Hume’s Counterfeit Check

Hume’s essay "Of Miracles" has the reputation of providing, in Hume’s own words, an "everlasting check" to accepting reports of miracles. Author Robert Larmer demonstrates that this reputation is undeserved. Taking seriously the environment in which "Of Miracles" was composed reveals that its arguments are neither original to Hume nor compelling. Both before and after the publication of "Of Miracles" these arguments received devastating criticisms by Hume’s predecessors and contemporaries. Contemporary revisionary attempts to defend the argument by insisting that Hume cannot really have meant what he has traditionally been understood to claim are inevitably guilty of eisegesis and systematically ignoring crucial passages fatal to their idiosyncratic readings.

The clarity of Larmer’s writing makes Hume’s Counterfeit Check accessible both to professional academics and interested lay persons. Anyone interested in assessing the rationality of accepting testimonial evidence for the occurrence of miracles should view this book as required reading.

"Hume’s Counterfeit Check is the best book on the historical context and reception of Hume’s argument on miracles in over fifty years – deeply informed and judicious yet written with a light touch that makes this material accessible to non-specialist readers. I wish I had written it myself."

—Tim McGrew, Professor and Chair of Philosophy, Western Michigan University

Robert A. Larmer is the Chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of New Brunswick. Previous books include Water Into Wine? (1988), Questions of Miracle (1996), The Legitimacy of Miracle (2014) and Dialogues on Miracle (2015).