Online research in philosophy

Bayesian analyses are prominent among recent and allegedly novel interpretations of Hume’s argument against the justified belief in miracles. However, since there is no consensus on just what Hume’s argument is any Bayesian analysis will beg crucial issues of interpretation. Apart from independent philosophical arguments—arguments that would undermine the relevance of a Bayesian analysis to the question of the credibility of reports of the miraculous—no such analysis can, in principle, prove that no testimony can (or cannot) establish the credibility of a miracle. Bayesian analyses of Hume’s argument are not analyses of Hume’s argument at all—but superfluous representations of it.

A recent discussion of Hume’s argument concerning the rationality of accepting a belief that a miracle has occurred is given by J. L. Mackie in The Miracle of Theism. Mackie believes that Hume’s argument is essentially correct, although he attempts to clarify and strengthen it. Any version of Hume’s argument depends upon one’s conception of miracles and laws of nature; I will argue that Mackie commits a simple logical error and that given his conception of laws of nature and miracles there is no reason to reject rational belief in miracles.

An examination of the principles advanced by David Hume, Esq., in An Essay on Miracles; with a correspondence on the subject by Mr Hume, Dr. Campbell, and Dr. Blair. To which are added sermons and tracts. In 1763 Campbell published A Dissertation on Miracles which was intended as a demolition of Hume’s essay On miracles.

Hume's argument concerning miracles is interpreted by making approximations to terms in Bayes's theorem. This formulation is then used to analyse the impact of multiple testimony. Individual testimonies which are ‘non-miraculous’ in Hume's sense can in principle be accumulated to yield a high probability both for the occurrence of a single miracle and for the occurrence of at least one of a set of miracles. Conditions are given under which testimony for miracles may provide support for the existence of God.

Hume‟s essay on the credibility of miracle reports has always been controversial,1 with much debate over how it should be interpreted, let alone assessed. My aim here is to summarise what I take to be the most plausible views on these issues, both interpretative and philosophical, with references to facilitate deeper investigation if desired. The paper is divided into small sections, each headed by a question that provides a focus. Broadly speaking, §§1-3 and §20 are on Hume‟s general philosophical framework within which the essay is situated, §§4-11 and §19 are on Part 1, §12-18 are on Part 2, and the final three sections §§18-20 sum up my assessment of his arguments.

It has often been suggested (1) that according to Hume it is impossible in principle for testimony to prove a miracle, and (2) that an indispensable element in Hume's argument is the claim that a miracle is by definition a violation of the laws of nature. I argue that both (1) and (2) are mistaken, and that, once Hume's 'Of Miracles' is viewed in a proper historical context, it emerges that Hume's argument against miracles is considerably different from what is usually supposed.

What thesis is Hume trying to establish in his essay “On Miracles” (Section 10 of the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding) and does he succeed? John Earman’s answer to the latter question is clearly conveyed by the title of his new book. Earman uses a Bayesian representation of the problem to make his case. For Earman, this mode of analysis is both perspicuous and nonanachronistic, in that probability reasoning was central to the 18th century debate about miracles in particular and testimony in general. Indeed, one of Hume’s most interesting antagonists, Richard Price, was the person to whom Thomas Bayes entrusted his now-famous essay for posthumous publication. For Earman, Price is the proper Bayesian, while Hume’s essay provides only “rhetoric and schein geld” (p. 73). Earman’s tone is consistently prosecutorial and sometimes snide; he says that his animus is not so much against Hume himself as against those who smugly invoke Hume’s essay as definitively settling the matter. This tone should not deter potential readers who are convinced that Hume’s essay contains something of value. Earman’s book is interesting and provocative in multiple ways—it places Hume’s essay in its historical setting, it offers an insightful close reading of the text, and it shows how the resources of Bayesianism can be powerfully put to work. Besides Earman’s own essay (94 pages long), the volume also contains Hume’s essay and relevant work by others, including Locke, Spinoza, Samuel Clarke, Price, Laplace, and Babbage. The book would be an excellent choice for an advanced undergraduate or graduate seminar.

With A Defense of Hume on Miracles Robert Fogelin enters the recent discussion on Hume’s treatment of miracles. In this short book Fogelin begins by presenting his interpretation of Hume’s argument concerning miracles. The second chapter is a lengthy treatment of recent work by David Johnson and John Earman, and the third short chapter is a discussion of the relation of Hume’s view on miracles to his broader philosophy. There are also two appendices and the text of “Of Miracles.”.

This vital study offers a new interpretation of Hume's famous "Of Miracles," which notoriously argues against the possibility of miracles. By situating Hume's popular argument in the context of the 18th century debate on miracles, Earman shows Hume's argument to be largely unoriginal and chiefly without merit where it is original. Yet Earman constructively conceives how progress can be made on the issues that Hume's essay so provocatively posed about the ability of eyewitness testimony to establish the credibility of marvelous and miraculous events.