section 10; of miracles

"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."

Hume does not believe in miracles. He argues that miracles are not part of nature and do no exist. Our knowledge of miracles come from other people who claim that they seen or experienced a miracle. According to Hume, miracles come form the testimony of individuals and our evidence comes from the laws of nature. In order for a miracle to be true, the testimony has to overcome the laws of nature, but we cannot rely on the testimonies of individuals because they are not 100% trustworthy. Therefore, there is no concrete proof or evidence that miracles do exist.

There are some cases in which i say miracles do happen but then again there is no proof of it. It can be just an act of nature but people rather call it a miracle. What do you think?

section 10; of miracles

"Though experience be our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact; it must be acknowledged, that this guide is not altogether infallible, but in some cases is apt to lead us into errors."

In this passage Hume is talking about how we cannot rely so much on our past experiences for the future because they may be false or we can be mistaken at times. When reasoning on matter of fact, our experiences can disappoint our expectations. That's why we cannot rely on them without evidence. This is where Hume adds his concept of probabilities. With our past experience we can weigh the outcomes of evidence on experiments and observation.

I agree with Hume on this passage. Though our experiences help us when reasoning matters of fact, we cannot rely on them 100%. Things will eventually change and the knowledge we have can only help us in the process.

Sec. 2 Of the origin of ideas

"Everyone will readily allow, that there is a considerable difference between the perceptions of the mind, when a man feels the pain of excessive heat, or the pleasure of moderate warmth, and when he afterwards recalls to his memory this sensation, or anticipates it by his imagination."

Perception and sensation is always debatable. The power of the perception of the mind can be very compeling to make you think something is really there when it isn't. Take for example walking in the dark. If you're afraid of the dark, everywhere you turn you swear you can hear things you've never heard before, and feel as though walking is taking a lot longer than it ever should.

Section 8: Of Liberty & Necessity

"It seems evident that, if all the scenes of nature were continually shifted in such a manner that no two events bore any resemblance to each other, but every object was entirely new, without any similitude to whatever had been seen before, we should never, in that case, have attained the least idea of necessity, or of a connexion among these objects. "

If no 2 events in nature every bore any resemblance to each other, the idea of necessity shouldnt exsist is what Hume states. I don't agree with Hume because just the idea of no 2 events not having any details the same isn't possible and near improbable. Theres always something that you can relate an event to.

sec 10: of miracles part 2 post 2

"The many instances of forged miracles, and prophecies, and supernatural events, which, in all ages, have either been detected by contrary evidence, or which detect themselves by their absurdity, prove sufficiently the strong propensity of mankind to the extraordinary and the marvellous, and ought reasonably to beget a suspicion against all relations of this kind."

Its true that many miracles can be explained by science or evidence. But Hume sees that mankind would love to believe that there is someone else out there making these events happen. Its almost as if Hume believes that there is a God. That he is there making these extrondinary events happen.

section 10: Of Miracles

"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."

Miracles are something that are not suppose to happen and do. As Hume states it, it violates the laws of natures. What should happen, doesn't, and it fills you with shock and awe. The idea is that the laws of nature are so concret it they could never be broken expect with a miracle.

section 9; of the reason of animals

Hume says that all our reasonings of matter of fact come from an analogy. How we expect the same causes of one event to be the same cause for another similar event. In this section Hume states that animals and humans both learn from experiences, the only difference is that animals cannot reason. But one thing he mentions is that, even though both animals and humans learn from past experiences, there is something greater that allows us to understand, and that is our instincts. "Instincts are powers that acts in us unknowingly." Instincts is what keeps us away from putting our hands in flames of fire. Because of our instincts, we have certain beliefs and imaginations, this is how the animals learn to survive in nature, by following there insticts. Not just animals but also man.

"It seems evident that animals as well as men learn many things from experience, and infer, that the same events will always follow from the same causes. By this principle they become acquainted with the more obvious properties of external objects, and gradually, from their birth, treasure up a knowledge of the nature of fire, water, earth, stones, heights, depths etc. and of the effects which result from their operation"

Hume says that humans and animals both learn about their surroundings from expierencing them. I believe this is very true because we learn that fire is naturally hot, when we first see or try to touch it. The same thing can be said for water, we know it feels wet, but there had to be a time when we were real young we didn't know what it felt like at all.

David Hume: Of Probability

"Though there be no such thing as Chance in the world; our ignorance of the real cause of any event has the same influence on the understanding...there is certainly a probability"

David Hume is saying that no things in life are 100% pure chance. All events that happen in life have some degree of probability. I think Hume is right in that sense. Some events can clearly have greater odds stacked against them than others, but the probability of chance is still there for them to happen. Ill use sports as example. If a baseball team is down a large number of runs in the 9th inning, has 2 outs agaisnt them, and an undefeated pitcher on the mound, the probability, or chance, of them coming back in the game is a pretty small chance.

section 5; sceptical solutions of these doubts

"Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone, which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similiar train of events with those which have appeared in the past. Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of every matter of fact, beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses."



In section 4, Hume discusses how matter of fact is based on past experiences, but what happens when you cannot reason with your past experience? What if your past experiences do not have the answers for the present or the future? How about those people who don't have aknowledgment of their past experiences? What happens then? Hume says that those who do not have prior experience are not going to understand the process of cause and effect. In this section Hume states that our reasoning of experiences is derived from custom not understanding.

I agree with Hume. I believe that we cannot base our reasonings through prior experience. We have to observe the situation more than one time to come to the understanding of cause and effect. You cannot base matter of fact on prior experience, it has to derive from custom, its the only way one can infer matter of fact. The form of custom allows us to reason, to understand cause and effect, to see things vividly, this way the thoughts would be "always present to the senses and memory".

section 4; sceptical doubts

In this section, Hume divides human reason and equiry into two parts, relations of ideas and matter of fact. Relations of ideas deal with the logical sense that are certain. For example, "that three times five is equal to the half of thirty", thus showing a relation between those numbers. Matter of fact is the other part to human reason which states that there cannot be a contradiction becasue its based on reality, cause and effect for that matter. If there is a contradictory than it cannot be conceived by the mind. Matter of facts are based on reality. For example, i know my friend is in France because she wrote me a letter. Hume states that matter of fact is known because of cause and effect. But then he questions, how do we know the principle of cause and effect? For example the idea of the pool table as discussed in class. If we hit the ball at a certain angle, how do we know that the other ball is going to move or that the ball we hit will just bounce back causing the other ball not to move? We do not know that the ball will move. Hume then says that cause and effect are based on past experiences. For someone who played pool will know the outcomes of hitting the ball.

How is it that if we rely on past experiences, we will know future outcomes? Are all cause and effect based on past experiences? If we do not have past experiences, how would we know what to do? Will we use then the idea of relations of ideas?

hume: of the origin of ideas; perception of the mind

In this section, Hume distinguishes the difference between impressions and ideas. Impressions are vivid acts that one feels at the happening of it while ideas are thoughts or beliefs based on these impressions. He clearly states that the two are very different from each other.

"If you tell me, that any person is in love, i easily understand your meaning, and form a just conception of his situation; but never can mistake that conception for the real disorders and agitations of the passion."

Basically what Hume is trying to say is that he may understand the person but he doesnt know what it feels to be in love. When we remember our old memories, we have an idea of the experience we went through but we cannot feel the same way as we did then because the memory is faded and it is no longer an impression but just a mere thought of what happened then.

I agree with Hume on the difference between impressions and ideas. The way we feel at the moment of a situation is not the same feeling we feel as little as 30 min. after the fact.

"Ideas, especially those belonging to principles, not born with children- if we attentively, consider new-born children, we shall have little reason to think that they bring many ideas into the world with them: for bating, perhaps, some faint ideas of hunger, thirst, warmth, and some pains which they may have felt in the womb, there is not the least appearance of any settled ideas at all in them.. "

I agree with Locke that children don't have many ideas when they are born. The idea that they can feel pain, thirst, and hunger are enwoven into every human being, as being the most basic needs of any person. The only way people can learn new ideas is being introduced to them in the real world and Locke is dead on about what he says.

Locke on men and god ideas

Can it be thought, that the ideas men have of God are the characters and marks of himself, engraven in their minds by his own finger; when we see, that in the same country, under one and the same name, men have far different, nay, often contrary and inconsistent ideas and conceptions of him? "

Locke's trying to question if what one person vision of what God looks like and his actions, compare with someone elses. Its true that nobody has ever taken a picture of God so its very easy to have your own opinion on how he might look like. Its also true that in different religons God has different roles and different opinions.