ABSTRACT
Shelley engages in far-reaching speculations on metaphysics and moral theory, and sets out to refute deism or to attack Christianity, as well as religious doctrine generally, yet defends the integrity of Jesus as a profoundly ethical thinker. Shelley’s commentary on Plato’s Symposium and his treatise entitled ‘A Philosophical View of Reform’, to give a couple of instances, are treated elsewhere in The Unfamiliar Shelley, because their central concerns are examined from predominantly cultural, aesthetic and political perspectives. Yet the current investigation seeks to probe Shelley’s philosophical and religious enquiries in at least three distinctive ways. The Necessity of Atheism has come to be closely associated with the scandal of Shelley’s expulsion from Oxford. The text appears to have grown out of a lively exchange of opinions with his friend, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, although Shelley took full responsibility for the publication of such explosive material.
