Bayle et Hume devant l’athéisme

The strategies of Bayle and Hume on the issue of atheism are much more similar than is generally believed. This agreement stems from Bayle's constant influence on Hume's works. For Bayle and Hume atheism and skepticism are very closely related, insofar as the first is simply a form of the second. The strength of Hume's Dialogues emerges precisely from this alliance between atheism and skepticism which, drawing most of its arguments from Bayle, leads to a critique of theological dogmas based on a ruthless analysis of the epistemological foundations of belief, but, as in Bayle's Strato, avoids reducing atheism to a metaphysical dogmatism.