OK. Right. Let's get started. Lecture three.
Wow. Oh, now hang on. I'm not pointing to the right area.
Here we are. Okay, so just to go through what we did last week so that we remind ourselves where we were.
We answered, as we're always asking these lectures, what is causation?
And we looked at one possible answer is, could it be counterfactual dependence?
And if you remember, counterfactual dependence e counterfactual need depends on C, if had C not occurred, E would not have occurred.
So that's counterfactual dependence. And we saw no.
If we looked at we looked at early pre-emption. Do you remember Lucy throwing the rock.
And we saw that there can be causation without counterfactual dependence because Lucy's rock throwing cause the window to shatter.
But if Lucy hadn't thrown her rock, the window would still have shattered because Brian would have shattered it.
So then we looked at could causation consist in chains of counterfactual dependence,
thereby picking up a question that somebody asked me after the session in the first week.
Lady there. So could it be chains of counterfactual dependence and trouble there was with trumping?
Do you remember the sergeant major? So no. Did I get that right?
No. The major and the sergeant both yelled or ordered advance.
And the troops advanced. But of course, it was the major's order that called into advance, not the sergeant's order,
because the major trumps the sergeant and leaked pre-emption where Brian throws his rocks so soon after Lucy that there's nowhere
that there's a chain of counterfactual dependents leading back to Lucy's rock throwing that isn't there in Brian's rock throwing.
So it can't be just chains of counterfactual dependence.
And then we looked, if you remember, we looked at the idea of an alternate event.
So an event that's different in time or place or slightly in manner from another event.
And we see that had Lucy's rock throwing being slightly different, the window shattering would have been slightly different.
So but had Brian's rock throwing being different, the window shattering would have been exactly the same.
So it looks as if we can say that it was Lucy's rock that shattered the window
because there a chain of stepwise influence there that's missing with Brian's rock.
And we looked at some objections to this,
but all the objections to that seemed to be dealt with by making a distinction between causation and explanation.
So if you remember, we looked at. OK.
There's a chain of stepwise influences from the compass starting his campfire to the forest fire, burning the forest down.
But there's also a chain of stepwise influence from the campers birth to the burning down of the forest.
So why should we say that one is the cause when the other isn't?
And Lewis says if you remember that he holds no truck with these principles of invidious selection.
He's not interested in an explanation. He's only interested in causation.
And yes, it's true that the campers birth was amongst the causes of the forest fire, the forest burning down.
But the one we choose to explain, the forest fire burning down is not the campers birth,
obviously, because it doesn't help to make the forest far intelligible.
But the for the campers, lighting the forest fire does help to make the forest fire into.
Sorry. The campfire does help to make the forest fire intelligible. And therefore we can cite it in an explanation.
So there's a difference between two events that are equally causes of the forest fire.
That one's an explanation and the other isn't.
But we mustn't mistake that for thinking that one is the cause and the other isn't, because they're both causes.
But then we looked at whether the counterfactual theory of causation, which is what all of this is, of course, is just a type of regularity theory.
And if you remember,
we looked at Helen Beebees claim that actually because the counterfactual theory of causation rests on the idea of laws of nature.
Exactly. In the way that the regularity theory rests on laws of nature.
And in each case, the laws of nature are understood along the mill.
Ramsey Lewis model, according to which some things a law of nature, a regularity or a description of a regularity counts.
The law of nature and if and only if it can be taken out of our best theories of explanation.
So interestingly, the laws of nature themselves depend upon intelligibility to us.
So it looks as if the counterfactual theory of causation is just a version of the regularity theory of causation,
which would, of course, Lewis's hair to fall out, which would have been interesting, given that he's got so much of it.
But he he thought that his counterfactual theory of causation was a rival to the regularity theory, but it looks as if it might not be.
OK. That's what we did last week. OK. Right.
I'm not going to ask for questions of clarification, but I hope there'll be enough time left at the end.
If there are any questions, by all means, ask them. And you could always e-mail me.
People have been e-mailing me questions. So. So do e-mail me.
Except that if you e-mail me a question, I will answer it.
So beware of my time because I am sorry I'm pointing out Mike here because he sends me reams of questions and then says you don't need to answer them.
Okay, so let's look at this week. This week, we're going to look at a new interpretation of Hume.
So somebody who believes that all these regularity and counterfactual theories that
have been derived from Hume's work are actually based on a misinterpretation of Hume.
And we're going to look at singular ist theories of causation. And I'll explain what they are, of course.
We're going to look at the argument for the new interpretation. So we're going to look first at what it is.
And later, the argument for it. And we're going to look at an ambiguity in the new interpretation.
And finally, we're going to clarify it.
And so we'll leave today with a new interpretation of Hume, but we won't have looked at a version of the new type of theory that will come from it.
We'll just just be looking at the different interpretation of human.
OK. So the traditional interpretation of Hume that we've already looked at Hume on the
traditional interpretation believes that causation is both real and mind independent.
He's a realist. The traditional Hume is a realist about causation.
He thinks that even if there were no human beings, there would still be events that cause each other.
They'd still be causal relations in the world. But he thinks that there's no more to causation than regularity.
So what he's saying is that regularities exist independently of us and our minds.
So even if we didn't exist, there would be regular events in the universe.
There'd be correlations between events of certain types, and therefore there'd be causation whether we're here or not.
So whether there's any explanation of any of these events is completely irrelevant as long as there's causation.
There's potential explanation. But if there are no human beings, there's nobody either to explain or to have something explained to them.
Let's leave other animals out of this for the moment. Okay.
So the traditional Hume is a reductive realist.
He's a realist. He thinks that causation is real and mind independent.
But he reduces causation to regularity. He thinks that there isn't causation in the individual case.
When you see one billiard ball hitting another and there isn't a causal relation there, there's only a causal relation.
In virtue of the fact that actually when any one billiard ball hits another billiard ball, the second billiard ball will roll off.
It's that regularity that's causation. Okay, so what is this new interpretation of Hume?
Well, it's, again, a realist theory exactly the same way it believes that causation is real and mind independent.
So explanation is a totally different thing. Causation exists whether we exist or not.
But it thinks that there might be more to causation than regularity.
For example, it might be a power or force or a necessary connexion of some kind.
So whereas Hume thinks it's nothing more than regularity, nothing more than correlation.
This new interpretation says that Hume allows that there may be necessary connexion or a power.
So the first billiard balls hitting the second. Has power.
That makes the second run Rohloff. So the New Hume is called a sceptical realist.
He's a realist. Because of this again, and sceptical because he's saying there might be more to causation.
Not that there is more to causation, but that there might be.
And you'll see a bit more later about why we think why why we call this sceptical realism.
OK. So that's the new interpretation of Hume. And so the new interpretation of Hume introduces the possibility of a singular IST theory of causation.
And that's quite different from the two theories of causation.
Or two versions of the one theory of causation, depending on whether you agree with Helen Beebee or not that we've already looked at.
So let's according to a singular ISTE theory of causation, which I'm going to call STC because I'm lazy.
Firstly, causation is not austere. It's not reductive.
So what? Hume thinks there is no causation in the individual case.
It's only because we see the correlation that we say that there's causation.
But and therefore, where we're denying that there is a power or a force or an intrinsic property in a cause that makes the effect happen.
So we're not reducing causation to regularity. Instead, what we're saying causation is a real force of some kind or is or could be a real force.
And so it's a real relation between two individual events.
When the first billiard ball hits the second billiard ball, there is a force, a power, a necessary connexion.
They're quite independently of anything else that happens.
Any other case of one billiard ball hitting another billiard ball.
So it's present in the individual actually arms. Explain this all the time.
It's it's really the same points just in different ways. And so we're saying that causation is an intrinsic relation.
It's intrinsic to the individual case, not extrinsic to it.
So intrinsic means that it would have the property, whatever else were the case.
So, for example, being female is an intrinsic property of mine.
Even if the rest of you were to disappear off the face of the earth or have never been born or anything like that, I would still be females.
I was left. I'd still be female. It's an intrinsic property of mine.
But that time, taller than average for for a woman is not an intrinsic property of mine.
It's relative to everyone else, all the other women in the world.
Okay, so there are certain properties we have that are intrinsic properties that we'd have, whether anything else existed or not.
And there are other properties like being five foot six, bigger wife, being a husband that we have only because there are other things.
So according to the singulars theory of causation, causation is a property that's an intrinsic or being a cause is an intrinsic property of the event
that causes and other effects and being an event effect is an intrinsic property of an effect.
You don't need to look at correlations, constant conjunctions, regularities before you can say that there is a cause there.
So singulars theory of causation postulates a real connexion between cause and effect,
not just a real regularity between repeated instances of the type of event instantiated by cause and effect.
And if you think about that, there's a.
So one billiard ball hit another billiard ball and calls it to cause it to rub off.
According to the traditional Hume, you've got to see lots of instances of this before you have a case of causation.
It comes in when you've seen these types of event correlated with these types of event
according to the singulars theory of causation or the new interpretation of Hume.
It happens in the individual case. That can be a case of a causal relation.
You don't need to have seen more of them. Okay, so a real connexion between Tolkan events rather than a regularity between types of events.
Okay, so the new interpretation of Hume is the brainchild of Galen Straus, and there he is looking rather younger, I think.
And perhaps I might have chosen a more up to date one, but that there is his book and that's you might have an earlier copy of this.
I have an earlier copy of this. But that's the book in which he gives the new interpretation.
Strauss' argument for the new interpretation is this.
He believes that the traditional interpretation slides from the claim that we have no idea of necessary connexion, which is an epistemological claim.
Can anyone tell me why that's an epistemological claim, not a metaphysical claim?
Because it's talking about our knowledge of necessary connexion. We have no idea of necessary connexion.
That's a fact about us. Okay. Not a fact about the world independently of us.
It's a fact about us. So the traditional interpretation slides from this epistemological claim to this metaphysical claim.
There is no necessary connexion. Now, that isn't a claim about us.
That's a claim about the world independently of us. Its claim about necessary connexion itself.
Can everyone see that? That's an epistemological claim. And that's a metaphysical claim.
And that you cannot go from one to the other because it could be true that we have no idea of necessary connexion.
And yet there be a necessary connexion, couldn't it?
And this is obvious. So it could be true that we have no idea that the earth is round, but it's still round.
So what we think we know about the world, but our beliefs about the world and how the world is are two separate things.
We hope they come together. But but they don't necessarily.
Okay. So according to Straughan, Hume does make the epistemological claim.
He does believe that we have no idea of necessary connexion.
But he doesn't make. And he wouldn't have made the metaphysical claim.
So according to Straughan, Hume didn't and wouldn't have said there is no necessary connexion.
So the metaphor, because the physical claim, according to Straughan,
goes completely against Coomes confirmed and sceptical belief that we're ignorant of the way the world is independently of our ideas of it.
Now Strauss' onto something here. I mean, Hume is a sceptic.
He does believe that if if there is something that we couldn't know, then that thing may as well not exist.
That we can only know what we can know. She said rather obviously.
But he does claim that as far as the world is independently of ideas, we can have no idea of it.
We can only only know the world through are ideas. And if you think about that, that's a very old philosophical idea.
You think of Descartes for a second who wasn't an empiricist by any means.
But Descartes pointed out that we can only know the world through our perceptions of the world.
We believe that our perceptions of the world are caused by the world,
cause notice by the world, and that our perceptions are a good guide to how the world is.
But actually, how can we know that, given that we can't stand outside our perceptions,
the world, to see the world as it is in itself, independently of our ideas of it?
How could we do that? So Slawson thinks because Hume wouldn't claim anything about what we know about.
The world independently of ideas. Our ideas of it. He would never have made the metaphysical claim even if he did make the epistemological claim.
So the new interpretation of Hume has Hume affirming the possibility, not the actuality.
And that's important because Hume is not saying that necessary connexion does exist.
If he's sceptical about the world into art or knowledge of the world independently of our ideas, the world,
then the fact we have no idea of necessary connexion tells us nothing about necessary connexion, does it?
It doesn't say that there is necessarily a connexion, but it also doesn't say that there isn't necessarily a connexion.
Hence the problem with the traditional theory, according to Rawson.
So the traditional turf irritation of Hume denies even the possibility of necessary connexion.
It says, well, I mean, it looks as if the the argument is exactly the argument that Straus Ancestors',
the Hume goes from the idea we don't have an idea of necessary connexion.
If you remember, as far as we're concerned,
the the one billiard ball might hit another and the other could turn purple and spin off in the other direction,
like the illustration I had in the first case. There is no necessary connexion between a cause and its effect.
It's not entailed. Okay. So according to Straus and there are two reasons Hume would have admitted the possibility of necessary connexion.
That's against the traditional interpretation. Firstly, he thinks the necessary connexion is part of our ordinary idea of causation.
And he was very into the acceptance of our ordinary ideas.
He used to, you know, hit their heads. He'd call us the vulgar.
Those of us who are not philosophers, he calls the vulgar.
But if he thinks that if the vulgar have a certain idea and it's an idea that's irremovable,
that they're going to keep on whatever you say to them, then we've got to pay proper attention to that idea.
So induction, for example, the idea that the future is like the past is an idea that can't be shifted from the way we think.
Whatever we do and says so Hume says, well, we've got to accept that induction exists while at the same time denying that it's logically justifiable.
So if necessary, connexion is part of our ordinary idea of causation,
then we shouldn't just dismiss the idea of the existence of necessary connexion and secondly, set.
Secondly, secondly, I don't know why that happened. Slawson believes that it's implausible to deny the existence of necessary connexion.
He thinks it's blindingly obvious that there can't be just regularities.
There's got to be an explanation for these regularities. Notice word explanation comes in here again.
So. So how can there just be one billiard ball hitting another and the other Roli of one billiard
ball hitting another and the other rolling off one billiard ball hitting another and the other.
Surely there's got to be an explanation for why this regularity not only exists,
but is indeed a regularity and one that we can use to predict and explain and manipulate the world.
Okay, so let's have a look at these reasons.
Let me stop there for a second. Just ask if there are any questions of clarification at this point.
Just refer back any particular passages and any handouts, I've given you all the references.
Sorry, I haven't put them on here because I think it's easier to have slides that have a little writing on those possible.
But in the handout, you'll find all the references to everything. Least I think.
And if there is something that you don't find, just e-mail me and I'll send it to you and the other questions of clarification at this point.
No. Okay, let's carry on looking at recent once. Okay.
So the idea of reason one, if you remember, was that necessary connexion is part of our ordinary idea of causation.
Well, traditionalists won't deny that. If you remember, they they see it as humans.
Negative argument. Do you remember them first week? So we think that there is necessary connexion.
But but how do we get an idea of necessary connexion? Therefore, we've got to explain the idea of necessary connexion.
But we can explain it away, says the traditional human.
So traditionalists accept that necessary connexion is part of the ordinary idea of Corney causation.
But they believe that Hume explained it as a habit of mind projected onto the world.
I'm going to explain that. Okay.
So if you remember, Hume said, well, okay, how can we get an idea from lots of instances that we don't get in the first one?
Okay. I mean, surely what if it's missing from the first one?
It's missing from all of them, isn't it?
And what Hume says, or at least the traditional Hume says, is that when we see this happen and that's how this happened and that happened.
This happened and that happened. It causes us, if we see that again, to expect the second event.
And it's that expectation that we project onto the world.
So necessary connexion doesn't exist in the world independently of us.
It's we who project a necessary connexion onto the world as a result of the habit that forms when we see a constant conjunction.
So if we see A and B constantly conjoined, then when we see DNA, we're going to expect a B.
And it's that expectation that we think is necessary connexion.
So it's we projecting a habit of ours onto the world.
But Straughan argues that Hume's appeal to habits needn't be interpreted as explaining away the idea of necessary connexion.
Instead, it can be interpreted as signalling that the idea of necessary connexion is a relative, not a representative idea.
So this is a very important move on Galen's Strauss' part.
If you remember, Hume is an empiricist. He believes that we can't have ideas without having impressions first.
So if you remember, I liken that to we can't have concepts without having percepts first.
So we couldn't have a concept of red, for example, unless we had experienced red.
So blind people who can't experience red, they can have a concept of red,
but they can't have the same concept that we as normally sighted people have.
So their concept of red is going to be parasitic upon our concept of red, because red is a concept of size.
It comes from an impression that comes through site. So.
That's Humes empiricism. There's got to be an impression before there's an idea, but what Straus is saying is that there are two types of idea.
There's one type of idea that comes from an impression that's a representative idea, but there's another type of idea that's a relative idea.
So we've got to understand Hume's epistemological claim very carefully.
Our idea of necessary connexion has no content. It is not a representative idea.
There is no impression of necessary connexion. We do not look at this and this.
And this and this. And this and this and see a necessary connexion and therefore form an idea of what necessary connexion is like.
Instead, our idea of necessary connexion is a relative idea, if you like.
And the way we'd put it these days and the way Hume couldn't have put it, because the idea of a theoretical postulate wasn't around in Hume's time.
But it a theoretical idea. It's an idea of fact which lies behind.
So theoretical ideas are formed in explanation of our observations and experiences,
so we see the tracks in the Wilson Clouds chamber and we postulate the existence of atoms.
Okay. We see certain observations and we postulate something or other to explain.
So, for example, the Higgs Boesen until recently was an ideal theoretical postulate.
Our theories postulated it.
What we saw about the world, our observations, the world enabled us to form a theory which postulated the existence of something that had this.
These properties or this activity, et cetera. So it's formed an explanation of our observations and experiences.
And the idea of that which lies behind our experience.
The cause, if you like, of of what we're experiencing. So can you see that there are these two different ideas?
There's this idea of red, which is pre-eminently. A representative idea.
My concept of red must have come from an impression.
I couldn't have had a concept of red. Not the concept I have any other way than by experiencing redness.
That my concept of Higgs bows on. Or my concept of God, if you like.
God is another theoretical idea is postulated in explanation of the observations that I see.
And a theoretical postulate is something that is postulated in order to explain.
So Strauss' idea is that if you like, causation is a theoretical idea, not an idea of not a representative idea, not a content awful idea.
So according to the new interpretation of Hume, Hume thinks we've got an idea of causation as that which lies behind regularity.
So why do we experience these things in rigid, regular succession?
Answer There's some causal relation between each of them, which explains why they're always in constant conjunction.
So that which lies behind regularity. And you might think of it as the something we know, not what.
Okay. We don't know what causation is. We only know the the effects, if you like, of causation.
So we don't know what atoms are. Exactly. We only know the effects of the essence when we see the tracks in the Wilson Cloud Chamber.
Okay. Any questions at that point? Do you see the distinction between representative ideas and relative ideas or theoretical ideas?
David O. Does this argument strauss' argument?
Yes. Does it some sort of equivalent between the Higgs boson particle?
And is there a connexion in terms of their explanatory power?
Because one feels about eyesight. Or better be able to say are experts on.
Oh. Whereas with a necessary connexion. Going to the doctors is going to do it.
Okay. Yes. No. That's an interesting question. Okay. And it's true that once you've postulated an entity or a relation that explains something,
the next thing you're going to want to do is try and find that entity itself, aren't you?
And it's quite true that I mean,
the Large Hadron Collider is a pretty good example of our faith in our theories of physics that we will find the Higgs bows on.
We will be able to see it.
The question of whether we'll see whatever it is that causes whatever it is that lies behind regularity is a very different question.
We might know what sort of experiment that we can do because we might think that this as
the traditional Hume was that there's nothing all the way down but yet another regularity.
So if we find what explains that regularity, we'll just find another aguy like Varity, which itself needs explanation.
And so on, all the way down. So you're quite right.
It's very difficult to think of what experiments you might construct that would enable you to find a necessary connexion.
Just big. Well, we're we're going to say I'll say something about that later.
So, OK, Bob, I'm surprised about the traditional interpretation because Hume says more than once in the enquiry that there could be a sequel.
There are implies that a secret power, which we can't ever find out.
We're going to look at the regularity. And also, when he talks about getting simpler and simpler, more and more basic laws of nature,
regularities, even if we did got the ultimate, we wouldn't actually know what caused it.
Well, I mean, the first is an expression of the of the new interpretation fume.
And the second is an expression of the old interpretation of him.
And Straus makes a lot of the places in Hume where he talks about special powers and so on and says that this is grist to his mill.
But actually, if you are talking about all the way down, then you're talking about the judicial interpretation of him.
If you go all the way down, you still haven't really. You still wouldn't have found else.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, I wonder if you if people were traditionalists, but if you won't find anything else then then as an empiricist he's got to say,
you know, well what good is this something else to us.
And again, I'll say something about that later on. Mike, just describe to me exactly on Bob's question.
There is one point where you said something like, yes, of course, we can allow for causation to be obvious in a single instance,
provided that particular observation can be subsumed under previously observed regularity.
Isn't that kind of in-between ground between the old and new?
Well, I mean, I think I think there's quite a lot.
I mean, when you when you read, it stauss and you'll see that he gives lots of places in Hume, which he says a grist to his mill.
And I find myself quite sympathetic with a lot of what he says.
And as I said earlier, how can you I mean, Hume himself says at one point, how can you see in the multitude of cases what you can't see?
In one case, you know, that seems to be causation has got to be there in the individual case,
in which case no causation as opposed to our knowledge of causation, which is the distinction.
Oh, I see. Okay.
What I'm trying to ask really is this particular comment of Humes strikes me as kind of in between the two interpretation, agreeing with neither.
Well, I mean, a lot of what he says wouldn't agree with either, because, of course,
actually the sintered two interpretation is something we're imposing on on him.
And he wouldn't have had any theory of theoretical ideas.
I mean, we know a lot about theoretical postulates now.
I mean, Lewis himself worked very important paper on how can anyone tell me what it's called?
I can't remember why he talks about theoretical ideas.
It is an important paper and I can't remember what it's called, I'll try and remember to bring it next week.
Two more questions and then I'll move on. Sure. If they're fairly quick, it's this idea.
The traditional the new one. Yes. If you could devise an event that only ever occurs once.
Well, the Big Bang, for instance, I'm going to say that. But yes, that supports this idea because that preference.
In fact, no big bang. No idea.
I'm sure you couldn't find an event that occurs only once and that causes another event that has an effect effect associate.
Yes, of course. You could still say had had this occurred again, it would have had the same effect, but it didn't.
Okay, but but Huma's regularity theory would allow that.
What would what he wouldn't allow is that we would know it's a case of causation.
Because without the regularity there, we can't know that it's causation.
Sort of wondering if you consider physical.
Well, that that's what we're asking. Not when.
This is all very strange, mystical kind of this is something that lives to me.
There is a mystery here. But but the mystery is not mystical. I mean, when we're talking about something that lies behind, we're just and for example,
I postulate beliefs and desires in explanation of your behaviour.
Nobody's ever seen a belief or a desire.
But but their theoretical postulates, we postulate them an explanation of certain behaviours and nothing that chair does.
I mean, it would they would see those things. Two classes in a human activity, cause and effect and then natural, unthinking.
But but if you think about a theory, a theory is is constructed in order to explain certain observations.
If you have a theory that says, okay, we x we see these things.
And if we postulate something with these properties as the cause of these X observations, this is a theory.
And if the theory is a good one, we can now try and search out a little bit more about these things that we're postulating.
Those explanations. So causation is behind all of this.
I mean, you don't have a theory that's postulated an explanation.
I mean, if you remember I mean, either, you know, any of these, we would consider whether there's different kinds of causation.
Oh, yes. This manmade formation. Human human causation.
Well, I'm going to be talking about mental causation as a very particular type of causation thing.
Yeah, well, we're going to talk about mental causation. The whole of week six.
So, OK, so we what's important in understanding Hume is this.
We've got to distinguish the logically unknowable locks for those of you who are familiar with John Locke,
the idea of the something we know, not what. So Locke postulated the sort of coathanger theory of substance.
So we only X and we never experience extension or substance space filling this.
All we ever experience is properties that go together.
And we might think of of objects as bundles of properties.
And the substance. Why? Why do we think substance exists?
Well, it's that in which the properties in here.
So the substance that a human being is that which carries all the properties of it.
But what's the substance itself and how do we know about this? Is it logically unknowable, i.e. it Sutton doesn't itself have any properties.
It's just that the thing on which properties in here.
Well. Why should we postulate something that has no properties,
something that in principle we couldn't experience, something that in principle is unknowable?
That's that's really very uncomfortable. And it's certainly uncomfortable for an empiricist.
All we could talk about, something empirically unknown, something that science could in principle discover.
OK. Do you see the difference there? A difference between something that's logically.
I mean, imagine writing a research proposal that you can go off and find something that logic can tell you is unknowable.
That it has no properties. There's no way you could recognise it.
There's nothing to be discovered. I mean, nobody is gonna give you any money.
I mean, they probably won't give you any money anyway, but they're certainly not going to give you money for that.
And quite right, too. Whereas if something's empirically unknown, then that's a different matter entirely, isn't it?
That's that's something. If you can give me a good enough reason to think that this thing exists,
even though nobody has yet seen it, then I might give you some money to to go and see if you can find it.
So Hume, the empiricist would never have countenanced something logically unknowable.
Why should you postulate the existence of something logically unknowable?
But the postulation is something empirically unknown is a completely different kettle of fish at all.
We've got to understand if if Strauss' is right in his interpretation of Hume, we've got to understand it that way.
To understand it in that way would be too big a stretch of Hume's empiricism.
Anymore questions at that point? No.
Okay, so let's have a look at this idea of causation being something that's empirically unknown.
So we have this theoretical idea of causation.
And what we're saying is that causation itself is a relation between events or, you know, whatever it is between.
We don't know what it is at the moment. All we know is that it gives rise to regularities between types of events.
But what we want to know is what this event is in itself. So in the same way that Higgs bows on.
We don't know what it is in itself, but it gives rise to all these things that we observe.
And we think we can find it. If we look harder or crash some particles into each other hard enough.
Okay, let's have a look at this. There are two ways. There's real essence and there's as a realised of a functional role.
These are two ways we might understand a theoretical idea.
So let's have a look at real essence. Okay.
The idea of a distinction between real a nominal essence is actually already there.
In Aristotle. So five hundred years B.C.
A long time ago. But science, for example, discovered that water is H2O.
It's also discovered that gold has atomic number seventy nine.
Well, long before we discovered that water was H2O, we talked about water.
We used water. We exchanged confidences about water.
We knew what water is. There are people around today who don't know that water is H2O.
But water was always H2O. Pure water was always H2.
And similarly, there are lots of people around today who don't know that gold has atomic number seventy nine.
But science has discovered that gold does have atomic number 79.
That atomic having atomic number 79 is the real essence of gold.
So the discoveries that science made here were the discoveries of the real essence of something, the nature of water, the nature of gold, if you like.
So in a world in which the colourless possible liquid is not H2O.
In other words, it has the same nominal essence. It has all the properties by which we recognise something as water in everyday life.
If we actually look at it and it's not H2O, then it's not water.
And it's exactly the same way we might find a yellow, malleable metal,
something with the nominal essence of gold, something that has all the properties by which we recognise gold.
But if it's not got atomic number seventy nine, it isn't gold.
I don't know how to tell the difference between something that looks like gold and something that is gold.
If it's very important to me to find out whether something is gold or not.
I take it to an expert who seems able to apply the appropriate tests.
And he'll tell me whether it is gold, i.e. whether it has atomic number seventy nine.
If it doesn't, it's not gold. End of story. So given that water is H2O and gold has atomic number 79, this is the interesting bit.
Water is necessarily H2O. If it being H2O is of the essence of water.
If this is the very nature of water and science is discovered that it is.
And then anything that isn't H2O also isn't water.
And ditto with gold. Anything that hasn't got atomic number seventy nine isn't gold, however much it looks like gold.
OK, so that that's real essence. So that's a type of theoretical property, if you like.
So natural kinds terms, we look at tigers and we see similarities.
OK. All these animals have this similarity. They all have stripes.
They all growl. They all. What else to have tigers have.
It will look like large cats, etc. But we think that there's a nature that these animals have.
That explains the similarities. OK.
And this nature will almost certainly be DNA of some kinds.
There's tiger DNA that makes something a tiger. And anything that hasn't got that DNA is not a tiger.
Even if it looks like one. Okay.
Any questions about real essence? Because I think I'm going onto functional definitions next.
Are you all completely bemused? You don't look as if you're totally bemused, you look as if you're really interested.
I do hope that is the case. Right.
So let's look at functional definitions. Now, remember, this is a different way of understanding the idea of a theoretical definition.
And science has also discovered that blue objects reflect light at 425 nanometres.
Okay. That's something we didn't know before. And it's something that we now know.
But this wasn't the discovery of the real essence of blue.
I get students who swear blind to me that blue is really for the ability to reflect light, not 425 nanometres.
No, it's not. In a world in which objects appear blue to us, reflect light.
850 nanometres now. Obviously, that's a different possible world.
This is a thought experiment that we're doing. We would still call these objects blue.
And that's because the word blue goes along with our experiences, doesn't it?
If there was a cosmic change tonight that turns all these chairs in here, the colour of.
I'm sorry, I don't know your name. I know your father's name got dots, orange jumper.
So all these chairs suddenly looks like that, but they still reflected light at 425 nanometres.
What do we say? They changed colour all that they hadn't. So they look like that, but they reflect if they look like that.
Have they changed colour? No. Who said that?
God, why not? Because. What what we call blue is what blue seems to us.
Oh, I'm sorry. I thought, okay. I thought you were disagreeing with me. I.
Yes. They haven't. They have changed colour.
They look like that. You should be saying yes. Not no. Essentially, whatever lines, whatever waving you read is irrelevant.
We have. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's what I'm claiming to.
So if if the chairs continue to reflect the light at the wavelengths they're currently doing.
But they looked like that. We would think they'd change colour.
And that's because colour words go along with our experiences. They don't go along with the wavelength of light behind it.
So, again, that's irrelevant. OK.
So in a world in which objects appeared blue to us but reflected light at a different wavelength, we'd still call these objects blue.
As you rightly say, so nothing is blue unless normal human beings under normal conditions experience it as blue.
So we're not looking at people here who who are blind or who have or are colour-blind.
And we're not looking at conditions in which you have a light with a bit of blue paper over it or anything like that.
Normal. Something is blue. If a normal human being under normal conditions experiences it as blue is contextual experience kind of blue as blue.
Green. Okay. We're not talking about what they call it where I'm using the word blue as it behind people.
We can't get to the experience behind it. Full stop. I have no idea what you experience when you look at this curtain.
But you call it blue. At least you do when you're trying and not trying to be clever.
That I understand because it because a normal human being.
Yeah. But I'm using this in the normal meaning of English of blue.
Blow the country blue is a great example. But anyway, I've got another example, so let's have a look at that one.
Science knows that pain in human beings is realised by sea fibres and alpha delta fibrous.
These the firing of these fibres are not the real essence of pain.
Okay, so this is a scientific discovery that you might say is the discovery of what pain really is.
But actually, it's not, because in a world where green lumps at the pier appear at the site of human tissue damage and hurt,
green lumps would realise pain. It's the hurting that's important.
Nothing is pain unless normal human beings experience it as painful as hurting.
It's that experience of hurting, of pain that makes something pain, not the fact that it's C5 or firing or a Delta firing.
So, for example, if there are Martians who don't have these physical or to take it into real life,
if dogs don't have these fibres, they can still be in pain.
If they still experience hurts, that something is hurting.
So, okay, we've got two different ways of understanding theoretical ideas.
There's the real essence model, according to which what science discovers is the nature of these things, like as in water and gold.
And then there's the functional definition model in which what science discovers is not the nature of these things,
but the physical realisation of these things.
So the physical realisation of the appearance of blue to normal human beings under normal conditions is
it reflects light at 425 nanometres and the physical realisation of pain as it affects human beings is.
It's the firing of Adolph Delta, fibres of sea fibres, et cetera.
But physical realisation is not the essence or the nature.
Okay. Do you see the difference between the two types of theoretical idea, Bob?
And then what would I be writing saying that the only time a functional definition differs from real essence is object.
Things like. Or any other examples?
Well, let me think about the answer to that. Oh, OK, go on. I mean, this say so.
Right. Because the real essence used examples that are purely scientific or material objects.
Yes. No, I mean the function definition of you using human experiences.
Yeah. Is there an example of the opposite? This doesn't mean it's a human experience.
That's a really interesting question. And one thing I hate doing when I'm actually giving lectures is actually thinking.
I wish I'd done this thinking because that's a very good question. Because it would have been.
Can anyone think of a functional definition of something that doesn't involve human experience?
No, cannot. Can I perhaps answer that question next week when I've given it some thought?
Because I'd have to think on my feet now and it's hard to do that and finish a lecture at the same time.
Sorry, now I can't stop thinking. No, I'm a stop thinking, okay, so two definitions of a theoretical idea.
One is something that lies behind. But isn't the nature and the others something that lies behind and is the nature?
OK. So we're asking now, is causation more like water and gold?
In other words, if science discovers something that lies behind is what it discovers the real essence of causation or
is causation more like blue and pain in that what it discovers is not the real essence of causation,
but the physical realisation of the nominal essence, if you like, of our experiences of causation.
That's why it's interesting, but I'm not thinking about it.
Okay, so is causation more like water and gold or more like blue and pain?
OK. If it's more like water and gold, then regularity is nothing more than the nominal essence of causation.
Okay, regularities the way we recognise causation.
It's not itself causation. Okay.
To discover the real essence of causation will be to discover.
So if science discovers the real essence of causation in this world, what it will have discovered is the nature of causation in every world.
If we believe that causation has a real essence, then we think that it's going to have the same real essence in every possible world.
So if we think that we're discovering the real essence of causation, what we're discovering is something with modal import,
something that has ramifications for our beliefs about necessary worlds and possible worlds,
we're to discover the real essence of causation in this world will be to discover that in every possible world.
That's what causation is. Because that's the nature of causation.
And that's a very, very strong claim. If causation is what's okay.
So do you see that that's a very strong pain that claim pain claim, because you're making a claim not just about this world,
not just about what causation is in this world, but a claim about what causation is in every possible world.
And, in fact, that she is Straus and denies that, that if we found the real essence in this world,
we would therefore have found the real essence in every possible world.
If causation is more like blue and pain, then it's not that.
It's what the causation is, what lies, beliefs, regularity.
It's the regularity that's essential to causation and what lies belief may be what realises causation, realises regularities in this world.
Even if we discover there is a relation underpinning the regularity,
this relation will not be causation in the same way that C fibre firing is not pain, it's not.
The nature of pain is just what realises pain in human beings.
And Martin, pain may be realised by something completely different.
So this relation won't be causation. Causation could be realised by a different physical relation in every possible world.
So what we'd be discovering would merely realise causation in this world.
It doesn't have the same modal implications as the real essence SPU does.
So in other words, causation might be realised by different relation.
So if you go for the functional definition thing you're going from,
you're saying that causation could be multiples realised that regularity might be realised by this relation.
This physical relation, this world, but this physical relation in this world.
So do you think there's a power or force that underpins regularities in this and every other world?
If so, then you think that causation is like water and pain, not pain.
Gold. Gold. Okay.
Gold in this it has a scientifically discoverable.
Yeah. No, it's a real essence.
And in that case, you're likely to reduce it to reject reductive realism and accept a single arrest theory of causation.
Okay. Most philosophers reject this, even if they believe that science will one day discover a force,
power or necessary connexion underpinning the regularities in this world.
And they believe that in other worlds, regularities might be underpinned by different forces, powers or connexions.
The same is what they might be.
I mean, whatever the regularities are in that world. Yes.
I mean, they might be the same as this one. But actually, again, we might think they might be different.
OK. Or do you think that there might be one relation or more?
Because there might be different types of causation in this world underpinning.
Regularities in this world and different relations in other worlds. If so,
that you think that regularity is essential to causation and that any relation underpinning it is merely a realisation of causation in this world,
not the very nature of causation. In which case, you're likely to be happy with reductive realism and reject single arist theories of causation.
Okay, that's finished the discussion of reason one, I'm going to look very quickly at reason, too, and I'll remind you what that is first.
But any questions about reason one dot come back before?
I just wonder if there's a possibility there isn't a category mistake.
Your or your examples about involve experience, not Essenes, functional definition of evil,
materialistic things in the world and all the ones in the functional definition that all seem to talk about experience.
So it then comes down to whether or not you think causation is a thing in the real world or whether it's something that we experience.
Well, that is, if the functional definition is going to leave causation as being the regularity that we observe.
So yes, indeed, it will bring in much more of the human experience than it would do if it was something that had a real essence,
because the real essence of gold is nothing at all to do with us. Whereas the real essence of blue is, as you say,
very importantly to do with an experience that normal human beings have under normal experiences, conditions on the thing as well.
No, let's not begs the question. But yes, that's possible.
Yeah. Okay. So let's have a look at recent two, if you remember reason to.
So Straus and gave two reasons for thinking that Human Hume would not have denied the existence and necessary connexion.
The first was that it's part of our ordinary idea of causation.
The second was because he thinks it's implausible to deny the existence of necessary connexion.
So he restores and thinks that it's just absurd to think that there's no reason
for the regularities that we observe that there could be these regularities. And yet nothing that lies behind them.
Just absurd. So he says, and humans not stupid. Hume wouldn't have thought something so patently, obviously stupid.
And actually, again, we can sympathise with this view, I think.
I remember as an undergraduate suddenly realising what was meant by the regularity view, i.e. that causation didn't really exist.
Which isn't how you should put it. But that's what I put it as myself, that there is no necessary connexion.
There is no force or power behind the regularities. And I thought it was absurd.
And you might have had the same idea. I mean, from a few of your questions in the first week, I think you were having the same trouble there.
So Straughan would agree with you if you had that intuition. Absurd to think that there can be these regularities.
And yet no explanation of them. But philosophers on the whole haven't gone along with this.
So Helen Beebee says appealing to necessary connexion is a bit like appealing to destiny or conspiracy.
It doesn't no work. It's a loose cog. So when we.
So something happens. Michael and I have this happen and we think, you know, it turns out that his his wife is my sister's.
Something like, you know, that sort of coincidence. And we say, oh, it must be destiny now.
Destiny is just we don't really believe that there's a force called destiny, do we?
We just think, you know, here's a very strange coincidence.
We appeal to it, but we actually aren't doing any explanatory work, are we, in appealing to it.
And the conspiracy theorists are also. Have you ever had a conversation with somebody who is absolutely sure that Diana was taken out by.
It doesn't matter what evidence you gave or what you know, you say, well, can you imagine the machinery that must be behind hiding this or something?
There's an explanation for it always. Because somebody who believes in a conspiracy theory always has an answer to anything you're going to say.
That's what's a conspiracy theory is. And if you think that Diana was taken out by Prince Philip, please don't engage me in conversation afterwards.
But can you say it's a loose cog? It does no work and hasn't.
Beebe is saying that a necessary connexion is exactly the same if science looks and finds a necessary connexion.
It's not going to tell us anything a bit like David, you were saying. Did you think here?
You know, this is not something for which you're going to need glasses. This is like thinking further, you go down to the next level.
You go down to the next level. You go down to the next level. It's regularity all the way down.
And the philosopher Simon Blackburn says there isn't any straight jacket on nature.
It's always possible that the future is not going to be like the past.
There's nothing that guarantees that the future will be like the past.
There's nothing that guarantees that the next time one billiard ball hits another, the other won't turn purple and spiral off into into the heavens.
And therefore, there isn't any necessary connexion of this kind.
Well, I. It's interesting, isn't it?
I sort of wonder a bit about that. I prefer Helen Beebees answer.
But I think this is really interesting. And if you look at the handouts, you can make your own minds up by reading these.
But I have some sympathy with your claim that it might be just a bald assertion that.
Three, recourse to the rules laws.
Yes, but if the laws of nature are read on the Ramsey M. sorry, M. Ramsey Lewis model, that doesn't give you a necessary connexion either.
Okay, so both these philosophers think that we should stick with RTC or actually more likely CTC,
because that gives us much more of a feel that there is less of a gap between the ordinary understanding of causation and causation itself.
Because if we can say had C not occurred, E would not have occurred.
That gives us a type of feeling of force.
But both believe that the only possible evidence we can have for causation is going to consistent regularity and that there is little point,
therefore, in insisting that causation is really something else.
Some force or power or necessary connexion. Well, can I just finish and then and then we can go to questions.
So go back to the last pages. OK.
OK. So they're all philosophers, though, who believe that we can find an empirical account of causation.
This is going to be an account of causation in this world. It won't be an account of the nature of causation.
And next week, we're going to look at the views of these philosophers,
the views of people who believe that we can find a physical force or power in this world that we can say
is causation a bit in the way that people would say that reflecting light at 425 nanometres is blue.
Because, of course,
there's there happens to be a correlation between something's appearing blue to normal human beings under normal circumstances in this world,
and it's reflecting light at 425. So actually, there's no empirical difference in saying that they're the same thing.
It's only philosophers who get very uptight about that sort of thing. Okay, so next we we're going to look at except that it's not next week.
It's the week after. As you know, I thought that side. Okay, so let's do a quick summary of this week.
So we looked at a new interpretation of Hume as a sceptical realist as opposed to a reductive realist.
We looked at singulars theories of causation which insist that causation is a force or power or necessary connexion.
We looked as strauss' argument for the new interpretation, which involves distinguishing between representative ideas and relative ideas,
giving us the idea of a theoretical concept or a theoretical idea.
We looked at an ambiguity in the new interpretation when we're talking about theoretical ideas.
Are we talking about ideas of a real essence or are we talking about ideas of a physical, functional definition?
And we had a look at why the real essence thing, because it has modal implications, is problematic.
Whereas the functional definition doesn't have modal implications and is maybe less problematic for that fact,
but also means that we can't really say that causation is this force or power or necessary connexion,
just that it is realised in this world by this scientifically discoverable force or power or necessary connexion.
And that's the thought that the slide that I thought was coming up last time.
Okay, so. So there's no lecture next week.
I'm now told that this is no longer necessary because there was going to be something in this room that's no longer a book.
So it could have been next week. But sadly, I'm going to London.
So I'll see you again on the 18th of November.
And we've got course now four questions. If you've got any questions raised again.
No, not yet. No, Sean. There was a point one of your friends was made about.
There's no reason to think that the future will be always the same as the past. Simon Blattman.
That's fair enough. So if we want billiard balls bouncing off each other.
In terms of regularity, that the next one will say the same probability.
Whether we drop a book or we go before guaranteed.
Whatever that may be. So there's no conflict?
Well, I do not have to say no. Don't forget, Simon Blackburn is giving a reason for that foot.
It's being more like you've just described. So a necessary connexion.
Between A and B means that if A occurs must occur.
I pray that there's a necessary. And you're just pointing out exactly what Simon Blackburn is pointing out is nonsense.
There's no must about it. It's much more of a case of probability or whatever.
And because there's no must about it. Why should we want to postulate a necessary connexion?
So. So you're saying exactly what Simon Blackburn is saying.
So when you have the sequence, what if I believed X, then I have to believe Y two or three slices in the following argument would be necessary.
You're quite right. I know I'm doing something right.
When I get a student who says, oh, I don't want to use the word necessarily. That one was on before that, if you.
Yes. But. This one. Yes. If I say something, then I will say something.
Yes, I could see you just pulled back. See that's out there on your hand.
Yeah. Either they or they're a reference to them.
We'll be on. So the idea is that if you think that there's a necessary connexion,
then you're saying that the causation has a real essence and that if A causes B, there's a force that ensures that if A cause B must occur.
At that point, I apply Ockham's Razor. I don't need. Yeah, well, that's exactly what I had a baby and Simon Blackburn are doing.
They're saying, you know, why are we postulating this necessary connexion? We don't we don't need it.
David and then Mike, why don't we go?
Why don't we go the whole hog and just dispense with causation itself?
I'm just regarded as one of the segments of the universe is just the sort of lubricant for the sake of ease of talking about the universe.
Instead, just talk about the nature of things. I think you'd find well, Russell would agree with you there.
He has a lovely quote that I'm not gonna be able to remember something.
Causation is a bit like the monarchy and plays no role at all in anything that we do.
Well, Eyskens. Let's get rid of it. He's going to seek membership for these children.
Hundreds. Which is a fiction, but it's convenient. Yes.
But notice we have the word the children, hundreds for it.
And even if causation I mean, trying to imagine doing without the concept of causation just gives me the screaming heebie jeebies.
How do we get rid of the idea of the causation of billiard balls or the sort of things that will play into each other causes?
Oh, I wish I knew he would do that.
The other reason is because they're solid. Because.
Because because I mean, you can't get rid of observation.
Just confirms that to be the case. No, but because it is an appeal to causation.
A because B. E.
Honestly, you can try it if you like. But I think you'd have a real problem with getting rid of the attitude.
And four, because. Oh. Oh. Now OK, we're going to do a bit of logic here.
So anyone who remembers that truth tables through A and B, whoops, A and B.
OK, so in the world where A is true and B is true, is A and B true?
Yeah. Yeah. In the world where A is true and B is false is A and B true or false.
False in the world where A is false and B is true, is A and B true or false.
False. And in the world where A is false and B is false, is A and B, true or false.
False. Okay, good. So we see that. And is truth functional?
Okay. The truth of A and B is always going to be a function of the truth of A.
And the truth would be nice. Try a b.
A because B. So true.
True. True. False. True. False. True.
True. False, false. Okay. In the world where A is true and B is true is A because B true.
In the world where A is true and B is true, is the world A sorry, the sentence A because B, true, or do we not know?
We don't know. OK. In the world where A is true and B is false is A because B, true or false, it must be false.
Okay. In the world where A is false and B is true is A because B true.
Where A is false and B is true is A because B true.
I think if you don't know it's yours, it's either false or we don't know.
And what about when they're both false? I have seen it, so I'm confused.
We probably will. If A because B. implies A is true, then that's going to be false, too.
But the fact is, we've got a question mark in there.
The truth of A because B depends on more than the truth of A and B, and so it's completely different from and has a different meaning.
With that first question mark. Oh, I say we knew more about O.
But we didn't need to know anything more here did we.
I mean here we need to know more than the truth values of A and B in order to give you A because B you need to know that they are related.
I mean A could be. The truth of Marion's wearing black trousers A B could be the truth of David's wearing a red sweatshirt.
In which case A, because B is false. Presumably you don't wear a red sweatshirt every time I wear black trousers.
Do you mean. Right. But but if we give a different definition of A and B, we will get it.
Yes, there is a causal relation. So because an end means something completely different.
Sorry, that was a I couldn't resist. Just still so often I can given a completely tabular example of why somebody is wrong.
Sorry, David. You just happened to be it. No good. I to go back to what David was saying.
Speak up. You could one could I presume, change the language in such a way that whenever at the moment we talk about what
happens such and such whenever a boundary cause and just talk in terms of regularity.
Now would we lose anything if we did that? Well, of course, we do know that.
I mean, one of the problems for the regularity theory of causation was the fact that there appear to be irregularities that are not causal.
In that case, they're not really that regular. I mean, the reason we know because when you actually examine it, you find that it's.
Well, imagine the situation where every single male in this room happens to be a second son.
I mean. And so it's an entirely universal regularity.
Every male attending Marianne's lectures is the second son.
So it's as regular as you. But it's still a coincidence. Not true.
Why? How do we know it? Well, if it were true electors, then probably wouldn't be.
It is just possible that it is true of all my lectures that every male attending them is his second son.
I see. I still think that it would be a coincidence. I mean, I wouldn't want that regularity to become part of my theory of reality because,
you know, from experience, this is very unlikely to be a regularity this year.
Yes. But but the point still stands, which is that you can have regularities that are not causal, that we do not believe a causal.
And so we can't just appeal to there's more to our concept of causation than regularity itself.
That's why we introduced talk of laws of nature.
Do you remember in the in the first instance the distinction because all law of nature is a real heavy research into what's required and what is.
Yeah, but it doesn't get it doesn't get further than regularity.
But but there are the laws of nature can be derived from our best explanations of the world.
So there is a distinction there. But you're right, there is no more to them than regularities.
Just just before you. Is there anyone else who hasn't yet asked a question?
It's not my question about this is about the relationship between the two.
Two of the philosophies you've spoken about in the last week, Straus and now and Lewis last week in particular, David, just wondering whether,
in fact, these two people who presumably represent different schools of thought within philosophy are popularly supported all their margin wildly.
Well, that's it's quite an interesting question because there's a book called The New Debate about Hume Coal on the new debate or something like that.
It's on the reading list in.
And it is interesting because the old debate of whether causation is nothing more than regularity has been around since Hume himself.
The new debate was really introduced by Straus in 1989. And so the old debate or the new debate is gaining some.
That was after Lewis. That was after Lewis.
I mean, Lewis started working on causation and all and started working on counterfactual theories of causation in seventy three.
Or at least that was his big paper. I mean, there are people there are followers of stauss.
And there are followers of Lewis on it. I wouldn't like to say who is more popular.
And anyway, of course, it's not a popularity contest. But it just shows you the regularity and philosophy.
So I just want to point out some of them to say I'm kind of confused by the notion of regularity,
because on the one hand, we're talking about these natural law. And that's my kind of ego.
That's the explanation.
But you think, well, all of this talk about this concept referred as the variable to inanimate objects that have no mind of their own.
Now, is that you going to talk about this? But it seems that a lot of this is predisposed to assume that there's irregularity in everything or that,
you know, that even if you see one off event, if you see if you see one off events or let's say, for example,
something like, um, telepathy, mind reading, you know, now there's plenty of examples where people,
individuals who we have to say use an example where it's doubtful about authority and causation of these things.
But you could say certainly that there are independent you know,
there are examples of people guessing correctly or getting above average scores, whatever.
Now, you can't do that community directly deny that there's.
You lost the mantle. Well, you can say it doesn't seem there's always regularity and there's a lot of things that don't seem to be regular.
Does that mean that we have to discount being any causal relation? Because it seems to be no regularity?
Well, that was that was Bob's point, I think. Yes.
I mean, there is some evidence that under certain conditions, some people can can mind read.
I mean, that they think there's a very no regularity. That's why it's been so.
Well, this is what science is looking at,
is whether those who say that whether there is a regularity between Johnny's thinking or somebody is thinking,
eh, or imagining that and somebody else is being able to tell that that's what they're thinking.
And they're looking for regularities because regularities all whatever else is true or evidence for causation.
But that's again, that's I mean, without regularities, without scientific evidence of regularity, we tend to say there isn't any causation.
Again, that's kind of this is the question beginning all surgeries and say, well, we must know because everything is based on regularity.
How do we know what is based on the regularity? Because Hume says that these basically.
No, it's certainly not because Hume I mean,
Hume says it's based on regularity because it tends to be based on regularity rather than the other way round.
Anyway, we're going to have to finish there. So no lecture next week.
The lecture the week after. And we'll look at a singular test theory of causation and empirical theory of causation.
Actually, we'll look at several.