David Hume (Great Thinkers)

David Hume (Great Thinkers)My contribution to P&R’s Great Thinkers series has now been published. You can find more details on P&R’s website, including a sample chapter.

You can also read (or listen to) an interview about the book with Fred Zaspel at Books At a Glance.

I’ll be posting some excerpts from the book on my blog later this week, but for now here’s the publisher’s blurb and the table of contents:

David Hume (1711–1776)

Through his pursuit of a naturalistic grounding for morality and his forceful critique of supernaturalism, Scottish philosopher David Hume significantly undermined confidence in orthodox Christianity.

Professor, minister, and philosopher James Anderson summarizes the major points of Hume’s thought and offers a critical assessment from a distinctively Reformed perspective. He shows that Hume’s arguments, far from refuting the Christian worldview, indirectly support that worldview by exposing the self-defeating implications of naturalism. Deepen your understanding of this immensely influential thinker, and you will be better able to engage with today’s secular challenges to faith.

  • Series Introduction
  • Foreword by W. Andrew Hoffecker
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction: Why Hume Matters
  • Abbreviations
  • 1. Hume’s Life and Works
  • 2. Hume’s Philosophical Project
    • Three Distinctives of the Project
    • A Two-Phase Project
    • Hume’s Theory of the Mind
    • A New Account of Causation
    • Philosophy Psychologized
  • 3. Hume’s Naturalistic Ethics
    • Against Moral Rationalism
    • Against Self-Interest Theories
    • Hume’s Moral Theory
    • A New Account of Justice
  • 4. Hume’s Religious Skepticism
    • Religion Naturalized
    • Hume’s Critique of Natural Theology
    • Hume’s Argument against Miracles
    • Was Hume an Atheist?
  • 5. Hume’s Continuing Relevance
    • The Kantian Turn
    • Utilitarianism
    • Logical Positivism and Scientism
    • Naturalized Epistemology
    • The Evidentialist Challenge
  • 6. A Reformed Assessment of Hume’s Thought
    • Was Hume a Great Thinker?
    • The Presumption of Naturalism
    • The Presumption of Autonomy
    • Internal Problems
    • The Specter of Solipsism
    • A Matter of Taste
  • 7. A Reformed Response to Hume’s Religious Skepticism
    • Defusing the Evidentialist Challenge
    • Natural Theology Ex-Humed
    • In Defense of Miracles
  • 8. Hume and Christian Apologetics
    • The Skeptical Sinkhole of Empiricism
    • The Problem of Induction
    • A Hume-Inspired Transcendental Argument
  • Epilogue: The Humean Predicament
  • Glossary
  • Recommended Reading
  • Index of Subjects and Names