tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post294607264006641109..comments2024-03-28T05:47:54.177+00:00Comments on Philosophical Disquisitions: Arguments to and from Miracles (Part 2) - Two Arguments against Violation MiraclesJohn Danaherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-89562711408464617462011-02-08T11:05:04.681+00:002011-02-08T11:05:04.681+00:00Hi Yair,
First off, I don't think Everitt'...Hi Yair,<br /><br />First off, I don't think Everitt's discussion is particularly great. But I included since I am doing a series on his book and thought it would be efficient to overlap it with my series on miracles. <br /><br />Second, on the Swinburnian definition of a law of nature. I'll be going into this later, but may as well say it now. Swinburne defines a miracle as a non-repeatable counter-instance to a law of nature. In some of his writings, he actually seems to agree with Everitt here in saying that introducing an exception-clause would mean that you didn't have a violation. But he counters this by saying that sometimes introducing the exception-clause is ad-hoc and sacrifices explanatory simplicity (something which Swinburne loves). He then argues that it is in these cases -- i.e. where an exception-clause would undermine simplicity -- that we are justified in calling the event a miracle.<br /><br />Morgan Luck discusses this in his article on Swinburne's arguments and goes on to say that this definition sits well with David Lewis's systematic theory of laws of nature. I'll cover this when I get round to Luck's article (will be a few weeks though).<br /><br />Third, on the interpretation of Hume's argument. I don't think I said, and certainly hope I didn't convey the impression that I said, that Hume says miracles are impossible. They are just difficult to believe in. As for your other points, the Bayesian interpretation of Hume's argument does help to clarify some of the issues concerning the evidential burden that must be met in these cases. I think the consensus position -- and the one with which I currently agree -- is that the burden is high (although this depends to some extent on your assumptions) but not insurmountable.John Danaherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-63042835761319194582011-02-08T08:33:32.510+00:002011-02-08T08:33:32.510+00:00An internet gnome ate my response, so this is the ...An internet gnome ate my response, so this is the second try:<br /><br />I adopt a Mackie (and, surprisingly, Swinburne) like position. I see the religious as claiming the world behaves in a two-tiered way: it <i>usually</i> follows certain regularities which we call, in practice, "laws of nature", but occasionally there are exceptions to these laws which we call "miracles". These exceptions may be rather common - for example, perhaps every Mormon is much healthier than he should be naturally, but that's still a rather rare exception in Nature considering its vast size and variety. <br /><br />The arguments Everitt raises are irrelevant to this conception of a "law of nature". Saying "[Usually] dead people stay dead" doesn't rule out analyzing when they don't and drawing conclusions from that. Saying "The laws of nature are violated" does not imply nature does not behave the way it does, it merely says it does not behave in the way it usually does. <br /><br />The two traditional interpretations of Hume you presented - that Hume says miracles are impossible or that accepting one implies changing our understanding of what the laws of nature are - don't work for this understanding of "law of nature" either. However, a Humean argument can still be marshaled that an established law of nature, by definition, has lots of evidence going for it and, by the Principle of Uniformity underlying Humean (and empirical) epistemology, the evidence that needs to be brought up against its universal validity should thus be equally enormous. This is, I think, the gist of Hume's in-principle argument against miracles, and I think it holds.<br /><br />I'd further note that the laws of physics we have in practice are uniform universal laws, applying at level well below the human person. If exceptions to these rules truly exist on the human person level (such as laws starting with "All Mormons..."), it would be eminently useful and efficient to phrase the description of nature in terms of the universal uniform laws and their exceptions. That all phenomena rigorously examined can be better explained by appealing to the uniform laws of nature is a testament to the strength of Hume's argument in my (not so humble?) opinion.<br /><br />Yairיאיר רזקhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15798134654972572485noreply@blogger.com