Notebook per
Is It Rational to Believe in Miracles
Citation (APA): Pinsent, A. (2014). Is It Rational to Believe in Miracles [Kindle Android version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com
Parte introduttiva
Nota - Posizione 2
un passo alla volta il quadro generale credere nei miracoli e credere nel cerchio quadrato quando credere nel miracolo: rarità la predisposizione ad accettare i miracoli è favorita da credenze che ci rendono migliori
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 2
Is It Rational to Believe in Miracles? By Andrew Pinsent
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 2
Whether it is rational to believe in miracles depends a great deal on what one might call the ‘big picture’
Nota - Posizione 3
BIG PICTURE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 5
Wonder alone, however, is not enough to specify a miracle.
Nota - Posizione 6
MERAVIGLIA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 7
A miracle, by contrast, exceeds the productive power of nature,
Nota - Posizione 7
DEF
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 13
David Hume in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (X), namely “a violation of the laws of nature.”
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 22
even natural phenomena are not invariably ‘law-like’. Hence the specification of a miracle as a violation of a natural law lacks sufficient precision today. Once the confusion generated by the issue of laws is dispelled, it is somewhat easier to see that special divine action of any kind cannot be ruled out definitively,
Nota - Posizione 22
INSUFFICIENZA
Nota - Posizione 24
FACILE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 29
Hence the classical definition of a miracle as an event that exceeds the productive power of nature cannot be applied without some concurrent assessment of what nature is capable of producing or has produced in the case in question.
Nota - Posizione 31
SUPPLEMENTO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 34
Any assessment therefore still depends crucially and irreducibly on the natural and theological background or ‘big picture.’ Does God exist?
Nota - Posizione 35
BACKGROUND
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 36
judgments about miracles, in general and in particular, can never simply be a matter of adding more facts, but depend crucially on how these facts are understood and organized into an ordered whole.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 40
it is not irrational in an unqualified sense to believe in miracles, in the sense of believing in a square circle. This fact does not mean, however, that it is equally rational to believe in every possible explanation of some wondrous event that is compatible with what is reliably known.
Nota - Posizione 42
IRRAZIONALITÀ
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 45
In recent centuries, two heuristics have proved especially fruitful in guiding such judgments: first, that the underlying causes of the cosmos are in a vague sense ‘simple’; second and perhaps more mysteriously, these causes are understandable. In the case of miracles, what are the equivalent, most fruitful heuristics for guiding rational assessment?
Nota - Posizione 47
DUE EURISTICHE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 48
miracles are rare,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 55
history offers little credence to the view that consideration of miracles as a possibility promotes dispositions that are irrational or hostile to what is today called ‘science’.
Nota - Posizione 57
INCLINAZIONE X LA SCIENZA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 58
Second, miracles are one aspect of a broader understanding of the world
Nota - Posizione 59
COMPRENSIONE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 66
I conclude therefore that a heuristic that regards miracles as possible in principle, rare in practice, but still worthy of consideration in certain cases, to be the most rational stance to adopt,
Nota - Posizione 68
CONCLUSIONE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 116
there are at least two theological reasons why miracles, if they happen, should perhaps be rare
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 133
quantum mechanics
