Enlightenment And Its Limitations

As a hero of Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume always gives us theimpression of a religious deconstructionist. His critique of deism and miraclestheory is regarded as a classic, which still has a broad impact on the Westernphilosophy of religion today. However, after the criticism of religion, Humementioned the confusing conception of "true religion", and he even advocated a“veneration” for it in his Dialogue Concerning Natural Religion.Chinese scholars lack appropriate attention to this conception, and evenforeign scholars are mostly holding it in contempt or generally a negative attitudetowards it. Different from the general understanding, from reading Hume’sfirst-hand documents, this research argues that "true religion” is Hume’s ownconception, that it has a rich content and shows deep and far-reachingsignificance of the Enlightenment. Clarifying the notion of “true religion” willbe a key to re-understand Hume’s philosophy of religion and can help to have abetter understanding of the Enlightenment’s profound and complex attitudetowards religion.In detail, this study will abide by the following steps:(1) Introducing thetransformation of “true religion” and general understanding views (2) Byanalyzing the original works of Hume, confute the arguments that denying Humehave the notion of “true religion” and allege that Hume have “veneration” for“true religion”;(3) Summarizing two enlightening purports of “true religion” byanalyzing characteristics of "true religion" and the harms of “false religion”, andtrying to explore their different objects, contents and ways of realization;(4)Showing the “true religion” as a limited and unfinished ideal;(5) Eventually,concluding that "true religion" is a key concept within Hume’s philosophy ofreligion and that it sets a typical example of religious enlightenment.