Here She Be — The Battlements

“Behaviorism, Meaning, and Reference: Because Searle Meant Rabbit”

     In an article titled “Translation and Meaning,” W.V. Quine takes a look at behaviorism as it pertains to language, and through that logical enquiry determines that meaning and reference can either be said to not exist as we normally conceive of them, or are trivial at best. John R. Searle responds to Quine’s conclusion in his article “Indeterminacy, Empiricism, and First Person.” In the article, Searle works to refute Quine with several alternative assessments of his own. Quine’s claim is bold, but it seems to rob language of much of what we would normally consider its intrinsic value, and this alone would make many people wish to agree with Searle. However, based on Quine’s original article, we can see how Quine would have responded to Searle, and are forced to conclude that Searle’s counterarguments do not manage to successfully dismiss the results of Quine’s enquiry.
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Hume says that a wise person proportions his or her belief to the evidence. What does he mean by this?

     This idea is actually at the core of Hume’s constructive argument, as he creates his definition of causation and reasoning. The statement itself comes from a fairly easy to accept bit of reasoning. When we choose to believe in something, we do so for a reason. That reason is typically some sort of preference. For instance, we could choose to agree with one philosopher because he is easy to read and understand, although his argument does not seem as sound or as well supported by evidence as another philosopher, who we might also choose to agree with. The wise person agrees with the philosopher who has more evidence, as his argument will be better supported; also there is the possibility that the wise person agrees with neither person because there is insufficient evidence for both arguments, or there is sufficient evidence to the contrary of both arguments.
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What does Hume mean when he says that “the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience”? Is Hume right? Why or why not?

     This comment comes from Hume at the close of Enquiry: 10, “Of miracles,” and it sums up the results of Hume’s rigorous treatment of miracles in a sort of tongue in cheek way. A reasonable person needs a miracle in order to believe and follow Christianity, but miracles themselves are shown by Hume to be unreasonable. The two possible readings of a “miracle in his own person” are similarly playful with how they condemn miracles. We can take faith to be miraculous and in that sense a splendid and wonderful thing that allows us to transcend our insufficient capabilities to comprehend and interpret the universe, but then again a continued miracle within ourselves could also indicate a sort of continued fallacy. Again, if miracles are unreasonable, then the way that they inspire faith in us is actually something that takes us further from accuracy and truth, rather than helping us cross a chasm that our understanding normally cannot. I would argue that Hume thinks miracles are wholly unreasonable and that we should not buy into them. He is quick to show the problems and fallacies inherent in miracles, and the multiple readings of the closing statement certainly have some lingering sarcasm. Essentially, he finds it somewhat amazing that people can even come to believe in such a thing, and their continued belief in it is a miracle to him because it goes against everything we know as human beings.
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Hume really think that we have an idea of necessary connection?

     The simple answer to this question is no. Hume does not think at the start of Enquiry: 7 that there is a consensus as to what a necessary connection is, and by the end of the essay, what we think a necessary connection should be is not possible to have. We begin with a conception of what philosophers have basically been trying to get at with the term necessary connection, and throughout that working model is polished into an idea. But we discover that the resulting idea is not something we can actually use with the definitiveness we previously had assumed we could. We can have something like necessary connection, but we cannot actually have necessary connection. I would even go so far as to say that we do have an idea of necessary connection, but that we must be wary of it because it obscures the way things actually are.
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     We proportion our belief to our experience, sometimes relying on the testimony of others where our experience is lacking, and we compare testimonies to one another, as well as with our own experience, in determining their probability. In relating testimony to our experience we rely on conformability. Someone who is told that water freezes in the cold but has never seen it may appropriately not believe the testimony because water freezing does not conform with his experience. Miracles may be defined as a transgression against the laws of nature, presumably by the Deity or some invisible agent.
     Weighing the testimony of a miracle, we would have to suppose it more miraculous that the testifier would deceive or be deceived than the miracle he purports. Otherwise if it is more likely that the testifier is deceiving or being deceived, then I cannot conclude that the miracle happened. Of course, this also assumes that testimony alone, without experience, can act as a proof of something. Yet no miracle has been attested to by sufficient men of such renowned quality and learning that they would be above deceiving or beyond being deceived, nor has any such event occurred in a location under circumstances that would render any kind of pertinent deceit completely detectable. Often, people will disregard using past experience to judge testimony when they are caught up in the passion of wonder—folklore for example, are the feats of Hercules less attested than the resurrection of Lazarus?
     Often an eloquent speaker can also induce in the many a sense of belief—the passion of well-worded propaganda speaking. This sort of talk spreads fast because it is more interesting than the day to day conversation. We can also see that many prophecies and miracles are first given to people with fewer faculties for explaining situations less commonly experienced. A great orator or prophet, we presume, has experience that we do not, and so his testimony becomes considered more reliable than our experience, just as when we are children and do not question our teachers because they know much more than we do. And when one man can convince a large group of others, that large group becomes more testimony to something with tenuous origins. We maintain these things even as our cultures become more intelligent out of a sort of tradition, or belief in our forefathers, though they knew less about the world than we do now.
     Also, consider that there are many religions, each with many miracles. These miracles give support for the religion as being valid, which is motivation for supporters to spread them. Also, if someone believes in a miracle in one religion, then they disbelieve the miracles of all others, as the invisible agent(s) in question are different. This is similar to when a judge considers the testimony of two opposed witnesses in court. The miracles of each religion discredit the miracles of the others. If we tried to conceive of all miracles being from the same deity, we would find equal difficulty in reconciling Hercules with Lazarus. Events such as these occur and are refuted in any age, yet we continue the habit. Continued talk of a miracle becomes irrefutable because all testifiers and evidence is gone, save for historical writing; though, if two ancient armies declared that they won the same battle and described it thus, we could no more capably refute one testimony in place of the other. So, no miracle has amounted to being probable, much less a proof. And thus, no human testimony can provide such force as to prove a miracle and make it sufficient support for a religion.
     Saying that an Almighty being is responsible for a miracle makes it no more probable. We cannot know the actions of such a being except, again, by experience as to his creations, which work in the usual course of nature. Religion is founded on faith and not on reason, so using reason to defend it will prove impossible. This is because even in the Pentateuch, for example, it does not seem more miraculous that it should be a falsehood than the miracles actually happened, so we cannot reasonably conclude that they did. If faith alone causes someone to assent, then they are willing to allow all that concerns their understanding to be subverted, and for the most contrary of things to replace habit and custom that are established in experience.