Per posterius: Hume and Peirce on miracles and the boundaries of the scientific game (original) (raw)

This article provides a response to David Hume’s argument against the plausibility of miracles as found in Section X of his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by means of Charles Sanders Peirce’s method of retroduction, hypothetic inference or abduction as it is explicated and applied in his article entitled ‘A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God.’ This differs from most approaches, which would rather focus on Peirce’s explicit reaction to Hume in regard to miracles as found in his article ‘Hume on Miracles.’ Here, however, the main focus will be on Peirce’s Neglected Argument rather than on his explicit confrontation with Hume concerning the issue of miracles. This is because, in this author’s opinion, Peirce’s criticisms of Hume demand a methodological approach appropriate for scientifically analyzing surprising phenomena or outliers, of which miracles or the reality of God would be but two examples amongst many. This article thus consists in an attempt to construct just such a method as one that draws inferences neither a priori nor a posteriori, but per posterius. A method that functions per posterius is capable of rigorously questioning rogue or surprising phenomena, e.g. miracles.