Since its publication in the mid-eighteenth century, Hume's discussion
of miracles has been the target of severe and often ill-tempered
attacks. In this book, one of our leading historians of philosophy
offers a systematic response to these attacks.
Arguing that these criticisms have--from the very start--rested on
misreadings, Robert Fogelin begins by providing a narrative of the way
Hume's argument actually unfolds. What Hume's critics (and even some of
his defenders) have failed to see is that Hume's primary argument
depends on fixing the appropriate standards of evaluating testimony
presented on behalf of a miracle. Given the definition of a miracle,
Hume quite reasonably argues that the standards for evaluating such
testimony must be extremely high. Hume then argues that, as a matter of
fact, no testimony on behalf of a religious miracle has even come close
to meeting the appropriate standards for acceptance. Fogelin illustrates
that Hume's critics have consistently misunderstood the structure of
this argument--and have saddled Hume with perfectly awful arguments not
found in the text. He responds first to some early critics of Hume's
argument and then to two recent critics, David Johnson and John Earman.
Fogelin's goal, however, is not to "bash the bashers," but rather to
show that Hume's treatment of miracles has a coherence, depth, and power
that makes it still the best work on the subject.
