Hume and the Independent Witnesses

Mind 124 (496):1013-1044 (2015)
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Abstract

The Humean argument concerning miracles says that one should always think it more likely that anyone who testifies to a miracle is lying or deluded than that the alleged miracle actually occurred, and so should always reject any single report of it. A longstanding and widely accepted objection is that even if this is right, the concurring and non-collusive testimony of many witnesses should make it rational to believe in whatever miracle they all report. I argue that on the contrary, even multiple reports from non-collusive witnesses lack the sort of independence that could make trouble for Hume.

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Arif Ahmed
Cambridge University

Citations of this work

Miracles.Timothy McGrew - 2011 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Miracles.Michael Levine - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
A Bayesian Baseline for Belief in Uncommon Events.Vesa Palonen - 2017 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 9 (3):159-175.

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References found in this work

Bayesian Epistemology.Luc Bovens & Stephan Hartmann - 2003 - Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edited by Stephan Hartmann.
Scientific reasoning: the Bayesian approach.Peter Urbach & Colin Howson - 1993 - Chicago: Open Court. Edited by Peter Urbach.
Philosophical investigations.Ludwig Wittgenstein & G. E. M. Anscombe - 1953 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 161:124-124.

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