Hume and Kantian Teleology

This paper argues that Hume’s claim to have some belief in God is accurate because his own philosophy is held together by a teleological underpinning that leads to the idea of God. Previous work that has favorably connected Hume’s philosophy to Kant’s provides a framework to argue that Hume inadvertently admits a teleological a priori in understanding nature in the same way that Kant understands teleology as the “lawfulness of the contingent.” Having connected Hume and Kant through teleological aesthetics, this paper moves to show how this teleology underwrites several positive statements about God that Hume makes in the Dialogues.