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I. Okay.

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Now I'm going to fast forward to treaties one 314.

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This is the culmination of treatise book one, part three.

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It's the longest section and one of the most famous.

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What I am leaving out in treaties one three 9 to 13 are mainly discussions of various types of rational or irrational beliefs,

6
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Hume's theory of probability and a lot of discussion of associational processes.

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Those sections are commonly ignored.

8
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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.

9
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But they do somewhat interrupt the narrative of treaties.

10
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One three. The main narrative definitely resumes when we come back to section 14 of the idea of necessary connection.

11
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So just a reminder of how that narrative is going.

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Entreaties one three to whom identified the components of the idea of causation as contiguity priority in time unnecessary connection.

13
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In the argument concerning induction we've seen, he identifies constant conjunction as the key factor in the description of necessary connection.

14
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And since then he's argued the causal reasoning is founded just on custom.

15
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Going back earlier in the treatise, we have the copy principle. The copy principle that all our simple ideas are copied from impressions.

16
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And HUME sees that as a way of shedding light on those ideas.

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If you can find the impression from which an idea is copied, that tells you about the nature of the idea.

18
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In the enquiry, he calls it a new microscope or species of optics.

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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.

20
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The very first paragraph of it actually gives a preview of the entire argument well worth looking at.

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Now it's a well-known section, as I say, one of the best known sections in Hume's writings.

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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.

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Some of this is a bit speculative, but I shall give you the arguments for it.

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I think the result is an interpretation of HUME, which makes pretty good sense of what's happening.

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So he starts off by observing that the terms of efficacy, agency, power, force,

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energy, necessity, connection and productive quality are all nearly synonymous.

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And therefore, it is an absurdity to employ any of them in defining the rest.

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So other philosophers have tried to explain the idea of necessary connection in terms of things like productive quality.

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What is it for one thing to be necessarily connected with another?

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Well, it's for the one to produce the other, to cause the other to have an efficacy, to bring the other one about.

31
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And HUME is just saying that's no good. They're all basically synonymous.

32
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Now there's two puzzles here. Why does he assume that all of these terms are virtually synonymous?

33
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And why does he say. That it's going to be impossible to define necessarily connection in other terms.

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When consistently with the copy principle, necessary connection could turn out to be a complex idea.

35
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And he seems to assume that it's a simple idea.

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Why? Well, I've got a suggested solution to that.

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The suggested solution is that humans interest here lies in a single common element of all these ideas.

38
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So when he talks about efficacy, agency, power, force, energy and so on.

39
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He doesn't necessarily need all of those to be literally synonymous.

40
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The crucial point is that he wants a single, simple element of all of them.

41
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The element that is in common to all of them. And I've coined the term for that consequence reality.

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Think of one thing following another by some kind of necessity or force or energy.

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That basic idea HUME takes to be simple.

44
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A third puzzle. He's saying that necessary connection is a key component of our idea of a cause.

45
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Now, if that was so, it should mean that anyone who believes that A cause is B should believe that A necessitates B.

46
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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.

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He actually talks about them as believing in causes that are chancy, that don't act reliably.

48
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The vulgar attribute, the uncertainty of events to such an uncertainty in the causes as makes the latter often fail of their usual influence.

49
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So. An ordinary person.

50
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Finding that their watch isn't working says, Oh, sometimes it doesn't work.

51
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They think this chance he calls Asian, whereas the philosopher knows better.

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The philosopher knows that when you investigate these things,

53
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you always find that there's some hidden cause which is responsible for the irregularity.

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Okay. Humans obviously aligning himself with the philosopher here.

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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?

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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,

57
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just that specific idea. He's looking for a more generic idea.

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I've said I called the consequent chirality and the thought is that that might not be compelling.

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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.

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When we make inductive inferences, we are making inferences that involve the idea of necessary connection.

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When we make probable inferences. Probable in the strict sense that is without certainty.

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Where we are foreseeing a possibly being followed by B, possibly C.

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Followed by possibly D. That idea is supposed to be derived from the same source.

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So if that source is not something as strict as a necessity,

65
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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.

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Okay. Now, here's the section one 314 is entitled.

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Of the idea of necessary connection.

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Section seven of the inquiry, which is the equivalent of very similar argument, is also entitled of the idea of necessary connection.

69
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But there's a little bit of a surprise here if you actually analyse the statistics of the words that are used,

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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.

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Now. Why is that going on?

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Well, I suggest that if what he's after is the general idea of consequence reality, then power is actually more appropriate than necessity.

73
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Necessity is a pretty extreme form of consequent reality.

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It's one thing with absolute certainty being followed by the other, whereas power is more vague.

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You can imagine a power that is not inexorable.

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You can't imagine a necessity that isn't inexorable.

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So I'm suggesting that Hume's real interest is in this more generic idea, what I call consequent reality.

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Why, you might ask, then, why does he put as the title of the section of the idea of necessary connection?

79
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Well, I think that's because of what he wants to do with it.

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Why is HUME interested in the idea of necessary connection?

81
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Well, one answer is no doubt that he's done this taxonomy of the different ideas.

82
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He's found causation to be a particularly interesting relation.

83
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And so off he goes, looking for its origin,

84
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the kind of thing that might interest a 20th century analytic philosopher who just wants to find out about the origin of ideas,

85
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the nature of meanings. But actually, Hume's got a much more significant quarry in mind.

86
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He wants to understand what necessary connection is in order to shed light on liberty and necessity, free will and determinism.

87
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And that is the most important issue where he will actually apply the results of some of the ideas of necessary connection,

88
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both in the Treaties and in the inquiry. So the suggestion is that although it's called of the idea of necessarily connection,

89
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the real quarry that humans are after is a much more generic, less specific idea.

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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.

91
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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.

92
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I think this solution quite neatly ties them all together.

93
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Okay. So how does the argument go? Well, look suggests that we can get the idea of power from new productions in matter.

94
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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.

95
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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.

96
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You can't get a new simple idea. From an argument.

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Mal Brough, um gets appealed to at this point.

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Mal Brough she of course wants to deny that material things are real causes.

99
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He wants to say that the only cause in the world is the will of an omnipotent, impotent being God.

100
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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.

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But Malabar thinks he can make sense of power in God.

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And HUME says that's no good. How can you do that?

103
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You have to have the idea of power in order to form the idea of a powerful God.

104
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So you've got just as much problem explaining the origin of the idea of power as anyone else.

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How is can't be found among the known or perceived properties of matter.

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If we examine, say, a billiard ball, see its colour, maybe feel its weight.

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You can hear the noise when it bashes into another one, all those sorts of things.

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You can see its shape. You can't see its power.

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Nor if we think of our ideas can we be aware of their having any power.

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Why does one idea follow another in my mind? Well, they do seem to follow each other in a systematic way.

111
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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.

112
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Well, trying to have an abstract idea of power then is going to be no better,

113
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because humans said that the only way you can have a general idea or an abstract idea is by having specific instances.

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If you've never come across the specific, specific instances, you can't possibly have a general idea.

115
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So up till now, the origin of the idea of necessary connection seems to be a mystery.

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Humans looked at it in bodies in mind.

117
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He's looked at specific ideas, general ideas. None of them is giving any clue to the origin of the idea of necessary connection.

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The clue comes when he looks at repeated instances.

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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.

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And remember, HUME has said perhaps it will appear in the end that the necessary connection depends

121
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on the inference instead of the inferences depending on the necessary connection.

122
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So when we see A followed by B repeatedly, we see and A we infer, a, B,

123
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we immediately conceive a connection between them and draw an inference from one to another.

124
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This multiplicity of resembling instances therefore constitutes the very essence of power or connection,

125
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and is the source from which the idea of it arises.

126
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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.

127
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If that's repeated, I don't get any new kinds of impressions from the object.

128
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I just see more of the same. More colours moving.

129
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Hearing of the similar sounds, etc. So how can repetition provide any new impression?

130
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Well, the only way it can is by changing our minds.

131
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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,

132
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we infer A, B, a new impression appears in our mind that, he says, is the origin of the idea of necessary connection.

133
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It's copied from that new impression. I think that's probably a good place to stop.

134
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And we'll continue from there next time. Thank you.

135
00:16:26,620 --> 00:16:31,030
Right out the hand out there has a you'll find it's got three sheets.

136
00:16:31,690 --> 00:16:35,950
I'm going to try to get through most of the content of that.

137
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So it's going to be rather a rapid trip through what's going on with human causation.

138
00:16:42,280 --> 00:16:48,160
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.

139
00:16:50,160 --> 00:16:54,000
So what I'm going to do now, Steve, is just sort of continue from last time.

140
00:16:54,480 --> 00:16:57,930
All right. Okay. Okay.

141
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So humans. Humes concluded that we can't get any impression of power or necessary connection from single instances.

142
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And he goes on to say that it must be the repetition that is somehow the key.

143
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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,

144
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human says, gives us the impression of necessary connection.

145
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But it's not an it's not an impression that we get from the objects themselves.

146
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When we see A followed by B again, we just see the same things as we've seen before.

147
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The difference is in the mind. So it's an internal impression.

148
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And he remember back in Treatise one, three, six,

149
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he had said perhaps it will appear in the end that the necessary connection depends on the inference instead of the inferences,

150
00:18:04,850 --> 00:18:06,530
depending on the necessary connection.

151
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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,

152
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as he calls it, that gives the impression of necessary connection from which the idea of necessary connection is copied.

153
00:18:26,720 --> 00:18:33,170
Now, this is all a little bit puzzling. Here are some.

154
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Here's a passage from the inquiry which will be helpful for focusing on the problem.

155
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This connection, which we feel in the mind, this customary transition of the imagination from one object to its usual attendant is the

156
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sentiment or impression from which we form the idea of power or necessary connection.

157
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But what he seems to be saying there is that the customary transition of the mind is an impression.

158
00:19:01,580 --> 00:19:06,260
How does that work? We see an A, we find ourselves expecting a, B.

159
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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.

160
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HUME c b identifying with an impression.

161
00:19:21,680 --> 00:19:27,290
Now. Stroud quite influentially, suggesting that what must be going on here is that.

162
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HUME Is supposing that when we make some such inference,

163
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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.

164
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First of all, HUME says that the inference typically is immediate.

165
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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?

166
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And secondly, he gives arguments. I've put references there which seem to suggest that a feeling can't possibly play the role,

167
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that he wants the impression necessary connection to play.

168
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A feeling would be just an impression of a feeling. Give us the idea of a feeling, not the idea of necessary connection.

169
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So. My suggestion here is that humans may be misled by his theory of ideas.

170
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Because of his copy principle, he feels that he's got to find an impression to provide the source of the idea.

171
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And he's found something. He's found the tendency of the mind to draw an inference.

172
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He sees that as something extra and then says, There we are.

173
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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.

174
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If his theory of mind weren't so impoverished. If he had made more scope for reflection to play a role.

175
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If you remember in an earlier lecture, I mentioned that Hume's view of reflection seems to be treating it as like a sense.

176
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We just sent certain things by reflection. He hasn't made room for reflexive awareness of what's going on in our minds.

177
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Or at least he hasn't explicitly done so.

178
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Now I suggest that we get a more intelligible interpretation of HUME if we think in terms of reflexive awareness rather than feelings.

179
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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.

180
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I'm aware that seeing an A is leading me to expect to be.

181
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I am inferring a, B and I'm aware of that inference.

182
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Now, suppose the awareness of that inference is playing the role of providing the source of the idea.

183
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That at least makes some sense because if what HUME is looking for, as I suggested earlier, is some idea of consequence reality.

184
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One thing following from another. Then the mind actually drawing an inference from A to B is one thing following from another.

185
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And HUME sometime suggests that it's the only kind of consequence reality that we can really intimately understand that has,

186
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if you like, enough mental reality to for us to provide the origin of the relevant idea.

187
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So take this passage from the inquiry, that inference of the understanding, which is the only connection that we can have any comprehension of.

188
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So I think when HUME talks about the transition of the understanding or the determination of the mind as being the impression.

189
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We should take it that he means literally. It is the inference, the awareness of the inference.

190
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It's not a feeling that accompanies the inference.

191
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It's actually awareness of the inference makes us realise that we are treating a as providing a ground

192
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for inferring of B and that gives us the idea of consequence reality one thing following from another.

193
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I don't think HUME should have called it an impression,

194
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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.

195
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Okay. So that's controversial. I mean, how one interprets that, there are clearly tensions within Hume's theory.

196
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Where he goes from. It seems quite radical. So when you get the customary inference is the essence of necessity.

197
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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.

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Considered as a quality in bodies, necessity is nothing but that determination of the thought to pass from causes to effects and from

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effects to causes according to their experienced union and similar quotation from the inquiry.

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HUME seems to be saying Necessity is in the mind, not in objects.

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Now you can see why he says that. He's saying the impression of necessary connection is something that's going on in there.

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It's either the drawing of the inference or possibly a feeling, but it's something mental, something that can't exist out there.

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So HUME comes out with this rather radical claim that necessity isn't an object.

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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.

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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.

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But he only exists in the mind, not in objects. I think that's definitely a mistaken interpretation.

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Rather, he said that the only understanding we can get of necessity comes from reflecting on what's going on in our own minds.

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Now, HUME remarked that that seems a very strange theory.

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Intuitively, it seems very difficult to accept an account in terms of mind reading itself on external objects.

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He's suggesting that when we, for example, suppose we smell a fruit.

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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.

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And in the same sort of way, when we get this impression of necessary connection,

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we spread it on the objects as though it's part of them, when in fact it's within our minds.

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Now there's a passage here in paragraph 26 of Section 14 where HUME imagines what an opponent might say.

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This is ridiculous. What the efficacy, of course, is lie in the determination of the mind,

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as if causes did not operate entirely independent of the mind and wouldn't continue their operation,

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even though there was no mind existent to contemplate them. So he's imagining an opponent objecting to him.

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And his reply. Holds his ground.

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I can only reply to all these arguments that the case is here,

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much the same as if a blind man should pretend to find a great many absurdities in the

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supposition that the colour of scarlet is not the same with the sound of a trumpet,

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nor light to the same with solidity. So. Imagine a blind man.

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A blind man asks you what? Scarlet, like what's yellow like?

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What's blue like? And in order to give the blind man some sort of understanding of the relative impact of different colours,

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you might say, Oh, well, Scarlet Yeah, that's kind a bright colour, like the sound of a trumpet.

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And then the blind man thinks that he understands what Scarlett is.

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But he doesn't. He's never had a scar impression.

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So he may think that he understands it, but actually when he uses the word scarlet, he's using it without any clear idea.

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So he doesn't know what he means. And he is saying in the same way.

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If people attribute necessity to objects as though it was something that they know of from objects,

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they using it without any appropriate impression and therefore without any appropriate meaning.

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But he does want to say that in a sense, causation is objective.

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So immediately afterwards he says, yes, I accept that.

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In a sense, causes are objective objects in the real world.

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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.

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And all this is independent of an antecedent to the operations of the understanding.

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So objects are constantly conjoined in the real world, whether we perceive them or not.

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In that sense, causation is objective.

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It's the impression and hence the idea of necessary connection which we falsely attribute to objects themselves.

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So we end up with two definitions of cause.

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One of them is based on regular succession of cause and effect.

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One of them is based on the mind's tendency to infer one thing from another.

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So you can see these. One of them is focusing, if you like, on the external situation.

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The day is followed by B repeatedly. One on the internal situation, which gives rise to that impression and hence idea of necessary connection.

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So a very famous passage. Two definitions may be given.

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We may define a cause to be an object precedent and contiguous to another.

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And where all the objects resembling the former are placed in like relations of precedent,

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sea and contiguity to those objects which resemble the latter.

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Okay. So in other words, two things constantly conjoin, but one definition.

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But the other definition is a cause, is an object precedence and contiguous to another.

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And so united with it that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea

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of the other and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other.

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So that is, if I think of the cause, that's likely to take my thought to thinking about the effect.

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If I actually see the cause, then I will get a lively idea.

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In other words, a belief of the effect. I will expect the effect.

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Now we might think that we have some deeper understanding of causation.

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There is a vulgar idea of power when people think about one thing having a power to act on another.

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They tend to think that there's something more to it than constant conjunction and inference.

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Because there are various contaminants, if you like. For example, if you try to lift a heavy object, you get a feeling of strain.

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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.

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That's not really the case, but it's natural to attribute those sorts of things to objects.

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Again, if you look at the the reference I've given there in paragraph 25 of Section 14, there's a footnote.

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And if you follow the footnote, it refers to the section of the materiality of the sole one four or 513,

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where HUME quite clearly says, if you attribute the taste of an object to the object itself, you're making a mistake.

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You're trying to put taste which can actually only exist in the mind.

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You're trying to place it there in an object. You make exactly the same mistake.

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If you have these feelings of effort or strain and you attribute those two objects.

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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.

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HUME is not saying that the idea of necessarily connection is bogus.

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And this is a crucially important point. His quest for the impression of necessary connection is a successful quest.

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He does actually manage to identify an impression, which means that at the end of that, he's got a bona fide idea.

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So don't get the impression from Hume's discussion of causation that he's rejecting the idea of necessity.

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He isn't. Partway through his discussion, it can seem like he is.

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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.

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And that's before he goes on to identify the impression as based on repeated conjunctions.

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So the idea of power or necessary connection is vindicated by Hume's analysis.

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It's not condemned. Now.

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What exactly? How should we understand the two definitions?

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There is a difficulty here and there's a lot of discussion in the literature.

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It seems to me that the most consistent way probably of understanding humour should be saying a little bit more on this later.

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Is that we should apply the idea of necessary connection and causation according to constant conjunction,

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but that applying it ipso facto involves some sort of willingness to make an inference.

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So what's going on with the two definitions, I suggest is something like this.

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But HUME has identified the circumstances in which we call something a cause as being a constant conjunction between A and B.

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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.

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And he seems to be saying just focus on those two features as the elements of causation, and then you will have a precise,

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clear, refined idea of causation stripped of the misleading aspects that are there in the vulgar idea like effort.

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As I say, we'll be coming back to that shortly. HUME ends with some corollaries of his definitions of cause.

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All causes are of the same kind. He rejects occasional ism.

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Notice if constant conjunction be implied in what we call occasion.

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Tis a real cause, if not is no relation at all.

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So where we get a constant conjunction of things, the occasionally just want to say That's not a real cause.

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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.

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Q Me saying if there's a conjunction, that's real causation.

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There's only one kind of necessity. The distinction between moral and physical necessity is without any foundation in nature.

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One important caveat here I don't think humans being quite accurate on his own principles.

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There are, in fact, two kinds of necessity. The other kind of necessity is, if you like, logical or conceptual necessity.

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Here he's talking about causal necessity and saying there's only one type of causal necessity.

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So where he's he's disagreeing with people at the time who are wanting to say that physical causation,

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the sort of causation that is involved with billiard balls is completely different in kind from moral causation.

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That is causation by reasons, humans acting on reasons and humans saying basically, no,

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the kind of causation that's involved in the moral world, in the human world is the same kind as in the physical world.

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So that has very significant consequences for the discussion of free will and determinism.

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He draws a couple more corollaries, which I've noted there.