Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

David Hume was an 18th-century philosopher noted for his careful, critical and 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 "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 is known 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 a critical apparatus and abstracts of the main texts, enabling the reader to locate or re-locate key topics. J.C.A. Gaskin is the author of "Hume's Philosophy of Religion" and "Varieties of Unbelief".