Dialogues and Natural History of Religion (Oxford World's Classics)

Rating:
Summary: eh
Review: Hume is a master, one of the most important philosophers ever. In the Natural History, Hume masterfully shows the natural evolution of religion. From its crude beginings of polytheism to the more refined monotheism, comparing the value systems of each. Monotheism has roots and can be traced to a source. He concludes that any rational mind would aviod the unstable houses of religion altogether.

Rating:
Summary: The truth that they will never teach you.
Review: Hume is a master, one of the most important philosophers ever. In the Natural History, Hume masterfully shows the natural evolution of religion. From its crude beginings of polytheism to the more refined monotheism, comparing the value systems of each. Monotheism has roots and can be traced to a source. He concludes that any rational mind would aviod the unstable houses of religion altogether.

Rating:
Summary: The most intelligent book ever written about religion
Review: Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is by far the most fascinating and critical look at religion I have ever read. The work is extremely well thought-out and, in my opinion, unbiased as well. As the editor, J.C.A. Gaskin, points out, Hume, in expressing points of view opposing to his own, portrays these views accurately and succeeds in anticipating his oponents' counter-arguments.

Second to the magnificence of Hume's ideas, the greatest thing about this book (and Hume's work in general) is the complete clarity of his writing and the ease with which the reader can follow the logical progression of his ideas.

I consider Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion to be Hume's greatest work. Regardless of your personal beliefs, Hume will make you re-think your views about religion and the universe.

Very highly recommended to all, skeptics and non-skeptics alike.

Rating:
Summary: BRILLIANT!
Review: Hume's thinking and writing is absolutely brilliant in his Dialogues concerning natural religion, in which he proves himself as being one of the most interesting authors in the history of western philosophy. These dialogues present a very exciting discussion between an orthodox/dogmatic believer (called Demea), a more philosophical defender of the design-argument or argument a posteriori (Cleanthes), and a scepticist (Philo). This confrontation is mainly concerned about the question whether the universe has, in one way or another, been created: if so, does it serve a purpose? As is being made clear, this question arises by means of the apparent function things in nature seem to have. So in a way it is a discussion about the teleological (means to ends) world-view (which has its roots in Aristotle's thinking). But not only these things are being discussed, also cosmology, dogmatism, the nature of human thought and its self-projection on things outside itself, theology,... Readers of this work have often asked themselves which one of the personalities in the discussion is defending Hume's own view (as J.C. Gaskin indicates), Hume himself is not saying it. My personal opinion is that it is probably Philo's position; his arguments seem to be the sharpest and most devastating ones, and after all he's having the final word. I think J.C.A. Gaskins edition is an interesting one because it collects not only one but several of Hume's writings on religion. It is a must for everyone who's seeking for an intelligent view on some of the most intriguiging aspects of religion, certainly because Hume's account is as actual as ever before.

Rating:
Summary: eh
Review: Its ok. Of course if you take a philosophy class in todays secular universities, you will read 20 things by hume and other atheists and not much pro theism. His work is ok, but I actually used it as part of a proof that God does exist.

Rating:
Summary: Essential Philosophy in a Nice (and Cheap) Edition
Review: This is a wonderful collection of Hume's most famous and influential writings on religion. Few books I've encountered include this much first-rate philosophy for the price, and so I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Hume's thinking about religion. It includes the section on miracles from Hume's Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals and the full versions of both The Natural History of Religion and the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. (Hume's short autobiography, "My Own Life," is also included.) Furthermore, Gaskin has provided some helpful editorial material: there's a useful introductory essay discussing the selections, and he includes explanatory notes that clarify some of Hume's more obscure references.

The central theme of Hume's religious thought is the central theme of his philosophical thought as a whole--namely the extent of our ignorance and the impotence of human reason to discover the things we really want to discover. And, for this reason, his writing on religion provides a good illustration of his general philosophical method: he begins by pointing out the impotence of reason, and then he offers a naturalistic psychological explanation of why we continue to think as we do. Our tendency to believe various religious thesis, he argues, cannot be explained as a justifiable way of thinking about the world that we arrive at through the use of reason. It is, instead, explained by certain general principles governing the operation of human minds. And two major works in this volume illustrate the two components of Hume's philosophical method. In the Dialogues he argues that neither empirical research nor the a priori exercise of reason is likely to reveal that our religious beliefs are justified. In The Natural History he begins the project of explaining why we do in fact believe what we do about religion.

As I said above, the Dialogues pertain to the first part of the method. Most of the Dialogues is devoted to discussion of a posteriori arguments for the existence of God, though there is also a short section on various a priori arguments. The main argument considered here is the classical argument from design, which Hume seems to understand as an analogical argument of the following sort: the complexity and order of the universe show that it is similar to artifacts created by human intelligences; similar causes have similar effects; therefore, the universe must have been created by a being with something like a human intelligence; therefore, the universe must have been created by God.

Hume's objections to this argument are legion, and many of the individual objections are both ingenious and forceful. He provides reasons for thinking that the universe isn't all that similar to artifacts created by human beings. Hume also provides for thinking that, even if we think the universe is similar to a human artifact, we ought to think the universe was created by a being quite unlike God. In addition, he suggests certain speculative naturalistic explanations of the existence and nature of the universe; and he claims that it's unclear why an appeal to divine creation is to be preferred to these speculative naturalistic stories of the universe's creation. Hume's cumulative case against the argument from design is quite impressive. Indeed, I'm pretty sure that Hume has shown that the argument from design is more or less worthless as support for anything resembling traditional theism.

But where, in the end, does Hume come down on the issue of theism? It seems clear that he has no sympathy for organized religion, or for any religious views that purport to describe the nature of God, His intentions, or how and why He created the universe as He did. For any such religious view is going to overstep the bounds within which he thinks human reason can operate. And the only positive religious claim that is given respectful treatment here is the bare claim that we have reason to think that the cause of the universe as a whole is somewhat similar to a human intelligence. But does acceptance of this minimal thesis amount to his being a theist? It's very hard to tell. The problem is that it often seems Hume's explicit advocation of this position amounts to little more than a description of what he thinks is an inevitable human tendency to think this way.

And this is where the second part of his project, the part carried out in The Natural History of Religion, becomes relevant. For The Natural History is the work in which Hume sets out to trace the sources of religious belief to certain natural principles of the human mind. There he argues that the the operation of our minds, along with the conditions in which we find ourselves, leads us to arrive at the sorts of religious beliefs we find to be popular in past and present human societies. Our ignorance about the way the world operates and our apprehensiveness about the ways these unknowns can affect our lives naturally lead human beings to a form of polytheism. We tend to attribute the underlying principles by which the world operates to a large number human-like beings, and this is what polytheistic religion amounts to. But once polytheism is in place our tendency to attribute greater powers and more perfect natures to individual gods leads us to something closer to monotheistic views according to which there is a single wholly perfect being behind all the underlying principles governing the world and behind the existence of the world itself.

It should be clear, then, why it's difficult to pin down just what Hume though about religion. He does think that it's hard for beings like us to deny the general thesis that the universe as a whole was probably created by a human-like intelligence. For given how our minds actually work, he seems to think, we're bound to think something like this about the origin of the universe. Yet it's somewhat unclear that he thinks forming beliefs in this way is reliable. It may simply be that we have a brute instinct to think in a way that insures we'll see the world as resulting from some human-like intelligence, and it's at least not clear that that isn't a debunking account of the plausibility of theism.

Rating:
Summary: Essential Philosophy in a Nice (and Cheap) Edition
Review: This is a wonderful collection of Hume's most famous and influential writings on religion. Few books I've encountered include this much first-rate philosophy for the price, and so I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Hume's thinking about religion. It includes the section on miracles from Hume's Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals and the full versions of both The Natural History of Religion and the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. (Hume's short autobiography, "My Own Life," is also included.) Furthermore, Gaskin has provided some helpful editorial material: there's a useful introductory essay discussing the selections, and he includes explanatory notes that clarify some of Hume's more obscure references.

The central theme of Hume's religious thought is the central theme of his philosophical thought as a whole--namely the extent of our ignorance and the impotence of human reason to discover the things we really want to discover. And, for this reason, his writing on religion provides a good illustration of his general philosophical method: he begins by pointing out the impotence of reason, and then he offers a naturalistic psychological explanation of why we continue to think as we do. Our tendency to believe various religious thesis, he argues, cannot be explained as a justifiable way of thinking about the world that we arrive at through the use of reason. It is, instead, explained by certain general principles governing the operation of human minds. And two major works in this volume illustrate the two components of Hume's philosophical method. In the Dialogues he argues that neither empirical research nor the a priori exercise of reason is likely to reveal that our religious beliefs are justified. In The Natural History he begins the project of explaining why we do in fact believe what we do about religion.

As I said above, the Dialogues pertain to the first part of the method. Most of the Dialogues is devoted to discussion of a posteriori arguments for the existence of God, though there is also a short section on various a priori arguments. The main argument considered here is the classical argument from design, which Hume seems to understand as an analogical argument of the following sort: the complexity and order of the universe show that it is similar to artifacts created by human intelligences; similar causes have similar effects; therefore, the universe must have been created by a being with something like a human intelligence; therefore, the universe must have been created by God.

Hume's objections to this argument are legion, and many of the individual objections are both ingenious and forceful. He provides reasons for thinking that the universe isn't all that similar to artifacts created by human beings. Hume also provides for thinking that, even if we think the universe is similar to a human artifact, we ought to think the universe was created by a being quite unlike God. In addition, he suggests certain speculative naturalistic explanations of the existence and nature of the universe; and he claims that it's unclear why an appeal to divine creation is to be preferred to these speculative naturalistic stories of the universe's creation. Hume's cumulative case against the argument from design is quite impressive. Indeed, I'm pretty sure that Hume has shown that the argument from design is more or less worthless as support for anything resembling traditional theism.

But where, in the end, does Hume come down on the issue of theism? It seems clear that he has no sympathy for organized religion, or for any religious views that purport to describe the nature of God, His intentions, or how and why He created the universe as He did. For any such religious view is going to overstep the bounds within which he thinks human reason can operate. And the only positive religious claim that is given respectful treatment here is the bare claim that we have reason to think that the cause of the universe as a whole is somewhat similar to a human intelligence. But does acceptance of this minimal thesis amount to his being a theist? It's very hard to tell. The problem is that it often seems Hume's explicit advocation of this position amounts to little more than a description of what he thinks is an inevitable human tendency to think this way.

And this is where the second part of his project, the part carried out in The Natural History of Religion, becomes relevant. For The Natural History is the work in which Hume sets out to trace the sources of religious belief to certain natural principles of the human mind. There he argues that the the operation of our minds, along with the conditions in which we find ourselves, leads us to arrive at the sorts of religious beliefs we find to be popular in past and present human societies. Our ignorance about the way the world operates and our apprehensiveness about the ways these unknowns can affect our lives naturally lead human beings to a form of polytheism. We tend to attribute the underlying principles by which the world operates to a large number human-like beings, and this is what polytheistic religion amounts to. But once polytheism is in place our tendency to attribute greater powers and more perfect natures to individual gods leads us to something closer to monotheistic views according to which there is a single wholly perfect being behind all the underlying principles governing the world and behind the existence of the world itself.

It should be clear, then, why it's difficult to pin down just what Hume though about religion. He does think that it's hard for beings like us to deny the general thesis that the universe as a whole was probably created by a human-like intelligence. For given how our minds actually work, he seems to think, we're bound to think something like this about the origin of the universe. Yet it's somewhat unclear that he thinks forming beliefs in this way is reliable. It may simply be that we have a brute instinct to think in a way that insures we'll see the world as resulting from some human-like intelligence, and it's at least not clear that that isn't a debunking account of the plausibility of theism.