I know. I know.
In the case of causation. Okay.
Now, very briefly, I want to talk about why HUME is so interested in the notion of causation.
Why does he spend all this time getting clear on it? No doubt.
Part of the reason is that causation is an important relation. And he's doing this systematic analysis of where our ideas come from.
But there's more than that. If you search through the treaties and you ask yourself, well,
what parts later in the treaties are informed by the discussion of causation and in particular the two definitions?
You find two sections. One of them dumped the materiality of the soul.
And one of them. Of liberty and necessity.
In one case, he is arguing that matter can be the cause of thought.
Against people who say that on principle matter cannot think.
In the other case, he's saying that the doctrine of necessity, if you like, determinism applies as much to the mental world as to the physical world.
Now, both arguments crucially turn on his two definitions.
So of the materiality of the so okay motion of bodies.
It's so different in kind from thinking that there's no way that the motion of matter could cause thought.
Therefore, there must be an immaterial soul or whatever. Very popular argument against Hobbes in the 17th and 18th centuries.
And humans saying that can't work because causation just is a matter of constant conjunction.
A priori, anything could cause anything. It's simply a matter of what's constantly conjoined with what.
And so there's no reason in principle why motion.
Shouldn't cause thought.
Indeed, we find by experience that they're constantly united, which being all the circumstances that enter into the idea of cause and effect.
We may certainly conclude that motion may be and actually is the cause of thought and perception.
Constant conjunction of objects constitutes the very essence of cause and effect.
So matter and motion may often be regarded as the causes of thought.
So he's appealing absolutely explicitly to his definition in terms of constant conjunction,
saying, there you are, you can have constant conjunction there. That means you've got causation.
Liberty and necessity. Very similar in principle. Causation is just a matter of constant conjunction and the inference of the mind.
The first definition and the second definition they apply to the moral realm.
That is the realm of human behaviour just as much as they do to the physical realm.
Therefore, causal necessity applies just as much.
Now, some people won't like that. Some people will say no.
There is a kind of necessity in the motion of billiard balls, which goes beyond the necessity of human action.
There's some kind of really deep metaphysical necessity,
some inexorable force that makes it behave in the way that it does in a way that doesn't imply to us.
And here HUME says, Sorry, you can't form any idea of such a necessity that goes beyond the two definitions.
My opponents will deny that my definitions make the whole of necessity.
But then they must show that we have an idea of something else in the actions of matter, which, according to the foregoing reasoning, is impossible.
Now, that's a rather pithy statement from the abstract,
but you can see that similar thoughts are expressed repeatedly in the treatise and in the inquiry.
And me is absolutely clear that it's his definitions of necessity that make the difference here.
Our author pretends, in other words, claims that this reasoning puts the whole controversy in a new light by giving a new definition of necessity.
And he says twice in the treatise in these sections,
he also says twice in the inquiry that this argument turns on the fact that his definitions are specifying the very essence of necessity.
He really does think he has defined what necessity is.
So what? Perhaps a bit odd here is that we have a form of anti realism supporting a form of realism.
Anti realism in the following sense humans is denying that there is anything to causation beyond his two definitions.
Realism in another sense, because the very fact that causation only requires the satisfaction of the two definitions
means that he can establish confidently that causation does apply in these areas.
If causation required, something deeper, something metaphysically thick, then it will be very hard to establish where it applies.
But if causation just is satisfaction of the two definitions,
then he is able to show that they apply in the moral realm just as much in the physical realm.
Now I want to suggest that we can get an insight into Hume's overall vision here,
which makes a lot of sense in terms of his philosophical development.
He describes in the abstract of the treatise what he calls the chief argument of the treaties.
And it's absolutely clear that the chief argument of the treatise is the argument
concerning induction belief and causation and liberty and necessity free will.
Applying the copy principle to the idea of necessary connection gives him a handle on what necessary connection is that enables him.
Both to apply it to the moral sphere, as we've seen.
And to eliminate a prior mystic causal metaphysics.
Right. Other people have said, I can look at that. I can understand the notion of matter and I can see that matter cannot cause thought.
They're claiming to have some sort of a priori insight into the nature of matter.
HUME saying forget that all causation is is a matter of necessary connection.
Therefore, the only way you can establish what causes, what is experience, what things are in fact constantly conjoined.
So a prior mystic reasoning goes out of the window. Empirical reasoning comes in.
And I shall end just with a suggestion. HUME When he was young, was obviously very concerned about problems of religion.
He said to Boswell, quite ironically on his deathbed, that he'd never entertained any belief in religion since he began to read Locke and Clark.
So he was reading Locke and Clark, who were arguing for the existence of God, and that undermined Hume's belief in the existence of God.
Apparently they were using the cosmological argument.
If you're interested in the cosmological argument, you'll naturally be interested in the causal maxim.
Everything must have a cause. Therefore there must be a first Gould's, therefore God.
So where does the causal maxim come from?
I suggest that that may have been Hume's way into all this Locke's chapter, in which he talks about the origin of the idea of necessary connection.
Also talks about free will.
And there were very active debates going on in particular between Clark and Collins on the notion of free will at the time.
Indeed, he was intimately connected and very geographically close to some people who were involved in that debate.
So I think that Hume's philosophy may have been very largely driven by the thought
that pursuing the impression from which the idea of necessary connection is derived.
That idea, which underlines both the both the cosmological argument and discussions of free will,
can provide a wedge which enables him to get in to a prior mystic metaphysics, knock that out and at the same time establish empirical causal science.
So we get an integrated vision with elements of anti theology, pro experimental science, anti a prior mystic metaphysics.
Thank you.