Q&A: On David Hume’s Question
On David Hume’s Question.
Question
Assuming I am an empiricist and I understand David Hume’s argument against causality, I still do not understand the difference between the senses and the law of causality. That is, even assuming that I really can see causality, the law would still not be valid for the future, because perhaps the law of causality will change. I would appreciate a response, thanks in advance.
Answer
The question is whether, when you see a causal connection between event A and event B, that really is just an observation of a specific event. But I am also talking about seeing the causal relation, or the principle of causality, as such. Just as I “see” (with the mind’s eye) that there is a law of gravity according to which objects with mass attract one another, so too I “see” with the mind’s eye the general principle of causality. Such seeing is observation of ideas, not of specific events. Through the events that I see, I discern the existence of a general law. Therefore there is no obstacle to seeing that the law is general and will apparently also apply in the future (at least until I “see” that it has changed).
One might perhaps compare this to “seeing” a logical law. When I “see” (with the mind’s eye, that is, understand) that 2+3=5, it is clear to me that this is an eternal law and not a feature of one specific event or another.
Discussion on Answer
I explained this. When you see an event, the problem of induction arises. When you “see” the general law, it does not arise. I gave as an example the “seeing” of the laws of logic or arithmetic.
There is something contradictory in the idea that one can see, in the present, information about the future. You would also have to “see” that there is no higher mechanism that could nullify the current law. And could Newton really “see” his laws in Kepler’s meticulous numerical records? I assume he was not engaged in such a question at all, but first of all tried to find laws that would fit the data and Kepler’s laws, and it turned out that he got it right (as you have pointed out, this is surprising in many ways), and we too assume that this will continue (and we are right about that as well). But the assumption of induction is indeed similar to the laws of logic in that it involves no perception, only thought.
But induction itself—the assumption that the laws will not change—is not something you see, and it is not clear that anything is eternal.