Hume’s Minimal Theism and the Supervised Christian Church: A Philosophical and Historical Analysis of the Idea of True Religion

In this book, Péter Hartl offers a novel and comprehensive interpretation of David Hume’s philosophy of religion focusing on various notions of ’true religion’ in Hume’s overall philosophy and how these ideas relate to various early modern positions on religion, society and philosophy. The account consists of both critical and positive parts of Hume’s overall, nuanced position on theoretical, social and political aspects of religion and the philosophical criticism of religion. Hartl criticises the atheist and completely negative readings of Hume’s philosophy of religion. Instead of presenting Hume’s position as either a radical secularist or closet atheist, Hartl’s interpretation builds on the underdeveloped, positive and constructive parts of Hume’s account of (true) religion. For Hume, on the one hand, true religion is compatible with or even vindicates minimal theism, and it forms part of philosophy exemplifying intellectual virtues. On the other hand, Hume has a pragmatic stance on the role of religion in society, according to which the government should control religious institutions to reduce the power of church authorities but to retain some positive social effects of religion.

Péter Hartl (PhD, University of Aberdeen) was a research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest (formerly known as the Hungarian Academy of Sciences). Until 2022, he was a member of the MTA-Lendület Morals and Values Research Group. He has published works on epistemology, the philosophy of Michael Polanyi and that of David Hume, including two papers on Hume’s philosophy of religion, Hume and the art of theological lying (Journal of Scottish Philosophy), and Hume on the rational and irrational origins of religion (Hume Studies). In addition to co-editing The Value of Truth special issue of Synthese and the volume entitled Science, Freedom, Democracy (Routledge, 2021), Hartl also edited Science, Faith, Society: new essays on the philosophy of Michael Polanyi (Springer, 2024).