David Hume, quoted by the always-fascinating Langer. I think this is one of the most interesting statements I’ve read; it immediately invites a slew of critical questions which, were it not Hume writing, one might assume the author had not considered; since it is Hume, it’s likely he had in mind answers to the following:
What are “errors in religion”?
Do we mean instances in which religion contradicts evident reality, such as counterfactual claims about the history of the physical universe? Or do we mean instances in which a religion is internally inconsistent, in which its own assertions violate one another? Or do we mean errors in interpretation, as when someone suggests that “jihad” means the slaughter of innocents?
Many of these last errors, interpretive errors, result from texts remaining the same as culture evolves through centuries, so that what is reasonable to infer in one century is unacceptable in another; does Hume consider these to be a special class of error? How is one to avoid this sort?
Why religion and philosophy?
Hume was writing before ideology replaced religion as the primary credential system in human life. In more recent history, errors in both religion and philosophy have been dwarfed in impact by “errors” in politics. As politics has replaced religion as the driving ideological force in the world, politics assumes responsibility for world wars and genocide, even when religious pretexts are used.
In Hume’s time, this was not as much the case; perhaps that is the reason he restricts himself to these fields. Nevertheless, it is a hole in his assertion: it seems that it is not errors in “religion” but errors in what we believe, what we hold sacred: that is no longer purely religious for many. Credential errors are the problem.
(And again, Errol Morris is right to say: “Error is the central feature of human existence,” errors in science, in reason, in faith, in love).
Power and danger
Last, is Hume interested in why errors in religion and ideology are dangerous while those in philosophy are not? The answer seems obvious to me: philosophy for some time has been in the habit of trafficking in the arcane and the pedantic, matters of import to few and emotional resonance to fewer. Religion, and now ideology, are where meaning is molded and made manifest in human life; when they are corrupted, as they often are, the consequences are serious.
People live and die and kill and love for their beliefs. Who can seriously imagine dying for Derrida?
