3. Hume on Causation 1

In this response I asm trying to illustrate how it is possible to answer an analyse and evaluate type of question without getting 'bogged down' in lots of description.

 

Analyse and evaluate Hume's theory of causation.

Exemplar answer.

 

1

Hume claims that that knowledge about causes is never acquired through a priori reasoning, i.e reasoning prior to experience, but always comes from our experience of finding particular objects are constantly associated with one other. To illustrate and support this claim he says that Adam could not have inferred from the fluidity and transparency of water that it could drown him, or from the light and warmth of fire that it could burn him. Hume provides two arguments. Firstly, he says that the cause and the effect are separate things and no matter how hard we look we can never discover the effect in the cause. A modern illustration might be the switch coming down and the light coming on are separate events and, prior to experience, there is nothing in the first that suggests the second. Secondly, he says that even when the casual relationship has been suggested we cannot observe the necessity of that effect following that cause. Without contradiction we can imagine all sorts of other things happening. At the end of section IV part 1 Hume rejects the objection that applied mathematics, what we might call science, is an exception to this claim because science itself is just the result of accumulated observations.
 

Hume’s position is open to a number of objections.
2 Firstly, Hume says that we need to observe constant conjunctions and says we become sure of the result only because we have experienced many events of that kind. This is not always the case. It does not seem necessary for the child to burn itself on the hot iron more than once to determine what caused the pain. Hume might respond that once we have the notion of cause and effect in one situation we can then apply that as a hypothesis in novel situations. This may be so but it does, somewhat, undermine his point about constant conjunctions. A more nuanced position might be that the more times something happens the more convinced we can be about the causal relationship although it would be important for Hume to say that this isn’t a reasoned position but simply one of custom and habit.
  A second problem is that the conjunctions are not always constant. Putting the light switch down doesn’t always result in the light coming on. Sometimes the bulb explodes, sometime a fuse blows and there is nothing obvious to see. The fact that we are puzzled and frustrated when this happens shows that the lack of constancy does not undermine our belief in the causal connection—we still assume that the switch should have caused the light to come on. Presumably this is still the case for little children who have not yet learned anything about the underlying science. Again a more nuanced position might be more appropriate—the stronger the correlation the greater the confidence in the cause and effect relationship.
  Unfortunately, a third problem is that even with constant correlations we, and even young children, don’t form a cause and effect assumption. With traffic lights the single green light is always followed by the single amber light but it seems unlikely that anyone ever infers that one is causing the other. To this Hume would undoubtedly point out that he said the causal chain doesn’t have to be direct and gives the example of seeing light and inferring heat not because the light causes the heat but because both are caused by the fire. However, this move on Hume’s part only seems convincing because we already know something about fire, heat and light. The young child might know nothing about electric circuits so, if Hume is correct, presumably should conclude the green light causes the appearance of the amber light.
  A fourth problem is that Hume’s claim that specific causal relationships can only be identified following experience does not seem to be true. There are examples from science where accurate causal predictions were made prior to experience and then subsequently proved experimentally. Einstein predicting the way in which gravity bends light being one such example. Hume might say this would be the kind of example he meant when saying that applied mathematics is based on prior observation. However, the Einstein example seems to go way beyond the kinds of things Hume had in mind when he made his claim.
  Lastly, Kant pointed out that experience is not a simple matter. To use a more modern way of putting it we have a stream of data coming our way and we have to process that in some way in order to make sense of it. We use certain categories to make sense of the world and one of those categories is cause and effect. If the category of cause and effect is one of the ways in which we make sense of experience then it cannot be experience that tells us about cause and effect.
  In conclusion, I would say that Hume’s examples look convincing because he has chosen examples that fit with his theory. However, there are too many examples that don’t fit with his theory and it seems likely, and perhaps not surprising given when he was writing, that Hume is using an overly simplistic view of human psychology and our understanding of cause and effect is much more complex than simply observing constant correlations.

886 words

Notes

  1. In an essay like this it will always be a judgement call as to how much background material needs to be included. What I have tried to do in this opening paragraph is to give the bare-bones of Hume's position and flag up those aspects that are important for the evaluative points dealt with later in the essay.
  2. In this and the following paragraphs, rather than just give a criticism, as if that was enough to demolish Hume's position, I have tried to discuss the criticism and to consider whether a response to the criticism would be adequate.