[SydPhil] University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, Peter Millican, (Oxford University and National University of Singapore)

[Ryan Cox]

Hi everyone,

This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Peter Millican, (Oxford University and National University of Singapore)

The title of the talk is "Hume and Hájek on Miracles". Here is an abstract for the talk:

My aim here is to outline and then assess the force of Hume’s famous argument against the credibility of testimony for miracles, particularly in the light of Alan Hájek’s influential recent defence of the argument against what he describes as ‘the single most common sort of objection’ to it. Hájek’s defence, I maintain, hinges on a confusion between prior and posterior probabilities (of which there is also a hint in Hume’s text), and once this is recognised, we can see that Hume’s “general maxim” cannot easily be revised to evade the objection. The principle behind Hume’s argument nevertheless retains significant force against testimony for events that are acknowledged to be initially improbable (with various significant caveats regarding ‘analogical probability’ which Hájek insightfully explores). But it is not clear that this force can legitimately be carried over – as Hume seems to assume – to the case of miracles as he defines them. Instead, I suggest, rational rejection of miracles depends primarily on rejection of the ‘invisible agents’ that are supposed to perform them, appealing more to the considerations in the second ‘a posteriori’ part of Hume’s essay than to the ‘a priori’ first part.

The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Mar 6 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494).

Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox at sydney.edu.au

Ryan Cox
Associate Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox at sydney.edu.au

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