George. Okay.
Now we're going to turn to book one part three of the treatise.
This is the single most important part of the treatise.
It's the longest. It is the part that gives almost all of the substance of the abstract of the treatise.
The vast majority of that comes from book one, part three, and the later works.
In particular, the inquiry concerning human understanding is crucially built around the central spine of Book one.
Part three. So to start with, we're going to have a look at relations again.
We've already seen something about relations in an earlier lecture, and we'll see the route that HUME follows in this part of the treaties.
Now understanding what Hume's doing here can be quite tricky.
The title of treatise book one. Part three is of knowledge and probability.
So you might reasonably expect that you're going to have a significant chunk devoted to knowledge, a significant chunk devoted to probability.
You don't get that. Only the first section deals with knowledge.
And by knowledge, you means the knowledge in the strict sense.
The realm of demonstration, demonstrative knowledge.
But then perhaps even more puzzling. Probability doesn't make an entrance except in the title of section two.
Until halfway through the argument concerning induction.
So what's going on here? Well, the real unifying thing theme of book one.
Part three is the idea of causation and causal reasoning.
But HUME, as we'll see, follows rather a circuitous route.
So. At the beginning of the first section, we get something that we've already met.
I've talked at some length about Hume's theory of relations.
And here it begins to play quite a major role.
So as we've seen, HUME divides the relations into four constant relations and three inconstant relations.
But then what he does is argue that these relations have special links to particular mental operations.
So resent resemblance, continuity, degrees in quality are discoverable at first sight.
Whereas proportions of quantity or number of susceptible of demonstration.
So if you read these paragraphs,
you'll see he's effectively arguing that only proportions of quantity or number can give rise to complex mathematical reasoning.
And the other things resemblance control 80 degrees in quality.
They're discoverable at first sight. We've seen that's a problematic claim.
There are all sorts of different types of resemblance. Some of them are discoverable at first sight, no doubt, but many others aren't.
They can involve considerable investigation. Moving to the other group of relations,
HUME wants to say that identity and relations of time and place are matters of perception rather than reasoning.
Another dubious claim. Causation remains as the only relation that can be traced beyond our senses.
To existence is an object which we do not see or feel.
So we get a taxonomy which looks just a bit too good to be true.
It reminds me of some of Kent's stuff.
Great philosophers love shoehorning everything into some neat taxonomy.
And it seems to me that's what HUME is doing here.
The real result he's after, and this is probably a genuine result, or at least it looks close to being one,
is that probable reasoning that is reasoning beyond what we immediately perceive or remember.
Reasoning from observed to unobserved does seem to have a pretty intimate connection with causation.
That does seem to be a genuine truth.
But the rest of it really is not terribly convincing.
At least I don't find it so. So what he was doing, I mean, he started the treaty is trying to give a very systematic account of our ideas.
Amongst the ideas, he comes to a. Complex ideas.
He then divides up the complex ideas, a very important subset of complex ideas of relations.
He then sets out to analyse our relations and gives a taxonomy.
And he knows roughly where he's heading. And he finds this a neat way of leading to where he wants to go.
But it's all a little bit artificial and it doesn't quite work. Fortunately, however, this doesn't vitiate most of but one part three.
Okay. We want to understand reasoning to the unobserved.
And here we get the real nub of Hume's interest. Now in the enquiry concerning human understanding.
This is completely explicit, much more so than in the treatise.
In the treatise we get this, if you like,
charade of investigating all these different ideas and the focus is on the origin of our ideas in the inquiry.
Section four. HUME proceeds in a very different way. He says, Well, there are relations of ideas, matters of facts.
Remember Hume's fork, which I mentioned in an earlier lecture, is a replacement for his theory of relations of the treaties.
Okay, we've got relations of ideas. That's things that are true, if you like, by definition.
All bachelors are unmarried. All things that we can know by demonstration.
Mathematical truths. There's not too much of an epistemological problem about how we come to know those because those are a priori.
On the other hand, there are matters of fact. That's a different matter.
How do we come to know any matter of fact, beyond the immediate testimony of our memory and senses?
That's the big question. And in inquiry, section four, that's the question he sets out to answer.
In the treaties. He's looking for the origin of the idea of causation.
He's argued that causation is intimately bound up with probable reasoning,
and he twists it so that we end up discussing the basis of probable reasoning.
So I think this is where his real interests lie, but he's inserting it within the context of a discussion of the idea of causation.
I'm not meaning to suggest that the discussion of the idea of causation isn't also very important to him.
But the the theory of probability of belief plays a lot,
much larger role than you might expect if the discussion were actually principally founded on the origin of our ideas.
But at any rate, the origin of ideas is how HUME structures it.
We're looking for the nature of our idea of causation and the light that the origin can shed on that.
So we look at causes and effects and what do we see?
Do we see any uniform property that causes an effect having common.
No, we don't. All sorts of things can be causes. All sorts of things can be effects.
It must be some relation between the cause and the effect that makes them cause and effect.
Well, what relations? Well, if we look at things, take two things that are cause and effect.
What do we find? We find, first of all, that they're contiguous in space and time.
They close together. We always find, HUME suggests, that Causal Relations act locally.
You might think. Hang on. What about gravity? Uh, that doesn't make an entrance at this point.
One thing that does make an entrance at this point via a footnote is Hume's observation
that we can have causal relations between things that are not spatially located.
Later in the treatise at 145 of the Materiality of the Soul, HUME is going to point out that many of our perceptions do not have a spatial location.
So it looks like the requirement of spatial contiguity cannot apply to those that are obviously causally active.
So notice that although contiguity is signalled as a part of our idea of causation,
HUME himself, via this footnote, is actually saying, well, it doesn't matter that much.
What about priority? We find causes to be prior to their effects.
And HUME gives a rather unsatisfactory argument for the conclusion that causes must always be prior to their effects.
It goes a bit like this. If causes and effects can be simultaneous, then all of time would collapse.
Therefore they can't be okay. Well, if this argument appears satisfactory, that's fine.
If not, don't worry. It doesn't matter too much. It seems a slightly odd attitude to take, but there it is.
So what HUME is really after, what he really does care about is not the contiguity or the priority.
It's the idea of necessary connection. The famous quotation often misunderstood.
Shall we then rest contented with these two relations of contiguity and succession as affording a complete idea of causation?
By no means an object may be contiguous and prior to another without being considered as its cause.
There is a necessary connection to be taken into consideration and that relation
is of much greater importance than any of the other two above mentioned.
So HUME is saying that the causal relation is not just a matter of contiguity and priority, it involves some sort of necessary connection.
And what he's now going to do over the rest of but one part three, though, as I say,
in a rather circumlocution way, is to find out the origin of that idea of necessary connection.
So what you looking for? When he's looking for the idea of necessarily connection, he's looking for the extra ingredient.
Besides what? Contiguity priority.
Just notice for future reference, he said nothing yet at all about anything like constant conjunction.
Its single instance, contiguity and priority.
That's all he's got so far. And he's looking for the extra thing.
[INAUDIBLE] find the extra thing when he's discussing induction, as we shall see.
But for the moment, he has no idea where to go. How do I find this elusive, necessary connection?
Well, I might think of something like. Power of production.
Oh, but that just means the same thing. Right. I want to know what this power is.
This necessity that that governs causes.
Where am I going to find that? Oh, I haven't a clue. What should I do then?
Well, I better proceed. Like those who not being able to find what they want just beat around the neighbouring fields.
Hmm. Just hope that something will turn up. All right, I'll.
I'll do that. I'll go and hope that something turns up. Very strange way of proceeding.
But that's what he does. The first neighbouring field is the causal maxim.
It is a general maxim in philosophy that whatever begins to exist must have a cause of existence.
Well, here's an interesting question. Why do we believe the causal maxim?
Well, many philosophers say that it's intuitively certain or demonstratively certain.
HUME argues that it is neither. And we've actually seen part of that argument before.
Do you remember in The Theory of Relations, I mentioned that in drawing his dichotomy.
Part of Hume's aim seems to have been to show that the causal maxim can't be intuitively certain because,
he says, intuitive certainty can only involve the constant relations.
Causation is an inconstant relation. Therefore, the causal maxim can't be intuitively certain.
More securely. He appeals to the appeals to the conceive ability principle.
It's perfectly conceivable to have something beginning into existence without a cause.
Therefore, it cannot be intuitively or demonstratively certain that every beginning of existence must have a cause.
Since it's not from knowledge, remember humans using knowledge in the strict sense.
When HUME talks about knowledge in the treatise, he almost always means demonstrative knowledge, absolute certainty.
So it's not from knowledge or any scientific reasoning that we derive this opinion,
the causal maxim it must necessarily arise from observation and experience.
The next question then should naturally be how experience gives rise to such a principle.
How from experience do we get a belief in the causal maxim?
But as I find it will be more convenient to sink this question in the following.
Why we conclude that such particular causes must necessarily have such particular effects, and why we form an inference from one to another.
We shall make that the subject of our future inquiry will perhaps be found in the end that the same answer will serve for both questions.
Well, an intriguing passage, because not only does he sink the causal maxim at this point, it sinks without trace.
It never reappears. He never comes back to it. So we have the appearance here that he's interested in the origin of the causal maxim.
He says. That's very interesting.
I'm going to sink it in. This other question, he goes off and discusses the other question never comes back.
Now many people have supposed that he is not a believer in the causal maxim.
This does not seem to be the case.
I suppose it's quite natural that people would think that because he's argued that the causal maxim is not intuitively or demonstratively certain.
He's attacked various philosophies arguments, notably those of Hobbs, Locke and Samuel Clark for the causal maxim.
But bear in mind, he said quite explicitly that it arises from experience.
Here he's saying the next question is how it arises from experience.
There are two main lines of evidence for the claim that HUME does believe in the causal maxim.
Beside those hints, first of all, we will see that HUME seems to be a pretty committed determinist.
If you're a determinist, then inevitably you're going to believe in the causal maxim.
It's an interesting question why he's a determinist and whether he's justified in being one.
But I think it's pretty clear that he is just saying we'll come back to that later.
But secondly, we've got some letters. So this is the letter from a gentleman to his friend in Edinburgh, written in 1745.
He's been attacked by the local clergy as an atheist for denying the doctrine of causes and effects.
And they're saying HUME, in the treatise, denies that every event has a cause for that.
Every beginning of existence has a cause. This is the foundation of, for example, Samuel Clarke's cosmological argument for the existence of God.
Therefore, Hume's an atheist. And HUME is saying, no, I didn't say that in the treaties.
What I said was that the causal maxim is not founded on demonstrative or intuitive certainty.
Instead, it's founded on moral evidence, probable evidence, inductive evidence, evidence from experience,
and it's followed by a conviction of the same kind with these truths that all men must die.
And that the sun will rise tomorrow. Now. If that is written sincerely.
Then HUME seems to be thinking out there in the country as to just who a madman without his books.
Here he is, writing from memory, and he seems to be thinking that in the treatise he had asserted that the causal maxim is derived from experience,
and these are certain, as these things are certain pretty much as anything.
Again. We have a letter to Jon Stewart. Jon Stewart had written that HUME denied the doctrine of causes and effects.
And here he is saying, no, I didn't.
I didn't deny that at all. Saying much the same as in the letter from a gentleman.
Okay. So much for the causal maxim HUME discusses.
It takes the opportunity to attack some attempts to prove it, then says, I'm going to go on to talk about causal inference.
And as I've suggested, I think that's where his interests really lie.
So the next few sections are structured around this and it is a very systematic structure.
In Treatise one, three, four.
HUME argues that causal reasoning, if it's going to result in belief, must start from something that we perceive or remember.
So that gives us an agenda here.
Therefore, we have three things to explain. First, the original impression that's the thing from which we reason.
Secondly, the transition to the idea of the connected cause or effect.
So when we draw an inference from what we perceive to something that we don't perceive.
Thirdly, the nature and qualities of that idea. And we'll see in the rest of this part of the treatise.
He does discuss the original impression. The transition to the idea of the connected cause or effect.
That's the argument concerning induction of the inference from the impression to the idea.
And then he goes on to discuss the nature of belief.
So the next few sections of the treatise are all structured accordingly.
135 has an odd title of the impressions of the senses and memory.
That's a bit peculiar because. The memory does not present impressions.
The memory presents ideas. So what's he doing here?
Talking about the impressions of the senses and memory.
Well, I think it's a slip, but it's a fairly natural slip, because what HUME is doing here is contrasting the senses and memory with the imagination.
And what he's saying is that the impressions of the senses and the ideas of the memory have a force,
an vivacity, a strength, a liveliness beyond those of the imagination.
And that seems to be what enables us to found an inference from them when we
infer beyond what we have perceived or remembered to something unobserved.
It seems to be that extra force and vivacity over the mere ideas of the imagination that enables us to actually draw an inference from it.