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Hi, everyone. I'm Marianne Talbot. Some of you know me and I know some of you, but not all of you.

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And I don't know anyone who's watching the podcast. So hello to everyone watching the podcast.

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Okay, I'm going to. I've given you six lecture titles for this series, but I'm going to be changing a few at the end.

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So you're going to get everything that you've signed up for, but you might get it in a different order or something.

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But today, we're going to look at these things.

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We're going to, first of all, look at why is causation important?

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Because when I've talked over the summer to people about the lectures I'm writing, I'm writing lectures on causation.

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Lots of people said, what's causation? Why? Why is it important?

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So I think it's very important, actually, to have a look first. That's why we're bothering to think about causation.

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Then I'm going to look about how philosophers think about causation,

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because there's a difference to the way philosophers think about causation, to the way that scientists, for example, think about causation.

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And we'll have a little look at but what that way is and why it's different.

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Then I'm going to look at Hume's regularity theory. And the reason I'm going to look at that is modern.

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Thinking about causation started with Hume. You cannot not start with Hume.

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Well, you could. I mean, a people like me, I've been doing it for years, think, oh, boring old Hume.

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But but of course, Hume isn't boring. Hume is really, really interesting.

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And we are going to start with him and his regularity theory.

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And so I'm going to explain what the regularity theory is. Then I'm going to look at problems for the regularity theory.

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And I'm going to finish today with the canonical statement of RTC, the regularity theory, because it's gone through many changes since Houdin.

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And I'll say which one? Those who adopt the regularity theory.

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And that's many, many philosophers still. Which statement of it they would accept today.

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So that's what we're going to do today. And I'm going to start with why is causation importance?

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And I'm going to start off looking at why it's important for everyone, for everyone here.

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And what then I'm going to look at why it's important in particular for philosophers.

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And so for a start. Nearly every explanation you offer of almost anything you're trying to explain is going to be a causal explanation.

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And there are philosophers, David Lewis, whom you'll be introduced to next week, is someone who believes that all explanation is causal explanation,

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because all explanation gives some information about the causal history of an event.

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OK, so if you're thinking, well, why did that happen?

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You look for the cause of whatever that is.

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So if you're wondering about the explanation of B, if you can think that A causes B or Albie's are caused by A,

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then and there wasn't a minute ago then you've got your explanation of B.

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So explanations appeal to the relation of causation, the relation of between two events.

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And we'll look at whether that's whether they are indeed events later.

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But the relation of causation is very important for the purposes of explanation.

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And human beings go in for explanation a lot. That's what we do, really.

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Also, you cannot really predict things without appealing to the causal relation.

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So if you know that A is cause B, A new C, the occurrence of an A.

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Or you've got reason to believe whatever it is that an A. is coming.

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Then you'll have reason to predict a B, because knowing the T and B causally related enables you to predict to be on observation of an A.

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So again, it causation is is vital for explanation.

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Causation is vital also for prediction. So we can predict things so well, for example, eclipses.

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I mean I don't know about you, but I got up at three o'clock the other night and wrapped myself in a duvet and went and sat

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in the garden because they told me that there was going to be a lunar eclipse and there was,

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you know, amazing, isn't it? But that's because we know about causal relations.

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So causation is essential to prediction in the same way that it's essential to explanation.

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And then if we want to manipulate anything, if we know the A's Causby, if we bring about any, will also bring about a B, won't we.

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So so if we want to bring about a B, the way we can do it is to bring about an A.

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So we can manipulate the world in virtue of the fact that we know about causal relations.

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So causation is absolutely vital. It really is.

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Will say a bit more about that later. For philosophers, causation is every bit as vital.

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I mean, we have causal theories of knowledge.

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So if anyone of you know about the Getty problems, the causal theory of knowledge is supposed to explain the Gachet problems.

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Now, I'd better explain that for those who don't know,

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the Gachet problems says that the traditional theory of knowledge, according to which knowledge, is justified.

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True belief. OK.

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So let's say Chris has a belief about me that I only tyo to Yaris and he's justified

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in believing that because he's seen me driving around town in a Toyota Yaris.

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OK. What's more, I do own a tire to Yaris. Nice little silvery green thing.

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Now there's a problem with this because actually the Toyota that Chris has seen me driving around town in isn't mine.

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It belongs to Bob and it's a horrible Reds thing.

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So the Toyota, that makes true his belief that I own a Yaris and the Toyota that justifies his belief that I own a Yaris come apart, don't they?

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Does he know that I own a Yaris?

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Most people would say, no, he doesn't, because the conditions justifying his belief come apart from the conditions that make true his belief.

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How do we solve this?

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Well, we we try and make the causal relationship between the conditions that make his belief true and the conditions that justify his belief.

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And so that's the causal theory of knowledge.

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We appeal to causation to explain what knowledge is, and we also explain to causation, to appeal what content is.

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So how do I know what the content of your belief is?

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Could you entertain the concept of read unless a red object had caused you to have an experience of red at some time in your past?

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Do you think. No. Okay.

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If you if you think not, then there's the causal theory of content.

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There's got to be causal relations involved in the identification of content of your beliefs and perceptions.

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And, of course, the causal theory of perception and McBeth.

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Is this a dagger I see before me? Well, no, it wasn't, because there is no dagger causing the experience he is having.

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He was having an experience as of a dagger. But there was no dagger in the causal history of that experience.

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And so he wasn't perceiving a dagger. So, again, do you see that causation is absolutely fundamental to the idea of what it is that your cause?

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What it is that you're perceiving? So David Hume called causation the cement of the universe.

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Causation is the relation that holds together all the events in the universe.

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Every event has a cause. Perhaps not the beginning of the universe itself and the causes of God.

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But but otherwise, everything has a cause, is an effect.

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And it's the cement of the universe. As David Hume and John Carroll.

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And you'll find all the references, by the way. You'll find on the handouts that I've got here that I'm not handing out now because

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I don't want you to have all the answers to the questions I'm going to ask. But you can take the hand out.

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So actually, you don't need to make Coke copious notes unless it helps you understand.

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It does me. So I understand if it does, you. Okay.

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So John Carroll says, with regard to our total conceptual apparatus, causation is the centre of the centre.

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You just would not understand anything if you didn't understand causation.

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The philosopher Kant thought causation was one of the concepts that we have innately.

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We're born with the concept of cause. This is very boring.

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But yes, you will. Secretary. Keep the colour scheme and don't show this message.

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Again, that sounds right, but where's the cursor gone? Turn the volume down.

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We can't actually see it on the screen, so. We extended the screen, so it was sort of keep the don't share this message again.

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OK. One more chance. Julia, good. Right.

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I didn't realise you couldn't see it, but I was also obscuring what I could see on my screen.

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OK. So so causation is the centre of the centre of our conceptual scheme.

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So let's go into how do philosophers think about causation?

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Well, and we want to know first what causation is.

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I mean, if you're going to ask does something it says, does God exist?

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You need to know what it is about, whose existence, your what, your questioning.

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So what is God? What is this thing that you're asking, whether it exists or not?

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And the same thing is true of causation. And if we want to know whether causation exists and what it is, we need to know first what causation is.

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So we start by analysing the concept and to analyse the concepts is to.

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For example, we reason using the concept of causation.

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So we say if A causes B and an A occurred, we can follow on that by saying a B will occur.

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That's the prediction I was talking about earlier. So we look at how the we reason with the concept of causation, what it entails.

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What we infer from it and so on. That's what it is to analyse a concept.

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But then we want to know whether it exists. So we turn to metaphysics. So is there anything that satisfies this role?

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The role that something plays in our reasoning. So if God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, he got that right.

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Then we want to know whether there is anything that satisfies those three things.

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And if we think that the problem of evil shows that it's a contradiction that anything could suffer to satisfy those things.

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We're going to conclude that God doesn't exist. And it's the same with causation.

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We will look at its role in reasoning and then we'll ask whether it exists.

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So we are interested in the nature of causation of causation itself.

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But we start by looking at the concept of causation, the way we work with causation in our reasoning.

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So let's have a have a little go at that. Okay. So much.

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My tomato plants have died. They look terrible, don't they?

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And if the queen had watered my tomato plants, they would not have died.

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I mean, this is true. Well, the queen is not washing my tomato plants, therefore caused them to die.

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Did it not? And here's the queen failing to water my tomato plants.

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I couldn't find one with her watering tomato plants. But what do you think about that?

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I mean, it is true, isn't it, that if the queen had watered my tomato plants, they wouldn't have died?

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And it's also true that if I had watered them, they wouldn't have died.

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But if the queen had watered them, given that I didn't, they wouldn't have died.

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So it's the queen, the cause of the death of my tomato plants.

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Well, yes, but that's true, isn't it? If the queen had watered them, that he wouldn't have died.

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Yes, you could you could substitute anyone else in there. Anyway, we won't worry about that now because we will look at that later.

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But that's the sort of thought experiment that we might go into to say, well, OK, if that's true and that's true, then isn't that true?

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And if it isn't true, none of us think it's true. Why isn't it true?

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What's the difference between the Queen's failing to water my tomato plants and my failing to

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most of them or perhaps the the neighbourhood promise to water them or something like that?

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Oops. We're going around, so in analysing our concept of causation, we hope to do one of three things.

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So we either hope to reduce causation to non causal relations and matters of fact.

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So we hope to understand causation by cashing it out in terms that we do understand that don't appeal to causation.

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Otherwise we'd have something circular or we hope to eliminate causation.

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Maybe causation doesn't really exist. But there's some other relation that that does the job that we think is causation.

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Or we might want to admit that causation is primitive.

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In other words, that it can't be reduced and it can't be eliminated. Causation is part of the furniture of the universe.

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It's it. It is sui generous. It exists in and of itself.

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And for example, can you think of anything else that might be of that kind?

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Truth is, maybe suy generous.

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But so we do one of these things will either reduce it or will eliminate it all will admit it as primitive as a result of our conceptual analysis.

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Okay, now let's have a look at how science thinks about causation. Scientists used the concept of causation all the time.

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They relying on the concept of causation, but they very rarely think about causation.

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That's not their job. The science says that think about causation tend to be the sciences that think about thinking.

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So psychology, for example, is very interested in the concept of causation because I, for example, do babies have a concept of causation.

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So you'll have seen some of these videos of babies that, you know,

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you do something and try and work out whether the baby realises that one thing causes another.

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So psychologists are interested in causation. Neuroscientists are interested in causation.

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They like to know what it is in the brain that realises thoughts about causation.

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And applied robotics is particularly interested in causation.

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So there's a paper by Judea Pearl on your reading list, which is very inj.

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I mean, if you want for instance, if you want a domestic robot or a caring robot, then you want it to understand.

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If it leaves the child's skateboard in the middle of the floor, the person its caring for is likely to trip over it or something.

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So you'll you want to give the robot some idea of causation.

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And actually that's that's you'll see if you watch the video by Judea Pearl.

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That's much easier said than done. So those are the sciences that are really concentrating on causation.

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But of course, it's it does appear in every science. How can it not?

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If it's so central to explanation and prediction. Okay.

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His very handsome chap, Hume, Scottish philosopher 1711 to 1776.

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And he's the author of The Regularity Theory. It's Hume's regularity theory that really started off thinking about causation.

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It's not entirely true. I mean, Aristotle thought about causation, too.

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And I've give new references on your handout as to who thought about causation before Hume.

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But Hume really started the modern discussion of causation, and it was in this book that he claimed fell stillborn from the press.

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In other words, nobody was interested in this book.

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So he wrote this book, which is basically this book with a few things at it and a few things taken away.

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And it's in there that he discusses causation. And again, you'll get all the references and you can also find these texts.

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All his texts are available freely online. You can look at what he actually said himself.

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Okay. Right. We're going to look first at the traditional interpretation of Hume and you'll see

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later that it becomes important that there are different interpretations of Hume.

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Then we're going to look at two key problems for the traditional interpretation of Hume,

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and then we're going to look at these solutions to these problems, leading to the version of Hume's theory that's used today.

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So will end. As I said before, with the canonical statement of the regularity theory of causation.

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But before I go on to its traditional interpretation of Hume, any questions about what I've said so far?

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The particular example you said about the care home of leaving escapable in the middle of the room as a potential cause of potential effect.

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You have not mentioned the probability. At all, that is that is.

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There is a possibility. Well, I shall see that we could probability does become important later.

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Causation could be either always deterministic or it could be sometimes deterministic, sometimes probabilistic or always probabilistic.

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And there are those three possibilities. And there are philosophers who who adopt each of those views.

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Are you going to see this is actually less important than you might think?

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Because although the traditional interpretation of Hume treat it as deterministic, because in those days they did.

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You'll see that there is a probabilistic version. And ditto for every other theory of causation that we're going to be looking at.

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So A causes B might be A necessitates B if determinism is true or A makes B more probable.

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If causation is probabilistic. OK. Any other.

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David, you said A causes B, you said that if A.

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If a cause is BS and if if an A cause, then a B will occur.

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Yes. That C with some probability. But it could be because.

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No, because if A causes B doesn't necessarily mean that AIDS the only cause of B.

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So there might be a B without any. If A causes B, but there won't be any without a B.

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Did I say that the right way round, I could suddenly hear myself getting confused?

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But OK, I make a distinction. Maybe more in psychology between causation and.

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Ability of a human mind to connect? No, no, no causality causation.

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They use pretty much interchangeably. I'm sure I could think of a distinction if you really want me to,

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but I don't think I want to in your possible versions of what you might mean by understanding causation.

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One thing which seems to be missing is the person is not quite concept of different things.

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We could be alone together. Yes. Okay. So. So I said that in analysing the concept of causation, we hope either to reduce it or to eliminate it or to.

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Make it primitive. Yes, I suppose there is a fourth.

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The fourth one is that what we show is that there's there's there are different relations of causation,

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that it's not a univocal relationship, that there are different types of causation.

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So. Yes. Yes. If that's a forth, then there is a fourth.

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Okay. Let's move on. Let's go on to the traditional interpretation of human.

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OK. There is. I don't usually believe in putting lots of words up on screen,

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but but having not have a look at that, because that's the quotation that starts it all.

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Okay, so that's what Humes says about causation, but how should we understand that?

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Well, let's look at Hume's negative argument to start off with.

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We'll look at what he thinks causation isn't and then we'll have a look at what he thinks.

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Causation is so huge. Negative argument. The first premises are idea of causation seems to be the idea of necessary connexion.

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So if we think that A causes B. Well, you've already mentioned probably ism, but but in fact, that we tend to think that if A causes B,

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then A is sufficient for B, i.e. if any happens, then B will happen.

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So that was the start of Hume's argument. And we'll have a look later.

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I've got a little sort of movie that will show you more about what that means.

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Premise two is and this is an important premise as empiricists, we should accept that all our ideas come from impressions.

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And again, I'll explain this more later. But the an idea is a concept.

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A concept is a constituent of thought. So if you're thinking Marianne's wearing blue, you're entertaining your concept of blue.

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Now, I want you to imagine that this is yellow. Okay.

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You doing that or you're entertaining your concept of yellow at that point?

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And you must be entertaining your concept because it's not yellow, is it? It's so.

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So you're thinking about this. You're not seeing that the shirt is yellow.

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Your your imagining that the shirt is yellow.

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But on the other hand, you can see that it's blue. So you have a perception of my shirt.

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And you also have a thought about my shirt. And one of the entertaining uses an impression.

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You see this, it's blue and the other one uses an idea.

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You imagine that it's yellow.

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So, for example, and you're all thinking about elephants right now, but there isn't an elephant anywhere near this room that I know of.

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And even if there is, you can't see it. And so your entertain your concept of elephant, but not your percept of elephant.

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For that, you'd have to go to a zoo. Okay.

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So I'll say something more about that later on. On premise three, says Hume, we do not and cannot.

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He says have any experience of necessary connexion and so experience and impressions go together because when we're having an experience

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where we're having impressions of something and so his conclusion is our idea of causation is not an idea of necessary connexion.

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And I think you'll agree that that argument is is a good argument.

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The conclusion follows from the premises. And so if the premises are true, then the conclusion will also be true.

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Is everyone happy with that? Does anyone want to as I sound and say more about this later.

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But does anyone want to ask anything about that? As it stands.

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As usual, really. This is a standard scientific view of evolution.

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Well, can we leave that to. Because that's a substantive question rather than a question of clarification.

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Okay. So. That's humour, negative argument.

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Now let's have a look at premiss, too, so premise two got what premise two was false, premise two as empiricists.

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We should accept that all our ideas come from impressions. OK, well, Hume's theory of ideas.

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Let's have a look at that, because that's absolutely crucial to his theory of causation.

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Hume is an empiricist. I mentioned Kant earlier.

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Kant isn't an empiricist, can't is a nativist. Kant thinks that we have innate ideas.

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We're born with our minds already stocked with certain concepts.

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Hume and Locke and Berkeley, the three British empiricists all believed that we are born tabula rasa as Hume, as Locke put it.

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So we're born with our minds as blank slates. We have nothing in our minds when we're born.

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Instead, we acquire all our thoughts and all our ideas from experience.

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And people have a great tendency these days to be empiricists because they tend to think that that's the scientifically respectable thing to be.

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But we're going to leave that open. But Hume was definitely empiricist. So that's an impression.

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Let's pretend. Okay. So. So you're experiencing a cat.

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A very handsome ginger cat. And as a result of experiencing things like that.

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And black ones and ginger ones. And three legged ones.

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And tailless ones. And female ones. Male ones and so on.

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You form an idea of a cat. Okay. So you have a percept and this enables you to form a concept.

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And this. Sorry, this is me trying to be clever here.

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If it's going to work. No, it's not going to work. Dan?

254
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If I could play that, it would miaow, because I want you to to understand that ideas are not always visual.

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A lot of your climbing, your idea of a car operator isn't visual or auditory, is it, on your idea of feminism or austerity?

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None of those things are ideas that come directly from impressions.

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But the if you are going to have an idea of a cat,

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it's got to be an idea of something that could be Ginger or Blackhall to Dodge Dart, but also makes the certain sound and.

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Unfortunately, I can't play you the sound it would make. Okay.

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So that's that's his theory of ideas.

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Any questions about that? Before we move on, because that's a.

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Crucial. Element. No. Does Hugh specify any sort of medium through which the idea manifests itself, could it be a.

263
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You know, it needn't be a picture at all.

264
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I mean, Locke thought it was a picture. But Hume did.

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I don't think Hume specified. I might be wrong about that.

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But but it's certainly the case that these days we would say it's not necessary for it to be a picture.

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I mean, you might or might not have a picture of what feminism means or what austerity means.

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And if you have a picture. But yours is different. And yet the two of you mean the same thing by austerity, let's say.

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But the pictures you associate with it, if you do associate any with it, might be different.

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Can you have something totally abstract, say something that's informed by equations, social science.

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Yes, or love. That's pretty abstract or justice.

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So Hume would have to say that you acquired the idea of justice by seeing instances of justice.

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So when a mother is fair to her children, for example, you see her being just when a teacher is fair to the pupils,

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you see the teacher being just and through experiences of justice like that, you form your idea of justice might not experience a say.

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Well, string theory is not not an idea, it's a multitude of ideas, isn't it?

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I mean, it's a theory, string theory. A theory is, if you like, a web of beliefs that go together in a coherent whole.

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OK. It may be a cold call. Some people would question that, but.

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So. So a theory is a multitude of beliefs. And each belief has a content that's made up of concepts and an idea is a concept.

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So an idea is a constituent of a thought. So every thought has content and every content will be made up of concepts.

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And string theory is made up of beliefs, multitude of beliefs.

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Each belief has a content and each content is made up of concepts.

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Okay, so now we're going to look at his empiricism, the idea of causation.

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OK. Now here's a billiard ball. OK. And this billiard ball.

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Is going to go off when the first one hits it.

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But what what makes us think that it's going to do that? Because it could be.

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It does that, couldn't it? I mean, why would you expect?

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Because I bet you do expect the first thing to happen. Rawdon's second thing to happen.

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Is there a necessary connexion? Could it do the second thing or not?

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It could. It could. Okay. It said there's absolutely nothing necessary about the fact that the second ball will roll off when the first ball hits it,

290
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as opposed to turning purple and doing a little spirit pirouette.

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And that's what Hume notices.

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And he's actually very because if we think the causation is necessary connexion, then we're saying that when the billiard ball hits,

293
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when the first billiard ball hits the second billiard ball, it's necessary that the second billiard ball rolls off.

294
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But Hume was the first one to notice that there's nothing necessary about it.

295
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It's certainly not logically necessary. We can imagine.

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I mean, there are logically necessary things. For example. A bachelor is an unmarried man.

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John is a bachelor. Therefore. John is an unmarried man.

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Yep. I mean, there's a logical necessity. These two sentences entail the conclusion an entailment is the relation of logical necessity.

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Well, there's no logical necessity that when this billiard ball comes in and hits the Alza, that the other will roll off in the opposite direction.

300
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There's nothing logically necessary about that. You can imagine it doing all sorts of things like spinning, turning purple and spinning off.

301
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So if we're going to say that there is a necessity of any kind.

302
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We've got to introduce a new notion of necessity. We've got to talk about metaphysical necessity.

303
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All we've got to talk about empirical necessity or something like that.

304
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We've got to introduce a new concept, if you like.

305
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But Hume says. But how do we experience something necessary?

306
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Think about that for a second. If something's necessary, it must happen.

307
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OK. Every time one billiard ball hits another, the billable will roll off.

308
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It must happen. It's not just does it happen that way? It must happen that way.

309
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Could you experience that? That must. Do you think?

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But must not happen. What if you've been given anaesthetic?

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Well, obviously, there's some limiting conditions, but for most purposes it will.

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For most purposes, it will hurt. Yes, fine. But we're talking about it must hurt.

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There's nothing necessary about it, is there? That. That's the thing that we're thinking.

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Is something great.

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Is everything going great?

316
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No. Okay. Same the same way if I strike a match, it will only light if there's oxygen around.

317
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So it's got to be all sorts of. OK. We're going to be looking at this in some detail later on.

318
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But but at the moment, what I want to get hot is the idea,

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the fact that we cannot experience something necessarily something that must be the case or that can't be the case.

320
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We can experience that as something isn't the case or that it's not often the case or this is nearly always not the case.

321
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We can't experience that. It cannot be the case.

322
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So if if I use possible world talks to talk just for a moment to say that something must be the case, to say that two plus two equals four.

323
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And that that's a necessary condition. I'm saying that there is no possible world in which two plus two don't equal four.

324
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Okay, I can do it in this case because that's a logical necessity. You've got the same condition.

325
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So. Because otherwise, to do.

326
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No, no, no, I don't have to specify that because two has a normal meaning in English and so does plus.

327
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And so does the equals. And so just for.

328
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And so it's only because your requiring your being cleverer and thinking, if I if I interpret it differently, it wouldn't be.

329
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It wouldn't. There is a possible world in which two plus two equals four. But I'm assuming that you're not interpreting it differently.

330
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That's it now is arguably your second or third dynamics. Oh.

331
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Thank you, you you unda undermined your what you said by adding in a physical well in a felt world like this, et cetera.

332
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I mean if there are worlds in which the second law of thermodynamics doesn't hold and might there be.

333
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Then then I might rest my case again. Necessity is a very strong relationship.

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If something is necessary, there is no possible world in which it doesn't happen.

335
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And if something is is possible, there is one possible world in which there is at least one possible world in which it does happen.

336
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So could we experience necessity? Answer no.

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Because we would have to experience every single possible worlds and we couldn't do that.

338
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So Huba has a real problem with the idea of necessity. You cannot experience necessity.

339
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So as as logicians, we can believe that something is necessary.

340
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But the idea that you could experience it is a very different claim.

341
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So where do we get this idea of necessary connexion or where do we think we get it from?

342
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Okay, let's. Oh, it's not working as well as I thought.

343
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In fact, it's not working at all. Sold. It worked on my home computer.

344
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OK. What? What do you think that we get our idea of necessary connexion from is constant conjunction.

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So we see one billiard ball hitting another. And the other rolling off.

346
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And we see one billiard ball hitting another. And the other rolling off. And we see one billiard ball hitting another.

347
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And the other rolling off. We see this often enough that we start to expect it.

348
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And it's that expectation that gives us the idea of necessary connexion.

349
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So, OK, if our idea is idea of causation is not an idea of necessary connexion, what is it?

350
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An idea of. And secondly, why are we so certain this idea of causation is an idea of necessary connexion?

351
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Okay, I've sort of answered that. But let's let's go on.

352
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Okay. So can you see that his negative argument. This is what causation isn't.

353
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We think that causation is the idea of necessary connexion.

354
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If it is the idea of necessary connexion. This must have come from experience because all our ideas come from experience.

355
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But we can't experience necessity. Therefore, it can't be the idea of necessary connexion.

356
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So that's negative argument I see now. But I'd like to continue just for a minute.

357
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The negative argument leaves us with two questions.

358
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If Hume is right, if Hume's negative argument is right that the idea of causation is not an idea of necessary connexion,

359
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then we're left thinking, well, what is it then? What is this idea of causation that's so important?

360
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And we'd also like to ask. Well, given that we think it is necessary connexion, why are we shows sure of that when you've just shown us.

361
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Hume. If you have shown us that, it can't be. So those are the two questions.

362
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So his answer to question one is that our idea of causation is and wait for it.

363
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Because this is the regularity theory, temporal priority.

364
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So the cause comes before the effect. Okay.

365
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It's spatial contiguity, the scores and the effect are spatially contiguous.

366
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And if they appear not to be, there's something in between that makes them there's no action that's a distance as cause that says Hume.

367
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And finally, its constant conjunction. When we see A and B constantly conjoined, we start to think that A causes B.

368
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So the correlation between A and B causes us to expect B when we see DNA.

369
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And that expectation is projected by us onto the world and becomes the idea of causation.

370
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So Hume thinks there is no more to our idea of causation than these three things.

371
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Now, that should be making you feel quite uncomfortable. But I'm not going to take any questions just at the moment.

372
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I'd like to just go on a little bit more. Okay. This is the regularity theory of causation.

373
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There's no more to causation than these three things.

374
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And Hume's answer to question two is it is just habit.

375
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It's because we see A and B correlated. And we form the expectation of seeing a B whenever we see any that we think that A and B causally related.

376
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And it's that expectation that we spread on the world, that we project onto the world uncool, necessary connexion.

377
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But in fact, there is no necessary connexion. All there is is a habit of mind.

378
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So in a way, Hume is saying, if you're saying that causation is necessary connexion, then Hume is saying there isn't any causation.

379
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But actually, what he's saying is not that causation is necessary connexion and there isn't any.

380
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He's saying causation isn't necessary connexion at all. Causation is just temporal priority, spatial contiguity and constant conjunction.

381
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Hence the regularity theory and regularities. OK, let me see where I am, because.

382
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Okay, the key characteristics of the regularity theory of causation are, firstly, it's reductive.

383
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Okay. So do you remember I said that what we hope to do as a result of.

384
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Conceptual analysis is either to reduce or to eliminate or to make primitive RTC is reductive.

385
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He's reducing the idea of causation to temporal priorities, spatial contiguity and constant conjunction.

386
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So it reduces causation to regularity and it prioritises causal regularities over singular causal relations.

387
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If you only ever see one billiard ball hitting another and the other rolling off once, you'll never think that the first caused the second, says Hume.

388
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Actually, you would, because you've seen so many other similar things.

389
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But if you only see one case, there can't be causation, according to Hume, in the individual case.

390
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Now, many philosophers have quarrels about that, but that's what Hume thinks.

391
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He reduces causation to regularity. And he also is a realist.

392
00:44:35,240 --> 00:44:40,070
So the regularity theory of causation is a realist theory about causation.

393
00:44:40,070 --> 00:44:46,640
Causation really exists. And that's because there really are regularities.

394
00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:52,400
There really are correlations between events. And that's what causation is.

395
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:57,980
So there is something that satisfies the conditions that it would have to satisfy.

396
00:44:57,980 --> 00:45:03,410
If causation were to exist. So regularities are real.

397
00:45:03,410 --> 00:45:09,200
And their mind independent. Even if we weren't here to see these correlations, they would be there.

398
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:17,630
So causation is realist, realistic. And finally, regularity theory of causation is austere.

399
00:45:17,630 --> 00:45:26,690
And what I mean by that is Hume rarely is saying there's no explanation.

400
00:45:26,690 --> 00:45:35,420
There's no relation that is this constant conjunction of sorry that underpins the constant conjunction or the regularities.

401
00:45:35,420 --> 00:45:42,980
All there is. Is the regularities. So if a scientist is trying to find out whether A causes B,

402
00:45:42,980 --> 00:45:49,130
he sees the constant conjunction between A and B, and he sees yes, A causes B, what explains that?

403
00:45:49,130 --> 00:45:54,070
He'll look. And if he's lucky, he'll find a deeper correlation. OK.

404
00:45:54,070 --> 00:45:58,010
So. So C causes A and D causes B.

405
00:45:58,010 --> 00:46:02,690
And that's why. And Bear can conjoined because see India conjoined.

406
00:46:02,690 --> 00:46:07,460
And then if he looks a bit harder he might look a bit. And he'll find another correlation.

407
00:46:07,460 --> 00:46:14,450
And another correlation. And Hume will think that's all he'll ever find all the way down.

408
00:46:14,450 --> 00:46:22,670
So it's correlation all the way. There is no such thing as an metaphysically necessary connexion.

409
00:46:22,670 --> 00:46:28,010
That explains these constant conjunctions. And if that's making you very uncomfortable, don't worry.

410
00:46:28,010 --> 00:46:35,330
You're not alone. So it eliminates the idea of necessary connexion, is it?

411
00:46:35,330 --> 00:46:41,210
It says you want this idea of there being a metaphysical necessity there.

412
00:46:41,210 --> 00:46:47,570
Okay. You recognise it's not a logical necessity, but you want to introduce this idea of a metaphysical necessity.

413
00:46:47,570 --> 00:46:55,490
But you shouldn't because we can explain everything to do with causation without appealing to necessary connexion.

414
00:46:55,490 --> 00:47:00,050
Therefore, necessary connexion is redundant. We don't need it.

415
00:47:00,050 --> 00:47:06,970
And we should be austere in our theories of causation.

416
00:47:06,970 --> 00:47:15,810
So OK. Well, before I look at the problems that everyone else has sought, what are the problems that you think?

417
00:47:15,810 --> 00:47:27,700
What? Is there anything you don't like about this theory? Mike, it's not so much from the studio, but I can't see the point of.

418
00:47:27,700 --> 00:47:34,790
The temporal aspect, obviously, and others will not criticise the temporal aspect of the sea and it does not seem to agree at all,

419
00:47:34,790 --> 00:47:38,250
is take example of colliding with billiard balls.

420
00:47:38,250 --> 00:47:49,260
You might as well say that for a start, because of all these action and direction, which is not okay.

421
00:47:49,260 --> 00:47:51,420
Well, it's interesting that you went for that one first.

422
00:47:51,420 --> 00:48:02,820
I mean, it's certainly true that the humans theory makes temporal priority of the cause of the effect and analytical condition of causation.

423
00:48:02,820 --> 00:48:09,450
And we might say, well, is that true? I mean, could it not be that the effect comes before the cause?

424
00:48:09,450 --> 00:48:17,220
Couldn't there be backwards causation? And lots of philosophers have looked at the possibility of backwards causation.

425
00:48:17,220 --> 00:48:27,570
But Hume doesn't. I mean, that's one thing he did. That's actually probably the least examined from by Humes of his theory.

426
00:48:27,570 --> 00:48:32,970
He just assumes that causes come before effects. And actually, so do most of us.

427
00:48:32,970 --> 00:48:36,430
Most of the time.

428
00:48:36,430 --> 00:48:49,500
So if we see a correlation, it's that the prior event that we think of as the cause and the second event that we think of as the effect.

429
00:48:49,500 --> 00:48:57,980
Oh, sorry. They're two people talking. I'm sorry, David, I was talking to the gentleman further back just to start with.

430
00:48:57,980 --> 00:49:04,570
Abuse is the concept of necessity because it doesn't seem that we should have access to.

431
00:49:04,570 --> 00:49:06,670
Well, that's a bit unfair.

432
00:49:06,670 --> 00:49:14,830
I mean, the question was, does Hume justify his use of the concept of necessity because he doesn't seem to have access to the concept of necessity.

433
00:49:14,830 --> 00:49:22,840
And what he thinks is that the knee jerk concept of causation is that of necessary connexion.

434
00:49:22,840 --> 00:49:27,200
And he claims to have shown that it's not necessary connexion.

435
00:49:27,200 --> 00:49:44,090
So I don't think it's Hume who needs to justify his use of the concept of necessitates everybody else.

436
00:49:44,090 --> 00:49:47,510
Well, no, because logical necessity is permitted.

437
00:49:47,510 --> 00:49:57,020
I mean, we all understand logical necessity and we logical necessities is explicable in in the reasoning that we do.

438
00:49:57,020 --> 00:50:06,050
But what he's questioning is whether this the second sort of necessity, namely metaphysical or empirical necessity.

439
00:50:06,050 --> 00:50:09,590
And he's the one who shows that. Everyone assumes that.

440
00:50:09,590 --> 00:50:16,110
But actually, we don't need to. Or so he says.

441
00:50:16,110 --> 00:50:28,800
When we talk about a cause, most things that we can think of have multiple.

442
00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:35,250
Well, we'll look at that in more depth later. That's the same question is the one that came earlier and when so when you strike a match.

443
00:50:35,250 --> 00:50:42,570
The strike of the match causes the lighting of the match. Well, it wouldn't if there weren't any oxygen in the room.

444
00:50:42,570 --> 00:50:47,670
So. So the strike hit. The match can't be a sufficient condition for the lighting of the match.

445
00:50:47,670 --> 00:50:54,100
You've got to take into account other things. So we'll have a look at that in a minute.

446
00:50:54,100 --> 00:51:07,240
I'm struggling to speak up. Sorry. Because of all these.

447
00:51:07,240 --> 00:51:14,180
But then he calls himself. Well, we may be dead.

448
00:51:14,180 --> 00:51:21,740
Well, no know we can see a constant conjunction because a constant conjunction doesn't necessarily mean an exception, this conjunction.

449
00:51:21,740 --> 00:51:26,630
Nor does it necessarily mean a conjunction that goes on forever and a day.

450
00:51:26,630 --> 00:51:38,830
It just means if I see A's causing B's, I think for a second about the concept of causation.

451
00:51:38,830 --> 00:51:50,700
If you're going to claim A causes B. Firstly, what's your evidence?

452
00:51:50,700 --> 00:52:01,600
Secondly, what would falsify it?

453
00:52:01,600 --> 00:52:03,730
Well, perhaps we'll just stick with those two at the moment.

454
00:52:03,730 --> 00:52:15,590
So if we can say that, make a claim, not A causes B, what's going to be your evidence for this?

455
00:52:15,590 --> 00:52:32,960
Of what? I mean, you're directly perceiving me, but that doesn't give you evidence that A causes B.

456
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:39,030
OK. And what is it? Well, you'll see, give me a shot. And that is a particular case.

457
00:52:39,030 --> 00:52:41,610
Can we go back to the everyday thought of causation?

458
00:52:41,610 --> 00:52:49,590
So when people are doing the psychological experiment with the children, seeing whether children have the idea of causation,

459
00:52:49,590 --> 00:53:02,080
what do they tend to show children in the hope that they form the belief A causes B?

460
00:53:02,080 --> 00:53:07,200
Yes. Okay. So you switch the switch and the light goes on.

461
00:53:07,200 --> 00:53:10,860
You switch, switch the other way and the light goes off. You switch it that way and the light goes on.

462
00:53:10,860 --> 00:53:17,100
Switch that when the light goes off and so on. And the child will very quickly pick up what to do.

463
00:53:17,100 --> 00:53:21,870
So what you're doing is you're showing a constant conjunction, aren't you?

464
00:53:21,870 --> 00:53:29,260
You're saying that putting the switch that way turns the light on and putting the switch that way turns the light off.

465
00:53:29,260 --> 00:53:40,140
And so the evidence for causation is always going to be a correlation or a constant conjunction.

466
00:53:40,140 --> 00:53:49,890
So Hume is certainly right from that point of view. We don't have evidence for causation other than correlations or constant conjunctions.

467
00:53:49,890 --> 00:53:55,060
And what would falsify the claim that A causes B? But what would you make?

468
00:53:55,060 --> 00:54:06,980
You think it's not true that A causes B? So you see an A and not a B, so you break the constant conjunction.

469
00:54:06,980 --> 00:54:15,940
You break the correlation. If you think that A causes B and you see an A without to be, you know, you've got something wrong.

470
00:54:15,940 --> 00:54:22,500
So, OK, it's not true that A causes B deterministically, you might think.

471
00:54:22,500 --> 00:54:38,690
OK, so you C, C, A and not be so you know that it's not the case A causes B, there's something wrong with that.

472
00:54:38,690 --> 00:54:46,910
Maybe it's only a certain type of A's that cause B's. Maybe it's only a store's calls BS.

473
00:54:46,910 --> 00:54:53,300
So you when they say that you saw that isn't followed by a B actually isn't in a stall.

474
00:54:53,300 --> 00:55:04,310
Or maybe this is a case of probabilistic causation. Maybe a dust causby, but not deterministically, only with a certain probability.

475
00:55:04,310 --> 00:55:13,330
So there will be exceptions. The constant conjunction. It'll be only certain constant to a certain extent, servants'.

476
00:55:13,330 --> 00:55:23,420
Do you see the correlation? Constant conjunction is is absolutely essential to our idea of causation.

477
00:55:23,420 --> 00:55:27,830
But Hume, of course, is claiming that that's all there is.

478
00:55:27,830 --> 00:55:33,200
There is no more to causation than constant conjunction.

479
00:55:33,200 --> 00:55:35,120
And that's quite counterintuitive.

480
00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:42,410
I remember when I first understood this theory as an undergraduate, I just thought, how could it possibly be the case?

481
00:55:42,410 --> 00:55:50,750
How could somebody really think that? And you might be thinking the same thing and thinking that you've misunderstood the theory, but you haven't.

482
00:55:50,750 --> 00:56:10,980
The theory really is that there is no more to causation than constant conjunction.

483
00:56:10,980 --> 00:56:23,890
So you're saying that that whatever it is is necessary for tuberculosis, okay, but it must also be sufficient for it to be a.

484
00:56:23,890 --> 00:56:37,480
We usually think of a cause being sufficient rather than being necessary. But it's sufficient in that it necessitates it.

485
00:56:37,480 --> 00:56:42,270
Let's come to look at Caltech two more quite quickly and then I'll go and look at the problems.

486
00:56:42,270 --> 00:56:55,450
What are you going to say?

487
00:56:55,450 --> 00:57:03,580
Well, it's not just humour, it's also the rest of us, because all of us take constant conjunction as evidence for causation.

488
00:57:03,580 --> 00:57:08,020
But some of us are more inductively bold than others of us.

489
00:57:08,020 --> 00:57:18,010
And those of us who are inductively bold may take just two cases and then extrapolate from there.

490
00:57:18,010 --> 00:57:22,810
Others of us will want to say, well, hang on, I've only seen two.

491
00:57:22,810 --> 00:57:31,330
I won't see a few more. And so on. So it's so it depends how inductively bold you are as to how.

492
00:57:31,330 --> 00:57:48,330
So one more done here. Sorry, I will take questions later, but one more one that is lies on the inside.

493
00:57:48,330 --> 00:57:53,610
It doesn't look like experiment is obviously denies. Yes, absolutely.

494
00:57:53,610 --> 00:57:59,860
Yeah. If, if we've seen A causing B, if we've seen A and B in constant conjunction.

495
00:57:59,860 --> 00:58:03,570
Forever and ever and always. And everyone else we've ever spoken to has seen it.

496
00:58:03,570 --> 00:58:11,320
Then we see an A. without a B. We're much more likely to think that we can't believe our eyes because a miracle is like that, isn't it?

497
00:58:11,320 --> 00:58:20,530
A miracle is an exception to the laws of nature. And you don't make something a law of nature unless you've seen it happen very, very often.

498
00:58:20,530 --> 00:58:29,790
So the idea that you can say there's been an exception to it, just because you think you've seen an exception on one occasion is a big problem.

499
00:58:29,790 --> 00:58:34,690
Humour is very good on miracles because he thinks that, epistemologically speaking,

500
00:58:34,690 --> 00:58:42,640
you can never justify the claim that there's been a miracle because a miracle is an exception to a law of nature and the epistemology.

501
00:58:42,640 --> 00:58:53,320
The evidence that we need to make something, a law of nature could never be undermined by one experience of a of a country case.

502
00:58:53,320 --> 00:59:01,390
But we can talk about that more in the Question Time, if you like. Let's have a look at the problems that philosophers have found for this.

503
00:59:01,390 --> 00:59:08,260
Okay. One problem might be the whole thing relies on Hume's empiricism.

504
00:59:08,260 --> 00:59:17,500
Hume thinks that the idea of causation must come from experience and that the idea of necessary connexion cannot come from experience.

505
00:59:17,500 --> 00:59:25,660
So the idea of causation cannot be necessary connexion. But that relies on this empiricist idea.

506
00:59:25,660 --> 00:59:31,570
And if you're can't, you say, well, sod that, let's throw empiricism out.

507
00:59:31,570 --> 00:59:39,190
Let's say that we're born with the idea of causation. And then we can say that the idea of causation is the idea of necessary connexion.

508
00:59:39,190 --> 00:59:48,940
We don't need to be empiricists so we can reject Hume's bedrock theory, which is his theory of ideas, his empiricism.

509
00:59:48,940 --> 00:59:55,810
We don't have to accept that. We can easily accept another theory.

510
00:59:55,810 --> 01:00:04,540
There are other people who think, well, who might ask, is there really no impression from which we might get our idea of necessary connexion?

511
01:00:04,540 --> 01:00:08,680
So you mentioned the shot. Shot. Is it a psychologist?

512
01:00:08,680 --> 01:00:16,750
I think, who tried to show that we do see causation in the individual case.

513
01:00:16,750 --> 01:00:20,080
And he. Well, actually, there have been other philosophers.

514
01:00:20,080 --> 01:00:27,010
So when you cut a slice of bread, says Elizabeth Anscombe, when you're slicing the loaf of bread,

515
01:00:27,010 --> 01:00:33,130
can't you feel that you are causing the bread as you push the knife through the bread?

516
01:00:33,130 --> 01:00:38,560
That is not causation, something you're experiencing directly.

517
01:00:38,560 --> 01:00:45,760
That this is a necessary connexion. That the bread could not not be cut, as you slice it.

518
01:00:45,760 --> 01:00:51,610
And Davidson also thinks that we see causation in the individual case.

519
01:00:51,610 --> 01:00:57,100
So human. Do you remember I said the regularity theory?

520
01:00:57,100 --> 01:01:03,400
He thinks that causal regularities are prior to the causation causation in the individual case.

521
01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:08,620
Well, we can reject that. We can say that's not true. We do see causation in the individual case.

522
01:01:08,620 --> 01:01:15,910
When we see one with billiard ball hitting another, we actually see a case of causation.

523
01:01:15,910 --> 01:01:22,140
And we call that necessary connexion. So we can reject that.

524
01:01:22,140 --> 01:01:25,960
And we can say that correlations do not have a direction.

525
01:01:25,960 --> 01:01:32,320
I mean, this is what. Well, we're talking about spatial contiguity or temporal priority.

526
01:01:32,320 --> 01:01:38,770
If we see A and B constantly conjoined. There isn't that way.

527
01:01:38,770 --> 01:01:44,920
Then the correlation doesn't have a duration, does it? If A is correlated with B, then B is correlated with A.

528
01:01:44,920 --> 01:01:49,300
What makes us think that A causes B rather than the other way round?

529
01:01:49,300 --> 01:02:00,590
This is the point that Mike was making a minute ago. We might also ask, how can a relation that depends on similarity be objective?

530
01:02:00,590 --> 01:02:08,120
So do you remember that quotation I gave you from A Causes?

531
01:02:08,120 --> 01:02:12,680
Let's see if I can if I've got it written here.

532
01:02:12,680 --> 01:02:24,980
No, I haven't. And he talks about a cause is where you see one event and another event and then similar events in the same constant conjunction.

533
01:02:24,980 --> 01:02:32,480
So you've got to notice that the relation that the events that are correlated are similar to each other.

534
01:02:32,480 --> 01:02:37,940
So A causes B, A causes B, A causes B, A and B are in constant correlation.

535
01:02:37,940 --> 01:02:45,740
You've got to have the idea of the similarity between the A's and the similarity between the B and the idea of similarities.

536
01:02:45,740 --> 01:02:50,510
A very human centred concept, isn't it?

537
01:02:50,510 --> 01:02:58,070
So we think of causation as objective. But how can it be objection objective, if that's what we're talking about.

538
01:02:58,070 --> 01:03:07,340
If we rely on similarity and the last two objections are absolutely key,

539
01:03:07,340 --> 01:03:17,180
surely regularity isn't sufficient for causation and surely with there are regularities that are not causal.

540
01:03:17,180 --> 01:03:23,980
So if a pilot, if every time a pineapple has dropped from a tree, Marianne's coughed.

541
01:03:23,980 --> 01:03:29,350
Is that a causal regularity or is it just a coincidence?

542
01:03:29,350 --> 01:03:38,410
And if it's just a coincidence and we can imagine I mean, imagine in this room, every male in this room is his second son.

543
01:03:38,410 --> 01:03:45,400
Okay, that that is possible. It could be the case that just by coincidence, every male in this room is his second son.

544
01:03:45,400 --> 01:03:51,970
Would you think it's causal because there's a correlation between being a male in this audience and being a second son?

545
01:03:51,970 --> 01:03:55,000
Answer no. It's surely a coincidence.

546
01:03:55,000 --> 01:04:03,720
So if if there can be irregularities that are not sufficient for causation, then how can causation be regularity?

547
01:04:03,720 --> 01:04:10,710
It can't be. And it gets worse, surely regularity is not necessary for causation.

548
01:04:10,710 --> 01:04:17,460
The Big Bang caused the universe. Well, there that only happened once, didn't it?

549
01:04:17,460 --> 01:04:21,300
And if it did only happen once. Well, okay. Oh, God.

550
01:04:21,300 --> 01:04:35,780
Multiverses. But if you think that causation can happen in the individual case, then regularity isn't necessary for causation.

551
01:04:35,780 --> 01:04:45,050
And it's also not sufficient. So over the years since Hume developed his regularity theory, there've been hundreds of objections to it.

552
01:04:45,050 --> 01:04:50,640
And I've just given you a selection here. And these have been discussed ad nauseum.

553
01:04:50,640 --> 01:04:56,060
But we're going to look at that one and that one.

554
01:04:56,060 --> 01:05:00,020
As you see, I spent my summer learning powerful interest.

555
01:05:00,020 --> 01:05:05,780
OK, so let's let's have a look at the claim that regularities are not sufficient for causation.

556
01:05:05,780 --> 01:05:11,420
Okay. If every male in this audience has a second son, that's not enough to make it.

557
01:05:11,420 --> 01:05:22,250
I mean, are they were they cause to be a second son by being in this audience or is there being a second son causing them to be in this audience?

558
01:05:22,250 --> 01:05:29,750
No. Is the answer to that. Well, what about the barometer falling every time a storm is about to start?

559
01:05:29,750 --> 01:05:38,350
Well, there's a there's a correlation, isn't there? So does the falling of the barometer caused the storm to start?

560
01:05:38,350 --> 01:05:44,400
Does this storm starting cause the barometer to fall?

561
01:05:44,400 --> 01:05:50,250
Not really. No. It goes far. I mean, what you've got is a drop in the atmospheric pressure is that a drop in the

562
01:05:50,250 --> 01:05:56,790
atmospheric pressure causes both the sawm to start and the barometer to fall.

563
01:05:56,790 --> 01:06:08,010
So you've got one thing. So you've got something like this, a structure like this.

564
01:06:08,010 --> 01:06:13,770
Um. A and B are correlated.

565
01:06:13,770 --> 01:06:25,590
But that's because both are caused by sea. So this cut, this relation is a correlation, but not a cause.

566
01:06:25,590 --> 01:06:36,150
This is a cause and this is a cause, but this isn't do you see so a correlation cannot be sufficient for further causation, can it?

567
01:06:36,150 --> 01:06:38,680
So humans got to be wrong, surely.

568
01:06:38,680 --> 01:06:50,820
And so sometimes correlations are coincidental and sometimes coincidences, correlations come about because they are both the result of a common cause.

569
01:06:50,820 --> 01:06:57,630
So how before Hume's theory can really be taken seriously?

570
01:06:57,630 --> 01:07:07,770
We've got to exclude accidental generalisations and other non causal regularities from the regularity theory, of course, of causation.

571
01:07:07,770 --> 01:07:15,690
Do you see that? Okay. What about the claim that regularities are not necessary for causation?

572
01:07:15,690 --> 01:07:23,760
Well, some smokers don't get cancer. You know, we say that smoking causes cancer, but everyone can tell the story of my dad,

573
01:07:23,760 --> 01:07:31,950
which is that he didn't die till 84 and yet he smoked 60 cigarettes a day since he was 16.

574
01:07:31,950 --> 01:07:35,880
And I mentioned the existence of the universe were brought about by a big bang.

575
01:07:35,880 --> 01:07:40,510
There seemed to be at least there are exceptions.

576
01:07:40,510 --> 01:07:48,000
Sorry, there are causation is correlations to which there are exceptions that we think of as causation.

577
01:07:48,000 --> 01:07:53,400
And also, we looked at miniskirt. Do we not observe causation in the individual case?

578
01:07:53,400 --> 01:08:00,810
And so we've got to include this type of non regular causation in our accounts of causation.

579
01:08:00,810 --> 01:08:07,560
And how can you do that if he says that causation is regularity?

580
01:08:07,560 --> 01:08:11,690
OK. So the solution, okay.

581
01:08:11,690 --> 01:08:19,180
So it's woo overdone. So going back to problem one, regularities are not sufficient for causation.

582
01:08:19,180 --> 01:08:27,850
How does Hume account for that? Okay, so.

583
01:08:27,850 --> 01:08:30,280
He appeals to the well. He doesn't.

584
01:08:30,280 --> 01:08:40,300
We appeal on his behalf to the laws of nature to distinguish between those regularities that are causal and those that aren't.

585
01:08:40,300 --> 01:08:47,290
So no law of nature ensures that any male in this audience is a second son.

586
01:08:47,290 --> 01:08:52,480
But there is a law that underpins the fact that every child is born with Down syndrome,

587
01:08:52,480 --> 01:09:02,710
has Trisomy 21, has a third or a partial third copy of chromosome 21.

588
01:09:02,710 --> 01:09:10,060
So it's by appeal to the laws of nature that we say actually it's only regularities that are underpinned by the laws of nature.

589
01:09:10,060 --> 01:09:15,160
Now, if you'll thinking what's the law of nature, that's good.

590
01:09:15,160 --> 01:09:22,090
The laws of nature also underpin relations between fall in the atmospheric pressure and a falling barometer.

591
01:09:22,090 --> 01:09:32,320
And between the fall and atmospheric pressure and the onset of the storm, no separate law relates these two.

592
01:09:32,320 --> 01:09:41,680
So in order for a relation to for a correlation to be a causal correlation, it's got to be underpinned by a law of nature.

593
01:09:41,680 --> 01:09:47,770
That's what's so we can distinguish between accidental correlations and causal correlations.

594
01:09:47,770 --> 01:09:54,130
And we can get rid of the first really quite serious problem for Hume's theory.

595
01:09:54,130 --> 01:10:00,190
So it's only regularities underpinned by a law of nature that are causal.

596
01:10:00,190 --> 01:10:07,630
And for the second problem, the one that says that that regularity isn't necessary for causation.

597
01:10:07,630 --> 01:10:15,130
We can insist that it only appears to be the case that this causation without regularity.

598
01:10:15,130 --> 01:10:21,460
So Mitchell says and couple of you have already given voice to this objection.

599
01:10:21,460 --> 01:10:28,540
Whatever we identify as the cause of a given effect is in fact only part of the cause.

600
01:10:28,540 --> 01:10:35,920
So when we say that the match lit because it was struck.

601
01:10:35,920 --> 01:10:43,440
And you rightly point out that actually it wouldn't have lit even though it was struck if there was no oxygen around.

602
01:10:43,440 --> 01:10:48,640
Mill says quite right. The striking of the match was only part of the cause.

603
01:10:48,640 --> 01:10:54,700
An oxygen was another part of the cause. Another part of the cause was how hard you struck the match.

604
01:10:54,700 --> 01:11:04,630
And so on. So everything that's needed to make the cause sufficient for the effect has got to be in there as part of the cause.

605
01:11:04,630 --> 01:11:09,430
So we're partially describing the cause.

606
01:11:09,430 --> 01:11:13,630
So we pick out something is the cause when actually it isn't the cause.

607
01:11:13,630 --> 01:11:24,040
It's just part of the cause. And Davidson Donald Davidson says whenever we observe a case of causation, we always believe that there is a law.

608
01:11:24,040 --> 01:11:28,690
But we don't know what that law is. So we see one thing causing another.

609
01:11:28,690 --> 01:11:41,520
We see causation in the individual case. And we think that if a so you see an individual case of A causing B,

610
01:11:41,520 --> 01:11:49,610
but that makes you think that there is a law that somehow means that A was sufficient.

611
01:11:49,610 --> 01:11:55,520
Fibi. There's some law that underpins that's happening.

612
01:11:55,520 --> 01:12:02,460
If A did cause B, then there's some law of nature that makes it the case that if you were to repeat that a.

613
01:12:02,460 --> 01:12:09,780
Exactly. And the same exactly the same circumstances, you would again get a B.

614
01:12:09,780 --> 01:12:16,620
That's what causation is. So we see causation in an individual case or in a few cases,

615
01:12:16,620 --> 01:12:24,540
and then later through observation and experiment, i.e. science will discover a regularity.

616
01:12:24,540 --> 01:12:28,860
If it's true that A causes B, then if we look hard enough,

617
01:12:28,860 --> 01:12:36,930
we will find that there's a regularity underpinning that, a law of nature underpinning of it.

618
01:12:36,930 --> 01:12:49,630
Okay. Now how are we doing time wise? OK, now John Mackey argued that individual causes must be at least illness conditions for their effects.

619
01:12:49,630 --> 01:12:54,590
OK. A cause is an illness condition. If and only if that's not a misprint.

620
01:12:54,590 --> 01:13:08,210
It means if and only if the former i.e. the cause is an insufficient but necessary part of an unnecessary but sufficient condition of the effect.

621
01:13:08,210 --> 01:13:17,350
Now, if you think about again, then the think of a short circuit causing a fire, which is one that he was using.

622
01:13:17,350 --> 01:13:24,530
OK. The short circuit was not sufficient for the fire because there also had to be the flammable

623
01:13:24,530 --> 01:13:28,190
material that was sitting around it and the oxygen in the air and things like that.

624
01:13:28,190 --> 01:13:38,550
Okay. So the short circuit was insufficient, but it was necessary in that had the short circuit not occurred, the fire would not have occurred.

625
01:13:38,550 --> 01:13:43,550
OK, but it was an unnecessary but sufficient condition.

626
01:13:43,550 --> 01:13:48,550
It was sorry. Insufficient but necessary part of.

627
01:13:48,550 --> 01:13:58,530
Okay, so the short circuit was part of a set of conditions that were not themselves necessary because the fire might have started for other reasons,

628
01:13:58,530 --> 01:14:02,670
but that were, in fact, sufficient for the effect.

629
01:14:02,670 --> 01:14:07,470
Can you see how this would work out? I mean, it is very complicated trying to put it like that.

630
01:14:07,470 --> 01:14:16,440
But if you work through this yourself. So you say a short circuit caused a fire and you can work out why the short circuit is

631
01:14:16,440 --> 01:14:26,250
insufficient but necessary part of an unnecessary but sufficient condition of the fire.

632
01:14:26,250 --> 01:14:36,660
We can talk about that in a minute. So this is the canonical statement of RTC as used today.

633
01:14:36,660 --> 01:14:45,240
C is a cause of V if and only if for some time early as an E notice, we're getting the temporal priority in there.

634
01:14:45,240 --> 01:14:54,450
Causes come before their effects. C belongs to a set of events that occurred at T.

635
01:14:54,450 --> 01:15:00,900
That non redundantly suffices for E! In other words, it is sufficient for the effect.

636
01:15:00,900 --> 01:15:11,770
And what's more, it was necessary for the effect. And that is a cause of causing to the regularity theory of causation.

637
01:15:11,770 --> 01:15:16,060
And next week, we're going to look at a completely different theory of causation.

638
01:15:16,060 --> 01:15:22,270
That was for years considered to be a rival to the RTC. So lots of people didn't like the RTC.

639
01:15:22,270 --> 01:15:27,220
But this one came along instead. And what a relief. It's so much better.

640
01:15:27,220 --> 01:15:34,270
Or so we thought. Okay, I'm going to stop there and let's.

641
01:15:34,270 --> 01:15:41,530
See if we can make sense of that. OK? Is that thoroughly bamboozled you?

642
01:15:41,530 --> 01:15:45,500
Oh, yes, that would that would be good, actually.

643
01:15:45,500 --> 01:15:55,220
Douglas is going to go around with that with a microphone, if we can find the.

644
01:15:55,220 --> 01:16:02,710
Well, actually, there isn't a mike here. Don't worry.

645
01:16:02,710 --> 01:16:08,710
People asking questions just have to shout. We'll do that at the end.

646
01:16:08,710 --> 01:16:13,690
So just to recap, what we've done is we've looked at what the causation is,

647
01:16:13,690 --> 01:16:21,870
a concept that we have that is absolutely essential to our ability to explain, predict or manipulate the world.

648
01:16:21,870 --> 01:16:29,170
And so it's quite simple. What is this causation? What is this causal relation?

649
01:16:29,170 --> 01:16:31,690
Hume comes along and says, well, okay.

650
01:16:31,690 --> 01:16:39,850
If we look at the way we use the notion of causation in ordinary language, we treatises the concept a necessary connexion.

651
01:16:39,850 --> 01:16:46,880
So if A causes B, then A is sufficient for B, it necessitates B.

652
01:16:46,880 --> 01:16:56,050
And then Hume says, but it can't be because we must experience necessity in order to have this idea of metaphysical necessity.

653
01:16:56,050 --> 01:17:07,840
Well, if it can't be, what is causation? And he looks at the evidence for causation and what we think and points out that actually it's only a

654
01:17:07,840 --> 01:17:16,150
constant conjunction or correlation that we ever use and we could ever use as evidence for causation.

655
01:17:16,150 --> 01:17:21,070
And he thinks there is no more to causation than correlation.

656
01:17:21,070 --> 01:17:32,830
No more than constant conjunction. There's no metaphysical underpinning of that constant cause, constant conjunction.

657
01:17:32,830 --> 01:17:47,340
Okay, let's let's have a few questions. To go back to your last slide, the last statement, and I wonder if you could just explain what you've done.

658
01:17:47,340 --> 01:17:58,440
That one. Yeah. Yeah. Let's let's use it again with the short circuit.

659
01:17:58,440 --> 01:18:03,720
So there's a fire in a warehouse and the.

660
01:18:03,720 --> 01:18:15,390
Where's my pen? And the fireman comes in and he says the short circuit.

661
01:18:15,390 --> 01:18:19,830
Caused the fire. OK.

662
01:18:19,830 --> 01:18:25,410
We can, we can. That makes sense to us. We would accept that, especially as the firemen said it.

663
01:18:25,410 --> 01:18:34,540
But the and short circuit was that it was not itself sufficient for the fire.

664
01:18:34,540 --> 01:18:41,880
Okay. It was insufficient for the fire because if there hadn't been that that flammable material next to it.

665
01:18:41,880 --> 01:18:47,940
So that when the short circuit occurred, the flammable material caught fire and uncertain.

666
01:18:47,940 --> 01:18:52,770
Okay. So the short circuit caused the fire. But it was not sufficient for the fire.

667
01:18:52,770 --> 01:19:01,370
All these other things were needed as well. But it was necessary for the FA.

668
01:19:01,370 --> 01:19:07,130
In other words, had the shot, had the short circuit, not a curve occurred.

669
01:19:07,130 --> 01:19:10,820
The fire would not have occurred. Okay. On this day.

670
01:19:10,820 --> 01:19:18,030
So. So the reason the farm is saying the short circuit caused the fire is because it's true according to the farm.

671
01:19:18,030 --> 01:19:22,700
And that had the short circuit not occurred, the fire would not have occurred.

672
01:19:22,700 --> 01:19:33,690
So it's necessary. But it's a.

673
01:19:33,690 --> 01:19:45,520
Hang on. Have I got this the right way round? I'm actually going back to this one. Insufficient but necessary part of an unnecessary okay.

674
01:19:45,520 --> 01:19:54,960
The total calls. Was sufficient.

675
01:19:54,960 --> 01:20:01,050
OK. Because if you combine the short circuit carrying when it did the flammable material beside it,

676
01:20:01,050 --> 01:20:06,510
the fact there was oxygen in the air, etc., all of that was sufficient.

677
01:20:06,510 --> 01:20:12,120
But the total cause wasn't necessary because the fire might have occurred if

678
01:20:12,120 --> 01:20:17,580
some vandals had got in and started it with a match or something like that.

679
01:20:17,580 --> 01:20:25,920
So when the man says the short circuit caused the fire, it's shorthand, if you like,

680
01:20:25,920 --> 01:20:32,400
for the short circuit was not itself sufficient for the fire, but it was necessary.

681
01:20:32,400 --> 01:20:38,250
And the thing that was sufficient for the fire was the totality of conditions that caused the fire,

682
01:20:38,250 --> 01:20:44,680
which, of course, were not necessary for the fire because the fire might have started in other ways.

683
01:20:44,680 --> 01:20:54,320
OK. So it's all getting very complicated, but it's only when you get all those conditions in.

684
01:20:54,320 --> 01:21:00,310
OK, so it's so moving. How did that get translated into this?

685
01:21:00,310 --> 01:21:06,450
Sometime earlier than see. So the short circuit caused the fire. The fire happened at TI.

686
01:21:06,450 --> 01:21:10,250
And the short circuits caused at T minus one. Okay.

687
01:21:10,250 --> 01:21:15,560
So the short circuit occurred at T minus one. And the fire occurred at T.

688
01:21:15,560 --> 01:21:27,020
So this is set of events. The total cause that occurred t that non redundantly suffices for E.

689
01:21:27,020 --> 01:21:33,700
In other words the. Short circuit was necessary.

690
01:21:33,700 --> 01:21:49,900
It wasn't redundant. Don redundantly crucifies go with C on the set of events centres it C builds.

691
01:21:49,900 --> 01:21:59,010
Oh, I see, occurring to see. Yes, it's the set of events that non redundantly suffices for tea.

692
01:21:59,010 --> 01:22:03,610
But don't worry too much about this canonical statement.

693
01:22:03,610 --> 01:22:08,850
And they only I mean, I used to get very fed up reading Macchi.

694
01:22:08,850 --> 01:22:14,210
The only thing that you need to note to remember really are these three things.

695
01:22:14,210 --> 01:22:18,900
Okay, let's make it really easy for you. Quite properly.

696
01:22:18,900 --> 01:22:23,940
There's no I'm not dumbing down. This is going up too far.

697
01:22:23,940 --> 01:22:28,770
You don't need it. Although I've got to say, it says three things you need.

698
01:22:28,770 --> 01:22:44,880
What are they? Okay, so Hume says that causation is regularity and also temporal priority and spatial contiguity.

699
01:22:44,880 --> 01:22:57,490
But but regularity is the important thing. The problem is that regularity and no causation.

700
01:22:57,490 --> 01:23:04,300
And causation and no regularity.

701
01:23:04,300 --> 01:23:09,620
OK, that's causation isn't sufficient for regularity and causation isn't necessary for regularity.

702
01:23:09,620 --> 01:23:11,260
Sorry. All the way round.

703
01:23:11,260 --> 01:23:21,760
So if your insisting that there's an identity between those two things, then it shouldn't be the case that you have can have one without the other.

704
01:23:21,760 --> 01:23:35,790
Should it? Okay. And so the solution is regularity and no causation.

705
01:23:35,790 --> 01:23:44,280
The solution is the laws of nature. When you have a regularity that isn't causal, it's because it's a coincidence or something like that.

706
01:23:44,280 --> 01:23:48,090
So in order to be causal, it needs to be underpinned by laws.

707
01:23:48,090 --> 01:23:57,260
Law of nature and the other one. You've got to think of total causes.

708
01:23:57,260 --> 01:24:05,240
And partial causes, so you may think says causation and no regularity.

709
01:24:05,240 --> 01:24:09,980
Because the short circuit has occurred, not every short circuit causes a fire.

710
01:24:09,980 --> 01:24:14,870
So why do you think this short circuit causes the fire if it's supposed to be a regularity here?

711
01:24:14,870 --> 01:24:26,090
Well, answer you've got to look at the total cause, the whole set of conditions that were sufficient for the effect.

712
01:24:26,090 --> 01:24:40,740
Does that help a bit? Surely it's a regular co-occurrence RVO.

713
01:24:40,740 --> 01:24:44,920
The man was the point.

714
01:24:44,920 --> 01:24:51,920
Should go. Excellent. You are absolutely right.

715
01:24:51,920 --> 01:24:57,320
And I said the point. I introduced it, I said, if you're wondering what a law of nature is.

716
01:24:57,320 --> 01:25:18,080
That's a it's a very good question. So if if we were appealing to laws of nature to distinguish causal correlations and non causal correlations,

717
01:25:18,080 --> 01:25:23,960
i.e. accidents or two effects of the same cause or something like that.

718
01:25:23,960 --> 01:25:29,150
Well, then a law of nature ought to be something different from a regularity, oughtn't it?

719
01:25:29,150 --> 01:25:39,620
And interestingly, the type of account of law of nature doesn't really distinguish between this.

720
01:25:39,620 --> 01:25:50,180
What it does is it science will come in and say, okay, every male in this room is a second son and is there a causal relationship there?

721
01:25:50,180 --> 01:25:56,600
Now, if all they looked at was the correlation between second sons and here, you would have to say there is a causal relation.

722
01:25:56,600 --> 01:26:06,080
But what you would do is you say, well, okay, if there's a law of nature there, it must be the same outside this room.

723
01:26:06,080 --> 01:26:09,470
And so they would try and do it elsewhere. They would try and see.

724
01:26:09,470 --> 01:26:16,310
And so actually a law of nature has got to be implicated in our best deductive systems.

725
01:26:16,310 --> 01:26:23,330
That's what a law of nature is. So it's a correlation that works over and over again in different places of the world,

726
01:26:23,330 --> 01:26:28,010
at different times of the world with different observers, et cetera.

727
01:26:28,010 --> 01:26:31,010
So you picked up a very good point.

728
01:26:31,010 --> 01:26:41,240
And it's it's interesting whether it's answered properly by saying that, because do you see that there's nothing but correlations there?

729
01:26:41,240 --> 01:26:51,090
It's just the correlations have got to work more generally. You don't need any mechanism.

730
01:26:51,090 --> 01:26:56,940
Once again, you're going back to a human idea that there is no more to causation than regularity,

731
01:26:56,940 --> 01:27:09,510
but the regularity must be, if you like, scientifically respectable. So Sorensen's has got to establish it happens more often than just in this room.

732
01:27:09,510 --> 01:27:14,040
Does every male in this room is his second son? Could be coincidence.

733
01:27:14,040 --> 01:27:21,630
But if every male who ever goes to a lecture anywhere is a second son, that starts to look really quite interesting.

734
01:27:21,630 --> 01:27:25,900
I mean, you might start thinking of possible explanations for that.

735
01:27:25,900 --> 01:27:31,480
But but if you do find an explanation, it'll be a correlation at a lower level.

736
01:27:31,480 --> 01:27:38,820
You can't go straight, speak up in the economical statement of gravity theory.

737
01:27:38,820 --> 01:27:47,980
What is it? C which occurs in relation to.

738
01:27:47,980 --> 01:27:52,390
The first billiard ball hitting the other one. And the second one rolling off.

739
01:27:52,390 --> 01:28:02,160
Well, surely they're secure simultaneously. Why didn't they do, do they?

740
01:28:02,160 --> 01:28:08,020
Well, I mean, there is a question whether there can be I mean, if you miss right, they cannot be simultaneous causation.

741
01:28:08,020 --> 01:28:16,280
And lots of people have asked, you know, why there couldn't be simultaneous causation.

742
01:28:16,280 --> 01:28:20,970
Is this statement modifiable possibility of simultaneous causation?

743
01:28:20,970 --> 01:28:25,780
Because I can't see if if.

744
01:28:25,780 --> 01:28:34,200
Well, you could just say see below. See is the cause of. If and only if C belongs to a set of events, that's non redundantly suffices free.

745
01:28:34,200 --> 01:28:38,040
What you could just take the temporal reference out,

746
01:28:38,040 --> 01:28:46,500
because in such a case you are describing the totality of the situation in which case cause becomes indistinguishable from the effect.

747
01:28:46,500 --> 01:28:53,930
Well, you could say that, yeah. Bob, speak up.

748
01:28:53,930 --> 01:29:00,000
Did. Is it thought that Hume had any answers to the questions somebody might have asked him?

749
01:29:00,000 --> 01:29:07,240
What is it that causes the laws of nature to be what they are?

750
01:29:07,240 --> 01:29:11,280
Well, you it would be.

751
01:29:11,280 --> 01:29:14,170
I mean, Hughan himself didn't talk about laws of nature.

752
01:29:14,170 --> 01:29:23,050
It was it was M. who introduced laws of nature in explanation of regularities that are not causal.

753
01:29:23,050 --> 01:29:33,070
So you can't really ask him that question. But you could say, well, what is the explanation of this law of nature?

754
01:29:33,070 --> 01:29:40,720
And you would look further down and all you would find, if humour is right, is yet another correlation.

755
01:29:40,720 --> 01:29:45,500
So you might be able to find an explanation of one.

756
01:29:45,500 --> 01:29:53,270
Correlation in terms of another correlation, and you might be able to find an explanation for that lower correlation in terms of lower correlation.

757
01:29:53,270 --> 01:30:03,040
But what you will never find if you miss right, is is a relation that isn't just a regularity.

758
01:30:03,040 --> 01:30:13,570
So you'll never find a physical relation, for example. So science will never say are this physical relation is the causal relation?

759
01:30:13,570 --> 01:30:27,060
Because Hume thinks that's doesn't make sense. OK, one more, then we better finish, you know, cause.

760
01:30:27,060 --> 01:30:34,560
Well, that that statement make makes. I mean, you can use that in so many different contexts.

761
01:30:34,560 --> 01:30:44,140
And I mean, it could be a moral claim or or. But I don't see why he would be saying that.

762
01:30:44,140 --> 01:30:48,280
Well, he is saying that that all our ideas come from impressions.

763
01:30:48,280 --> 01:30:55,220
But that's not the same as saying that everything is relative. Nothing is absolute.

764
01:30:55,220 --> 01:31:05,770
I mean, I don't know why you would want to say that in this context information.

765
01:31:05,770 --> 01:31:11,170
Okay, and you're saying that that means that everything's relative, everything's relative to.

766
01:31:11,170 --> 01:31:20,400
Okay. If you want to think of it that way, I would rather not.

767
01:31:20,400 --> 01:31:25,120
But I'm not quite sure how you're understanding it, so I'm not quite sure.

768
01:31:25,120 --> 01:31:30,020
If I if I can if I can say that you're wrong or indeed that you're right.

769
01:31:30,020 --> 01:31:31,900
Okay, let's let's finish there.

770
01:31:31,900 --> 01:31:38,920
Next week, I'll look at the counterfactual theory and you'll find that as we go through looking at the different theories,

771
01:31:38,920 --> 01:31:42,790
we'll give you a better grip on what causation is. Altogether.

772
01:31:42,790 --> 01:32:00,962
I mean, I hope you won't go away from these lectures knowing what the causation is.