Welcome to the fifth lecture on David Hume.
And now we're going to be focussing on the sections in book one, part three following the discussion of induction.
So some of this covers probability, both respectable versions of it and less respectable versions.
I'm going to be skipping through those quite quickly and focussing the vast majority
of the lecture on Hume's famous discussion of the idea of necessary connexion.
The idea of causal necessity. A reminder of the context.
So going right back to Treaties 132, Hume identified causation as a particularly important relation,
the only relation which can ground an inference from what we observe to what we don't observe or indeed in general, from one object to another.
In attempting to identify the components of the idea of causation,
he noted contiguity priority in time of the cause to the effect and necessary connexion and necessary connexion seemed somewhat elusive.
So he set off searching around neighbouring fields,
and one of those fields was causal inference and within the discussion of causal inference one three six.
What we now know of as the argument concerning induction, Hume identified constant conjunction as a key.
And he didn't make very explicit the link between calls, constant conjunction and necessary connexion, but that's going to come later.
But he did hint that he was going to turn out to be the solution to the problem.
In one, three six, he argued that inductive inference is not founded on reason, but instead on custom or habit.
Our tendency to infer for the future what we've seen in the past, simply by instinct rather than by reasoning it out.
And we've seen his hydraulic theory of belief, whereby belief comes about from transfer of force and vivacity.
When we have an associational connexion between A and B because we've seen a followed by B again and again and again,
we see a the foursome vivacity from the impression of A is carried down the associational link to our
idea of B with which it's associated and our idea of B is enlivened and therefore becomes a belief.
So we've got what I described as a hydraulic theory of belief.
OK. So very quickly, I'm going to take you through some highlights from these four five sections of the treaties,
just particularly notable things that you can watch out for as you read or skim through them.
In one, three, nine of the effects of other relations and other habits,
Hugh points out that causation isn't the only associative relation that conveys false and vivacity to a related idea.
Remember, he said that there are three natural relations three relations that convey association.
One of them is resemblance. One of them contiguity and the other causation.
But of these three, causation seems to be unique in generating belief.
And why is that? The seems to be a bit of a puzzle here.
Now. In the enquiry, Hume actually was rather clearer about this.
He distinguished between causal association and custom.
But in the treatise, we get an ingenious explanation of why.
Association by causation is privileged.
And the general idea is that in association by resemblance and contiguity, our minds are free to wander all over the place.
If I see something a man, I associate it with something through resemblance.
There are lots of different things with which I could associated.
On the other hand, with cause and effect, the object, it presents a fixed and unalterable.
If I see a followed by B again and again and that's a set up, an association associational relation.
And I then see in a. Custom leads me to infer a b at exactly that time and place, so there's a very specific target.
In the case of the associational relation of causation, again, I want to point out humans being a little bit vague here.
Actually, it's custom that generates the specific prediction in the specific place.
A simple association, but by causation needn't do that at all.
If I see a and my mind starts wandering about regarding what were the causes of a, then that's not generating a prediction.
That's just a causal association.
But custom specifically seeing an AI and expecting a B to follow that is somewhat different and does have this advantage of.
Enlivening, a very specific idea in a specific time and place.
One theme that runs through quite a lot of Hume's writing, or often incidental,
but there's enough of it that you can see it, it's there pretty systematically.
Is little digs against religion. In fact,
this serves his purpose in other ways to what he is pointing out is the way in which
religious practise tends to take advantage of the imagination to enliven belief.
So he claims that the memories of Roman Catholicism,
the use of statues of saints and that sort of thing that makes religious belief more vivid because it's taking advantage of the relation
of resemblance because of the resemblance between the statues and the real people who were the saints or supposed real people.
That makes my my thoughts of the my ideas of those people more vivid, and therefore I'm more inclined to believe.
Likewise, relics, if I touch a relic or see a relic that was actually had some causal relation with a particular individual,
you know, this is part of the true cross, something like that, again, that verifies my ideas and makes me closer to belief.
And as you can see, he gives other examples, too. Including a short discussion of credulity in respect of testimony.
We know, by the way, from a letter that Hugh sent to Henry Hume, Lord Keynes in 1737.
This is two years before the treatise was published.
We know that the original version of the treaties had a discussion of miracles in there, and Hume took it out.
He said I'm present castrating my work that is cutting off its noble parts.
In order to avoid that, it avoided giving offence.
He was hoping to present the treaties to Bishop Joseph Butler for comment, and he removed some of the most overtly anti-religious stuff.
So the discussion of testimony for miracles which would otherwise have been in the treaties actually only appeared in the in the first enquiry.
The notice also, there's a there's a mischievous suggestion that actually, in respect of the afterlife, people don't really believe it.
The fact that we get pleasure from terrifying sermons about hail shows that we don't really believe it's true.
And in the index that Hume put to his essays and treatises on several subjects,
he actually has a rather mischievous reference where he talks about he refers
from the index suggesting that this sort of thing is an instance of atheism.
OK. In one 311, he tends to what we would call probability.
So he obviously is thinking of causal inference in general is probable inference.
That's what Locke called it, because it's they're contrasted with demonstrative inference.
But Hugh makes the point against Locke that talking about probable inference in a case of, say,
one Billy a ball hitting another or a stone falling when it's released in air seems very odd.
We don't think of it as just a probable inference. We think of it as yielding certainty.
One would appear ridiculous, who would say that his only probable the Sun will rise tomorrow,
or that all men must die so to fit better with common language.
Hume draws a distinction between proofs and probabilities,
and proofs are those arguments which are derived from the relation of cause and effect, which are entirely free from doubt and uncertainty.
So in this section and the next he is discussing what probability proper that is.
Cases of inference where we don't have consistent experience, where it's not every day that's being followed by be.
And this section gives the most detailed account of Hume's hydraulic theory of belief, but applied in the case of probability.
So again, a few highlights what the vulgar course chance is nothing but a secret and concealed cause.
That's one instance of Hume saying this sort of thing.
Quite a lot of this comes up later in book two two three one two three two where Hume discusses liberty and necessity the issue of free will.
And again, he says chomps isn't real. There's no such thing as chance in the world.
What people call chance is simply ignorance of the real causes.
And I've noticed there that there's very strong evidence that humans determine its dimension.
This, I think, in the first lecture. I'm not going to go through all the evidence here, but most scholars accept this.
OK, so probable judgement is derived from custom, just like proof is, but strength of association builds up gradually.
Suppose I see a follow by B once a mention a I may be somewhat inclined to expect to be,
especially if I'm habituated to inductive inference, but the strength builds up gradually.
The more as I see followed by B, the more and more certain I become,
and eventually I will feel completely certain that I is going to be followed by B.
Whereas followed by different things may be said on different occasions.
We get the hydraulic theory,
the force and vivacity of seeing in a gets divided down the various associational channels in proportion to the pass frequencies.
So we have a psychological explanation of why if we've seen a followed by be 60 percent of the time and see 40 per cent of the time,
we will tend to have a 60 per cent belief in B when we see in a.
And he made some comments about reasoning from analogy.
One very interesting passage in one 312 is this one having presented his theory, he imagines somebody finding it a bit hard to accept.
And he says, well, given what I've already argued, you should find this relatively straightforward.
Let men be once fully persuaded of these two principles that there is nothing in any object
considered in itself which can afford us a reason for drawing a conclusion beyond it.
And that even after the observation of the frequent or constant conjunction of objects,
we have no reason to draw any inference concerning any object beyond those of which we have had experience.
I say let me once fully convinced of these two principles,
and this will throw them so loose from all common systems that they will make no difficulty of receiving any which may appear the most extraordinary.
So he's referring back to one, three, six, and he's speaking about the conclusion they're far more dramatically than he did at the time.
He's now suggesting that his argument concerning induction actually should throw us loose from all common systems.
So those who interpret the argument concerning induction as being really rather mild and non sceptical,
I think have a bit of a problem with this passage. We see a development in humans thought when he originally presents the argument.
He doesn't emphasise the sceptical implications here.
He does far more and in the abstract, in the enquiry, get more.
I mean, in the enquiry, the argument is headed sceptical doubts concerning the operations of the understanding.
And in section 12 of the enquiry, the argument is put into the mouth of the Peroni and sceptic.
So just in passing, it's worth noting that. OK.
In fact, most of Hume's discussion of probability is not particularly sceptical,
although clearly his argument concerning induction might give us pause about the basis of the whole thing.
It's all based on custom not reason. Doesn't that mean that the foundations are pretty shaky?
Human does want to build on that foundation, the foundation of expecting the future to resemble the past.
And he advocates that we should do it. And one of the things we should do is seek hidden causes.
He's quite an important passage. I'll be referring to it later.
It's a passage that Hume liked so much that he preserved it in the enquiry, in the discussion of liberty and necessity in the enquiry.
It appears almost verbatim.
So he contrasts vulgar people who when they see something acting in constantly, just say, Oh, well, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
With philosophers, wise people who reckon that when they see inconstant things on the surface,
expect if they dig deeper to find hidden causes, that will explain it.
And lo and behold, they do they do actually find typically that on further investigation,
they are able to identify hidden causes behind the superficial and constancy from the observation of several parallel parallel instances.
Philosophers former maxim that the connexion between all causes and effects is equally necessary so they don't go for the Chancey causation.
The vulgar postulate and that its seeming uncertainty in some instances proceeds from the secret opposition of contrary causes.
Incidentally, this is the closest Hume comes, I think, to an explicit argument for determinism.
It's that actually when you look for hidden causes, you find them.
And that suggests that there are hidden causes all the way down. Notice the hidden causes needn't be irredeemably hidden.
We can search for hidden causes and we can discover them. One 313 is on and philosophical probability and philosophical probability,
because we're talking about methods of inference that philosophers don't approve of,
but they count as probable inference because they are founded on custom.
So some examples of that would be when we have experience of one thing followed by another.
But in predicting what's going to happen, giving much more weight to recent examples or vivid examples,
you know any case would be, for example, a, you know, a murder gets reported in the press.
And because that's very vividly in our mind, we radically overestimate the chances of someone being murdered in the street.
OK. Just because something's recent and vivid. In lengthy reasoning, we can fail to follow very well, that becomes important in treaties one for one.
We tend to be prejudiced. We jump to making general rules too quickly.
So we meet, say, an Irishman who's very dull.
We meet a Frenchman who has isn't sufficiently solid, whatever that means.
And we form the maxim that an Irishman cannot have wit and the Frenchman cannot have solidity.
Now wise, people realise that these maxims are wrong, that they should be more open minded.
They shouldn't form rules just on the basis of one or two particular examples.
And you can imagine if you live in a context where the Irishman you're most likely to meet are labourers or something like that,
it's very easy to to form a false opinion. When I was a kid, there was this sort of the paradigm.
Frenchman went round on a bicycle with strings of onions around his neck.
That was because there were a lot of French onion sellers in the south of England over that period.
You know that that's how they they flog their onions.
It didn't imply that all French were like that, but if you looked at the cartoons, you might have got that impression.
But we can avoid this prejudice by forming a higher level general rules once we become aware that we are liable to prejudice and it leads us astray.
We can form general rules to correct the prejudices. And that is indeed what we should do.
And the higher level general rules by which we correct our prejudices we attribute to our judgement,
the lower level we attribute to the imagination, so we see something here that I alluded to in the second lecture.
Hume sometimes draws distinctions between reason, the understanding,
the judgement on the one hand and imagination on the other, according to how respectable the various operations are.
We'll see more of that later. OK, now let's come to the main business of the idea of necessary connexion treaties one, three 14.
Very, very well known, very controversial section.
So Hume is now returning at last to his quest for the crucial component of the idea of causation, namely the idea of necessary connexion.
And he's trying to identify the source of that idea where is the impression from which it is derived?
Notice, importantly, that he is very, very clear that this is an essential component of the idea of causation.
According to my definitions, necessity makes an essential part of causation.
Necessity may be defined two ways conformable to the two definitions of cause of which it makes an essential part,
and I've given other textual links there.
I'm anticipating a bit there with the two definitions, but the point I want to make straight away is humans never in any doubt.
He never expresses any doubt that the idea of necessary connexion is an essential part of the idea of cause.
So if anyone ever tells you as some do that, Hume challenged the idea that necessary connexion is part of causation.
They are misinterpreting more likely what they mean is necessary.
Connexion, as I understand it is not part of Hume's notion of cause that may be true but necessary.
Connexion, as Hume understands, it is definitely an essential part of his notion, of course.
OK, so Hume's discussion is going to apply the coffee principle. We've seen this before.
All simple ideas are copied from impressions. He refers back to this repeatedly during the course of one three 14.
It's important here when we as with induction, so with causation, we are fortunate we have three relevant techs, not just the one.
We've got a brief discussion of causation in the abstract, not nearly as extended as the discussion of induction there.
But we also have the enquiry concerning human understanding, and section seven of the enquiry is humans most polished presentation of this argument.
But the two go very much together. All right. One 314 of the treaty is an enquiry.
Section seven have far more in common than they have a distinct.
So we are able to triangulate. We can use the enquiry to inform our understanding of the treaties, and I'll be doing that later.
It's a this is a big contrast with the text that we will come to in treaties, but one part for where most of the stuff doesn't appear in the enquiry.
And that leaves some obscurity. It means we don't actually know whether we're dealing with a sort of first attempt that Hume later rejected,
or whether it's text that he just admitted from the enquiry for some other reason, e.g. to simplify.
But in the case of treaties one three,
we have this great advantage of a substantial later reworking and in the enquiry that the enquiry went through lots and lots of additions,
whereas the treaties only ever went through one. So the enquiry is a very useful guide for interpreting Hume's mature views.
OK, so Enquiry Section four says sorry, enquiry section seven, paragraph four.
He talks about the copy principle providing a new microscope or species of optics a way we can investigate our ideas.
And that's what Hume is going to do. As I mentioned when I introduced the copy principle in the second lecture,
humanely uses it not for rejecting bogus ideas, but for investigating the actual nature of our ideas.
And that's what he's going to do here.
So he's going to look for the impression from which the idea of necessary connexion that is in the causal sense is copied.
We're not talking about logical, necessary connexion. We're talking about causal, necessary connexion.
There's a paragraph, the very first paragraph of one, three, 14, and it actually summarises the whole argument.
I'm not going to go through that now, but very well worth reading that paragraph he sets out.
This is clearly what I'm going to do. He says. OK.
How does he set out for it? Well, he starts in a slightly surprising way.
I begin with observing that the terms of efficacy agency, power force, energy,
necessity, connexion and product productive quality are all nearly synonymous.
And therefore, it is an absurdity to employ any of them in defining the rest.
OK, so there's no point in trying to define a causal necessity in terms of one of these
other ideas that's just going to be circular because they're essentially synonymous.
So we're going to have to look for impressions either simple or complex.
But there are two puzzles here. First of all. Why does he treat all of these as virtual synonyms?
Because it's not at all clear that those words are all genuine synonyms, right?
Think of force and necessity. But you can have a false without necessitating its effect, right?
You can you can have something that's that's influenced by a number of different forces where one of them dominates the others.
That doesn't mean there wasn't any force in the other direction, even though it's not bringing a necessary effect.
The other puzzle is, although in the quotes I just showed you,
Hume seems to speculate that the could be a complex impression and idea here actually within his discussion.
Hume just seems to take for granted that the idea of necessary connexion, which is synonymous with all these others, is going to be a simple idea.
It's not made explicit until a note in the enquiry where he basically criticises
Locke for trying to find the source of a simple idea through reasoning.
These are both puzzling, but I suspect there is a simple solution here is my solution.
The site suggested this isn't clearly in the text, but it seems to me to make best sense of it.
Humans whose interest is in a single common element of all of these ideas, he's looking for a common element, which I call consequence reality.
One thing being a consequence of the other. And he's seen that consequent reality.
The basic idea of consequent reality is not something that you can get through.
Apparently, sensation. Or apparently reflection, or at least it seems puzzling how you could on empiricist principles, get this general idea.
That's what I think would make sense of why he isn't interested in the subtle differences between these various virtual synonyms.
It also explains why he just seems to take for granted that what he's looking for is a simple idea.
There's another puzzle.
Which I think is helped by this solution, and it's the following we saw earlier that Hume draws a distinction between the vulgar and philosophers,
the vulgar attribute the uncertainty of events to such an uncertainty in the causes, as makes the latter often fail of their usual influence.
That's that long paragraph or long quoted paragraph from a few slides back.
In other words, he says the vulgar believe in Chancey causation.
Philosophers don't philosophers investigate, they find the hidden causes, and then they form a maxim that all causes are equally necessary.
But the vulgar believe in Chancey causation. Now how is that possible?
How is that even coherent? I mean, if necessity, of course, of necessity, forms an essential part, the most important part of the idea of causation,
then how is it even possible to believe in Chancey causation causation that isn't necessary?
Well, if my suggestion is right, that what Hume is looking for is the source of the general idea of consequence reality.
That's OK because you can have a force that isn't compelling.
So if if the crucial element of the idea, of course, isn't literal necessity but rather consequence reality,
then it makes sense how the vulgar could have that belief. And yet believe that it's chancy.
So this is speculative, I am I'm identifying puzzles in Hume's text, I'm trying to find a way of making best sense of humour.
I'm a little bit of style, a metric support. And this was, I confess, quite a surprise to me when I checked it out because we tend to think,
you know, the the heading of the section is of the idea of necessarily connexion.
The heading in the enquiry is of the idea of necessary connexion.
Most of the crucial bits the most familiar bits are couched in terms of necessary connexion, actually.
But if you count up the terms in power or efficacy, get referred to about three times more often than necessity or necessary connexion.
So most of Hume's discussion actually is talking about power rather than necessary connexion.
And by the way, the original title of the enquiry section of the idea of necessary connexion is of the idea of power unnecessary connexion.
So why does he emphasise necessary Connexions so much?
For example, in the title and when drawing his conclusion? And I think this links to what I was talking about in the very first lecture.
But what's really motivating Hume's investigation of causation is to shed light on the problem of liberty and necessity, free will and determinism.
And at that point, it is really genuine necessity that he's interested in.
OK. So that's a speculation that I'm in, which I endeavour to make more sense of the framework of Hume's discussion.
Let's now proceed through the details of how he goes.
OK. He suggests we he, first of all, refutes Lock and Mallard branch in passing.
So Lock suggests that we get the idea of the existence of power because we see one thing followed by another.
And we reasoned that there must be a power capable of creating something.
You know, when we see an a a must have the power to create b y because we see a followed by B again and again.
And Hume says that's no good.
That's not going to explain how you got a new idea that's taking for granted that we got the idea of power to ascribe Mallah.
Brosh suggests that we get the idea of power from thinking about God again.
That's no good. Then he moves on to think about looking at matter and how material things work, billiard balls, for example.
Now we know from the discussion of induction, we know from the example of Adam and so forth.
But powers can't be found amongst the properties of matter that we perceive when we see
a follow by be the first time we have absolutely no means of making the inference.
Nor can powers be found amongst the properties of mind that we perceive him.
It doesn't seem to have been have considered this when he first wrote the treaties.
He actually added a paragraph in the appendix that that came out with book three of the treaties in 1740 end of 1740.
And he added This point that if you look into your mind, you won't see any power either.
And trying to explain how we can get a general idea of power without first having a specific idea of power is hopeless.
Given what Hume has said about general or abstract ideas.
So where does the idea of power or necessary connexion come from?
Well, we find it when we turn to repeated instances when we see a followed by B again and again.
Then when we see RNA, we immediately can see the connexion betwixt them and draw an inference from one to the other.
This multiplicity of resembling instances therefore constitutes the very essence of power or connexion,
and is the source from which the idea of it arises. OK.
When Hume talks about something being the very essence, he does normally mean the defining qualities.
So that's quite a strong statement. OK, so constant conjunction is, as predicted, proving to be crucial.
But constant conjunction may not seem to help initially, because if I see a followed by B again and again and again,
I'm not getting any new impressions from the objects, I'm just getting repeated impressions the same ones again.
We need to look inside ourselves to find a new impression.
It's the operation of custom within us when we make an inference, that is what gives us the new impression of necessary connexion.
This connexion, which we feel in the mind, this customary transition of the imagination from one object to its usual attendant is the
sentiment or impression from which we form the idea of power or necessarily connexion.
Now that's rather peculiar. I see a.
And I find myself expecting a beef. So I'm making an inference, and Hume seems to be saying that it's the transition or the determination of the mind,
the move from seeing you to expecting B. That is the impression of necessary connexion.
But that's not a feeling that's not a sensation.
How can it provide an impression?
Well, Barry Stroud reckons that he must be postulating that there is some distinctive feeling that occurs when we see and and expect to be.
But that seems to be contrary to other things Hume says about the immediacy of
the inference we see and we just find ourselves expecting B. Hume hasn't said,
Oh, there's some third perception that comes up some distinctive feeling.
He calls. He talks about the determination of the mind and the transition as being an impression.
But I wonder if there is a there is a better way of interpreting this,
and I put a little bit of discussion here which I'm going to skip over in the interest of time.
What I want to suggest here goes back to the discussion.
In the second lecture, I drew a distinct contrast between Locke's view of reflection and Hume's, and I said that when Locke talks about reflection,
he characteristically means internal awareness of the operations of our mind what's going on in our minds?
When Hume talks about impressions of reflection, he characteristically means feelings, passions, desires.
I'm wondering if when he came to talk about the impression of necessary connexion Hume was reverting to the Lockey idea idea,
he was thinking When we make an inference, we have an awareness of making the inference, whereas it were monitoring what's going on inside our mind.
And when we see an and find ourselves inferring a b, it's the awareness of making the inference.
It's the inference reality of it that is giving us that crucial idea of necessary connexion.
If this passage from the enquiry, I think, is particularly striking here, and he talks about that inference of the understanding,
which is the only connexion that we can have any comprehension of, right?
If if Hume is looking for the source of the idea of consequentialist, how it can be that we get at all the idea of one thing following from another.
Our actually making an inference when we see one and infer the other may be the only kind of consequence reality that has the kind of mental intimacy,
this enables us to get that idea. So I suspect that when he discusses when he talks about the inference as being the impression,
he must mean awareness of the inference, it's not clear that Hume himself fully, you know, he never acknowledged this.
He never revised his theory of reflection and so on. But on Hume's behalf, that's the best I can do for him.
OK, we then get some notorious statements in the treaties.
Saying that necessity is in the mind, not in objects. And there are some of the striking quotes have also made some references to others.
And you might misinterpret this, first of all. He is not saying that when we look at billiard balls or whatever, we don't perceive any necessity.
But when we look at the operations of our mines, we do perceive a necessity.
He's certainly not saying that the one three, 14, 29, rather when we can find ourselves inferring be.
The only thing that is there for us to notice is the fact that we are finding
ourselves making the inference is not that we're perceiving any necessity.
It's just that the only kind of necessity that's there at all is the fact that we make the inference.
We can't even make sense of any necessity in objects.
Apparently.
Now, people will find a natural bias against this view, this might might seem crazy, you know, the idea that necessity is in the mind, not in objects,
and we'll see that Hume expresses some quotes to he sort of puts words in the mouth of a supposed opponent, saying how ridiculous this may seem.
He thinks we're naturally biased against this view because the mind has a great propensity to spread
itself on external objects and to conjoin them with any internal impressions which they occassion.
Now that's a famous passage it's commonly read just to show that humans are projected IST.
Please note, Hume here is criticising this tendency. He's saying most people will be biased against my theory and the reason they'll be biased
against it is because they are inclined to spread their ideas on external objects.
The same thing comes up in the enquiry again, it's a mistake the vulgar have a mistaken idea of power because they take something that
is actually internal to their minds and they try to spread it on external objects.
But though the account I've given, says Hume,
that basically we don't get necessity from perceiving ending is still out there only from as it were feeling it in our mind or being aware of it.
The transition? Though this be the only reasonable account we can given necessity,
I doubt not that my sentiments will be treated by many as extravagant and ridiculous.
What the efficacy, of course, is lie in the determination of the mind,
as if causes didn't operate entirely independent of the mind and wouldn't continue their operation,
even though there was no mind existent to contemplate them and so forth.
Now, in response to actually stand his ground,
I can only reply to all these arguments that the cases here much the same as if a blind man should pretend to find a
great many absurdities in the supposition that the colour of scarlet is not the same with the sound of a trumpet,
nor like the same with solidity. If we really have no idea of a power or efficacy in any object or of any real connexion between its
causes and effects will be to little purpose to prove that an efficacy is necessary in all operations.
We do not understand our own meaning in talking. So in other words, he's sticking with his koppie principle.
You may think this is absurd, but you don't even have an idea to express what you are trying to say.
It's like the blind man who's been told that Scarlett is like the sound of a trumpet.
And literally, when he thinks of this, a scholar just thinks of the sound of the trumpet.
He hasn't got any idea of what Scarlett really is, and you haven't got any idea.
We haven't got any idea of what necessity in object actually would be.
So. My solution is the only one going.
So in a sense, necessity is only in the mind, it seems. But that doesn't mean that causation cannot be objective.
Objects do bear to each other relations of contiguity in succession and constant conjunction,
and all that is independent of an antecedent to the operations of the understanding.
So who does think that causation has an objective correlate as well as having this internal aspect?
And he somewhat confusingly gives two definitions of calls.
One of them focussing on regular session. What's there objectively, if you like in the objects?
And one of them focussing on our tendency to draw inferences.
One thing I want to notice that's often overlooked. He also gives two definitions of necessity.
So we've got two definitions of cores and two definitions of necessity.
And Hume distinguishes these. For example, in the index of the first enquiry, he they've got separate index entries.
And. When he's talking about definition of cause.
He's talking about identifying an object, which is a cause e.g. a.
When he's talking about necessity, he's talking about the relation between A and B.
And it's important to bear that in mind for a reason I'll come through in a sec.
So here we've got the two definitions in the treaties.
We may define a cause to be an object precedent and contiguous to another and where all the objects resembling
the former are placed in like relations of presidency and contiguity to those objects which resemble the latter.
So that's the objective one constant conjunction. And then the second definition, an object precedent and contiguous to another.
And so united with it that the idea of the one determines the idea to form the idea of the other.
And the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other.
So that's where there's a particular and b that we see together and an association link has been set up in our mind between them,
presumably because of past constant conjunction. Now you'll notice that in the middle between those, we get the comment.
If this definition be esteemed defective because drawn from objects foreign to the cause.
And at the end, should this definition also be rejected for the same reason, it might seem that Hume thinks his own definitions of defective.
He's not saying they're defective. He's saying other people might think they're defective.
And here's a reason why. They're drawn from objects foreign to the cause.
What does that mean? Well, I'm trying to identify a as a cause.
I can only do that by reference to other A's and B's, by reference to past constant conjunctions.
There's nothing within a that you can point to by itself that will identify it as a cause.
In the enquiry, Hume calls this an inconvenience.
Now, Galen Straus, amongst others, has made a lot about these comments and suggested this shows that Hume thinks his own definition is inadequate.
And I want to resist that,
partly because Hume hasn't actually said that he's simply pointing out the inconvenience that you cannot find necessity in a single instance,
but also because these comments only apply to the definitions, of course not the definitions of necessity.
And he uses the definitions of necessity, very importantly, when he's discussing liberty in necessity.
And he never suggests that there's anything wrong with those. He's drawing big conclusions from them.
So we need to be very cautious when we see people claim making that claim against Hume's definitions.
But that clearly is an issue with the two definitions.
There's something funny about them because they're not co extensive, and Hume is clearly aware of this.
We've already seen that Hume drawing a distinction between philosophies and the vulgar and talking about prejudices and so on.
Sometimes we make inferences assuming that there's a constant conjunction when there really isn't.
Sometimes we are completely unaware of constant what constant conjunctions there may be.
So how do we make sense of this?
It seems to me very unlikely that Hume, with his definitions, is purporting to give necessary and sufficient conditions for something to be a cause.
Because the two definitions are so obviously not extensive.
But I suggest that there is a fairly straightforward way of understanding the two definitions.
One of them is in terms of giving the source of the idea and the other one is in terms of giving criteria for applying the idea.
I've put quite a lot of detail in the slide. I'm going to go over this quite quickly.
So the idea is this. Literally, the idea is this we get the idea of necessary connexion from making causal inferences.
If we did not have the tendency to make causal inferences by custom, we would never even get that idea.
But having once got the idea, the question is how should we apply it?
And we have seen that Hume thinks we should apply it in a disciplined way.
We should search for hidden causes. We should work out high level general rules.
And indeed, we should apply some rules, which Hume is just about to present in the immediately following section.
The rules by which to judge of causes and effects. So we'll come to those in a moment.
Now, there's a parallel to this in Hume's treatment of virtue or personal merit in the second enquiry.
This is the enquiry concerning the principles of morals.
So on the one hand, personal merit consists altogether in the possession of mental qualities useful or agreeable to the person himself or to others.
And then he refers back to that as a definition so useful, agreeable or agreeable to oneself or others.
But then in the appendix, he says my hypothesis defines virtue to be whatever mental action or quality gives to a spectator.
The pleasing sentiment of approbation. So to be very quick about this, Hugh thinks that unless we have the tendency to feel moral approbation.
Were it not for the fact that when I consider certain actions from an abstract point of view without considering my own involvement there?
I will feel approval or disapproval. Oh, that was a kind action.
It doesn't bring any benefit to me, but I approve of it in a general way because it was a kind action or whatever.
If I never felt those kinds of approval or disapproval, I wouldn't understand even what morality is all about.
But having once got those conceptions that then becomes a question of when should we appropriately apply them?
I've got the idea of what a virtue is. Now, where should I apply it?
And Hume's hypothesis is that actually we should only apply the notion of
virtue to mental qualities that are useful or agreeable to oneself or others.
And there's a lovely passage, famous passage in the second enquiry, where we see Hume correcting the list of virtues and vices accordingly.
Every quality which is useful or agreeable to ourselves or others is allowed to be a part of
personal merit and no other will ever be received where men judge of things by their natural,
unprejudiced reason. Celibacy, fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence,
solitude and the whole train of monkish virtues are everywhere rejected by men of sense because they serve to no manner of purpose.
Neither advance a man's fortune in the world nor render him a more valuable member of society,
nor qualify him for the entertainment of company, nor increase his power of self enjoyment.
We observe, on the contrary, that they cross all these desirable ends,
stupefied the understanding and harden the heart, obscure the fancy and sour the temper.
We justly therefore transfer them to the opposite column and place them in the catalogue of vices.
He goes on to say that the gloomy, harebrained enthusiast may, after his death, have a place in the calendar.
In other words, may be made a saint but will seldom win alive,
be allowed into intimacy and society, except by those who are as delirious and dismal as himself.
So a paragraph that I'm sure Hume greatly enjoyed writing. So what you me saying here is there are some things that people counters virtues,
but actually they should be counted as vices because they don't satisfy the criterion of being useful or agreeable to oneself or others.
So we've got two definitions of virtue. One gives us the general idea.
The other one specifies how we should apply it. And I'm suggesting that the same kind of thing applies to the two definitions, of course.
I mentioned in the first lecture that Hume draws certain corollaries from his definitions.
Here they are. I've already mentioned that immediately after having presented his definitions and those corollaries, Hugh, in the very next section.
Hume presents rules by which to judge of causes and effects.
And again, we get more precise criteria for applying the idea, of course, and notice that humans is completely objectivist in his language here.
It may be proper to fix some general rules by which we may know when objects really are causes and effects.
So again, you've got a contrast here between the apparent subjective ism that we've seen,
and now he seems to be very objective is he sits down very clear rules about when things are to be denominated causes and effects.
And you'll notice that the first three correspond to what we've already seen um, contiguity priority constant conjunction.
So it looks like this is really a more precise specification. So, so the first definition of calls, it's sort of an approximation.
And now he's spelling it out in more detail. OK, I want to end with two improvements to this account that come in the enquiry.
The rules by which the judges, of course, is in effect may appear relatively sophisticated compared with the the very simple first definition,
but you'll notice that it's all couched in terms of one discrete object being followed by another.
The nearest we get to anything more sophisticated is in Rule seven,
where we see one object increasing or diminishing with the increase or diminution of the of the calls.
And then we start to think of that. It is a compounded effect derived from a compounded cause.
But that's not what scientists do. Scientists don't just think in terms of one thing being followed by another.
If they analyse billiard balls, they don't say, Oh, the first billiard ball move, then the second billiard ball moves.
They say things like the first billiard ball was moving with such and such a speed in such and such a direction.
It impacted the second one at such and such an angle. And they do calculations.
Now in the first enquiry, but not in the treaties. Hume recognises this in the first enquiry.
Hume starts talking about powers and forces. That's a quantitative.
And I've put the various references that we've already seen this briefly with Hume's discussion of applied mathematics.
So it seems to me that this is a major improvement between the treaties and the enquiry.
He's recognised how science is done. One important impact of that, this is that in the enquiry,
you find that Hume uses words like force and power and talks about hidden powers or secret powers, whereas in the treaties he hadn't.
I think this is the explanation.
Secondly, within the enquiry, we actually get a rejection, I believe, of the subjective ism that we saw in the treaties.
So all those statements about how power and necessity are in the mind, not in objects in the enquiry, those go except for two passages.
There are only two passages in the enquiry that hint at such a subjective ism.
One of them is from a footnote in section eight, the necessity of any action,
whether a matter of mind is not properly speaking, a quality, you mean a quality in the agent.
But in any thinking or intelligent being who may consider the action and it considers chiefly consists chiefly
in the determination of his thoughts to infer the existence of that action from some preceding object.
So he's here discussing freewill. And then we've got the second passage, B, when we say, therefore that one object is connected with another.
We mean only that they have acquired a connexion in our thought.
Those both seems objectivist. Neither of them, I think, carries much weight.
The first one is actually copied, largely verbatim from the treaties. It's a footnote.
It's designing. It's designed to explain the prevalence of the doctrine of liberty.
And you'll notice that it ends by talking about a spectator who can commonly
infer our actions from our motives and character and even where he cannot.
He concludes in general that he might work. He perfectly acquainted with every circumstance of our situation and temper.
And the most secret springs of our complexity and disposition. This is the very essence of necessity, according to the foregoing doctrine.
So it's hypothetical. It's that a spectator who knew everything there was to know would be able to infer.
And that's not the same as saying actual inference. The actual subjective inference is what constitutes causation.
The second passage be we can be. Is even clearer, I think, if you read it in isolation.
When we say, therefore, that one object is connected with another, we mean only that they have acquired a connexion in our thought.
That gives a misleading impression, because immediately after that,
we get the two definitions of calls and immediately after those in the very same paragraph,
we get a statement that contradicts what was said in the previous paragraph.
We say, for instance, that the vibration of this string is the cause of this particular sound.
But what do we mean by that affirmation?
We either mean that this vibration is followed by this sound and that all similar vibrations have been followed by similar sounds,
or that this vibration is followed by the sound and that upon the appearance of one,
the mind anticipates the senses and forms immediately an idea of the other.
We may consider the relation of cause and effect in either of these two lights.
But beyond these, we have no idea of it.
So previously, he'd said we mean only one thing, and he's now very clearly very next paragraph saying we mean either this or this.
So there is no passage in the enquiry that carries anything like the implications of radical subjective ism that we saw in the treaties,
both works contain lots of evidence that Hume thinks cause a causal relations are genuine objective.
We can discover them, we can do systematic science with them. Thank you very much.