David Hume Effect

This paper focuses on the ideas of David Hume and his work concerning cause and effect. Firstly, I am going to explain impressions and ideas and how Hume concludes that we cannot have the idea of power. Secondly, I am going to explain why Hume declares that there is a perception necessary connection between events. Thirdly, I will explain Hume’s definitions of causation and the conclusion he cones up with that states that cause is the conjunction that reinforces our ideas. Lastly, I will raise two objections that challenge his causality argument.

Impressions are emotions and perceptions caused by mental experiences, while ideas are faint thoughts and beliefs that are based on these impressions. Hume argues that external impressions of the
interactions of bodies cannot give rise to our idea of power. He explains that when one billiard ball moves and follows another, we are only observing their conjunction and never their connection. In terms of internal impressions, even though voluntary bodily movements follow our will to make those movements happen, it is only a matter of fact that we learn through experience and not from an internal impression of our will power. If we were aware of the power of our will to do something, we would know how it worked and its limits. We also have no control over our thoughts, because our command over them is limited and therefore it does not give us an impression of power. We do not understand the way our minds work, we only know about limitations because of past experience. For example, if we think of Africa, an idea of that country comes to mind, but we experience only the outcome of our decision followed by the idea, but never the actual power.

Relation of ideas is a type of knowledge that can be proven through conceptual thought of logical operations. Matters of fact are beliefs that are learnt through actual experiences. Matters of fact can be understood through cause and effect, where direct impressions lead us to believe an unobserved cause. For example, I can believe that the moon will rise tomorrow night, because of my understanding of science and my experience that the moon has risen every night in my entire lifetime. Hume claims that we cannot justify these causal inferences, because there is no contradiction in denying causal connection, so we cannot do so through relations of ideas. If we want to prove that the future resembles the past, we need to have some sort of set law to prove that the future events are linked to past experiences, but we have no rational justification for believing in cause and effect. Hume suggests that it is habit that enforces a perception of necessary connection between events. For example, when we see two events always following each other, our imagination creates a necessary connection between them even if it has no rational grounds for doing so. We do this based on probability, because in the past we have experienced the two events happening in relation to one another and therefore expect it to happen again. Hume states that the idea of necessary connection lies within us and not in the objects or the ideas of those objects that we regard as cause and effect. By claiming this, he changes the causation debate, reversing what everyone else said about necessary connection. Debates on causation, following Hume’s claim, now must question the challenges that Hume presents for metaphysical ways of looking at the idea of causation. For example, he used this to explain free will, where he proves that if we perceive no necessary connection between two events, and then we have no reason worry that all our actions are predetermined.

Hume suggests that all terms can be traced back to the simple impressions from which they are derived and claims that our idea of necessary connection is the felt determination of the mind that allows us to associate one event with another.
By saying things are connected, we are really saying that they have an associative connection in our thoughts that gives rise to this inference. This is called causation. Hume presents two definitions for causation. The first definition is based on external impressions and suggests that a cause is an object that is followed by another and all similar objects to the first and followed by objects that are similar to the second. The second definition is based on internal impressions and suggests that a cause is an object that is followed by another, and whose appearance conveys the though to the other object, because our awareness of being determined to move from cause to effect. Hume proposes that of our idea of cause is the conjunction of the two and together they reinforce all our impressions, and thus, causation can be linked to
effect.

The first objection relates to the fact that Hume refers to causes as being similar.
People judge similarity differently and nowhere in Hume’s argument, does he clarify on what defines as similar. If the similarity between objects is subjective to the person who is viewing them, then the relation to causation will also be subjective. The only way Hume responds to this objection is by stating that similarity is not always subjective. He states that some things are just objectively similar to one another and that causal relations are what link the two things. However, response is not strong, because it does not. The second objection is it is hard to tell the difference between constant conjunctions that are accidental and ones that are genuinely causal. For example, two people both do a 40-minute workout everyday at the same time in the same room at 2pm. One person puts on an alarm for 2:40pm and when the alarm goes off the other person stops working out, but actually the alarm did not actually cause the other person to stop working out. If Hume’s argument was true, objects that are related as cause and effect are contiguous to each other. However, Hume does not state that cause and effect must be spatially contiguous, only temporarily. However, even if they were spatially contiguous, we can argue that day follows night; but night does not cause day, so it is evident that Hume’s claim of cause and effect is
flawed.