Richard Otte

In The Miracle of Theism Mackie attempts to defend Hume's argument concerning the rationality of accepting a miracle on the basis of testimony. He does this by first offering a precise account of what miracles and laws of nature are, and then by claiming that this implies that any evidence for a law of nature is also evidence against the miracle occurring. I argue that Mackie has committed a simple logical fallacy. Given Mackie's account of miracles and laws of nature, it does not follow that our evidence for natural laws makes it unlikely that a miracle occurred.

Charles Chihara has presented a problem he claims Bayesian confirmation theory cannot handle. Chihara gives examples in which he claims the change in belief cannot be construced as conditionalizing on new evidence. These are situations in which the agent suddenly thinks of new possibilities. I propose a solution that incorporates the important ideas of Bayesian theory. In particular, I present a principle which shows that the change of belief in Chihara's example is due to simple conditionalization.