28 July 2004 Lecture Summary

Philosophers Examined: David Hume, Lady Mary Shepherd.

Line of Thought: We continued our discussion of Hume's theory of causation by looking at Section VII, "Of the Idea of Necessary Connexion". The question at issue in this section is: "From what impression is our idea of causation derived?" Hume eliminates several possibilities:

a) Bodies: He uses Malebranche's ball argument to argue that all we find in impressions of bodies are sequences of events.

b) Our Own Will as Cause of Bodily Motion: In addition to other arguments, he uses Malebranche's anatomy argument to reject this view.

c) Our Own Will as Cause of Mental Change: He rejects this argument for similar reasons. One of the arguments used here, namely, the argument that this proposal would require us to attribute infinite or divine power to the will, is also Malebranchean in origin, although Malebranche uses it for a slightly different purpose.

d) God: This is Malebranche's own view, and Hume rejects it by claiming that 1) it forces us to go beyond the limits of human understanding, into fields about which we know nothing; and 2) we have no impression of God.

Hume's own view is that our idea of causal connection is not derived from any impressions of the objects themselves; rather it is an impression of the customary transition of the mind from cause to effect or vice versa. So objectively there is nothing more to causation than sequences of events; subjectively there is also inference to the mind. Causal necessity isn't in the objects; there is no such thing as causal power in this sense.

In order to get an additional view, which we could compare to Hume's in order to evaluate it better, we then discussed Lady Mary Shepherd's causal theory, which is a response and refutation to Hume (among other things). Shepherd thinks of causation as a mixture of qualities. It follows from this that 1) causes and effects are, properly speaking, simultaneous; 2) causes and effects are, in a sense, one thing; 3) contrary to Hume, given any beginning of existence it follows logically that there must be a cause: for a situation to be different, a difference must be introduced, and the introduction of a difference is what we call causation. This is a powerful, albeit underappreciated, alternative to the Humean paradigm which still to a great degree dominates philosophical discussions of causation.

Activity: review quiz