This is philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel Warton.

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David Hume was an amiable fellow nicknamed Le Bon David

by his friends in France but in 18th century Scotland his contentious views on

religion were enough to block an academic career and force him to earn his living from essays and books.

On his deathbed, his friend James Boswell was aghast that Hume still wouldn't concede the possibility of an afterlife.

Hume's best-known work on religion, dialogues concerning natural

religion, was published only posthumously. Among the issues Hume addressed was the argument

from design, the claim that the best explanation for the wonder and order of the world

is that it's the work of a supreme being. A dog's paws seem perfectly designed for walking,

his tail for wagging, his snout for sniffing. Surely this is evidence, if not proof, for the existence of God.

Hume attempted to bury the argument from design once and for all.

Stuart Sutherland is a Hume scholar who sits in the House of Lords and is provost of Gresham College.

Stuart Sutherland, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Thank you very much, delighted to be here with you.

Now the topic we want to discuss today is David Hume, the great

18th century philosopher, but particularly his ideas about the argument from design.

But before we do that, perhaps you could say a little bit about who David Hume was.

David Hume to my mind was the greatest of philosophers who has lived and worked on these islands.

And the fact that he was a Scott doesn't make me biased. The fact that I live four miles from where he was born perhaps does.

That's in the borders in Berikshire in Scotland.

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