Comments on Michael Jacovides’ Paper “Hume and the Rotting Turnip”

Abstract

In Part 12 of David Hume’s, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Professor Jacovides attempts to explain how the Rotting Turnip explains the generation of life; and who the various characters mentioned in this Part–Philo, Cleanthes, Demea, the atheist, the theist, dogmatists, sceptics–actually represent. In my paper, I show that the Rotting Turnip cannot explain the generation of life, and that Jacovides’ attempt to identify which (actual) philosophers hold what positions in the Dialogues does not shed any light on the structure of this work, and the philosophic roles that the speakers–particularly Cleanthes and Philo–play in reaching the final dictum articulated by Philo in the penultimate paragraph in Part 12.