I. Okay.
Now I'm going to fast forward to treaties one 314.
This is the culmination of treatise book one, part three.
It's the longest section and one of the most famous.
What I am leaving out in treaties one three 9 to 13 are mainly discussions of various types of rational or irrational beliefs,
Hume's theory of probability and a lot of discussion of associational processes.
Those sections are commonly ignored.
I think it's regrettable that they're ignored as much as they are, but they will play a role later when we come back to discuss Hume's scepticism.
But they do somewhat interrupt the narrative of treaties.
One three. The main narrative definitely resumes when we come back to section 14 of the idea of necessary connection.
So just a reminder of how that narrative is going.
Entreaties one three to whom identified the components of the idea of causation as contiguity priority in time unnecessary connection.
In the argument concerning induction we've seen, he identifies constant conjunction as the key factor in the description of necessary connection.
And since then he's argued the causal reasoning is founded just on custom.
Going back earlier in the treatise, we have the copy principle. The copy principle that all our simple ideas are copied from impressions.
And HUME sees that as a way of shedding light on those ideas.
If you can find the impression from which an idea is copied, that tells you about the nature of the idea.
In the enquiry, he calls it a new microscope or species of optics.
So in treaties one 314 what Hume's doing is setting out to identify the impression from which the idea of necessary connection is copied.
The very first paragraph of it actually gives a preview of the entire argument well worth looking at.
Now it's a well-known section, as I say, one of the best known sections in Hume's writings.
But actually, there are some real puzzles with it. And I'm going to address those in what follows and try to make sense of what's going on.
Some of this is a bit speculative, but I shall give you the arguments for it.
I think the result is an interpretation of HUME, which makes pretty good sense of what's happening.
So he starts off by observing that the terms of efficacy, agency, power, force,
energy, necessity, connection and productive quality are all nearly synonymous.
And therefore, it is an absurdity to employ any of them in defining the rest.
So other philosophers have tried to explain the idea of necessary connection in terms of things like productive quality.
What is it for one thing to be necessarily connected with another?
Well, it's for the one to produce the other, to cause the other to have an efficacy, to bring the other one about.
And HUME is just saying that's no good. They're all basically synonymous.
Now there's two puzzles here. Why does he assume that all of these terms are virtually synonymous?
And why does he say. That it's going to be impossible to define necessarily connection in other terms.
When consistently with the copy principle, necessary connection could turn out to be a complex idea.
And he seems to assume that it's a simple idea.
Why? Well, I've got a suggested solution to that.
The suggested solution is that humans interest here lies in a single common element of all these ideas.
So when he talks about efficacy, agency, power, force, energy and so on.
He doesn't necessarily need all of those to be literally synonymous.
The crucial point is that he wants a single, simple element of all of them.
The element that is in common to all of them. And I've coined the term for that consequence reality.
Think of one thing following another by some kind of necessity or force or energy.
That basic idea HUME takes to be simple.
A third puzzle. He's saying that necessary connection is a key component of our idea of a cause.
Now, if that was so, it should mean that anyone who believes that A cause is B should believe that A necessitates B.
But we find that when HUME discusses the views of the vulgar in the treatise, you can see this one, three, 12 in the sections we've skipped over.
He actually talks about them as believing in causes that are chancy, that don't act reliably.
The vulgar attribute, the uncertainty of events to such an uncertainty in the causes as makes the latter often fail of their usual influence.
So. An ordinary person.
Finding that their watch isn't working says, Oh, sometimes it doesn't work.
They think this chance he calls Asian, whereas the philosopher knows better.
The philosopher knows that when you investigate these things,
you always find that there's some hidden cause which is responsible for the irregularity.
Okay. Humans obviously aligning himself with the philosopher here.
But the puzzle is that if necessity is part of the concept of cause, then how can the vulgar even believe in a non necessitating cause?
Now again, I suggest that this is explained by my hypothesis that HUME is not literally looking for the origin of the idea of necessity,
just that specific idea. He's looking for a more generic idea.
I've said I called the consequent chirality and the thought is that that might not be compelling.
Now that has one. Particularly nice feature in that, HUME explains the idea of probability as coming about from a sort of dilution of necessity.
When we make inductive inferences, we are making inferences that involve the idea of necessary connection.
When we make probable inferences. Probable in the strict sense that is without certainty.
Where we are foreseeing a possibly being followed by B, possibly C.
Followed by possibly D. That idea is supposed to be derived from the same source.
So if that source is not something as strict as a necessity,
but rather a general notion of consequence reality that could explain how HUME sees the idea of probability as ultimately coming from the same source.
Okay. Now, here's the section one 314 is entitled.
Of the idea of necessary connection.
Section seven of the inquiry, which is the equivalent of very similar argument, is also entitled of the idea of necessary connection.
But there's a little bit of a surprise here if you actually analyse the statistics of the words that are used,
because HUME refers to the ideas of power and efficacy around three times, more often than he does to the idea of necessity or necessary connection.
Now. Why is that going on?
Well, I suggest that if what he's after is the general idea of consequence reality, then power is actually more appropriate than necessity.
Necessity is a pretty extreme form of consequent reality.
It's one thing with absolute certainty being followed by the other, whereas power is more vague.
You can imagine a power that is not inexorable.
You can't imagine a necessity that isn't inexorable.
So I'm suggesting that Hume's real interest is in this more generic idea, what I call consequent reality.
Why, you might ask, then, why does he put as the title of the section of the idea of necessary connection?
Well, I think that's because of what he wants to do with it.
Why is HUME interested in the idea of necessary connection?
Well, one answer is no doubt that he's done this taxonomy of the different ideas.
He's found causation to be a particularly interesting relation.
And so off he goes, looking for its origin,
the kind of thing that might interest a 20th century analytic philosopher who just wants to find out about the origin of ideas,
the nature of meanings. But actually, Hume's got a much more significant quarry in mind.
He wants to understand what necessary connection is in order to shed light on liberty and necessity, free will and determinism.
And that is the most important issue where he will actually apply the results of some of the ideas of necessary connection,
both in the Treaties and in the inquiry. So the suggestion is that although it's called of the idea of necessarily connection,
the real quarry that humans are after is a much more generic, less specific idea.
And the reason he dresses it up as concerning necessity in particular is because he has another job that he wants to do with this analysis.
Okay. As I say, that's speculative. But if you don't accept that speculation, you've got three puzzles there to deal with and they are quite tricky.
I think this solution quite neatly ties them all together.
Okay. So how does the argument go? Well, look suggests that we can get the idea of power from new productions in matter.
We see certain things happening in the material world and we think that there is some power that brings them about that gives us the idea of power.
And HUME says that's no good. You have to have the idea of power in order to be able to speculate about a power bringing something about.
You can't get a new simple idea. From an argument.
Mal Brough, um gets appealed to at this point.
Mal Brough she of course wants to deny that material things are real causes.
He wants to say that the only cause in the world is the will of an omnipotent, impotent being God.
So he's quite a useful person to appeal to at this point. If you look at material objects, you won't see any power there.
But Malabar thinks he can make sense of power in God.
And HUME says that's no good. How can you do that?
You have to have the idea of power in order to form the idea of a powerful God.
So you've got just as much problem explaining the origin of the idea of power as anyone else.
How is can't be found among the known or perceived properties of matter.
If we examine, say, a billiard ball, see its colour, maybe feel its weight.
You can hear the noise when it bashes into another one, all those sorts of things.
You can see its shape. You can't see its power.
Nor if we think of our ideas can we be aware of their having any power.
Why does one idea follow another in my mind? Well, they do seem to follow each other in a systematic way.
But I'm not aware of the power that drives them. In all of these cases, we can't find any specific impression of power.
Well, trying to have an abstract idea of power then is going to be no better,
because humans said that the only way you can have a general idea or an abstract idea is by having specific instances.
If you've never come across the specific, specific instances, you can't possibly have a general idea.
So up till now, the origin of the idea of necessary connection seems to be a mystery.
Humans looked at it in bodies in mind.
He's looked at specific ideas, general ideas. None of them is giving any clue to the origin of the idea of necessary connection.
The clue comes when he looks at repeated instances.
And this, of course, is no surprise. We know from 136 that constant conjunction is going to be going to turn out to be the key thing.
And remember, HUME has said perhaps it will appear in the end that the necessary connection depends
on the inference instead of the inferences depending on the necessary connection.
So when we see A followed by B repeatedly, we see and A we infer, a, B,
we immediately conceive a connection between them and draw an inference from one to another.
This multiplicity of resembling instances therefore constitutes the very essence of power or connection,
and is the source from which the idea of it arises.
Now, how exactly is that supposed to work? If I see A followed by B, you know, moving billiard ball followed by another one moving.
If that's repeated, I don't get any new kinds of impressions from the object.
I just see more of the same. More colours moving.
Hearing of the similar sounds, etc. So how can repetition provide any new impression?
Well, the only way it can is by changing our minds.
So what HUME is saying is that when we make a causal inference, when we've seen A followed by B again and again, we see an A,
we infer A, B, a new impression appears in our mind that, he says, is the origin of the idea of necessary connection.
It's copied from that new impression. I think that's probably a good place to stop.
And we'll continue from there next time. Thank you.
Right out the hand out there has a you'll find it's got three sheets.
I'm going to try to get through most of the content of that.
So it's going to be rather a rapid trip through what's going on with human causation.
I hope by the end of the lecture you'll have a clearer understanding of at least how I see what's going on there.
So what I'm going to do now, Steve, is just sort of continue from last time.
All right. Okay. Okay.
So humans. Humes concluded that we can't get any impression of power or necessary connection from single instances.
And he goes on to say that it must be the repetition that is somehow the key.
When we see A followed by B again and again we see an A, it leads us immediately to form an inference to a B and that,
human says, gives us the impression of necessary connection.
But it's not an it's not an impression that we get from the objects themselves.
When we see A followed by B again, we just see the same things as we've seen before.
The difference is in the mind. So it's an internal impression.
And he remember back in Treatise one, three, six,
he had said perhaps it will appear in the end that the necessary connection depends on the inference instead of the inferences,
depending on the necessary connection.
And what HUME seems to be saying is that when we see an A and we find ourselves inferring a B, it's that that determination of the mind,
as he calls it, that gives the impression of necessary connection from which the idea of necessary connection is copied.
Now, this is all a little bit puzzling. Here are some.
Here's a passage from the inquiry which will be helpful for focusing on the problem.
This connection, which we feel in the mind, this customary transition of the imagination from one object to its usual attendant is the
sentiment or impression from which we form the idea of power or necessary connection.
But what he seems to be saying there is that the customary transition of the mind is an impression.
How does that work? We see an A, we find ourselves expecting a, B.
So our mind is making the transition from the impression of A to the idea of B to the belief in B, but that transition.
HUME c b identifying with an impression.
Now. Stroud quite influentially, suggesting that what must be going on here is that.
HUME Is supposing that when we make some such inference,
there is a feeling of compulsion we see and I and we feel our minds transferring to the expectation of a B, but that's rather odd for two reasons.
First of all, HUME says that the inference typically is immediate.
We see, and we just find ourselves believing B What ground has he got for supposing that there must be some distinctive feeling that arises then?
And secondly, he gives arguments. I've put references there which seem to suggest that a feeling can't possibly play the role,
that he wants the impression necessary connection to play.
A feeling would be just an impression of a feeling. Give us the idea of a feeling, not the idea of necessary connection.
So. My suggestion here is that humans may be misled by his theory of ideas.
Because of his copy principle, he feels that he's got to find an impression to provide the source of the idea.
And he's found something. He's found the tendency of the mind to draw an inference.
He sees that as something extra and then says, There we are.
That's an impression. But I'm suggesting the reason he says it's an impression is because an impression is what he's looking for.
If his theory of mind weren't so impoverished. If he had made more scope for reflection to play a role.
If you remember in an earlier lecture, I mentioned that Hume's view of reflection seems to be treating it as like a sense.
We just sent certain things by reflection. He hasn't made room for reflexive awareness of what's going on in our minds.
Or at least he hasn't explicitly done so.
Now I suggest that we get a more intelligible interpretation of HUME if we think in terms of reflexive awareness rather than feelings.
So suppose I see. And I'm ferriby. No need for any special feeling, but I am aware of what's going on in my mind.
I'm aware that seeing an A is leading me to expect to be.
I am inferring a, B and I'm aware of that inference.
Now, suppose the awareness of that inference is playing the role of providing the source of the idea.
That at least makes some sense because if what HUME is looking for, as I suggested earlier, is some idea of consequence reality.
One thing following from another. Then the mind actually drawing an inference from A to B is one thing following from another.
And HUME sometime suggests that it's the only kind of consequence reality that we can really intimately understand that has,
if you like, enough mental reality to for us to provide the origin of the relevant idea.
So take this passage from the inquiry, that inference of the understanding, which is the only connection that we can have any comprehension of.
So I think when HUME talks about the transition of the understanding or the determination of the mind as being the impression.
We should take it that he means literally. It is the inference, the awareness of the inference.
It's not a feeling that accompanies the inference.
It's actually awareness of the inference makes us realise that we are treating a as providing a ground
for inferring of B and that gives us the idea of consequence reality one thing following from another.
I don't think HUME should have called it an impression,
but I think we can see why it's the closest HUME could get within his theory of mind to express what's going on here.
Okay. So that's controversial. I mean, how one interprets that, there are clearly tensions within Hume's theory.
Where he goes from. It seems quite radical. So when you get the customary inference is the essence of necessity.
Necessity is something that exists in the mind, not in object, nor is it possible for us ever to form the most distant idea of it.
Considered as a quality in bodies, necessity is nothing but that determination of the thought to pass from causes to effects and from
effects to causes according to their experienced union and similar quotation from the inquiry.
HUME seems to be saying Necessity is in the mind, not in objects.
Now you can see why he says that. He's saying the impression of necessary connection is something that's going on in there.
It's either the drawing of the inference or possibly a feeling, but it's something mental, something that can't exist out there.
So HUME comes out with this rather radical claim that necessity isn't an object.
It's in the mind. What exactly does he mean by that? What you might think that what he's saying is that there is some kind of full blooded necessity.
Uh, we'll come a bit later to what that might mean. But there's some kind of real necessity of the sort that previous metaphysician thought there was.
But he only exists in the mind, not in objects. I think that's definitely a mistaken interpretation.
Rather, he said that the only understanding we can get of necessity comes from reflecting on what's going on in our own minds.
Now, HUME remarked that that seems a very strange theory.
Intuitively, it seems very difficult to accept an account in terms of mind reading itself on external objects.
He's suggesting that when we, for example, suppose we smell a fruit.
We naturally attribute the fruit to the physical object, even though it's quite clear to us that the smell cannot actually exist in the object itself.
And in the same sort of way, when we get this impression of necessary connection,
we spread it on the objects as though it's part of them, when in fact it's within our minds.
Now there's a passage here in paragraph 26 of Section 14 where HUME imagines what an opponent might say.
This is ridiculous. What the efficacy, of course, is lie in the determination of the mind,
as if causes did not operate entirely independent of the mind and wouldn't continue their operation,
even though there was no mind existent to contemplate them. So he's imagining an opponent objecting to him.
And his reply. Holds his ground.
I can only reply to all these arguments that the case is 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 light to the same with solidity. So. Imagine a blind man.
A blind man asks you what? Scarlet, like what's yellow like?
What's blue like? And in order to give the blind man some sort of understanding of the relative impact of different colours,
you might say, Oh, well, Scarlet Yeah, that's kind a bright colour, like the sound of a trumpet.
And then the blind man thinks that he understands what Scarlett is.
But he doesn't. He's never had a scar impression.
So he may think that he understands it, but actually when he uses the word scarlet, he's using it without any clear idea.
So he doesn't know what he means. And he is saying in the same way.
If people attribute necessity to objects as though it was something that they know of from objects,
they using it without any appropriate impression and therefore without any appropriate meaning.
But he does want to say that in a sense, causation is objective.
So immediately afterwards he says, yes, I accept that.
In a sense, causes are objective objects in the real world.
They're to each other. The relations of contiguity and succession that light like objects may be observed in several instances to have like relations.
And all this is independent of an antecedent to the operations of the understanding.
So objects are constantly conjoined in the real world, whether we perceive them or not.
In that sense, causation is objective.
It's the impression and hence the idea of necessary connection which we falsely attribute to objects themselves.
So we end up with two definitions of cause.
One of them is based on regular succession of cause and effect.
One of them is based on the mind's tendency to infer one thing from another.
So you can see these. One of them is focusing, if you like, on the external situation.
The day is followed by B repeatedly. One on the internal situation, which gives rise to that impression and hence idea of necessary connection.
So a very famous passage. Two definitions may be given.
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 precedent,
sea and contiguity to those objects which resemble the latter.
Okay. So in other words, two things constantly conjoin, but one definition.
But the other definition is a cause, is an object precedence and contiguous to another.
And so united with it that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea
of the other and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other.
So that is, if I think of the cause, that's likely to take my thought to thinking about the effect.
If I actually see the cause, then I will get a lively idea.
In other words, a belief of the effect. I will expect the effect.
Now we might think that we have some deeper understanding of causation.
There is a vulgar idea of power when people think about one thing having a power to act on another.
They tend to think that there's something more to it than constant conjunction and inference.
Because there are various contaminants, if you like. For example, if you try to lift a heavy object, you get a feeling of strain.
And that can enter into it. You think somehow that when one object hits another, it has a similar kind of strain trying to push the other.
That's not really the case, but it's natural to attribute those sorts of things to objects.
Again, if you look at the the reference I've given there in paragraph 25 of Section 14, there's a footnote.
And if you follow the footnote, it refers to the section of the materiality of the sole one four or 513,
where HUME quite clearly says, if you attribute the taste of an object to the object itself, you're making a mistake.
You're trying to put taste which can actually only exist in the mind.
You're trying to place it there in an object. You make exactly the same mistake.
If you have these feelings of effort or strain and you attribute those two objects.
But there is a more precise idea of causation. We do not have to be misled in this way, and that that's very important.
HUME is not saying that the idea of necessarily connection is bogus.
And this is a crucially important point. His quest for the impression of necessary connection is a successful quest.
He does actually manage to identify an impression, which means that at the end of that, he's got a bona fide idea.
So don't get the impression from Hume's discussion of causation that he's rejecting the idea of necessity.
He isn't. Partway through his discussion, it can seem like he is.
But then he says, tis probable that these expressions do here lose their true meaning by being wrong applied, that they never have any meaning.
And that's before he goes on to identify the impression as based on repeated conjunctions.
So the idea of power or necessary connection is vindicated by Hume's analysis.
It's not condemned. Now.
What exactly? How should we understand the two definitions?
There is a difficulty here and there's a lot of discussion in the literature.
It seems to me that the most consistent way probably of understanding humour should be saying a little bit more on this later.
Is that we should apply the idea of necessary connection and causation according to constant conjunction,
but that applying it ipso facto involves some sort of willingness to make an inference.
So what's going on with the two definitions, I suggest is something like this.
But HUME has identified the circumstances in which we call something a cause as being a constant conjunction between A and B.
And he's noticed that the crucial factor that's involved in calling something a cause is the fact that we infer B from A.
And he seems to be saying just focus on those two features as the elements of causation, and then you will have a precise,
clear, refined idea of causation stripped of the misleading aspects that are there in the vulgar idea like effort.
As I say, we'll be coming back to that shortly. HUME ends with some corollaries of his definitions of cause.
All causes are of the same kind. He rejects occasional ism.
Notice if constant conjunction be implied in what we call occasion.
Tis a real cause, if not is no relation at all.
So where we get a constant conjunction of things, the occasionally just want to say That's not a real cause.
God is actually the real cause. When one billiard ball hits another one and the other one moves, it's God who's doing the stuff.
Q Me saying if there's a conjunction, that's real causation.
There's only one kind of necessity. The distinction between moral and physical necessity is without any foundation in nature.
One important caveat here I don't think humans being quite accurate on his own principles.
There are, in fact, two kinds of necessity. The other kind of necessity is, if you like, logical or conceptual necessity.
Here he's talking about causal necessity and saying there's only one type of causal necessity.
So where he's he's disagreeing with people at the time who are wanting to say that physical causation,
the sort of causation that is involved with billiard balls is completely different in kind from moral causation.
That is causation by reasons, humans acting on reasons and humans saying basically, no,
the kind of causation that's involved in the moral world, in the human world is the same kind as in the physical world.
So that has very significant consequences for the discussion of free will and determinism.
He draws a couple more corollaries, which I've noted there.