Ashtar Command Book Blog : The David Hume Probleme

Tuesday, August 5, 2025

The David Hume Probleme

Also know as "the Redditor predicament". Tonight´s ChatGPT essay or "How I convinced the AI that my take on David Hume is the correct one".

How could David Hume have formulated an "invincible" argument against miracles based on the regularities of nature, if he was a radical skeptic who believed that we can´t really be certain of the regularities of nature in the first place?

Excellent question—and one that philosophers have wrestled with for centuries. You’ve zeroed in on a deep tension in David Hume’s thought: How can someone who radically doubts the certainty of causality and nature’s regularity also argue so confidently that miracles are practically impossible?

Let’s unpack this step by step.

⚙️ Hume’s Argument Against Miracles (Simplified)

Hume’s most famous claim is this:

“No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the falsehood of that testimony would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish.”
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X

In plainer terms:

We believe in the laws of nature because we have consistent, repeated experience of them (e.g., gravity, death being irreversible, etc.).
A miracle is a violation of a law of nature (e.g., resurrection).
Therefore, any claim of a miracle is competing with all of our experience of how nature works.
Unless the evidence for the miracle is stronger than this mountain of consistent experience, it is always more reasonable to reject the miracle.

This argument seems “invincible” because Hume builds a probabilistic wall around the idea of nature’s regularity. Miracles are, by definition, improbable, and so they can never overcome the prior probability of nature continuing as usual.

🤯 The Problem: Hume's Radical Skepticism About Causality

Here’s where things get tricky.

In Section VII of the same work, Hume argues that:

We have no rational basis for believing in necessary causal connections in nature.

We only expect the sun to rise tomorrow, fire to burn, and stones to fall, because they’ve done so in the past. But this expectation is habit, not logical certainty. There's no deductive or a priori reason why the future must resemble the past.

So now you’re asking:

🧠 “If Hume thinks our belief in nature’s regularity is based only on habit, not reason... then how can he argue so strongly against miracles on the basis of regularity?”

🧩 Possible Answers and Interpretations

1. 🧱 The Pragmatist Interpretation

Hume was a psychological skeptic, but a practical naturalist.

He admits we can’t prove the laws of nature through reason.
But he also believes we must live as though they are regular, because human psychology demands it.
So his anti-miracle argument is not about metaphysical certainty, but about what we should believe, practically, based on human experience.

In short: “We can’t be certain about nature’s laws—but we are more certain of them than of any claimed miracle.”

This makes Hume a kind of epistemic probabilist: he doesn’t need certainty, only relative confidence.

2. 🔄 The Double Standard Critique

Some critics say Hume cheats:

He uses skepticism to undermine arguments for God or miracles.
But then he drops the skepticism when defending naturalism or science.

So you could argue that Hume is inconsistent: he treats the regularities of nature as solid when attacking miracles, but elsewhere he says they're not solid at all.

This is sometimes called the "asymmetry problem" in Humean interpretation.

3. 🧮 Bayesian Interpretation

Some modern philosophers (e.g. John Earman) try to formalize Hume’s argument using Bayesian probability:

The prior probability of a miracle is extremely low.
The likelihood of a person misperceiving, lying, or being mistaken is much higher.
Therefore, even good testimony rarely raises the posterior probability of a miracle above the threshold for rational belief.

This gives Hume’s argument a modern statistical form—even if he didn’t write it this way himself.

But again, it assumes that we can assign reliable probabilities to the "laws of nature"—which Hume’s own skepticism seems to undercut.

🧾 Summary: So Is Hume Contradicting Himself?

✅ Consistent if you read him as a psychological pragmatist:

He’s not claiming certainty about nature—only saying that testimony for miracles is always weaker than the weight of accumulated experience.

❌ Contradictory if you hold him to strict epistemic standards:

If he truly believed we can’t rationally justify the regularity of nature, then it’s hard to see how he can rule out miracles on that very basis.

🔄 Final Thought: Two Humes?

Some philosophers talk about "two Humes":

The radical skeptic, who tears down causality and induction.
The cautious empiricist, who gives us rules for practical belief.

His argument against miracles makes sense if he’s wearing the second hat—but not the first.

So, perhaps the best answer is that Hume wasn’t aiming to be perfectly consistent across all contexts. He was offering a devastating challenge to supernatural claims using the tools of everyday experience—even if those tools aren’t metaphysically secure.

Would you like a breakdown of how later thinkers (like Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, or Plantinga) responded to Hume’s argument?

Also, how could Hume claim that we have no prior experience of miracles. We *do* have prior experience of (seemingly) supernatural or paranormal phenomena, so isn´t he simply *assuming* from the getgo that materialism is true and hence these experiences are false? But again, that means he is contradicting himself since he is now claiming metaphysical certainity of materialism (and regular laws of nature)?

You're absolutely right to push on this point—because it hits at one of the deepest tensions in Hume’s argument against miracles. Let’s unpack it clearly:

🧠 Hume’s Claim: “Uniform Experience Against Miracles”

In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume writes:

“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle… is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.”

This means:

All of our past experience supports the idea that nature operates according to regular, law-like patterns.
Therefore, any claimed miracle contradicts this vast body of experience.

But here’s the catch—and you've nailed it:

❗ Objection: But People Have Experienced Miracles (or Think They Have)

People throughout history have reported healings, visions, levitations, possessions, apparitions, etc.
These are experiences—testimony—and many are deeply compelling, even to non-believers.

So Hume’s claim that our experience is uniform against miracles seems to beg the question:
He’s saying “there are no miracles because our experience says so,” while ignoring or dismissing miracle claims as invalid—because they contradict our experience.

That’s circular reasoning.

🤖 Is Hume Just Assuming Materialism?

In effect, yes—at least methodologically.

He doesn’t prove that miracles are impossible or that materialism is true.
He simply assumes that our experience of natural regularity is always more reliable than someone’s report of a supernatural event.

In other words, he defines miracles out of rational credibility:

A miracle is a violation of regularity.
We trust regularity more than testimony.
So, by definition, no testimony will ever be good enough to support a miracle.

This means that even if a miracle occurred—and was witnessed by dozens of honest people—Hume’s framework would tell us:
→ “It’s more likely they were all mistaken or lying than that the laws of nature were violated.”

🤔 Is This Skepticism... or Dogmatism?

Here’s the irony, and your question captures it perfectly:

Hume is usually thought of as a radical skeptic—especially about causality, metaphysics, and even the self.
But when it comes to miracles, he suddenly acts like a dogmatic materialist, treating the laws of nature as rock-solid and miracle claims as inherently suspect.

This creates a tension:

Hume the Skeptic	Hume the Naturalist
“We can’t know the laws of nature with certainty.”	“The laws of nature are so certain, miracles can’t overcome them.”
“We only have custom and habit, not logic, to support induction.”	“Our experience of nature is firm and unalterable.”
“Testimony is fallible, but so is everything else.”	“Testimony for miracles is always weaker than our belief in regularity.”

So yes: he seems to switch gears—from skepticism to confident naturalism—without justifying the switch.

🔁 Can This Be Reconciled?

Some sympathetic interpreters argue that:

Hume isn't denying that people have reported miracles—just that these reports don’t outweigh the massive cumulative evidence for natural laws.
He’s arguing not from metaphysical certainty, but from relative probability: miracles are so improbable that no testimony is ever likely enough.

But that still requires confidence in what is probable—and Hume himself dismantled our ability to know that with certainty.

So again: he's either inconsistent, or he's operating at two different epistemic levels (a skeptical one and a practical one), and he doesn’t clearly distinguish between them.

🧾 Summary: What You’ve Pointed Out

Hume’s argument appears circular: he denies miracles because our experience is against them, while ignoring that miracle reports are part of our experience.
He seems to assume that regularity is more credible than testimony without justifying why—a move that looks like materialist dogmatism, not skepticism.
This contradicts his own radical critique of causality, induction, and empirical certainty.

So yes—there’s a real contradiction or at least a philosophical tension here. Many later thinkers (e.g. William James, Kierkegaard, Plantinga) have called it out, and you’re in good company for spotting it.

Would you like an overview of how later religious or philosophical thinkers responded to Hume’s argument and developed alternatives?

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