Four Dissertations

Four Dissertations
Name	Four Dissertations
Author	David Hume
Country	Scotland
Language	English language
Subject	religion, philosophy
Publisher	A. Kincaid & J. Robertson
Pub date	1757
Pages	192

Four Dissertations is a collection of four essays by David Hume first published in 1757 in Edinburgh. The work addresses topics in philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and moral philosophy, engaging with figures and debates from Reformation and Enlightenment contexts. It formed part of Hume's broader corpus which includes the Treatise of Human Nature, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, and writings that shaped the Scottish Enlightenment.

Background and Publication History

Hume composed the essays amid intellectual exchanges with contemporaries such as Adam Smith, James Beattie, William Robertson, and Lord Kames in the milieu of Edinburgh salons and institutions like the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The 1757 edition by printers A. Kincaid & J. Robertson followed earlier publications of individual essays that circulated in periodicals and private manuscripts, intersecting with controversies involving figures like George Buchanan and critics allied to the Church of Scotland. The collection's publication traces through subsequent editions edited by scholars including Lord Monboddo and later reprints in compilations alongside Hume's Essays, Moral and Political and the Posthumous Works of David Hume.

Contents and Summaries of the Four Essays

The first essay, often titled on the art of poetry, deals with judgments of taste and the principles of criticism, engaging issues addressed by Alexander Pope, John Dryden, William Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes, and Horace. Hume examines the faculties of sentiment and the role of sentiment theorists such as Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury and contrasts approaches found in works by René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza.

The second essay treats the origin of ideas about the sublime and beautiful, referencing artistic practices and theorists like Sir Joshua Reynolds, Gottfried Leibniz, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and commentators influenced by the French Enlightenment. Hume analyzes aesthetic response in light of examples from Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Nicolas Poussin, and Caravaggio.

The third essay addresses the natural history of religion, surveying forms of belief among societies discussed by travelers and historians such as William Dampier, James Cook, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, and Edward Gibbon. Hume distinguishes polytheism, atheism, and monotheism, invoking ethnographic accounts and polemics familiar to readers of Montesquieu and Voltaire.

The fourth essay evaluates miracles and the credibility of testimony, engaging directly with treatises by John Wesley, George Berkeley, Joseph Butler, and controversialist debates involving the Christian apologetic tradition, the Deist controversy, and pamphlet exchanges with proponents of primitive Christianity.

Themes and Arguments

Hume advances themes including skepticism toward metaphysical certainty, empirical examination of belief, and the social origins of religious practices, drawing on methodological contrasts with Isaac Newton's empiricism and arguments in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. He situates taste and aesthetic judgment within a sentimentalist framework akin to Francis Hutcheson and David Hartley, while his treatment of miracles employs probabilistic reasoning influenced by critics of revelation such as Tobias Smollett and commentators on legal evidence like William Blackstone. Hume's comparative approach references historical writers including Herodotus, Thucydides, Tacitus, and modern historians like Edward Gibbon to contextualize religious evolution.

Reception and Influence

Contemporaneous reception ranged from approbation by Adam Smith and private readers in the Scottish Enlightenment to sharp criticism from clerics associated with the Church of England, Presbyterianism, and figures like James Beattie who published rebuttals. The essays contributed to later debates in 19th-century religious criticism involving intellectuals such as John Henry Newman, Thomas Babington Macaulay, and influenced philosophers including Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and later historians of ideas like Isaiah Berlin. The work's discussion of miracles shaped apologetic responses by William Paley and influenced historiography in the hands of critics such as Edward Gibbon and advocates of comparative religion like Max Müller.

Translations and Editions

The Four Dissertations have been translated into many languages and appeared in critical editions edited by scholars connected to institutions such as Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and the Clarendon Press. Notable translators and editors include figures from the 19th century and 20th century scholarly communities who worked in universities like University of Edinburgh, University of Oxford, Harvard University, and Université de Paris (Sorbonne). Modern critical editions situate the essays alongside Hume's other writings and are used in courses in departments of Philosophy, Religious Studies, and History across universities including Yale University, Princeton University, and Columbia University.

Category:Works by David Hume