Subject: Philosophy Book Title: Hume's Abject Failure
Hume's Abject Failure
The Argument Against Miracles
Earman, John,
Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science,
University of Pittsburgh
Print publication date: 2000
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2003 Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-512738-6 doi:10.1093/0195127382.001.0001 |
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Abstract:
Hume's famous essay on miracles is set in the context of the larger debate that was taking place in the eighteenth century about the nature of miracles and the ability of eyewitness testimony to establish the credibility of such events. The author contents that Hume's argument against miracles is largely unoriginal and chiefly without merit where it is original. To advance the issues so provocatively posed by Hume's essay requires the tools of the probability calculus being developed by Hume's contemporaries but largely ignored by Hume.
Keywords: Bayes, eyewitness testimony, Hume, miracles, probability Table of Contents
Preface
1.
Introduction
2.
Hume's Religious Orientation
3.
The Origins of Hume's Essay
4.
The Puzzles of Hume's Definitions of “Miracles”
5.
Conceptions of Miracles
6.
What a Miracle Is for Hume
7.
The Eighteenth-Century Debate on Miracles
8.
The Structure of Hume's Essay
9.
Hume's Straight Rule of Induction and His “Proof” Against Miracles
10.
Hume, Bayes, and Price
11.
Bayes and Bayesianism
12.
The Bayes-Price Rejection of Hume's Straight Rule
13.
Hume's Stultification of Scientific Inquiry
14.
The Indian Prince
15.
Hume's Maxim
16.
What Is Hume's Thesis?
17.
Hume's Diminution Principle
18.
Multiple Witnessing
19.
More Multiple Witnessing
20.
What Is Right About Hume's Position
21.
Fall Back Positions for Hume
22.
Probabilifying Religious Doctrines
23.
Hume's Contrary Miracles Argument
24.
Conclusion
John Locke, an Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Book IV, Chapters 15 and 16
Benedict De Spinoza, a Theologico-Political Treatise (1670), Chapter 6
John Locke, “A Discourse of Miracles” (1706)
Samuel Clarke, “A Discourse Concerning the Unalterable Obligations of Natural Religion, and the Truth and Certainty of the Christian Revelations” (1705)
Thomas Sherlock, the Tryal of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus (11th Ed., 1729)
Peter Annet, the Resurrection of Jesus Considered: In Answer to the Tryal of the Witnesses (1744)
David Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1777), Section 10, “Of Miracles”
Richard Price, Four Dissertations (2D Ed. 1768), Dissertation IV, “On the Importance of Christianity and the Nature of Historical Evidence, and Miracles”.
George Campbell, a Dissertation on Miracles (1762)
Anonymous (George Hooper?), “A Calculation of the Credibility of Human Testimony” (1699)
Pierre Simon Laplace, a Philosophical Essay on Probability (1814), Chapter 11 “Concerning the Probabilities of Testimonies”
Charles Babbage, Ninth Bridgewater Treatise (2D Ed. 1838), Chapter 10, “On Hume's Argument Against Miracles”
Index
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doi:10.1093/0195127382.001.0001
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