Perception in Gaudapada and David Hume - Paradoxes of Idealism

 II.15 M.K.: Those objects that appear as obscure inside the mind and those that appear as vivid outside, are all merely created by imagination.  Their distinction is to be traced to the difference in the organs of perception.

If there was ever an indication that Vedantins aren’t from Mars it is this.  The tendency to idealism brings to the fore the notion that it is only a matter of vividness that marks the difference between the imagination and perception.  This is to be found in Hume.  A similar epistemology will evoke a related  response to the problem of differentiation between the mental and the sensible.  Impressions and ideas together are perception, is how Hume  puts it.  So how does one distinguish them?  By their relative vivacity. 

The notion of vivacity comes up in Sankara’s commentary on the sutra only to be dismissed. 

“The fact that things in the mind, called up by mere mental impressions, have an obscurity, while externally as objects of the sense of sight etc., they have a vividness, (that fact) is not due to the existence of the objects themselves; for this distinction is noticed even in a dream.  To what is it due then?  This is caused by the difference in the organs of perception.  Hence it is proved that the things of the waking state are as much a creation of imagination as the dream objects.” M.K. II.15.

Obviously there is a difference between their views on the  ontological status of perceptions.  Gaudapada holds that because we have perceptions in dreams and perceptions in the waking state the common denominator of being perceptions is their true status.  They thus remain as items in consciousness.  The activity of the senses is also in consciousness. So all being in consciousness and  consciousness qua consciousness resulting from superimposition (adhyasa) all experience is mithya/false. 

Hume  bundles mental and sensible events  into the one category of perception but distinguishes between the constituent impressions and ideas by virtue of their relative vivacity.

It’s interesting to see how the attempts to fix the paradoxes, that arise from the adherence to Idealism, criss cross each other generating  bafflement. 

James Beattie: Selected Philosophical Writings (ed. James A. Harris)

 

I proceed, in the second place, to take notice of some of the more remarkable phenomena of Memory.

This is a faculty, which, if it were less common, and we equally qualified to judge of it, would strike us with astonishment. That we should have it in our power to recall past sensations and thoughts, and make them again present, as it were: that a circumstance of our former life should, in respect of us, be no more; and yet occur to us, from time to time, dressed out in colours so lively, as to enable us to examine it, and judge of it, as if it were still an object of sense: - these are facts, whereof we every day have experience, and which, therefore, we overlook as things of course. But, surely, nothing is more wonderful, or more inexplicable. (Beattie on Memory taken from ‘Selected Philosophical Writings’ ed. James A.Harris)

James Beattie (1735 - 1803)is less famous that his two near contemporaries Thomas Reid (1710 - 1796) and David Hume (1711 - 1776).  Both Beattie and Reid were opposed to the sceptical Hume particularly on consciousness and memory.

Thomas Reid:

Why sensation should compel our belief of the present existence of the thing, memory a belief of the past existence, and imagination no belief at all, I believe no philosopher can give a shadow of reason, but that such is the nature of these operations. They are all simple and original, and therefore inexplicable acts of the mind.

Further down:

Philosophers indeed tell me, that this immediate object of my memory and imagination in this case, is not the past sensation, but an idea of it, an image, phantasm, or species of the odour I smelled; that this idea now exists in my mind or in my sensorium; and the mind contemplating this present idea, finds it a representation of what is past, of what my exist, and accordingly call it memory, or imagination.

(from An Inquiry into the Human Mind, on the Principles of Common Sense by Thomas Reid)

Specifically on the odd idea that memory and imagination were distinguished by vivacity James Beattie writes:

Some philosophers refer to memory all our livelier thoughts, and our fainter ones to imagination: and so will have it, that the former faculty is distinguished from the latter by its superior vivacity. We believe, say they, in memory; we believe not in imagination: now we never believe any thing, but what we distinctly comprehend; and that, of which our comprehension is indistinct, we disbelieve. - But this is altogether false. The suggestions of imagination are often so lively, in dreaming, and in some intellectual disorders, as to be mistaken for real things; and therefore cannot be said to be essentially fainter than the informations of memory. (op.cit)

Beattie’s further ruminations on the difference between the two are closely observed  and follow the rubric of common sense realism that holds that we experience the world before we begin to reason about it and focusing on the ideas we have leaves us marooned on the desert island of solipsism castaway by the shipwreck of idealism.

It is interesting that among the moderns Margaret Anscombe is taken by the irreducibility of memory.

Writing in her essay on Memory and the Past Elizabeth Anscombe:

Then what makes my state or act of consciousness memory of the thing. Is it the mere fact that the thing happened and that I witnessed it? In that case there is nothing in the memory itself that makes it refer to the actual past event. And if so, why should the experience of memory have anything to do with actual past events or show one what it means for something to have happened?

She then in her consideration of the phenomenon of memory examines the present experience of which memory is supposed to be.

 

 But if I consider some present thing (which can, if you like, be a state of mind) and my future ability to speak of it, it is brought out more clearly how difficult it is to make out that anything I may attribute to my future mental state will make what I say refer to this.

Beattie is exceptionally readable.  The 18th.Century was one of prose as Matthew Arnold remarks in his essay on Thomas Grey.  There  is a fine handling of the long sentence with numerous parentheses which are immediately intelligible.  His remarks on the location of memories remind one of the fact that Neuroscience and its accomplices in Philosophy have not moved past the problems that he identified:

The human brain is a bodily substance; and sensible and permanent impressions made upon it must so far resemble those made on sand by the foot, or on wax by the seal, as to have a certain shape, length, breadth, and deepness. Now such an impression can only be made by that, which has solidity, magnitude, and figure. If then we remember thoughts, feelings, and sounds, as well as things visible and tangible, which will hardly be denied; those sounds, thoughts, and feelings, must have body, and, consequently, shape, size, and weight. What then is the size or weight of a sound? Is it an inch long, or half an inch? Does it weigh an ounce, or a grain? Does the roar of a cannon bear any resemblance to the ball, or to the powder, in shape, in weight, or in magnitude? What figure has the pain of the toothache, and our remembrance of that pain? Is it triangular, or circular, or a square form? The bare mention of these consequences may prove the absurdity of the theories that lead to them.

Sankara on Memory and Identity in Kena Upanishad II.4

 It is my fixed view that the Vedic philosopher theologians while unaffected by Western thoughts generated broadly similar responses to the aporiai of consciousness, identity,  and memory.  Here in his commentary on Kena Upanishad II.4  Sankara rejects the idea of the aloof Self as  an agent of the act of knowing.

“On the other hand, the explanation my run like this; “The Self being the agent of the act of knowing, one infers It to be the agent of the action from the fact of the cognitive act itself, just as one knows that it is the wind which moves a tree”.”

The Self then is understood as being aware of what is going on in the mind.  It is not the knowledge itself.  As knowledge occurs via perception, inference etc. the Self is activated like a substance undergoing modification.  There appears to be two processes going on here, mental activity producing knowledge and the modification of the Self producing awareness of this activity.  The changeability of the Self per this theory counters our sense of the permanence of the Self.

A view ascribed by Sankara to the school of Kannada:

“Knowledge arising from the contact of the soul and the mind, inheres in the soul; hence is the soul endowed with  knowership.  But it is not changeable; it is merely a substance  just like a pot in which colour inheres” - since according to this view, too, Brahman is a mere substance without consciousness, it contradicts such Vedic texts as, “Knowledge, Bliss, Brahman” (Br.Up. III.ix.28), “Brahman is Consciousness” (Ai. V.3)  And as the soul is partless and hence has no locality in it, and as the mind is ever in contact with it, the consequent  illogicality of admitting any law regarding the origination of memory becomes insurmountable.”

This remark about memory in its extreme allusiveness is somewhat inscrutable but if connected to the critique of Buddhist annica (momentariness) becomes intelligible.  The soul and the mind being viewed on the analogy of mental subject and mental objects requires that some mark of the supposed mental data must be discovered for them to be recognised as memory.  Thus you might have the thought, ‘someone won the lotto and yes now that I think of it, it was me’.

“Remembrance means recalling to mind something after its perception, and that can happen only when the agent of perception and memory is the same; for one person is not seen to remember something perceived by another.  How can there be an awareness of the form, “I who saw earlier see now”, arise unless the earlier and later perceiver be the same?  Moreover, it is well known to all that direct experience in the form of recognition,  such as “I who saw that, see this now”, occurs only when the agent of seeing and remembering  is the same.  Should their agents be different, then the awareness will take such a form, “I remember, but somebody else saw”; but nobody in fact experiences in this way.  Where cognition takes such a form, all understand the agents of seeing and remembering to be different, as for instance in, “I remember that he saw this then”.  (from Brahma-Sutra-Bhasya II.ii.25 pg.412 trans. Swami Gambhirananda, pub. Advaita Ashrama)

This critique of Sankaracarya’s would also apply to Hume’s fardel.

Dr.Richard Whately on Evidences/Miracles and Hume's equivocation on Experience

Here is a wodge of Dr. Whately's Logic. You've seen it before but your sybaritic taste glutted on the sophisms of Mr. Hume refused it. Your wish to deny the fact of miracles lest they should lead to a position of faith is, as I pointed out, a groundless anxiety. A faithless generation requires them but even Moses coming back from the dead to confirm the message of the gospels would not convince. Whately would demur. They are useful if the ground of sufficient candour exists.
(repost)
A consistent theme of Whately’s is ‘evidences’. A couple of his books that I’ve come across are composed of annotations appended to what he considers seminal texts. Generally these annotations are chapter length reflections on the previous chapter of the mother text. Paley’s A View of the Evidences of Christianity is one and Bacon’s Essays is the other. 

Evidences is the short form of ‘evidences for the truth of the Christian religion’ or a quasi-rational justification. Though he is represented as having been at odds with John Henry Newman even while the latter was in his Anglican phase I find that both of them really did not believe that there were knock-down demonstrative proofs available in the domain of religion. In the early working out of what later became the illative sense Newman spoke of implicit reasoning and they both would I think have recognised that a prior cultivation of the heart was necessary for the living reception of ‘evidences’. For Whately the fact of miracles was central for faith. Without miracles the establishment of the faith as a world-wide phenomenon would be impossible. Google have his Easy Lessons on Christian Evidences with several chapters on that theme. His amusing retorsion on/of/to Hume on miracles cf. Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte is quite serious in intent.

Men were not to become his disciples in consequence of their knowing and perceiving the truth of what He taught, but in consequence of their having sufficient candour to receive the evidence which his miracles afforded, and being so thoroughly of the Truth as to give themselves up to follow wherever that should lead, in opposition to any prejudices or inclinations of their own; and then knowledge of the truth was to be their reward. There is not necessarily any moral virtue in receiving truth; for it may happen that our interest, or our wishes, are in the same direction; or it may be forced upon us by evidence as irresistible as that of a mathematical demonstration. The virtue consists in being a sincere votary of Truth;—what our Lord calls being 'of the Truth,'—rejecting 'the hidden things of dishonesty,' and carefully guarding against every undue bias. Every one wishes to have Truth on his side; but it is not every one that sincerely wishes to he on the side of Truth.

(from annotation to Bacon’s Essay Of Truth)

A note on David Hume's equivocation re 'experience' from Richard Whately might be a useful antidote:

EXPERIENCE.—This word, in its strict sense, applies to what has occurred within a person's own knowledge. Experience, in this sense, of course, relates to the past alone. Thus it is that a man knows by experience what sufferings he has undergone in some disease, or what height the tide reached at a certain time and place.
More frequently the word is used to denote that Judgment which is derived from experience in the primary sense, by reasoning from that, in combination with other data. Thus, a man may assert, on the ground of Experience, that he was cured of a disorder by such a medicine,—that that medicine is, generally, beneficial in that disorder,—that the tide may always be expected, under such circumstances, to rise to such a height. Strictly speaking, none of these can be known by Experience, but are conclusions derived from Experience. It is in this sense only that Experience can be applied to the future, or, which comes to the same thing, to any general fact; as, e. g. when it is said that we know by Experience that water exposed to a certain temperature will freeze.
There are again two different applications of the word {see Book III. § 10,) which, when not carefully distinguished, lead in practice to the same confusion as the employment of it in two senses; viz. we sometimes understand our own personal experience; sometimes, general Experience. Hume has availed himself of this (practical) ambiguity, in his Essay on Miracles; in which he observes, that we have experience of the frequent falsity of Testimony, but that the occurrence of a miracle is contrary to our Experience, and is consequently what no testimony ought to be allowed to establish. Now had he explained whose Experience he meant, the argument would have come to nothing: if he means the Experience of mankind universally, i. e, that a Miracle has never come under the Experience of any one, this is palpably begging the question: if he means the Experience of each individual who has never himself witnessed a Miracle, this would establish a rule, {viz. that we are to believe nothing of which we have not ourselves experienced the like,) which it would argue insanity to act upon. Not only was the King of Bantam justified (as Hume himself admits) in listening to no evidence for the existence of Ice, but no one would be authorized on this principle to expect his own death. His Experience informs him, directly, only that others have died. Every disease under which he himself may have labored, his Experience must have told him has not terminated fatally; if he is to judge strictly of the future by the past, according to this rule, what should hinder him from expecting the like of all future diseases ?
Some have never been struck with this consequence of Hume's principles; and some have even failed to perceive it when pointed out: but if the reader thinks it worth his while to consult the author, he will see that his principles, according to his own account of them, are such as I have stated.
Perhaps however he meant, if indeed he had any distinct meaning, something intermediate between universal, and individual experience; viz. the Experience of the generality, as to what is common and of ordinary occurrence; in which sense the maxim will only amount to this, that false Testimony is a thing of common occurrence, and that Miracles are not; an obvious truth, indeed ; but too general to authorize, of itself) a conclusion in any particular case In any other individual question, as to the admissibility of evidence, it would be reckoned absurd to consider merely the average chances for the truth of Testimony in the abstract without inquiring what the Testimony is, in the particular instance before us. As if e. g. any one had maintained that no testimony could establish Columbus's account of the discovery of America, because it is more common for travellers to lie, than for new Continents to be discovered. See Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Bonaparte.
It is to be observed by the way, that there is yet an additional ambiguity in the entire phrase " contrary to experience;" in one sense, a miracle, or any other event, may be called contrary to the experience of any one who has never witnessed the like; as the freezing of water was to that of the King of Bantam; in another and stricter sense, that only is contrary to a man's experience, which he knows by experience not to be true; as if one should be told of an in&llible remedy for some disorder, he having seen it administered without effect. No testimony can establish what is, in this latter sense^ contrary to experience. We need not wonder that ordinary minds should be bewildered by a sophistical employment of such a mass of ambiguities.
Such reasonings as these are accounted ingenious and profound, on account of the Subject on which they are employed; if applied to the ordinary affairs of life, they would be deemed unworthy of serious notice.
The reader is not to suppose that the refutation of Hume's Essay on Miracles was my object in this Article.
That might have been sufficiently accomplished, in the way of a reductio ad absurdum," by mere reference to the case of the King of Bantam adduced by the author himself But this celebrated Essay, though it has often perhaps contributed to the amusement of an anti-christian sophist at the expense of those unable to expose its fallacy, never probably made one convert The author himself seems plainly to have meant it as a specimen of his ingenuity in arguing on a given hypothesis; for he disputes against miracles as against the Course of Nature; whereas, according to him, there is no such thing as a Course of Nature; his skepticism extends to the whole external world;—to every thing, except the ideas or impressions on the mind of the individual; so that a miracle which is believed, has, in that circumstance alone, on his principles, as much reality as any thing can have.
But my object has been to point out, by the use of this example, the fallacies and blunders which may result from inattention to the ambiguity of the word " Experience :" and this cannot be done by a mere indirect argument; which refutes indeed, but does not explain^ an error.

(from alphabetical appendix to Elements of Logic by Dr.Richard Whately)

Coleridge and Miracles

Luke 16: 29 -31

Abraham saith unto him; They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them
And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent
And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

This is the text that Coleridge cites in his discussion of spiritual truths and the understanding in Section the Second Essay II, The Friend He asks :

Whether miracles can, of themselves, work a true conviction in the mind? There are spiritual truths which must derive their evidence from within, which whoever rejects, “neither will he believe though a man were to rise from the dead” to confirm them.

That is so true, miracles, though they may leave one stunned and thunderstruck (stundered) in a state of momentary shock at the abrogation of natural experience will in cooler recollection evoke the reaction:
wonderful, but what has it to do with me.

….. is not a true efficient conviction of a moral truth, is not “the creating of a new heart,” which collects the energies of a man’s whole being in the focus of the conscience, the one essential miracle, the same and of the same evidence to the ignorant and the learned, which no superior skill can counterfeit, human or demoniacal?

Humean ingenuity is confounded by this inversion. Faith allows miracles as the ebulliance of divine power but they do not establish faith.

Hume's Epistemic Thimblerigging

The feeling I have about Hume on Miracles (Section X Treatise is very like that I get looking at a skilled thimble rigger (shell game). Where does the miracle lie? Under the logical impossibility shell i.e. there is only nature and any event not natural i.e. supernatural, has never occurred. Looking for evidence for an impossibility is pointless. But when you point at that shell, miracle is discovered to be under the pious fraud shell so evidence is a possibility but it will never be enough to establish a miracle. And it’s a virtual logical impossibility too. By virtual here I mean that the impossibility of establishing that a miracle has taken place has the force of the logical while being empirical. There is something not quite right about that but the steady stream of diverting patter moves one on quickly.

Who are Hume’s confederates in the crowd. There is a physicist who nods at the ‘there is only nature’ and there is the philosopher, a lover of mazy modality. They win: the punters hardly ever. I say to people who question miracles - you shouldn’t believe in them. They don’t cohere with your world, they don’t matter for you. If they come to matter it will be because your world has altered.

'Permit me to demur Mr.Hume' said Dr.Whately

EXPERIENCE.—This word, in its strict sense, applies to what has occurred within a person's own knowledge. Experience, in this sense, of course, relates to the past alone. Thus it is that a man knows by experience what sufferings he has undergone in some disease, or what height the tide reached at a certain time and place.
More frequently the word is used to denote that Judgment which is derived from experience in the primary sense, by reasoning from that, in combination with other data. Thus, a man may assert, on the ground of Experience, that he was cured of a disorder by such a medicine,—that that medicine is, generally, beneficial in that disorder,—that the tide may always be expected, under such circumstances, to rise to such a height. Strictly speaking, none of these can be known by Experience, but are conclusions derived from Experience. It is in this sense only that Experience can be applied to the future, or, which comes to the same thing, to any general fact; as, e. g. when it is said that we know by Experience that water exposed to a certain temperature will freeze.
There are again two different applications of the word {see Book III. § 10,) which, when not carefully distinguished, lead in practice to the same confusion as the employment of it in two senses; viz. we sometimes understand our own personal experience; sometimes, general Experience. Hume has availed himself of this (practical) ambiguity, in his Essay on Miracles; in which he observes, that we have experience of the frequent falsity of Testimony, but that the occurrence of a miracle is contrary to our Experience, and is consequently what no testimony ought to be allowed to establish. Now had he explained whose Experience he meant, the argument would have come to nothing: if he means the Experience of mankind universally, i. e, that a Miracle has never come under the Experience of any one, this is palpably begging the question: if he means the Experience of each individual who has never himself witnessed a Miracle, this would establish a rule, {viz. that we are to believe nothing of which we have not ourselves experienced the like,) which it would argue insanity to act upon. Not only was the King of Bantam justified (as Hume himself admits) in listening to no evidence for the existence of Ice, but no one would be authorized on this principle to expect his own death. His Experience informs him, directly, only that others have died. Every disease under which he himself may have labored, his Experience must have told him has not terminated fatally; if he is to judge strictly of the future by the past, according to this rule, what should hinder him from expecting the like of all future diseases ?
Some have never been struck with this consequence of Hume's principles; and some have even failed to perceive it when pointed out: but if the reader thinks it worth his while to consult the author, he will see that his principles, according to his own account of them, are such as I have stated.
Perhaps however he meant, if indeed he had any distinct meaning, something intermediate between universal, and individual experience; viz. the Experience of the generality, as to what is common and of ordinary occurrence; in which sense the maxim will only amount to this, that false Testimony is a thing of common occurrence, and that Miracles are not; an obvious truth, indeed ; but too general to authorize, of itself) a conclusion in any particular case In any other individual question, as to the admissibility of evidence, it would be reckoned absurd to consider merely the average chances for the truth of Testimony in the abstract without inquiring what the Testimony is, in the f articular instance before us. As if e. g. any one had maintained that no testimony could establish Columbus's account of the discovery of America, because it is more common for travellers to lie, than for new Continents to be discovered. See Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Bonaparte.
It is to be observed by the way, that there is yet an additional ambiguity in the entire phrase " contrary to experience;" in one sense, a miracle, or any other event, may be called contrary to the experience of any one who has never witnessed the like; as the freezing of water was to that of the King of Bantam; in another and stricter sense, that only is contrary to a man's experience, which he knows by experience not to be true; as if one should be told of an in&llible remedy for some disorder, he having seen it administered without effect. No testimony can establish what is, in this latter sense^ contrary to experience. We need not wonder that ordinary minds should be bewildered by a sophistical employment of such a mass of ambiguities.
Such reasonings as these are accounted ingenious and profound, on account of the Subject on which they are employed; if applied to the ordinary affairs of life, they would be deemed unworthy of serious notice.
The reader is not to suppose that the refutation of Hume's Essay on Miracles was my object in this Article.
That might have been sufficiently accomplished, in the way of a reductio ad absurdum," by mere reference to the case of the King of Bantam adduced by the author himself But this celebrated Essay, though it has often perhaps contributed to the amusement of an anti-christian sophist at the expense of those unable to expose its fallacy, never probably made one convert The author himself seems plainly to have meant it as a specimen of his ingenuity in arguing on a given hypothesis; for he disputes against miracles as against the Course of Nature; whereas, according to him, there is no such thing as a Course of Nature; his skepticism extends to the whole external world;—to every thing, except the ideas or impressions on the mind of the individual; so that a miracle which is believed, has, in that circumstance alone, on his principles, as much reality as any thing can have.
But my object has been to point out, by the use of this example, the fallacies and blunders which may result from inattention to the ambiguity of the word " Experience :" and this cannot be done by a mere indirect argument; which refutes indeed, but does not explain^ an error.

(from alphabetical appendix to Elements of Logic by Dr.Richard Whately)

Hume's Miracle

“There’s probably no God (now stop worrying and enjoy the rest of your life)” it says on the bus atheist bus which by retaining its grip on the empirical and renouncing the a priori and all its works and pomps stays true to the Hume’s line laid out in his remarks on miracles. No doubt they took the advice of a member of the Philosophers chapel of the British Humanist Association, Peter Millican who has written extensively on the topic of Hume and the probability of the report of a miracle being a true account of what transpired. My mild tracing of the anfractuosities of Hume’s view was sparked by a reading of a chapter on it in Philosophers and Religious Truth by Ninian Smart. He takes the view which conforms to the apparently obvious contradiction in Hume’s writing between the rejection of induction as establishing a law of nature which would allow us to say that the sun will rise tomorrow and the reverence before the regular course of things that discounts any miracles.

Millican is not having this:

If there is indeed an inconsistency here, however, this is more a difficulty for Hume‟s philosophy of induction than for his position on miracles.
Most of his work – from the Treatise, through the Essays and Enquiries, to the History and the later works on religion – is thoroughly infused with the empirical scientific spirit of an investigator attempting “to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects” (as declared by the subtitle of the Treatise). In this respect, the inductive commitment of his essay on miracles is entirely typical. And in fact there is no inconsistency between Hume‟s philosophy of induction and his empirical method; quite the reverse. His inductive “scepticism” – as presented in Sections 4 and 5 of the Enquiry, is encapsulated in the claim “that, in all reasonings from experience, there is a step taken by the mind, which is not supported by any argument or process of the understanding” (E 5.2). This unsupported step – the assumption of uniformity whereby we extrapolate from observed to unobserved and “expect similar effects from causes, which are, to appearance, similar” (E 4.23) – has instead a non-rational basis, in an animal instinct which Hume calls custom (E 5.6)

(from 20 questions)

The inherent unliklihood of a miracle is surely its point and I think that the term ‘likely’ is more apposite and in keeping with Hume’s general breeziness than the term ‘probable’ used in a modern sense that brings sage pronouncements on 0, 1 or .0000…..1 probability. Hume’s two for the price of one miracle is an example of his drollery:

The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), “That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish …” (E 10.13)

It’s true that not many philosophers are as enthusiastic as Millican. John Earman is scathing and he’s a non-theist - humes abject failureFor myself I believe in them when I have confidence in the supposed worker of them and in their witnesses. Otherwise I do not concern myself and as I said to a young sceptic recently – You shouldn’t believe in them. What I didn’t add was ‘because they don’t concern you’.

Hume on Miracles

When you get the name of being deep any banal utterance of yours will draw sage nods. Hume on miracles is an instance of this. The whole point of miracles as signs is that they fall outside the domain of nature. To insist that nothing is outside nature and therefore outside the bounds of probability is merely to say that a miracle is a miracle and I don’t’ believe in them. When you have said that, further discussion on probability adds prestidigitative patter.

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, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable, that all men must die; that lead cannot, of itself, remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be, that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or in other words, a miracle to prevent them? Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden: because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation....
The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), 'That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish....' When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.
In the foregoing reasoning we have supposed, that the testimony, upon which a miracle is founded, may possibly amount to an entire proof, and that the falsehood of that testimony would be a real prodigy: But it is easy to shew, that we have been a great deal too liberal in our concession, and that there never was a miraculous event established on so full an evidence.
From David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, L. A. Selby Bigge, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902), pp. 114-16.

David Hume sets the agenda

John Heil in an interview in 3am:The Universe as we find it

JH: Substances, not properties, have powers. Objects do what they do because they are what they are (and their circumstances are what they are, a qualification I shall henceforth omit for ease of exposition). The tomato rolls, makes a circular concave impression in the carpet, looks spherical, feels spherical because it is spherical. The tomato’s sphericality is a quality, and it is by virtue of possessing this quality that the ball does or would do what it does. If the ball’s sphericality is a property of the ball, this property is a powerful quality.
Most of us are trained to start with Humeanism and adjust. Humeanism is the default. You need a good reason move from a default position. If you start with the idea that properties are qualities, and that objects do what they do because they are governed by laws of nature, the addition of powers will seem gratuitous. We have laws. Laws explain why objects behave as they do. Who needs powers?

A.E. Taylor likewise finds David Hume a sort of point from which the modern begins to qualify from. Like the Irish Labour Party a few years ago after losing a multitude of seats – 'we may have lost but we set the agenda'. In philosophy however setting the agenda is a sort of victory.

When we ask how, if a " thing" is merely the series or sum of its attributes, and possesses no underlying unity to which the attributes belong, the whole of our ordinary language about things comes to be constructed on the contrary assumption, how it is that we always talk and think as if every " bundle " of attributes were owned by something of which we can say that it has the quality, we are met by the phenomenalist with a reference to Psychology. Owing to the fact, which Phenomenalism and Associationism are content to accept as ultimate, that sensible qualities are always presented to our perception in definite groups, it is argued that the thought of any one member of such a group is enough to revive by association the thought of the other qualities which have regularly been presented simultaneously with itself or in immediate succession to it. Hence, because thus associated in our perception, the group comes naturally, though illegitimately, by one of those mental fictions of which Hume treats so fully, to be thought of as one, though it is actually a discrete multiplicity. The unity of the thing thus lies not in itself, but solely in our way of perceiving and thinking.

(from Elements of Metaphysics)

Here comes Hume, hopping.

Who is that fellow with reflective mien gently tapping his forehead ? Why it is Hume attempting to stimulate an idea by means of a faint sensation. Miracles are false because their truth is less likely than their falsity. Elsewhere induction is regarded as a useful prejudice. An empiricism that is based on idealism requires epistemological hopping as the ground is constantly being cut from underneath one. On to the next bundle of perceptions Davey lad. Memory won’t save you.

And yet you can be a great philosopher and be wrong about everything. I’m not sure if that’s true but it could be. Discuss. I’m probably exactly backwards and belong to that scheduled caste of scoffers and doubters who must be gently raised into the light of a true understanding of greatness.

Shaktipath

Socrates sat down next to him and said, “How wonderful it would be, dear Agathon, if the foolish were filled with wisdom simply by touching the wise. If only wisdom were like water, which always flows from a full cup into an empty one when we connect them with a piece of yarn - well, then I would consider it the greatest prize to have the chance to lie down next to you.”

It seems that some Yogis have claimed to be able to do just that and have used this transcendental hello sailor to seduce naive followers. That does not mean that genuine shaktipath or initiation through touch or at a distance is not at the gift of a master. It isn’t wisdom or realization that is given in this manner but an experience of a higher level of consciousness that can confirm and strengthen the faith of the devotee. Such charisms are well attested in all the major traditions and have the added benefit of being Humeanly discounted. It can’t be evidenced because it can’t be true David says.