David Hume

Hume’s first objection is that the design argument can only establish the existence of at least one designer. His second objection is that the argument does not establish even this much. Paley claims that the evidence points to the conclusion that, by means entirely unknown, the biological world is the product of design. But why favor this over the hypothesis that, also by means entirely unknown, flora and fauna were produced by, as Paley puts it, “the operation of causes without design”? --Alex Byrne, God: Philosophers weigh in, Boston Review, January/February 2009 (via Arts & Letters Daily)


Hume, Austen, and First Impressions, by Rodney Delasanta, First Things, June/July 2003

Ockham, Hume & Epistemic Wisdom: an all-out attack on the paranormal armed with a couple of razors honed with the whetstone of scepticism, by William Grey, Philosophy Now, Summer/Autumn 1998