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Hume on Necessary Causal Connections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Katherin A. Rogers
Katherin A. Rogers
Affiliation:
University of Delaware
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Extract

According to David Hume our idea of a necessary connection between what we call cause and effect is produced when repeated observation of the conjunction of two events determines the mind to consider one upon the appearance of the other. No matter how we interpret Hume's theory of causation this explanation of the genesis of the idea of necessity is fraught with difficulty. I hope to show, looking at the three major interpretations of Hume's causal theory, that his account is contradictory, plainly wrong, or (at best) inherently impossible to verify.

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy , Volume 66 , Issue 258 , October 1991 , pp. 517 - 521
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1991

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References

1 A Treatise of Human Nature, Selby-Bigge, L. A. (ed.), (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896), 155–156Google Scholar. Further citations will appear as T followed by page numbers. Citations to the Enquiries, Selby-Bigge, L. A. (ed.), Third Edition, notes and revision by P. H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975)Google Scholar, will appear as E followed by page numbers.

2 Strawson, Galen, preparatory to refuting this view, offers a synopsis with citations in The Secret Connexion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), vii, 8–9.Google Scholar

3 See for example, Passmore, J. A., Hume's Intentions (Cambridge University Press, 1952), 76Google Scholar and Whitehead, Alfred North, Process and Reality, Corrected Edition, Griffen, David Roy and Sherburne, Donald W. (eds), (New York: Free Press, 1978), 140.Google Scholar

4 See for example, MacNabb, D. G. C., David Hume (Oxford: Blackwell, 1966), 113.Google Scholar

5 Hume says that our idea of causation must be ‘deriv'd from’ some impression (T 75). The opinion of necessity ‘must necessarily arise from’ observation and experience (T 82). In forming the idea of necessity the mind is ‘influenc'd by’ the relation of constant conjunction (T 92). We must find the impression which ‘gives rise to’ the idea of necessity (T 155). It is repeated experience which ‘produces’ the new impression (T 155).

6 Hume's Philosophy of Belief (New York: Humanities Press, 1961), 123Google Scholar. See also Bennett, Jonathan, Locke, Berkeley, Hume (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 304–305Google Scholar and Laird, John, Hume's Philosophy of Human Nature (London: Methuen, 1932), 130.Google Scholar

7 E19.

8 The Philosophy of David Hume (London: Macmillan, 1949), 10–11Google Scholar. See also Mounce, H. O., ‘The Idea of a Necessary Connection,’ Philosophy 60, No. 233 (07 1985), 381–388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 ‘David Hume: Naturalist and Metasceptic’ in Hume, A Re-evaluation Livingston, and King, (eds), (New York: Fordham University Press, 1976), 38.Google Scholar

10 Hume himself sees the conclusion he has reached about the causes of the idea of necessity ‘as being evident deductions from principles, which we have already establish'd, and which we have often employ'd in our reasonings.’ T 156.

11 Op. cit. note 2. Costa, Michael (‘Hume and Causal Realism,’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 67, No. 2 (06 1989), 172–190CrossRefGoogle Scholar distinguishes a number of variations on this interpretation with useful citations.

12 T 77.

13 T 166–167. Our idea is what Dorothy Coleman has termed a ‘natural illusion’ (‘Hume's Alleged Pyrrhonism’, Southern Journal of Philosophy 26, No. 4 (Winter 1988), 462).Google Scholar

14 Op. cit. note 2, 160.

15 T 167.

16 E 19.