David Hume, in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, claims that a reasonable person should not believe in miracles, especially if they are informed of a miracle through testimony; his argument concerning why people should be unable to believe a miracle is cogent, but he fails to adequately explain why people do believe in miracles even though they should not be able to. His theory about miracles is based on a previously outlined idea which Hume calls “constant conjunction”; people use the constant conjunction of events to determine the likelihood of a cause yielding a particular effect. He goes on to argue that miracles, or events that break natural law, are the least likely effect possible from a particular cause and should not be believed. Hume argues against miracles in order to “silence the most arrogant bigotry and superstition and free us from their impertinent solicitations”, he has strong contempt towards religion and his ideas concerning miracles, and those who believe in miracles, may be biased as a result (577). In order to understand Hume’s reasoning regarding why miracles should not be believed, one must first understand his idea of a constant conjunction of events. Hume asserts that people only gain knowledge through what they experience and cannot expect one event to follow another without evidence suggesting two events are connected “but when one particular species of event has always,in all instances, been conjoined …show more content…
with another, we make no longer any scruple of foretelling one upon the appearance of the other and of employing that reasoning which can alone assure us of any matter of fact or existence. We then call the one object cause, the other effect. We suppose that there is some connection between them, some power in the one by which it infallibly produces the other and operates with the greatest certainty and strongest necessity” (Hume 563). So when one event follows another all of the time, people expect the two events to always occur together and they assume the causal event and the effectual event to occur together without fail. For example, when an extremely clumsy person drops their phone on a tile floor they always hear a clatter. The person expects the clatter as soon as their phone leaves their hands and begins to wince in response to the sound before the phone even hits the ground. The phone being dropped is a cause and the clatter is the effect and they always occur at the same time and a relationship is implied between the two events. Constant conjunction allows beliefs to form concerning the connection between two events, but “all effects do not follow with like certainty from their supposed causes.
Some events are found, in all countries and all ages, to have been constantly conjoined together. Others are found to have been more variable and sometimes to disappoint our expectations, so that in our reasonings concerning matter of fact there are all imaginable degrees of assurance from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence” (Hume
577).
One of the most important aspects of Hume's argument is his understanding of probability. Hume states that belief is often a result of probability in that we believe an event that has occurred most often as being most likely. In relation to miracles this suggests that miraculous events should be labelled as a miracle only where it would be even more unbelievable for it not to be. This is Hume's argument in Part 1 Of Miracles, he states that if somebody tells you that a miracle has occurred you do not have to physically go out and look at the evidence to determine it, all you really need to do is consider the concept of the miracle and if it is a violation of the laws of nature, we have to reason in acco...
...ot be accomplished by man himself. Paine on the other hand believes “there is no such thing as a miracle” (Timmerman and Hettinga 104). Paine says that it is easier to believe that a man is telling a lie than to believe in a miracle. In a way, I do agree that it is much easier to believe that a man is telling a lie than to believe in a miracle; however, I know what God is capable of doing, and I know that He is performing miracles every day.
David Hume makes a strong affirmation in section IV of an Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Hume states, "I shall venture to affirm as a general proposition, which admits of no exception, that the knowledge of this relation is not, in any instance attained by reasonings a priori; but entirely from experience." In this statement, when discussing "knowledge of this relation," Hume is referring to the relation between cause and effect. This argument can easily be dismissed as skeptical, for it puts all knowledge of this sort in doubt. However, Hume does not hastily doubt that this knowledge is not a priori, as a skeptic would. Instead Hume offers a sound argument as to why cause and effect knowledge can not be a priori, and thus his argument is not skeptical at all.
David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion provide conflicting arguments about the nature of the universe, what humans can know about it, and how their knowledge can affect their religious beliefs. The most compelling situation relates to philosophical skepticism and religion; the empiricist character, Cleanthes, strongly defends his position that skepticism is beneficial to religious belief. Under fire from an agnostic skeptic and a rationalist, the empiricist view on skepticism and religion is strongest in it’s defense. This debate is a fundamental part of the study of philosophy: readers must choose their basic understanding of the universe and it’s creator, upon which all other assumptions about the universe will be made. In this three-sided debate, Hume’s depiction of an empiricist is clearly the winner.
First, Hume shows how necessity is present in our lives. He points out that we exist in an orderly and logical world, and that many events that we perceive to be the result of another action are actually determined by logical laws of nature. Hume argues that the exactness of these effects stems solely from the natural forces responsible for guiding our lives, and also that we falsely assume causal relationships between events because of our limited viewpoint.
Patrick Hannigan Moral Philosophy January 2014 Kant’s Reason Vs. Hume’s Desire Whilst discussing the basics of moral philosophy, every philosopher will undoubtedly come across the works of Immanuel Kant and David Hume. As they progress into the thoughts of these two famous philosophers, they will notice the stark contrast between the pair.
In other words, it is a gap between faith and scientific reasoning. In modern medicine, a miracle is described as any occurrence where a higher power, God, for example, takes over and intervenes benevolently in the fate of the patient.3 The doctor, along with everyone else, can only marvel. As a generality, it can be said that miracles are modern examples of the continuing contradiction between faith and reason.
... Egyptians close behind. As the bible explains the miracle takes place the Red Sea splits leading the Israelite’s to freedom. As the Egyptians were crossing the sea it closed it’s gates and let them drown with in the waters of the sea. In justifying whether Hume would discredit this miracle he would definitely see how one may say it is a miracle, but again would have a hard time validating the testimony of the miracle. Again we see the pattern of the fact that there is no one to testify for the event. We can only view this as a truthful experience through our belief in God and the bible. It is what we are taught to believe through religious texts, and our house of worship. It is the individuals perception of reality and what he or she believes to be a valid event. In conclusion, a miracle is actually based on an individuals own perception of past and present experiences. The belief in a miraculous event tends to have no real evidence through mans hope, it tends to be something better through our expectations. I can not debate the belief of a miracle. There is no right or wrong belief. It is viewed through our own individual perception and faith, our existence and sense of reality.
... and faith are not based solely on empirical evidence and absolute proof. It is the will to believe, the desire to see miracles that allows the faithful, to believe in the existence of miracles, not on any kind of sufficient evidence but on the belief that miracles can happen. Rather than Hume’s premise that a wise man proportions his belief in response to the eviddence, maybe a wise man would be better off, tempering his need for empirical evidence against his faith and his will to belief.
According to the Merriam-Webster a miracle is “an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment.” It is an unexpected and surprising event that is not explainable by natural or scientific laws and is considered to be the work of a divine agency; some may explain the doings of a miracle on God and what he creates. Miracles occur in every day life and they also appear in the bible. Some people object to the idea of miracles, but people also claim that they have witnessed them in their own lives.
In Part II of David Hume’s Dialogues of Natural Religion, Demea remarks that the debate is not about whether or not God exists, but what the essence of God is. (pg.51) Despite this conclusion in Part II, in his introduction to the Dialogues Martin Bell remarks that the question of why something operates the way it does is quite different from the question why do people believe that it operates the way it does. (pg. 11) This question, the question of where a belief originates and is it a valid argument, is much of the debate between Hume’s three characters in the Dialogues. (pg. ***)
Something must be desirable on its own account, and because of its immediate accord or agreement with human sentiment and affection” (87). In conclusion, I believe that Hume thinks that reason, while not completely useless, is not the driving force of moral motivation. Reasons are a means to sentiments, which in turn are a means to morality, but without reasons there can still be sentiments. There can still be beauty. Reasons can not lie as the foundation of morality, because they can only be true or false.
In the selection, ‘Skeptical doubts concerning the operations of the understanding’, David Hume poses a problem for knowledge about the world. This question is related to the problem of induction. David Hume was one of the first who decided to analyze this problem. He starts the selection by providing his form of dividing the human knowledge, and later discusses reasoning and its dependence on experience. Hume states that people believe that the future will resemble the past, but we have no evidence to support this belief. In this paper, I will clarify the forms of knowledge and reasoning and examine Hume’s problem of induction, which is a challenge to Justified True Belief account because we lack a justification for our beliefs.
One may ask the question, “What actually is reason?” You can give multiple perceptions to the word’s definition. However, what reason is, in the human life, is the notion where one uses their own intuition through their experiences to therefore trust someone or something. Trust, otherwise known through reasoning, is depicted from faith, where which both work hand-in-hand with each other. Faith involves the act of will, or the commitment of the believer who wishes to be therefore trusted; otherwise to be given faith towards. Pope John Paul II, Camus, Schopenhauer and Pascal all have differing views, but they all show how we cannot lead meaningful lives.
But before we discuss this idea further, let’s firstly recapitulate Hume’s position on induction and the arguments against the event of a miracle. Hume’s idea of induction is an argument for human justification of beliefs. He suggests human beliefs are based on experience; that the sun may not rise tomorrow is logically possible but in reality logic can’t really prove it will. So, Hume comes up with his own argument; that we use our experience of the sun having risen every day in the past,... ...