthes’s Propensity and Intelligent Design
    Modern Schoolman 88 (3-4): 299-316. 2011.
    A persuasive argument that theism is a Humean “natural belief” relies on the assertion that belief in intelligent design is caused by “Cleanthes’s propensity,” introduced in Hume’s Dialogues—a universal propensity to believe in a designer triggered by the observation of apparent telos in nature. But Hume neverclaims in his own voice that religious belief is founded on anything like Cleanthes’s propensity. Instead, in the Natural History, he argues that the belief in invisible intelligent power i…Read more
  •  5
    Before the pioneering work of Norman Kemp Smith, most Hume scholars read him as a thoroughgoing skeptic. The dominant view today is that, for Hume, ‘natural beliefs’—paradigmatically, beliefs based on induction—are warranted in virtue of features of the psychological mechanisms that produce them; moreover, Hume would endorse a suitable naturalistic theory of warrant to sustain this position. I survey four naturalistic interpretations of Hume’s epistemology: Kemp Smith’s theory, proper-function t…Read more