Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

<p>David Hume’s <i>Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion</i> is a philosophical and literary classic of the highest order. It is also an extremely relevant work because of its engagement with issues as alive today as in Hume’s time: the Design Argument for a deity the Problem of Evil the dangers of superstition and fanaticism the psychological roots and social consequences of religion.</p><p>In this outstanding and unorthodox collection an international team of scholars engage with Hume’s classic work. The chapters include state-of-the-art contributions on the central interpretive questions posed by the <i>Dialogues</i> as well as major contributions relating the work to contemporary issues in Philosophy of Religion Philosophy of Science Moral Psychology and Social Philosophy. Additional contributions tackle the historical and philosophical background of the <i>Dialogues</i> relating it to Hume’s own systematic philosophy to the work of other key seventeenth and eighteenth-century figures – Locke Clarke Bayle Cudworth Malebranche Spinoza Lord Bolingbroke and Voltaire among others – to early modern neo-Epicureanism in the life sciences and notably to what Darwin missed by thinking too much like William Paley and not enough like Hume’s Philo.</p><p>Overall this volume provides fresh and even groundbreaking perspectives on Hume’s <i>Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion</i>. It is essential reading for students and scholars of Hume the History of Modern Philosophy Philosophy of Religion and the History and Philosophy of Science.</p>