Beebee Hume on Causation
Helen Beebee, Hume on Causation (New York: Routledge, 2006),
Hume is traditionally credited with holding a regularity theory of causation. Hume is also traditionally understood to have held to two other influential positions: that the world appears as a series of disconnected events, and that the problem of induction, that is, the problem of inferring from the seen to the unseen, is insoluble. Beebee’s book, however, does not subscribe to any of these three views regarding Hume. Instead, Beebee’s book posits that Hume’s interest in causation derives from his conception of the nature of the inference from causes to effects. Beebee therefore develops a “projectivist interpretation” of Hume’s theory of causation, according to which our causal talk is an expression of our inferential habits.
Beebee uses the SBN editions of Hume’s writings, NOTE.
Beebee delineates four theses that are commonly held by people in reference to Hume’s views, and then argues that Hume in fact did not subscribe to any of them:
1). All events are entirely loose and separate. 2). All events are, ultimately, entirely loose and separate. 3). Causation is a matter of temporal priority, contiguity, and constant conjunction. 4). Inference from the observed to the unobserved is completely unjustified.
Hume had at least two opposing traditions that he targeted with his writings: the Rationalists and the Scholastics. Rationalist philosophers, of whom Descartes is exemplar, held that causation operates according to principles that are knowable apriori. After invoking apriori principles, reasoning, in this view, can deliver us knowledge about the physical world that is beyond our immediate senses (3). The Scholastic tradition, which has its roots in Aristotelian empiricism, held to a notion commonly referred to as the “Insight Ideal”, and Beebee posits that it is this “Insight Ideal”, by which it is posited that one can infer apriori the effect of a particular cause, once one knows what the essence of said cause is in truth (4). The Rationalists and the Scholastics differ on how one may arrive epistemically to the knowledge of cause, yet nonetheless are in agreement with what may be known from it. Beebee makes the assertion that Hume’s entire project, both in the Treatise as well as in the ENQ, is to show that the “Insight Ideal” is completely untenable (4). In particular, Hume shows, according to Beebee, that neither apriori reasoning, nor sensory experience by themselves, nor even the combination of the two, can deliver substantive knowledge of causation within the structure of this world (5). Beebee argues instead that Hume’s main concern is origination of knowledge (which she terms the genetic question). Beebee posits that Hume is concerned with this “genetic” origination of knowledge in that he wishes to trace the origination of impressions, ideas, beliefs, and knowledge, as well as the mechanisms by which they interact mentally with one another (5).
Beebee states that Hume is relatively unconcerned with the “Metaphysics of Causation”, as per se, for instead, as his title intimates, he is concerned “human understanding and human nature instead” (8). In this view, Hume avoids metaphysical speculation into the nature of any alleged connection between cause and effect, since neither apriori reasoning nor experience can be employed to produce intelligible results. In fact, Beebee asserts that not only is Hume relatively unconcerned with the metaphysics of causation, but he also is unconcerned with the semantics of “cause” (107).
There are two broad directions, according to Beebee, that one can take regarding Hume’s notion of causation: the traditional view, which is known as the regularity theory of causation in which the mind transitions quasi-automatically from one idea to another, and the projectivist interpretation. Beebee favors the later, for in said projectivist interpretation, one projects the cause and effect relationship according to custom or habit (10). This projectivist interpretation – the claim that inference is a matter of custom or habit – does not address the epistemic status of the beliefs acquired as a result of the inference.
Alternatively, which I am finding to be more and more attractive, as it holds import to my budding SDC, Hume may be thought to have held that there are certain “secret powers” in nature – powers whose nature is not revealed in experience. According to this interpretation, causes and effects are really, mind-independently connected in some way, but the nature of that connection lies beyond our grasp. This route is known as the Skeptical Realist interpretation of Hume, and I am having more and more affinity to it.
Beebee argues that the Hume of the Treatise sounds like a projectivist, whereas the Hume of the ENQ sounds like a Skeptical Realist (13). I take issue here and state instead that the Hume of the Treatise is a regularity theorist, whereas the Hume of the ENQ is a Skeptical Realist.
By far the most important relation between ideas for Hume is causation, for that “relation alone can lead us beyond the immediate impressions of our memory and senses” (Treatise, SBN, 26).
Hume regards the mind as populated by mental objects, which are nothing other than perceptions. Perceptions are delineated into two categories, impressions and ideas. For Hume, in keeping with his empiricist tendencies, all ideas are attributable to our impressions, which are further attributable to our senses.
One of Hume’s central theses is that “no inference from cause to effect amounts to a demonstration” (T, 650).
Hume’s usage of the term “Belief”:
Beliefs, for Hume, fall into three broad categories. First, we have those beliefs that are certain (i.e., items of knowledge). Second, we have those beliefs that are derived immediately from senses our memory (i.e. impressions). Hume writes, “the belief or assent, which always attends the memory and senses, is nothing but the vivacity of those perceptions they present; and that this alone distinguishes them from the imagination. To believe is in this case to feel an immediate impression of the senses, or a repetition of that impression in the memory” (T, 86). Third, and perhaps most important, Hume refers to beliefs (the common understanding of belief, note) as those things thought true that are based neither on knowledge or immediate sense experience.
Beebee makes a rather paltry attempt, in my mind, to give a reason why Hume uses two distinct definitions of “cause” in the Treatise. She notes that the first definition, generally thought of as the philosophical relation, and the second definition, generally thought of as the natural relation, are mentally different processes. Thus, Hume needs two definitions (31).
In the Treatise, Hume writes, “[l]et us therefore cast our eye on any two objects, which we call cause and effect, and turn them on all sides, in order to find that impression, which produces an idea, of such prodigious consequence” (T, 75). This preliminary investigation reveals that “whatever objects are considered as causes or effects, are contiguous; and that nothing can operate in a time or place, which is ever so little remov'd from those of its existence. Tho' distant objects may sometimes seem productive of each other, they are commonly found upon examination to be link'd by a chain of causes, which are contiguous among themselves, and to the distant objects; and when in any particular instance we cannot discover this connexion, we still presume it to exist. We may therefore consider the relation of CONTIGUITY as essential to that of causation” (T, 75). But mere priority and contiguity, according to Hume are not enough to establish cause and effect. There needs to be constant conjunction as well.
Beebee provides a pretty good summary of Hume’s argument on pages 44-45:
The inference from cause to effect is not a matter of apriori reasoning alone. Rather, a person needs to have past experience of the constant conjunction of the effect and its perceived cause.
We cannot know apriori that unobserved instances resemble observed instances (i.e. the Uniformity Principle). Nor can one believe the Uniformity Principle without employing causal reasoning, which is the very thing one is attempting to discover (i.e. its circular reasoning). So causal reasoning cannot be perceived by deductive inference from the cause, together with the Uniformity Principle, to the effect.
Nor can the inference proceed from the premise that the cause has a secret power to produce the effect, since that premise presupposes that the cause has the same secret powers as were possessed by previously experienced events which superficially resemble the cause, and hence presupposes the uniformity Principle, which we can come to believe only by employing the very reasoning that we seek to prove (circular).
Moreover, Beebee states that Hume’s major positive claims re: causation are that the inference from causes to effects is due to an associative mechanism, that causal judgment is made possible by the existence of the impression which that associative mechanism generates, and that reasonable judgments arise (originative-ly, i.e.) by either the operation of the associative mechanism or by the experience of constant conjunction (107)
Hume’s argument involving Adam and the water that he first encountered as well his concomitant non-understanding of the harmful effects of being suffocated by the water, is really simple. Hume writes, “Adam, though his rational faculties be supposed, at the very first, entirely perfect, could not have inferred from the fluidity, and transparency of water, that it would suffocate him, or from the light and warmth of fire, that it would consume him. No object ever discovers, by the qualities which appear to the senses, either the causes which produced it, or the effects which will arise from it; nor can our reason, unassisted by experience, ever draw any inference concerning real existence and matter of fact” (ENQ, 27). Hume is here seemingly arguing that no matter how closely we attend to the sensory qualities of a cause, we cannot discover the effect (Beebee 47). So then, the effect, E, cannot be inferred from the mere cause, C. For example, Hume writes, “[w]e fancy, that were we brought, on a sudden, into this world, we could at first have inferred, that one Billiard-ball would communicate motion to another upon impulse; and that we needed not to have waited for the event, in order to pronounce with certainty concerning it. Such is the influence of custom, that, where it is strongest, it not only covers our natural ignorance, but even conceals itself, and seems not to take place, merely because it is found in the highest degree. But to convince us, that all the laws of nature, and all the operations of bodies without exception, are known only by experience, the following reflections may, perhaps, suffice. Were any object presented to us, and were we required to pronounce concerning the effect, which will result from it, without consulting past observation; after what manner, I beseech you, must the mind proceed in this operation? It must invent or imagine some event, which it ascribes to the object as its effect; and it is plain that this invention must be entirely arbitrary. The mind can never possibly find the effect in the supposed cause, by the most accurate scrutiny and examination. For the effect is totally different from the cause, and consequently can never be discovered in it. Motion in the second Billiard-ball is a quite distinct event from motion in the first; nor is there any thing in the one to suggest the smallest hint of the other” (ENQ, 28-29). Thus relations and the ideas of C and E are distinct (ref. ENQ, pg 29 and the billiard ball example). Moreover, Hume writes, “[w]hen we reason à priori, and consider merely any object or cause, as it appears to the mind, independent of all observation, it never could suggest to us the notion of any distinct object, such as its effect; much less, shew us the inseparable and inviolable connexion between them” (ENQ, 31).
Moreover, Hume writes, “in advancing we have insensibly discovered a new relation betwixt cause and effect, when we least expected it, and were entirely employ'd upon another subject. This relation is their CONSTANT CONJUNCTION. Contiguity and succession are not sufficient to make us pronounce any two objects to be cause and effect, unless we perceive, that these two relations are preserv'd in several instances” (T, 87). Beebee makes the assertion that Hume is here speaking of “observed” constant conjunction, and not constant conjunction in simpliciter (i.e. universal constant conjunction), but I do not see how Beebee can make this qualification to Hume, as I do not see Hume making this qualification himself (Beebee, 52).
Hume contends that our only justification for the Uniformity Principle is our experience, founded upon probability, which gives him the impetus for his radical empiricism. His is radically empirical, as I deem it, because he thinks that we can at least fathom the notion that whereas all of our experienced “c’s” have been followed by “e’s”, there is nonetheless the possibility that some of our unobserved “c’s” would not be followed by “e’s”.
Hume has in his ENQ prior to page 42, seemingly shown the input mechanism that generates matters of fact (i.e., impressions conjoined with constant conjunction). One of Hume’s fundamental building blocks to his theory of the mind is that there is an attraction between ideas that seemingly naturally introduce other ideas. Hume asserts that inference from cause to effect is no different (59). Hume writes, that the actions of a dog “that avoids fire and precipices, that shuns strangers, and caresses his master… proceed from a reasoning, that is not in itself different, nor founded on different principles, from that which appears in human nature” (T, 177). Thus, one is justified in saying that Hume’s conception of human nature is starkly different than the imago dei doctrine.
Hume writes, “[n]ature, by an absolute and uncontrollable necessity has determin’d us to judge as well as to breathe and feel; nor can we any more forebear viewing certain objects in a stronger and fuller light, upon account of their customary connexion with a present impression, than we can hinder ourselves from thinking as long as we are awake, or seeing surrounding bodies, when we turn our eyes upon them in broad sunshine” (T 183). Hume is here saying that causal reasoning is unavoidable. Beebee asserts that Hume does not deny the causal maxim that ‘every effect has a cause’, but he does doubt that such a maxim can be known apriori (73). I contend that Hume, being in the 18th century, had not the education level that we have today. Thus, the "apriori reasonings" afforded to him are infinitely surpassed by us in this day and age, as further inquiries into nature and all of its constituents enable the modern man to have much more "apriori reasoning" ability at his disposal and therefore not be so heavily reliant upon empirical knowledge (i.e. that gained by the senses). Thus, although Hume's theory, though they may have verity for former ages, I think are outmoded and need to be replaced. In support of my comments, Wilson writes, “[w]hat Hume argues is that the position of the Cartesian is unreasonable. For, it requires one to do what one cannot do. One cannot cease drawing causal inferences; that is something one, as a human, must do. Since we cannot aim at the goal the Cartesian sets for us, it is not a goal we ought, rationally, aim at. For all that every causal judgment is dubitable, nonetheless there is a reason for continuing to make causal inferences: namely, we are forced to make causal inference.”
NECESSARY CONNECTION:
Hume generally advocates the idea that reasonings from cause to effect are brought about by an associative mechanism, and he identifies said mechanism as “necessary connection”. The sum of this notion of necessary connection is that the mind transitions from one event, after its occurrence, to another event which it expects will follow the occurrence of the first. Hume writes in the ENQ,
“When we look about us towards external objects, and consider the operation of causes, we are never able, in a single instance, to discover any power or necessary connexion; any quality, which binds the effect to the cause, and renders the one an infallible consequence of the other. We only find, that the one does actually, in fact, follow the other. The impulse of one billiard-ball is attended with motion in the second. This is the whole that appears to the outward senses. The mind feels no sentiment or inward impression from this succession of objects: Consequently, there is not, in any single, particular instance of cause and effect, any thing which can suggest the idea of power or necessary connexion. From the first appearance of an object, we never can conjecture what effect will result from it. But were the power or energy of any cause discoverable by the mind, we could foresee the effect, even without experience; and might, at first, pronounce with certainty concerning it, by the mere dint of thought and reasoning” (ENQ, 63).
But I contend that Hume is just flat wrong here, as if we take him to be true, science, as well as medicine would be stifled, as both depend upon “single instances” to establish truths (granted, they need to be repeatable, but they are nonetheless often first fashioned on singular instances). It does not follow that when we see a whole causal process for the first time that we do not see the first thing as producing or bringing about the second (and so on). As Strawson writes, “Hume’s argument is now often conceived to be an argument against the possibility of detecting Causation even if Causation is not thought of as something detection of which… would give rise to the possibility of impossible a priori ceratin inferences about the unobserved” (Strawson, The Secret Connexion, 1989:114). Hume writes, “This connexion, therefore, which we feel in the mind, this customary transition of the imagination from one object to its usual attendant, is the sentiment or impression, from which we form the idea of power or necessary connexion” (ENQ, 75). Hume writes in the Treatise, “Necessity, then... is nothing but an internal impression of. the mind, or a determination to carry our thoughts from one object to another… The necessary connexion betwixt causes and effects is the foundation of our inference from one to the other. The foundation of our inference is the transition arising from the accustomed union. These are, therefore, the same. The idea of necessity… must, therefore, be deriv'd from some internal impression, or impression of reflection. There is no internal impression, which has any relation to the present business, but that propensity, which custom produces, to pass from an object to the idea of its usual attendant. This therefore is the essence of necessity” (T, 165).
Hume’s Two Versions of the Definition of Cause:
There are two definitions of the term ‘cause’ in both the Treatise, as well as the Enquiry. Note how the Treatise points out and highlights the necessary connection in the mind, whereas the ENQ does not.
First Definition:
“We may define a CAUSE to be 'An object precedent and contiguous to another, and where all the objects resembling the former are plac'd in like relations of precedency and contiguity to those objects that resemble the latter.'” (T, 170).
“[W]e may define a cause to be an object, followed by another, and where all the objects, similar to the first, are followed by objects similar to the second. Or in other words, where, if the first object had not been, the second never had existed” (Enq, 76)
Second Definition:
“If this definition be esteem'd defective, because drawn from objects foreign to the cause, we may substitute this other definition in its place, viz. 'A CAUSE is an object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it, that the idea, of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other.'” (T, 172).
Hume says that we can “form another definition of cause; and call it, an object followed by another, and whose appearance always conveys the thought to that other” (ENQ, 77).
However, Hume claims that causation is a “relation among objects”, our ideas of which are lacking precision insomuch as “it is impossible to give any just definition of cause, except what is drawn from something extraneous and foreign to it” (ENQ, 76)
Slightly paraphrased, Hume’s two definitions of cause appear in the Treatise as the following:
Event c is a cause of event e if c precedes and is contiguous with e, and all c’s are constantly conjoined with e’s.
Event c is the cause of e if c precedes and is contiguous with e, and the idea of c promotes the mind to develop belief in e.
Noonan (an advocate of the traditional interpretation of Hume) notes that this first definition tells us “what is going on in the world, independently of its effect on any observer”, whereas the second definition tells us “what goes on in the mind of an observer who is prompted to apply the concept of causation to the world.” Noonan apparently has the support of Hume himself, as he writes, “Thus tho' causation be a philosophical relation, as implying contiguity, succession, and constant conjunction, yet 'tis only so far as it is a natural relation, and produces an union among our ideas, that we are able to reason upon it, or draw any inference from it” (T 94). Hume defines a natural relation in the following manner: “that quality, by which two ideas are connected together in the imagination, and the one naturally introduces the other” (T, 13). It seems that Hume is here trying to reduce the idea of necessary connection to that of constant conjunction insomuch as claiming that two things are necessarily connected is the same as saying that two things are constantly conjoined.
Robinson claims that the first definition of causation is the definition of causation, and the second definition is not really a definition at all: “It is definitely an error on Hume’s part to have offered it [ie., the second definition] as a definition.” According to Robinson, the function of the second definition is to explain why it is that we are mistakenly inclined to think that the first definition misses out on something essential, namely necessary connection. A second reason that Robinson offers to not think of the second definition offered by Hume in the Treatise is not really a definition is that it is circular: it defines causation in the terms of the determination of the mind to form the idea of the effect, given the idea of the cause. Robinson uses the following quote from the Treatise to support his claim:
“Thus in advancing we have insensibly discovered a new relation betwixt cause and effect, when we least expected it, and were entirely employ'd upon another subject. This relation is their CONSTANT CONJUNCTION. Contiguity and succession are not sufficient to make us pronounce any two objects to be cause and effect, unless we perceive, that these two relations are preserv'd in several instances. We may now see the advantage of quitting the direct survey of this relation, in order to discover the nature of that necessary connexion, which makes so essential a part of it” (T 87).
Robinson writes of this passage that “the ‘new’ relation, now introduced over and above contiguity and succession… is heralded here as the sought-for missing condition which was needed to provide, with [contiguity and succession], a sufficient condition for x to cause y, and therefore to provide an analysis of the extra element of necessitation which was lacking when [contiguity and succession] alone had been adduced earlier.”
Descartes Method opposed to Hume’s:
Descartes interest is overtly epistemological rather than “genetic” (i.e. originative), as Descartes is concerned with the justification of empirical beliefs, and not in why or how we have them. In contrast, Hume is primarily interested in exactly how we get to our beliefs in the first place. Second, Descartes is a radically doubtful skeptic, whereas Hume only deals with skepticism at the end of Book 1 in the Treatise, and the final section of the ENQ. Third, Descartes attempts to show that empirical beliefs are justified by employing arguments based upon the senses, as well premises that are knowable apriori (33).
Although Hume is traditionally credited with discovering and promulgating the “problem of induction”, Beebee claims that he is relatively uninterested in that problem (36).
TRADITIONAL INTERPRETATION:
Consists of a positive and negative claim: Positive- causation consists of temporal priority, contiguity, and constant conjunction. Negative: it is illegitimate to apply the notion of necessary connection to external events. The basis of the traditional interpretation lies in Hume’s conceptual empiricism.
Projectivists deny the second claim above, whereas the Skeptical Realists deny the first claim above (108). So then, projectivists and the traditional interpreters agree that causation consists of nothing more than priority, contiguity, and constant conjunction.
Beebee claims that the traditional interpretation of Hume makes his stance on causation to be absurd, as it presumably allows for no objective connection other than the succession of causes and effects (120). But that is just the point, I declare! Hume’s view is absurd! There is, I contend much textual evidence for the Traditional interpretation of Hume. For example, Hume writes,
“As to what may be said, that the operations of nature are independent of our thought and reasoning, I allow it; and accordingly have observ'd, that objects bear to each other the relations of contiguity and succession: that like objects may be observ'd in several instances to have like relations; and that all this is independent of, and antecedent to the operations of the understanding” (T, 168).
Moreover, Hume gives one much impetus in averring the substance of the traditional interpretation of Hume by the following quotation: “Thus tho' causation be a philosophical relation, as implying contiguity, succession, and constant conjunction, yet 'tis only so far as it is a natural relation, and produces an union among our ideas, that we are able to reason upon it, or draw any inference from it” (T 94).
Beebee states that Hume views the fact of causation requiring constant conjunction and contiguity as an empirical claim and not an analytic truth, and therefore she denies the Traditional interpretation (141). Additionally, she thinks Hume to have been too smart to have in truth been a regularity theorist, as he would have left himself no way of distinguishing between genuine causal claims and accidental generalizations (141). She posits that the Projectivist interpretation does not face these shortfalls, which is why she adheres to it (141).
CONSTANT CONJUNTION AND CONTIGUITY ACCORDING TO HUME:
Hume writes,
“I find in the first place, that whatever objects are considered as causes or effects, are contiguous; and that nothing can operate in a time or place, which is ever so little remov'd from those of its existence. Tho' distant objects may sometimes seem productive of each other, they are commonly found upon examination to be link'd by a chain of causes, which are contiguous among themselves, and to the distant objects; and when in any particular instance we cannot discover this connexion, we still presume it to exist. We may therefore consider the relation of CONTIGUITY as essential to that of causation” (T 75).
I find it humorous how Hume here STILL “presume[s]” the connection, even if he cannot discover it in a particular instance!
Hume writes, “the transition from an impression present to the memory or senses to the idea of an object, which we call cause or effect, is founded on past experience, and on our remembrance of their constant conjunction” (T 88).
Hume writes, “[t]he idea of cause and effect is deriv'd from experience, which informs us, that such particular objects, in all past instances, have been constantly conjoin'd with each other” T 89-90
Hume writes, “[i]t may, perhaps, be said, that after experience of the constant conjunction of certain objects, we reason in the following manner” (T 90).
Hume writes, “[r]eason can never shew us the connexion of one object with another, tho' aided by experience, and the observation of their constant conjunction in all past instances” (T 92).
Hume writes, “[w]hen ev'ry individual of any species of objects is found by experience to be constantly united with an individual of another species, the appearance of any new individual of either species naturally conveys the thought to its usual attendant” (T 93).
Hume writes, “[w]e have no other notion of cause and effect, but that of certain objects, which have been always conjoin'd together, and which in all past instances have been found inseparable. We cannot penetrate into the reason of the conjunction. We only observe the thing itself, and always find that from the constant conjunction the objects acquire an union in the imagination” (T 93).
SKEPTICAL REALISM:
I think I may like this skeptical realism interpretation of Hume.
According to Skeptical Realists, Hume thinks causation consists of “real powers”. Said real powers are more thoroughly mind-independent and are pronouncedly more than mere regular succession (173). Hume notes that they are “secret” and that we cannot discover their true nature, because that nature is not revealed to us through sensory experience. However, Hume does concede that we believe in them nonetheless. Skeptical Realism is called such because Hume believes in real powers, but is skeptical about our ability to know or even conceive of their true nature. According to Strawson, the real powers that Hume mentions are a natural belief (Beebee 174).
Hume whole project starts, as it were, internally in the mind. Hume is concerned with how the mind works, how we get the belief s we possess, and how we infer one thing from another (175). And being an empiricist, he holds that all of our reasonings have their source in impressions, which are empirically originated and transferred.
Skeptical realism is called such because there is both an external empirically identifiable world as well as real powers in it (177). Hume is a realist, because he thinks that there is a reality that the human can conceive it. However, Hume is a skeptic in that what is real to us, at its most fundamental level, is ungraspable by the human mind (177). So then, whereas we cannot penetrate into the essence or matter or real power, we are nonetheless compelled to believe that they exist.
Regarding the notion of causation and its presence in the Treatise and ENQ, it is important to note that Hume’s interest is in debunking the Insight Ideal – that is, the notion that we know the causal structure of the world apriori (180). Hume writes, “the ultimate force and efficacy of nature is perfectly unknown to us, and… 'tis in vain we search for it in all the known qualities of matter” (T 159). In a corresponding passage within the ENQ, Hume writes, “nature has kept us at a great distance from all her secrets, and has afforded us only the knowledge of a few superficial qualities of objects; while she conceals from us those powers and principles, on which the influence of these objects entirely depends” (E 32-33). Moreover, Hume writes that “we are ignorant of those powers and forces, on which [the] regular course and succession of objects totally depends” (E 55). After having given his two definitions of “cause”, Hume goes on to assert a position that comports well with the Skeptical Realist interpretation: “But though both these definitions be drawn from circumstances foreign to the cause, we cannot remedy this inconvenience, or attain any more perfect definition, which may point out that circumstance in the cause, which gives it a connexion with its effect. We have no idea of this connexion; nor even any distinct notion what it is we desire to know, when we endeavour at a conception of it” (E 77). So then, it appears that Hume is both a realist in terms of known causes, but also allows for secret “powers” (which may be useful for me going forward with my SDC hypothesis, NOTE). In support of the previous assertion, Hume writes, “as to that wonderful force or power, which would carry on a moving body for ever in a continued change of place, and which bodies never lose but by communicating it to others; of this we cannot form the most distant conception” (E 33).
However, it must be conceded that part 7 of his ENQ is very hard to fit into either the regularity or projectivist interpretation (186). Indeed, therein he writes, “[a]nd what stronger instance can be produced of the surprising ignorance and weakness of the understanding, than the present? For surely, if there be any relation among objects, which it imports to us to know perfectly, it is that of cause and effect… Yet so imperfect are the ideas which we form concerning it, that it is impossible to give any just definition of cause, except what is drawn from something extraneous and foreign to it” (E 76). So can one be confident in concluding that Hume is a skeptical realist? No, for what he says in the ENQ is starkly different from what he says I the Treatise. Rather, Hume admits that there may exist secret powers or “unknown qualities” in the Treatise, but we are unable to know them, and as such our causal explanations cannot employ them (187).
For Strawson, real power is, as it is for Hume, that upon which the “regular course and succession of objects totally depends” (E 55). In Strawson’s own words, he notes that real power is whatever is in “the universe (or matter) which is that in virtue of which it is regular” (Strawson, 1989, 126). So then, for Strawson’s Hume, real power is what it is because it generates the regularities that we so readily observe in nature (Beebee, 198). In consequence, to make a causal claim is not to refer to the regularities themselves, or to the resulting transition in their mind, but to that which underlies the regularities and that which makes them possible (Beebee, 198). Strawson writes, “Hume never really questions the idea there is something like causal power in reality, i.e. something in virtue of which reality is regular in the way that it is” (Strawson, 1989, 14). Moreover, Strawson argues that a regularity theory of causation is “utterly impossible in asserting categorically that there is no reason in the nature of things for the regularity of the world” (Strawson, 1989, 21). In summary of Strawson, he seems to assert that Hume believed in real powers whose nature Hume takes for granted, but whose essential nature are unknowable to us (Beebee, 200).
According to Beebee’s interpretation of Strawson’s Hume, Hume should’ve excised the notion of necessary connection from his account of causation (209). And I frankly agree in this respect with Strawson. Strawson argues that Hume believes in real powers – conceived of as sources of order – and that we can take Hume’s statements regarding secret powers to mean that he believed in them, as well asserting in one and the same time that we cannot know them.
Hume writes, “there may be several qualities both in material and immaterial objects, with which we are utterly unacquainted; and if we please to call these power or efficacy, 'twill be of little consequence to the world” (T 168).
Conclusions of Beebee:
Beebee claims that the Traditional interpretation of Hume is a failure (216). Pointedly, it has failed because it does not grant necessary connection an important place with Hume’s system of causation. Beebee states that a skeptical realist and/or a projectivist, Hume can very well hold the idea of necessary connection as an ineliminable part of the notion of causation (216).
The differences between powers in ref. to SR and the Projectivist interpretations:
In the SR interpretation, we can believe in real powers, but we cannot come to know that they exist, nor aspire to know their essential nature, whereas in the Projectivist interpretation, Hume remains agnostic as to the existence of real powers (217).
As Strawson states, “we can read the ENQ back into the Treatise, when trying to understand his considered view.” Strawson notes that nothing in the Treatise can be used above the statements in the ENQ unless two conditions are met: the passage in the ENW is unclear, and that the passage in the Treatise must not be incompatible with the ENQ. So then, Strawson clearly posits the ENQ to be held in primacy above and beyond the Treatise.
Hume notes that he made “a very great mistake in conduct, viz my publishing at all the Treatise of Human Nature… Above all, the positive air which prevails in that book, and which may imputed to the ardor of youth, so much displease me, that I have not patience to review it.”
¹ Wilson, F. “Hume’s Defense of Causal Inference,” Dialogue XXII, 661-694:666.
² Noonan, H. Hume on Knowledge, London: Routledge, 1999, pg. 150-151. ³ J.A. Robinson, “Hume’s Two Definitions of ‘Cause’,” Philosophical Quarterly 12, 1962, 162-171:167. ⁴ J.A. Robinson, “Hume’s Two Definitions of ‘Cause’,” Philosophical Quarterly 12, 1962, 162-171: 169.
⁵ Strawson, “David Hume: Object and Power”, in R. Read and K Richman (eds) The New Hume Debate ( London: Routledge, YEAR??) 31-51:32. ⁶ Hume, in J. Y. T. Greig, The Letters of David Hume (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), 187.