The fideist interpretation is important: it reminds us not to lose sight of the fluidity between skepticism and faith, a binary that is hierarchical, invertible, and codependent (as Derrida taught). The fideist reading also refuses to toss aside Hume’s noncritical claims about theism and religion as simply ironic. Hume was neither invested in a Kierkegaardian leap of faith to Christian belief nor willing to cosign any extant religious doctrine such that he would recommend dogmatic commitment to it. He argued that direct-passion hopes and fears—always on a continuum—were the sources of our popular religious beliefs, and he mounted a scathing moral challenge against these false beliefs. His intentions were more humble than the fideists allowed: to observe the machinery of the mind in common life, understand its principles of association of ideas, and illuminate sources of our beliefs and actions. Hume accepted that our natural sense of universal order and regularity was not warranted by either abstruse reason or faith. It is safe to say that he recognized, as Deleuze wrote, that “the subject goes beyond what the mind gives it.”16 Still, Hume did not endorse faith as a means to the truth as fideism generally holds; rather, he observed religious practice in common life and described it as grounded in a set of imaginative beliefs. Further, he suggested that Christianity took root because of the psychic relief it provided for human fears and hopes, not because of the faith it inspired.
A more moderate view constitutes the third response to the contention that Hume’s work confirms the idea of basic theism. This position holds that Hume’s philosophy admits our belief in a genuine sense of order and regularity in the universe due to the mind’s functioning as a cause-seeking tool. Best represented in the work of J. C. A. Gaskin and Keith Yandell, it rests on statements such as “our idea, therefore, of necessity and causation arises entirely from the uniformity observable in the operations of nature, where similar objects are constantly conjoined together, and the mind is determined by custom to infer the one from the appearance of the other” (E, 8.5). Gaskin locates what he calls an “attenuated deism” in Hume’s work. This form of deism is the belief that God is a remote, unknowable Orderer of the universe, unconcerned with human existence. It does not, on Gaskin’s argument, recommend itself to any religious vision nor does it inspire morality. It is meaningless for religion. Similarly, Yandell calls Hume’s position a “diaphanous theism”—a theistic worldview that is too thin to merit anything positive for religion.17
The moderate position as taken up by Gaskin and Yandell is important. It thoughtfully attempts to sort out the theistic dimensions of Hume’s claim that our minds are hardwired to think causally. The verdict that Hume’s theism (or deism, for Gaskin) is completely irrelevant for human life is, however, overstated. What is curious about this position is its uncritical reliance on conventional approaches to both theism and religion. Gaskin and Yandell rightfully point out that our belief in order and regularity has little relevance for popular religion. They miss the crucial role, however, that this belief might play for true religion and true philosophy. Their insight, that Hume’s idea of false religion supplied a vulgar theism and led to factionalism, is attenuated by their oversight regarding Hume’s basic theism. The very existence of the category ‘true religion’ in Hume’s thought grants some possible religious meaning to his basic theism, which is clearly useful for his philosophy. Unfortunately, Gaskin and Yandell leave these options unconsidered; thus, their slightly modified version of standard theism gives us no greater purchase on Hume’s true religion.
True religion and vulgar religion are similarly formed. Hume tells us that vulgar religion is grounded on vulgar theism; it follows that true religion is based on genuine (or true) theism. Vulgar theism is formed by our direct-passion fears and hopes of unknown causes (NHR, secs. 1–5). We can presume then that genuine theism is formed by the moderation of our fears and hopes of unknown causes. To put it in a way that privileges a more conventional religious perspective: patient acceptance of the order and regularity of experience—particularly when experience does not seem ordered and regular—is a kind of peacefulness. We can understand this sort of equanimity, a trait normally associated with religious faith, as an effect of true religion. Thus construed, the genuine theism of true religion—the source of which is the basic theism of Hume’s philosophy—has religious significance: it points us toward another dimension of the universe, sustains our overall sense of order and relationality, bears on our sense of who we are and what we can do, and opens us to possibilities beyond those that we can conceive. Perhaps Hume would have taken something like this genuine theism as implicit for his true religion. This fundamental belief in general providence, unlike its counterpart in false religion (belief in particular providence), could lead to a sense of equipoise, stability, and humility. These are the practical life outcomes and amenable results of religion when it remained in its proper office.
Cartesian Rationalism and Pyrrhonian Skepticism
To establish either or both weak and strong forms of my premise—that the Treatise does not foreclose a sense of basic theism—we must rescue the text from its skeptical interpreters. The conventional skeptical reading forecloses the possibility of our justifiably holding belief in basic theism. It also nullifies the constructive potential of Hume’s descriptive project and denies the tacit knowledge inherent in custom. Further, a thoroughly skeptical reading of the Treatise prohibits us from intelligibly attaching meaning to many of our most useful ideas and beliefs. Thus, to read the text simply as a skeptic is automatically to eliminate the possibility that a basic theism might be presupposed by its argument. Against traditional skeptical interpretations, I argue that Hume’s philosophy successfully navigated between a critique of Cartesian rationalism and the embrace of Pyrrhonian skepticism. Charting a way between Pyrrhonism and Cartesianism, the Treatise shows dexterity and some ambiguity in its approach to skepticism. These nuances are often lost by that slice of interpreters who quickly reduce Hume to a skeptic, and they are overlooked by those who reject his basic theism out of hand.
The Treatise acknowledges both Cartesianism and Pyrrhonism as coherent systems of thought and compelling philosophical approaches.18 Skeptical interpretations situate the text either as full-blown in the Pyrrhonian spirit or as a critical annihilation of the Cartesian approach. There is partial truth to each of these claims. The Treatise, however, neither thoroughly embraces nor fully rejects either method; it merely repositions them in relation to experience and belief. For example, against Pyrrhonism, the Treatise affirms the inescapability of certain ideas and beliefs; against Cartesianism, it confirms that we have warrant to hold certain ideas and beliefs as projections of our imagination or habits of the mind. For Hume, philosophy that begins with universal doubt (Cartesianism) and philosophy that refuses to assert conclusions (Pyrrhonism) are species of dogmatism. The Cartesians reason demonstratively to timeless conclusions of false philosophy and vulgar religion; they dogmatically resist the power of experience. Pyrrhonism, a brand of excessive skepticism, employs skeptical arguments that ultimately lead to nowhere; they dogmatically resist the power of belief. Hume writes, “the skeptical and dogmatical reasons are of the same kind, tho’ contrary in their operation and tendency” (T, 1.4.1.12).
CARTESIANISM
The introduction to the Treatise implies that it was partially catalyzed by Cartesianism: “Principles taken upon trust, consequences lamely deduced from them, want of coherence in the parts and of evidence of the whole, these are everywhere to be met with in the systems of the most eminent philosophers, and seem to have drawn disgrace upon philosophy itself” (T, introd., 1). This disgrace is multiplied, Hume claims, because the philosophical method of “the most eminent philosophers” (e.g., Descartes) supports the beliefs of popular religion. This is disturbing to Hume, for “the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous” (1.4.7.13).
Hume’s dissatisfaction with false metaphysical speculation and the conclusions it inspired for popular religion, namely the innate idea of a supernatural