David Hume is the greatest and also one of the most provocative
philosophers to have written in the English language. No
philosopher is more important for his careful, critical, and deeply
perceptive examination of the grounds for belief in divine powers
and for his sceptical accounts of the causes and consequences of
religious belief, expressed most powerfully in the Dialogues
Concerning Natural Religion and The Natural History of
Religion.
The Dialogues ask if belief in God can be inferred from the nature
of the universe or whether it is even consistent with what we know
about the universe. The Natural History of Religion investigates
the origins of belief, and follows its development from harmless
polytheism to dogmatic monotheism. Together they constitute the
most formidable attack upon the rationality of religious belief
ever mounted by a philosopher.
This edition also includes Section XI of The Enquiry Concerning
Human Understanding and a letter concerning the Dialogues, as well
as particularly helpful critical apparatus and abstracts of the
main texts, enabling the reader to locate or relocate key
topics.
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