Hume (1711-1776) was born in Scotland during the old English style calendar but died under the new English style calendar, which makes his birthday date quite messy. 🗒🤔 Hume's birthday under the Julian (old style) calendar is the 26th April but it's the 7th May under the Gregorian (new style) calendar. The calendars changed in Great Britain (in England, Wales, Ireland, and Britain's colonies) in accordance with the Calendar Act of 1750. However, this was not the case in Scotland which was already using the new style since New Year's Day 1600. So his birthday is the 7th May because he's Scottish born so under the new system. No wonder I haven't celebrated his birth day before! It's all so confusing. Even his name at birth is different - it's David Home, not Hume! 🤷
Over the years, I've been noticing quite a bit of interest on academia.edu in my workshop paper 'Is Hume's Argument against Miracles Flawed?'. I've been wondering if any of the readers have possibly misunderstood my personal stance on the subject of miracles and erroneously thought I might be siding with Christian Shepherd against Atheistic Hume. Not at all. I think the misunderstanding stems from perhaps not appreciating that when I'm writing papers or books, I do so in a particular, old-fashioned academic style with its own vocabulary and objective approach. It's a style I was taught by my mother, especially as I was approaching GCSE years (aged 14-16). It's slightly less common these days because assessment has shifted towards adding marks for personal opinion, something I especially noticed when they expected my degree essays to express my personal, subjective stance on every topic. I found that weird because academic and subjective opinion don't go together. Academic implies objective. So the markers and tutors were particularly thrown by my style of writing when I didn't come down on one side or the other in a debate/topic but preferred to tease out the intricacies of both the pro and contra arguments.
Therefore, just because I argue that Shepherd has some good points against Hume, it doesn't mean I am dismissive of Hume as a philosopher or that I don't generally agree with him. I'm merely conceding that Shepherd has the upper hand on this debate concerning miracles, perhaps because she is even more scientifically minded than Hume and so has been more thorough.
I've always liked Hume's philosophical approach, his scepticism, his emphasis on the role of emotions and how calm passions cohere with reason. And I always like a philosopher who doesn't let religion get in the way of philosophy because philosophy is not religion. If you want to do religion, then do religious theology! In this respect, Hume is very similar to Shepherd, so contrary to appearances, they are not on opposing sides. This makes Hume in the same philosophical club as Spinoza, Margaret Cavendish and JS Mill: they are all freethinkers and don't let religious sentiment or dogma take over philosophy or dominate their philosophical arguments and stances. This doesn't mean they are all atheists or rationalists, because Hume is the only empiricist in this list, and Shepherd and Spinoza are Christian and Jewish respectively. Small amounts of Christianity are unavoidable in philosophy, be it when a non-religious thinker like Hume addresses it or when looking at female philosophers who are almost all Christians to a lesser or greater degree.
So, I didn't choose Shepherd because she's a Christian. I chose her because she is a female (early modern) philosopher who has been neglected by history. And since I have an interest in women philosophers I will invariably be discussing Christian philosophers because there are simply very few humanistic, agnostic or atheistic, secular, and/or Jewish philosophers. And even they may discuss religion, often Christianity, due to their Christian peer reviewers' and reader's contras or questions. Even ancient philosophy is not free from religion or Christianity because: one, the philosophers can include their pagan religions and two, the academic field of ancient philosophy is too imbued with strongly Christian readings and criticisms, such as neo-Platonism. I think this leads to many misreadings in ancient philosophical scholarship that I'm not interested in unpicking. There are also too many male philosophers in that period of history, unlike in the long Early Modern period where one can unearth some women philosophers, and I try to choose those who keep Christianity and philosophy separate as far as possible.
I assume, therefore, that when you read my papers and books you are reading them slowly and picking up on my objective style of academic writing, which I appreciate can be harder if you belong to a younger generation or you have not been educated in an English, highly academic, system. I try to make it accessible to all, but I do realise that it may be tricky if you have a different educational background, religion, language or tradition.
This is why I am also a blogger. It means I can be more chatty more direct and write more colloquially which makes things easier to understand and, in some cases, supplements my academic writing.
One thing to bear in mind when reading this paper (and my other academic work) is that I am not supporting or refuting any Christian stances that I may need to discuss in the history of philosophy because I simply don't identify with them so I discuss them with the standard interfaith approach. Thus, when I show that Shepherd makes a good point or I repeat Christian themed passages in her text, I am not saying - this is an excellent Christian argument that I agree with. As I've written recently, I'm a lesbian (and demi-non-binary with it!), agnostic, secular, freethinking, humanistic Jewish philosopher so Christianity is not on my radar and never has been. And I'm not using Hume, Shepherd, Spinoza (or anyone else) to express my personal views vicariously.
Hence, when I assess whether Hume's and Shepherd's arguments cohere with scripture, it is merely part of assessing their respective arguments because Hume wants his definition to reflect generally accepted descriptions/ concepts of miracles. The topic of constant creation with my rain and grass examples comes from Judaism: daily renewal of creation is a theme in the Shema (something Jews recite daily as a prayer although its wording consists of biblical passages). So I used my knowledge of Judaism to provide my own original assessment of Hume's and Shepherd's textual accuracy. Nevertheless, as an humanistic Jew, constant creation is not a religious belief for me, it's just part of the full, original Shema.
Personally, I'm fascinated by the methodology behind Hume's and Shepherd's argument structures, not the topic of miracles itself. That's just a neat, self-contained topic within a section of their writings which acts as a handy vehicle for philosophical analysis. I didn't choose the topic of miracles because I have an interest or belief in them. I am hugely sceptical of miracles and don't take any leaps of faith to remotely believe in them. Personally, I analyse miracles in accordance with naturalistic explanations or empirical evidence. For instance, was the parting of the Red Sea a miracle? And do I believe it actually happened? Answer: no, I don't think it's a miracle whereby God intervened and parted the Red Sea for Moses and his people. I take the naturalistic explanation approach: in terms of geography/geology, the effect of wind on water is sometimes such that the water disappears and leaves dry land for a few hours. I've experienced this myself at the popular tourist destination of St Michael's Mount. So I find it plausible that Moses knew the natural cycles of the sea and therefore knew when they should cross. I also factor in any archaeological evidence available. And there is such evidence in relation to the Red Sea because Egyptian chariots have been found at the bottom of it and the Egyptians drowned following the Jewish people across the Red Sea. So I conclude it's possible that this biblical event happened, but not as a miracle.
One of my main points in this paper was to suggest how Hume can strengthen 💪 his own argument against miracles, not saying he should bin it! 🗑 Otherwise, if non-religious arguments retain loopholes, then they seem weaker and less plausible than they are. So it's valuable to make them water-tight so religious arguments don't get any easy wins.
I'm taking a food break now, I'll continue these thoughts later in my next post 🙂 ✍. Good night and sleep well! 💤🛌 🌛
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