Q&A: David Hume
David Hume
Question
With God's help,
First question:
According to Hume, the concept of cause belongs to the a priori domain and not to the a posteriori one. So if I accept that claim, then what is the second option—that things simply existed just because? If they did not come about through a cause, then where did they suddenly appear from? So can one arrive at the concept of cause by way of negation?
Second question:
Hume raises two doubts. One concerns the very concept of cause—that it cannot be seen, and that there is only temporal succession and not a causal connection between events. The second is induction, through which one creates a law as a result.
Now regarding the first doubt: if I see every time that when I put flame under water the water evaporates, what would Hume say—that I should not infer a connection between the evaporation and the fire?
I would appreciate a detailed explanation.
Answer
The argument by negation is exactly the same as the positive argument. If you do not accept the assumption that things require a cause, then you will also not accept the proof by negation (“Where did they appear from? From nothing?”).
There is a connection in the sense of correlation (proximity—that this comes with that). But a connection of causation is your conclusion; it does not follow from the observation itself.
Discussion on Answer
If I may, I will try to sharpen Evyatar's question.
According to Hume, how can one infer a causal connection if there is no way to experience the concept of causation itself?
For example, a blind person who has never experienced the concept of color cannot infer any color.
In order to infer that a concept exists in reality, there has to be prior acquaintance with the concept at least in principle.
And again I will repeat what I said. You are asking a question on the basis of logic, and he too claims that causality is grounded in logic and not in observation, and therefore there is no necessity to think that it is correct. If you trust your logic—good for you. And if not—then not. The positive or negative formulation changes nothing.
Yaakov,
Certainly. But what you wrote here is not an explanation of Evyatar's question but an explanation of David Hume's argument. Precisely because of this he says there is no basis for the principle of causality, since it cannot be known empirically.
So is the concept of causation an invention and not a conclusion?
How do we manage to invent a completely new concept, while blind people do not manage to invent the concept of color?
According to the empiricist approach, it is indeed an invention.
As for the second question, color is an absolutely a posteriori concept, and therefore for them that is where it gets “stuck.” Experience, however, is a priori (though not analytic), and so Hume argues that it should not be applied to the world, because you do not see it as existing—unlike the rationalist approach.
Do you mean, “however, the concept of causation is an a priori concept”?
So does Hume's question also apply to other a priori concepts, like the concept of existence for example? After all, we do not see existence itself, yet he does not deny the concept of existence.
At this point he is challenging claims of the kind called “synthetic a priori”—that is, the question of applying a priori claims to the world.
That is exactly my question about Hume:
He undermines the concept of cause, whereas I am asking, then where did they come from—from nothing? Or alternatively, were they always there?! Isn't his challenge a bit far-fetched?