Abstract
In his The Everlasting Check: Hume on Miracles, Alexander George claims to provide readers with a single unified interpretation of Hume’s ‘Of Miracles’ that demonstrates Hume’s actual argument is philosophically rich and far more robust than is generally thought. This response argues that George is unsuccessful, ignoring crucial passages and misinterpreting others.
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Notes
George, p. xii. George’s assertion that he is articulating “the thesis and the argument that Hume truly intended” appears in tension with his claim in the next paragraph that there are “alternative interpretations with which [he] will not take issue.”
Ibid.
Ibid.
Hume, section 90.
George, p. 3.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 5.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Hume, section 90. George asserts that such a claim “does [not] settle the matter against rational belief in miracles, for… Hume believes that a proof can be overwhelmed by a contrary proof.” George, p. 8. In doing so, he along with other commentators, conveniently ignores Hume’s explicit emphasis that the proof against miracles “is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.” This claim commits Hume to holding that it is impossible that the evidence for miracles could ever be such as to justify rational belief, since it is impossible that the evidence for miracles could ever outweigh the opposing body of evidence that is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.
George, p. 8 (emphasis added). George in this paragraph warns his readers that Hume’s argument is not in any sense “an a priori argument against miracles.” He admits, however that Hume takes miracles to be “events that violate a lawlike claim [‘lawlike claim’ is George’s terminology, Hume simply speaks of laws of nature] that our observations leave beyond doubt” and goes on to say that “what is analytic… is that a miracle claim confronts experiences that ‘leave no room’ to accept its truth.” It would seem, therefore, that despite George’s denial, we do have an epistemological a priori argument against miracles, inasmuch as Hume is claiming that the evidence for a miracle must always, by the very nature of the fact, be outweighed by the evidence we have for the laws of nature.
George, pp. 9–10, notes that Hume offers a more full definition of miracle which includes the concept of supernatural agency, but holds that this is really extraneous to Hume’s definition, since later in ‘Of Miracles’ Hume mentions the possibility of non-religious miracles. George fails to mention that this fuller definition occurs as a footnote to the same paragraph in which Hume tells us that a miracle constitutes a violation of nature, thus evidencing that Hume is not content simply to define a miracle in terms of a violation of the laws of nature. As we shall see in our discussion of Hume’s marvel/miracle distinction, Hume is not really prepared to talk of non-religious miracles and takes supernatural causation as central to the concept of miracle. Also significant is the fact that when offering his fuller definition of a miracle Hume is prepared to emphasize its importance by using the word accurately and placing the definition in italics. This does not fit with George’s assertion that Hume did not hold that supernatural causation was essential to the definition of a miracle.
Hume, footnote to section 90.
George takes no notice that Hume is mistaken in believing this to be the case. As Richard Price, one of Hume’s early critics, notes, “A sensible and extraordinary effect produced by superior power, no more implies that a law of nature is violated than any common effect produced by human power.” Four Dissertations (2nd edn. 1768), p. 437. For an extended contemporary defense of Price’s point see Larmer (2014, pp. 37–46).
George confuses the ontological question of how a miracle is to be defined with the epistemological question of what criteria count in identifying an event as a miracle. He fails to recognize that the concept of a miracle does not have to be epistemically defined in order for epistemic considerations to count as to whether an event can be identified as a miracle.
George, p. 9. It is significant that, although ‘Hume’s Theorem’ is never stated in ‘Of Miracles’, George uses it to determine how the last paragraph of Part I is to be understood, rather than taking into account the implications of Hume’s penultimate paragraph. This appears a case of eisegesis rather than exegesis.
Ibid., p. 19.
George takes this phrase to count in favour of viewing Hume as employing an epistemic rather than ontological understanding of miracle, inasmuch as it allows George to suggest that Hume viewed some events as more miraculous than others. This, however, is to ignore Hume’s ironic, extravagant use of language. Given that Hume was at pains to point out that a miracle is accurately defined as the transgression of a law of nature due to the interposition of a supernatural agent, his use of the phrase ‘more miraculous’ should be taken to be equivalent to ‘more probable.’
George, pp. 20–23.
Houston, pp. 206–207. Earman, p. 70, notes Hume’s refusal to “descend into the trenches where, as he must have been aware, there were opponents who had considered the contrary miracles argument and were prepared to argue on the basis of contextual details for the superiority of the New Testament miracle stories over heathen miracle stories… Hume had no good reason for avoiding an engagement with them.”
Later, George, p. 57, is prepared to admit that on his reading of Hume,
it is trivially true that it is not rational to believe that a miracle has occurred… an immediate consequence of defining a miracle to be an event that violates a very strongly confirmed presumptive law is that we cannot consistently judge that an event has occurred and is actually a miracle.
He insists, however that,
this trivial truth—does not at all capture how Hume understands the thrust of his argument. Rather, his intended conclusion is that if an event of religious import would run counter to an overwhelming supported presumptive law, then no testimony will make it rational for us to conclude that event occurred.
It is significant that in this passage George contradicts his earlier claim that Hume was concerned only to demonstrate that it is not reasonable to believe in religious miracles, and instead presents Hume’s argument as simply an attempt to demonstrate a conditional claim. In any event, it remains true that on George’s interpretation, the term ‘miracle’ is a pseudo-concept, no more meaningful than ‘married bachelor.’ Despite his insistence that there is no a priori element to Hume’s argument, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that on George’s interpretation Hume remains guilty of stacking the definitional deck.
Ibid., p. 25.
Ibid., p. 26.
Flew, p. 176.
As previously noted, what George terms ‘Hume’s Theorem’ appears nowhere in the text of ‘Of Miracles’.
George, pp. 14–15.
Hume, section 90 (emphasis added).
Fogelin (1990, p. 84), makes this point very forcefully writing that
it would be altogether wrong, in fact would miss the whole drift of Hume’s argument, to read this passage [the last paragraph of Part I] as leaving open the possibility that the falsehood of the testimony just might, on some occasion, be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish. Hume surely expects us to remember the claim made only a paragraph earlier that the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. [Fogelin’s emphasis]
Strangely, without ever explaining what justifies him in changing his view, Fogelin later insists that Hume never intended to disallow “the possibility that testimony could establish the occurrence of a miracle.” (2003, p. 62)
Slupik, p. 519, writes,
A two-part essay in which the second, lengthier part is superfluous is not what we expect from a philosopher and writer of Hume’s calibre. Let us seek another interpretation that does not render Part II of Hume’s essay superfluous.
George, pp. 10–11.
Greig (1932, 1, p. 361).
Although Hume took the argument of Part I to be original, it was not in fact original. As R. M. Burns, p. 141, notes,
it is clear that, contrary to the generally received opinion, and also Hume’s own beliefs on the matter… Wollaston’s version of the a priori argument had been published thirteen to fifteen years before the date at which Hume claimed the argument first occurred to him, and we know from the Treatise that Hume knew Wollaston’s work. (Burns cites Flew, Hume’s Philosophy of Belief, p. 90, n. 84 in support of this claim)
Burns, p. 111, notes that
Two responses were made to the a priori epistemological argument in the period preceding the publication of Hume’s version: Sherlock commented on it in 1729 in The Trial of the Witnesses of Jesus and Butler in The Analogy of Religion of 1736. Both were… published in books too famous to have been left unread by Hume and it is surprising that such little attention is paid to them in his presentation, The Great Debate on Miracles, p. 122. (Burns credits Gaskin with being the first commentator to note that the a priori epistemological argument discussed in Sherlock’s 1729 The Trial of the Witnesses of Jesus. Gaskin, p. 111, comments that the argument considered by Sherlock “is substantially the same skeptical argument as that developed at greater length by Hume in the first part of the chapter on miracles.”
Burns, p. 133, to whom George makes no reference, comments that
It seems fairly clear that it is ‘the argument’ of part 1 to which Hume is referring… rather than any or all of the four arguments of part 2, if only because Hume uses the singular, and also would clearly have had difficulty in thinking up all five arguments of the essay at once while walking in the cloisters.
Hume, section 93.
Ibid. section 94.
Earman, pp. 46–47, comments that
all we get in Part 2 is a cursory review of some of the then famous Catholic and profane miracles. No attempt is made in any of these cases to give a detailed presentation of all the circumstances and all the evidence, eyewitness and otherwise, that would allow one to make an informed judgment as to the credibility of the alleged miracle. Most glaring of all is the omission of any discussion of the case that was the centerpiece of the eighteenth century debate—the resurrection of Jesus… this debate was galvanized by Woolston’s charge of palpable imposture and by Annet’s reiteration of the charge. There were many responses—Sherlock (1728), Pearce (1729), Chandler (1744), Jackson (1744), and West (1747), to name only a few—which claimed to weigh up the evidence in all its rich detail and which found the balance to favor the reality of the resurrection. If Hume had really aspired to be a miracle debunker… he should have entered the fray.
Hume, section 96.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Fogelin (2003, p. 31).
George, pp. 24–25.
Hume, section 99.
Ibid.
George, p. 25.
Ibid., p. 89.
Burns, p. 156.
Hume, section 99.
Burns, p. 149.
Flew, p. 200.
Hume, section 99. Burns, p. 150, notes that “even in this instance the event is credible not only because it is attested by a countless cloud of witnesses: this apparently would not be enough to render it credible were it not intrinsically credible because of its broad similarity to what we already know of the nature of things.” Burns appears correct in his observation, but once analogy is allowed into consideration Price’s observation that miracles can be considered analogous to the acts of human agents must be given serious weight (see footnote 14).
George, p. 25, claims that Hume “does not intend… to make the notion of divine causation part of the concept miracle.” We have seen, however, that Hume is prepared to countenance the possibility of testimony justifying 8 days of darkness precisely on the basis that such an event is not taken by him as the result of supernatural causation, and thus not violating any laws of nature. Further, George fails to take into account Hume’s rejection of the possibility of Vespasian having performed a miracle, even though the purported miracle was in no way taken as the foundation of a religion (Hume, section 96). Apart from Hume’s explicit claim that a miracle is accurately defined as involving the interposition of some invisible agent, this is further evidence that, contra George, Hume took supernatural agency to be an essential element of the concept of a miracle.
Hume’s marvel/miracle distinction will not do the work he envisaged. The question of whether or not a certain event occurred is logically distinct from, and one would think prior to, the question of whether its cause was natural or supernatural, as are the criteria for determining a justified answer to each question.
See, for example, Sherlock (1728) Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus, Pearce, (1729) The Miracles of Jesus Vindicated, Chandler (1744) Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ Reexamined and Their Testimony Proved Entirely Consistent. Earman’s judgment that “when Hume leaves the philosophical high ground to evaluate particular miracle stories, his discussion is superficial and certainly does not do justice to the extensive and vigorous debate about miracles that had been raging for several decades in Britain” is fair. 70.
Earman, pp. 22–70.
Gaskin, p. 122.
Hume, section 96.
Ibid.
It is significant that all Hume’s early critics took Hume to be arguing that it is impossible in principle that testimony could ever justify belief in a miracle and that Hume accepted this as a correct interpretation. Unfortunately, commentators wanting to make a case that Parts I and II present us with a unified argument typically ignore this evidence.
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Larmer, R.A. Everlasting check or philosophical fiasco: a response to Alexander George’s interpretation of Hume’s ‘Of Miracles’. Int J Philos Relig 83, 97–110 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-016-9590-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-016-9590-1