The Everlasting Check

A touchstone of the Enlightenment dispute between rationality and religious belief, David Humes essay Of Miracles has elicited much commentary from proponents and critics ever since it was published over 250 years ago. Alexander Georges lucid and sustained interpretation of Humes essay provides fresh insights into this provocative, occasionally elusive, and always subtle text. The Everlasting Check will be read with interest by both students new to Hume and seasoned scholars. George does justice to the letter and spirit of Humes essay, explaining the concepts and claims involved, making intelligible the essays structure, and clarifying remarks that have long puzzled readers. Properly interpreted, the essays central philosophical argument proves to be much hardier than Humes detractors suggest. George considers a range of objections to Humesome recent, some perennialand shows why most fail, either because they are based on misinterpretations or because the larger body of Humes philosophy answers them. Beyond an analysis and defense of Humes essay, George also offers a critique of his own, appealing to Ludwig Wittgensteins thoughts on magic and ritual to demonstrate that Hume misconstrues the character of religious belief and its relationship to evidence and confirmation. Raising a host of important questions about the connection between religious and empirically verified beliefs, George discusses why Humes master argument can fail to engage with committed religious thought and why philosophical argumentation in general often proves ineffective in shaking peoples deeply held beliefs.