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Does Philo's Argument Follow From An Emricist Philosophy?

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4. Towards the end of Hume’s Dialogues, Philo argues that the theist and the atheist are merely quarreling over words and that there is no meaningful difference between their positions. Why does he say this? How does Philo’s argument follow from an empiricist philosophy? Is it possible to be an empiricist and yet maintain that theism and atheism are meaningful positions? Explain. Philo believes that because a complete suspension of judgement is impossible, it is presumed that the quarrel over the design argument between the theist and atheist is all verbal dispute. In the book, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion written by David Hume and edited by Richard H. Popkin, Philo argues that the theist and the atheist are merely quarreling over words and that there is no meaningful difference between their positions because there will never be any right argument simply because words are all defined differently, especially between two different belief systems of a theist and an atheist. For example, what is beauty in a humanistic sense that we can visibly see? What is beauty in …show more content…

This simply states that he will force the theist to mysticism because things in the mortal world can be comprehensible by experience, therefore the incomprehensible must believe in mysticism. In comparison, the atheist “magnifies the analogy among all the operations of nature, in every period, every situation, and every position” (81). This makes me believe that atheists observe and conclude by personal experience. With these two definitions of what a theist and an atheist believe, this makes me question whether there is a truthful difference between the two because in the beginning of the book, Cleanthes claimed that there was no difference between a mystic like Demea and an

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