The Continuum Companion to Hume by O'Brien Dan;Bailey Alan;

Author:O'Brien, Dan;Bailey, Alan;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK
Published: 2011-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

11

HUME ON MIRACLES

Duncan Pritchard and Alasdair Richmond

1. HUME’S ARGUMENT: READINGS AND MISREADINGS

Hume’s seminal ‘Of Miracles’ (EHU 10 / 109–31) still attracts heated discussion and different interpretations of his argument persist. What is clear, however, is that he held that rational beliefs in miracles based purely on testimony are (at very least) highly problematic. In particular, anyone whose belief in a particular religious hypothesis is due purely to testimony recorded hitherto that a miracle has occurred (‘miracle-testimony’) has failed to form their beliefs as Hume prescribes.

Despite its enduring popularity as an anthology piece, ‘Of Miracles’ is not a stand-alone work but one closely tied to Hume’s overall philosophical project. In particular, ‘Of Miracles’ should be considered against the background of his regularity theory of induction. He famously did not believe that expectations that the future will resemble the past (or that the unobserved must resemble the observed) could be justified in a way that was both rational and non-circular. First, the principle of induction does not express any ‘relation of ideas’. The contradiction of a relation of ideas is inconceivable (or nonsensical), whereas the contrary of any induction, no matter how well-supported, is always conceivable: ‘That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise’ (EHU 4.2 / 25–6). However, neither is the principle of induction a ‘matter of fact’.1 All inferences from experience must presuppose the principle of induction; hence that principle is too fundamental to be justified by appeal to experience: ‘All inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past’ (EHU 4.21 / 37). Likewise, attempts to justify induction by reference to the uniformity of nature face the insuperable obstacle that any belief in such uniformity can itself only be justified by induction. So while the principle of induction and the uniformity of nature are certainly not meaningless, neither are they susceptible to rational, non-circular justification. However, Hume did not think all inductions were on a par; still less did he advocate facing the future with inductive paralysis. Creatures like us possess a kind of mental inertia that preserves our mental states in being.2 Hence we instinctively project those regularities we observe. Furthermore, our expectation that such regularities will continue should be proportional to the evidence in their favour: ‘The creature expects from the present object the same consequences, which it has always found in its observation to result from similar objects’ (EHU 9.4 / 106).

Thus, Hume’s pragmatic solution to inductive scepticism urges the maintenance of due proportion between degree of belief and evidence. However, even ideally well-confirmed inductions may fail. While proportioning degree of belief to available evidence is the best we can do, nature need not conform to our inductions or vindicate our predictions. Inductive failure is always conceivable and even a small degree of non-uniformity makes us hesitant in projecting regularities. Therefore, there is a sharp distinction between unbroken regularities and those that have admitted of exceptions.

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