Abstract

This book is a commentary on the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, Hume's most famous work in the field of religion. O'Connor is a fine expositor, commanding a clear and readable style. The Dialogues is covered in detail, so that students will gain a good sense of the structure. The weakness lies in O'Connor's attitude as it inevitably appears in his exposition. I do not mean that this is wild or eccentric. Quite the contrary, it is the one which during the last fifty years has become conventional, reflecting the empiricist tradition one associates with Ayer and Flew. For example, O'Connor hardly questions Hume's distinction between the a priori and the a posteriori, implies indeed that he puts it to devastating use, though it is now widely criticized even by philosophers otherwise sympathetic to Hume. One wonders whether students need another version, however well expressed, of views already so familiar. If their intelligences are to be sharpened, they surely need to encounter some serious criticism not simply of Hume's opponents but of Hume himself.