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.
- ISBN10 0192838768
- ISBN13 9780192838766
- Publish Date 1 October 1998 (first published 1 January 1994)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 27 November 2009
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Oxford University Press
- Imprint Oxford Paperbacks
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 256
- Language English