Hume on miracles and the Lourdes phenomenon Alexandru Anghel

easoning:
(a) <strong>Hume</strong> begins his argument by a cautionary remark considering the fallibility of causal
Though experience be our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact; it must be
acknowledged, that this guide is not altogether infallible, but in some cases is apt to lead us into
errors. . . . All effects follow not 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 (<strong>Hume</strong>, [1748]2007:110).
The “degrees o assurance” mentioned by <strong>Hume</strong> in this passage refer to events in our
experience that have a higher or the highest degree of certainty, for example the fact that the
chair I sat on a few minutes ago will not break down if I sit on it now (an event with a high
degree of probability) and the fact that sun will rise tomorrow morning (an event with the highest
degree of probability); and events which “represent the lowest species of moral evidence”, moral
evidence referring here to undetectable human motivations. The latter category comprehends
different testimonies and the kind of experience that is contrary to the order of things observed,
for example the sightings of an UFO.
So, for <strong>Hume</strong> there is no absolute certainty that the chair will not broke down or even that
the sun will rise tomorrow. There is no rational guarantee that the world as we know it now will
be the same way in the next minute. All our beliefs about our mind, our body and the world are
based on past experience, our own past experience – though this last idea in not quite exact,
considering the fact that not all our understanding of the world is derived only from our
experience: we learn also form the experiences of others (for example, if we didn’t learn from
“And what have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute impossibility or miraculous nature of
the events, which they relate? And this surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, will alone be regarded as a
sufficient refutation.” (<strong>Hume</strong>, [1748]2007: 125) According to this interpretation, we must either discard the law and
admit that such a law of nature is inexistent since it was falsified, or reformulate it to include the new facts
discovered. Or we could simply deny the possibility of the alleged miracle (see Flew 1961:186-187, 200-209). This
interpretation totally discards <strong>Hume</strong>’s enterprise in section X of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, in
which, as we shall see, he tries to probe and asses the trustworthiness of the particular sort of testimony which is
invoked in favor of miracles.