Hume’s last words: On the occasion of the 250th Anniversary of Hume’s death
Aleksandra DavidovicIn 1776, shortly before his death, David Hume added a new paragraph to the last part of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. In that paragraph the sceptic Philo claims that the dispute between a theist and an atheist is merely verbal because both of them accept that the cause of order in the universe bears some analogy to human intelligence. In this paper, I conduct a detailed textual analysis in order to show that the new paragraph, firstly, strongly suggests that the so-called Philo’s reversal does not represent a drastic change of his opinion, and secondly, serves as a key to interpreting Philo’s final speech in the Dialogues. This analysis also establishes that Hume's position, despite the conciliatory tone present in the new passage, is primarily skeptical.