4 August 2004 Lecture Summary

Philosophers Examined: David Hume, George Campbell, Lady Mary Shepherd; especially Hume

Activity: Miracles debate, of which a rough outline can be found here. Julie and I debated the resolution, "It is the sense of this House that Hume's strategy on miracles is effective." At the end of the class a vote was taken on the resolution; the two-thirds of the class voted Yea, one-third voted Nay.

Line of Thought: After the debate, we continued to struggle with understanding Hume's Enquiry Section X. I introduced Richard Whately's criticism as presented in his "Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte," which can be found on-line here. After some lively discussion of Whately's approach, I suggested a number of ways in which a Humean might respond to Whately.