Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Royal Collector's Edition) (Case Laminate Hardcover with Jacket)

by David Hume

Overview

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is a philosophical work that concerns three philosophers named Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes, who debate the nature of God's existence. While all three agree that a god exists, they differ sharply in opinion on God's nature or attributes, and how, or if, humankind can come to knowledge of a deity. Such topics debated include the argument from design, and whether there is more suffering or good in the world.

Hume started writing the Dialogues in 1750 but did not complete them until 1776, shortly before his death. They are based partly on Cicero's De Natura Deorum, written in 45 BC. The Dialogues were published posthumously in 1779, originally with neither the author's nor the publisher's name. The dialogues are supportive of mainstream theism in an ironic fashion and the book is essentially a counter apologetic work. The book argues for scepticism in subjects that are far removed from human experience.

This case laminate collector's edition includes a Victorian inspired dust-jacket.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781774765326
Publisher:	Royal Classics
Publication date:	10/24/2021
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.38(d)

About the Author

David Hume (7 May 1711 - 25 August 1776) was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of philosophical empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism. Hume strove to create a naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature. Hume argued against the existence of innate ideas, positing that all human knowledge derives solely from experience. This places him with Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and George Berkeley as a British Empiricist.Hume argued that inductive reasoning and belief in causality cannot be justified rationally; instead, they result from custom and mental habit. We never actually perceive that one event causes another but only experience the "constant conjunction" of events. This problem of induction means that to draw any causal inferences from past experience, it is necessary to presuppose that the future will resemble the past, a presupposition which cannot itself be grounded in prior experience.An opponent of philosophical rationalists, Hume held that passions rather than reason govern human behaviour, famously proclaiming that "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions." Hume influenced utilitarianism, logical positivism, the philosophy of science, early analytic philosophy, cognitive science, theology, and many other fields and thinkers. Immanuel Kant credited Hume as the inspiration who had awakened him from his "dogmatic slumbers."