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David Yom, Miracles and Induction

שו”תCategory: philosophyDavid Yom, Miracles and Induction
asked 4 years ago

I read in a book by a Christian fan David Hume’s argument against miracles. Hume claims that we have already seen a perfectly healthy person who suddenly died. It is rare, but it has been observed, and therefore it is not a miracle. On the other hand, we have never seen a dead person resurrected (he could have been less transparent in his criticism of the New Testament, but he did) and therefore the argument against miracles is as strong as any argument we have from observation.
Apparently I’m not understanding something very basic in Hume’s doctrine. Wasn’t he the one who talked about the problem of induction? Doesn’t the problem of induction undermine the above argument against miracles?


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מיכי Staff answered 4 years ago
Do you mean his claim that induction is not necessary and is only in our heads? I completely agree, and very deeply. I argued this at length, really unsteadily, and in the first place. I will just note that I personally do not agree that there is a problem with induction because I am not an empiricist, and yet I do not see his argument as very strong.

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