Hume on Causation

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The Uncertainty of Causation​

Hume observes that while we may perceive two events that seem to occur in conjunction, there is no way for us to know the nature of their connection. Based on this observation, Hume argues against the very concept of causation, or cause and effect. We often assume that one thing causes another, but it is just as possible that one thing does not cause the other. Hume claims that causation is a habit of association, a belief that is unfounded and meaningless. Still, he notes that when we repeatedly observe one event following another, our assumption that we are witnessing cause and effect seems logical to us. Hume holds that we have an instinctive belief in causality, rooted in our own biological habits, and that we can neither prove nor discount this belief. However, if we accept our limitations, we can still function without abandoning our assumptions about cause and effect. Religion suggests that the world operates on cause and effect and that there must therefore be a First Cause, namely God. In Hume’s worldview, causation is assumed but ultimately unknowable. We do not know there is a First Cause, or a place for God.


Would anyone like to challenge or add to Humes ideas.
 
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Honestly, when it comes to Hume I don’t have much patience for his metaphysics. He confuses the ability to know the existence of a thing with the ability to understand the reality of that thing. In his argument, he automatically assumes that causality exists within himself and then tries to use that fact of internal causality to “disprove” external causality.
  1. Hume says that people assume causality because they happen at the same time and our minds habitually connect those two phenomenon.
  2. Thus when we see those two phenomenon together, we believe that they share a strain of causality.
  3. He says that this is a natural “instinctive” belief.
My response:
  1. How can Hume say that there is no causation when he blames assumed causation on a habit. Habits are repeated actions in the past which have an impact on the tendency of the will to repeat that action in the present. If there were no causality, then those past actions would have no influence on the present action. The past actions cause the tendency inherent in the habit. Without causation, habits would not exist.
  2. If there was no causality, then we could not say that everyone experiences this tendency for assumption of causality. Nothing would cause everyone to display the same reaction. The assumption of causality would simply rely upon an act of will. Every person would have to individually decide to take on the assumption of causality with every act of the intellect.
  3. In this, Hume destroys his own credibility in his argument. He says that the assumption of causality is caused by biology and instinct. He says that he knows that he is being influenced toward an outcome. That outcome, while not absolutely caused by that biological and instinctual urge, is indeed what partially causes man to make his assumption of causation. This too, proves external causality, for biologic and instinctual tendencies are passed down through a chain of generation: parent to child. The tendencies in the parent causes the tendencies in the child.
Ultimately Hume says that we don’t know if causation happens or not, thus we don’t know if there is a First Cause or a God. He contradicts himself in the argument when he states the assurance that mankind is caused to act a certain way by biological habits.

We can know if something is caused. Thus, the argument for First Cause reopens. What we cannot know for certain, however, is what exactly that cause is. The First Cause does not identify God with any attributes, only that a first cause must exist.

Hume knows that something is urging him to assume causation. That something his causing his habit. He may be uncertain about what that cause is, but he knows that it is there.
 
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After telling him once where to put the dishes after washing them, David Hume’s son put them in the same place the next time he’d finished them. David Hume was furious and told his son, “We do not use inductive reasoning in this household” and “if I’ve told you a thousand times, I’ve told you once”.

Quite entertaining, no doubt, but that’s about it. Has no place in a world where we need to be able to communicate with others to inspire action in them. At least he’s not as long winded as Hegel.

Not his most popular work, but Of The Standard of Taste is about all I’ve found useful for me in my everyday life.
 
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CRM_Brother said:
My response:
  1. How can Hume say that there is no causation when he blames assumed causation on a habit. Habits are repeated actions in the past which have an impact on the tendency of the will to repeat that action in the present. If there were no causality, then those past actions would have no influence on the present action. The past actions cause the tendency inherent in the habit. Without causation, habits would not exist.
  2. If there was no causality, then we could not say that everyone experiences this tendency for assumption of causality. Nothing would cause everyone to display the same reaction. The assumption of causality would simply rely upon an act of will. Every person would have to individually decide to take on the assumption of causality with every act of the intellect.
  3. In this, Hume destroys his own credibility in his argument. He says that the assumption of causality is caused by biology and instinct. He says that he knows that he is being influenced toward an outcome. That outcome, while not absolutely caused by that biological and instinctual urge, is indeed what partially causes man to make his assumption of causation. This too, proves external causality, for biologic and instinctual tendencies are passed down through a chain of generation: parent to child. The tendencies in the parent causes the tendencies in the child.
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So to put it simply he has to presuppose or affirm causality in order to justify his argument, which leads him to contradict himself.
 
CRM_Brother said:
In a nutshell, yes.
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To make things more interesting, can we know for certain that cause and effect is a universal principle of objective reality. Can we inductively arrive at that conclusion. Is there any argument that you would give in this regard?
 
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Besides causation, what is there but coincidence, and a lot of it?
 
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Well, we would first have to prove that objective reality truly exists. Within the bounds of modern philosophy, this isn’t necessarily a given. For most modern philosophies (stemming from the Cartesian deviation from classical rationalism), the identity of objective reality boils down to two components: the self and the other. The fact that, in the perception of other by the self, the other has an impact on the self lends itself to proving the universal constant of causation. The other affects the self through the senses. The very act of sensation impresses change upon the self’s mind. The change would not have occurred without the sensation of the other, thus the very existence of the other causes change within the self.

From this observation we can determine that whatever is deemed the ‘self’ shall always be affected by the other. In layman’s terms, whatever truly exists is always affected by that which it is not (anything else in the environment). If it affected, it is the external object which causes that change. Thus, external causation is a universal principle.
 
Wouldn’t just seeing a table or a chair (or a house) be evidence that something was ‘caused,’ i.e. that someone took the time to build it? Or is he just talking about natural phenomena?
 
tomarin said:
Wouldn’t just seeing a table or a chair (or a house) be evidence that something was ‘caused,’ i.e. that someone took the time to build it? Or is he just talking about natural phenomena?
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Humes seems to be arguing that observing relations between things does not provide certain knowledge of causality. He implies that for all we know those relations could exist without there being any cause and effect between them at all, and that we cannot inductively prove, based on what we observe, a universal principle of causality.
 
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Yes I think I understand that, but aren’t there numerous examples in the real world that contradict that? For example, let’s say a lightning bolt during a thunderstorm hits the large tree in your backyard and the largest branch of the tree falls onto the ground. Would Hume say there’s no evidence the lightning caused the branch to fall (even if you saw it happen)? What would he suggest was the cause of the branch falling if not the lightning?

He must not have thought much of the entire system of justice if he truly believed that one can never say with certainty that X was caused by Y, because the whole premise of a trial is witnesses are called to testify that they saw the accused do or not do what they are accused of doing. I suppose if Hume were caught drunk driving or embezzling funds he could just tell the judge that he didn’t do the crime because it can never be proven that he was the cause of the criminal act?
 
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tomarin said:
Yes I think I understand that, but aren’t there numerous examples in the real world that contradict that? For example, let’s say a lightning bolt during a thunderstorm hits the large tree in your backyard and the largest branch of the tree falls onto the ground. Would Hume say there’s no evidence the lightning caused the branch to fall (even if you saw it happen)? What would he suggest was the cause of the branch falling if not the lightning?
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He would probably say that there appears to be a cause and effect relationship between the lightning bolt and the falling branch, but that we have no way of having absolute certainty of that relationship.

Appearances can be deceiving, but it all boils down to whether or not things can just happen without a cause. If they cannot, then Hume is wrong.
 
I suppose at the level of particle physics things happen without a cause. But I don’t think a chair or a spaceship happens without a cause.
 
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IWantGod said:
but that we have no way of having absolute certainty of that relationship.
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IMO, it is ideas like this one of Humes that give philosophy a bad name. I’m not familiar with the nuances, if there are any, of Hume’s idea, but the way it’s been presented here makes it sound like one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. I’m not saying you’ve presented his arguments badly, I wouldn’t have any idea about that, I’m just saying that any notion such as this one from Hume is so academic as to be completely irrelevant, and about as fruitful as trying to put thoughts on a scale in order to weigh them.

There are probably at least a dozen other such notions in philosophy which are equally wandering in open space. Maybe that would be a good topic for CAF’s philosophy sub forum…How many angels can fit on the head of a pin, and other such pressing questions, and how those questions effect the field of philosophy itself.
 
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Causation is the heart of Catholic Theology because, “God is the author of all causes and effects.”
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There is a supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul, which precedes the free act of the will, (De fide dogma).

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St. Thomas properly explains the chain of causality:

"It is to be observed that where there are several agents in order, the second always acts in virtue of the first: for the agent moves the second to act.

And thus all agents act in virtue of God Himself: and therefore He is the cause of action in every agent. ST, Pt I, Q 105, Art 5.

Because God is the cause of action in every agent, even man’s free will determination to do good comes from God."
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CCC 308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator.
God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes:
"For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Far from diminishing the creature’s dignity, this truth enhances it.
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CCC 307 God thus enables men to be intelligent and free, causes in order to complete the work of creation, … Though often unconscious collaborators with God’s will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions. – By AIDED FREE WILL as follows.

CCC 2022; The divine initiative (supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul) in the work of grace precedes, prepares, and elicits the free response of man.
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Aquinas said, "God changes the will without forcing it. But he can change the will from the fact that he himself operates in the will as he does in nature,” De Veritatis 22:9. 31. ST I-II:112:3. 32. Gaudium et Spes 22; "being …

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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Divine Providence explains.

“His wisdom He so orders all events within the universe that the end for which it was created may be realized.
God preserves the universe in being; He acts in and with every creature in each and all its activities.”

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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Free Will explains;

“God is the author of all causes and effects. God’s omnipotent providence exercises a complete and perfect control over all events that happen, or will happen, in the universe.”
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St. Thomas teaches that all movements of will and choice must be traced to the divine will: and not to any other cause, because Gad alone is the cause of our willing and choosing. CG, 3.91.
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As God himself operates in our wills, we are freely cooperating with His graces, without even knowing it.
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We FREELY will what God wills us to will, and we FREELY do what God wills and causes us to do.
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God bless
 
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