Talk:Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Factual Error
Cleanthes was not a rationalist. He was much more of an empiricist (in fact, Cleanthes even expounds some very Humean views).

Cleanthes doesn't lament the abandonment of rationalism, he abandons it.

Demea is upset by abandoning a priori arguments.

Demea should also have a larger section, making note of the fact that he emphasised the unknowable nature of God and that the arguments used for Him should be a priori.

Fixed
Transfer of Cleanthes' false information to Demea. Although broadly true, the information is somewhat ambiguous and definitely incomplete.
 * Changed references to correct WP style, added reference for Philo's character, fixed italic style to correct WP style. 80.177.98.252 23:17, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

A priori
The article is about Hume, and describes what he says in standard moderrn English terms; when it isn't quoting him directly, it is not constrained by 18th-century usage, nor by his terminology. Just as discussion of Hume on induction isn't constrained by the fact that he never used the word "induction", so discussion of Hume's "total rejection of the a priori arguments for god's existence" (Gaskin, Hume's Philosophy of Religion, p.109) isn't constrained by the fact that he didn't use the term "a prior". Please stop trying to remove the term, or adding ugly and pointless templates to the text. --Mel Etitis ( Talk ) 08:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think it adds anything to the article, really. Since it has a special usage in rationalist philosophy, I think it can only distort his meaning. It is not clear that Hume thought a priori synthetic judgment was even possible. --causa sui talk 03:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * What special use do you think that it has in Rationalist philosophy? And what does the issue of synthetic a priori judgements have to do with it? --Mel Etitis  ( Talk ) 10:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Teleologcal argument
Either this article or Teleological argument is wrong about who puts forward this proof of the existence of God. This says Cleanthes, the other says Philo. Myrvin (talk) 13:03, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Cleanthes and this article win. Myrvin (talk) 13:30, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Surely Cleanthes does not use deduction, he uses analogy. He says: "we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy … that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man. … By this argument … do we prove at once the existence of a Deity." Myrvin (talk) 14:27, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was Moved. No discussion, but seems uncontroversial to use title-case for name of work that is subject of page. DMacks (talk) 01:08, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Dialogues concerning Natural Religion → — The title of the work according to all of the sources at the bottom of the article and the beginning of the article itself contain the capital C. Why My Fleece? (talk) 07:59, 3 June 2010 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.