DAVID HUME DIALOGUES CONCERNING NATURAL RELIGION

Abstract

Apart from Plato, very few philosophers have written successfully in dialogue form. David Hume is the most impressive exception. His Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is a masterpiece both of philosophical argument and literary execution. Unlike Plato, who gave Socrates all the best lines, Hume shares the good arguments between the three main speakers, Demea, Cleanthes and Philo, though it is clear that his sympathies, on the whole, lie with the last of these. The effect is to draw the reader into the debate. The ‘correct’ view is not clearly labelled as such, and must be discovered through the cut and thrust of the dialogue, a technique he borrowed from the Latin author Cicero.

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