Abstract
As part of his wider critique of the credibility of miraculous testimony, Hume also offers a rather curious argument as to the mutual detriment of conflicting testimony for the miracles of contrary religious worldviews. Scholarship on this aspect of Hume’s reasoning has debated whether or not the considerations are to be understood as essentially probabilistic, and as to whether or not a probabilistic interpretation of the argument is logically valid. The consensus would appear to offer a positive answer to the first question and a negative answer to the second. In this paper I expose a deeper fallacy in Hume’s reasoning that undermines both probabilistic and non-probabilistic readings. My critique is closely based upon analogous considerations in the philosophy of science, and the equally intriguing issue as to the epistemological relevance of conflicting scientific theories throughout the history of science.
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Notes
There is room for some disagreement concerning the overall architectonic of Hume’s argument, but in this respect I agree with Fogelin (2003).
Some philosophers of science maintain that the history of science does not in fact furnish any significant disagreement between successive scientific theories, and that we can therefore reject the Pessimistic Meta-Induction altogether, on the grounds that there exists substantial continuity with respect to the ‘core’ elements of those theories (e.g. Worrall, 1989). I am unsure of what the parallel may be here for the philosophy of religion.
These examples are purely illustrative; I take no issue on the theological compatibility of any particular religious worldviews.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank James Gardom for rekindling my interest in these topics, and for some very stimulating conversations. Thanks also to the Master and Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge, where this work was completed as a research fellow.
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Dicken, P. On Some Limitations of Humean Disagreement: Miraculous Testimony and Contrary Religions. SOPHIA 50, 345–355 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-011-0247-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-011-0247-3