Chakraborti Hume’s Theory of Causality (???)
A “cause” is an invariable antecedent without contradiction, and is indispensable. “whoever understands Hume’s arguments on causality understands Hume’s purport in his Treatise and Enquiry” (vii). Chakraboti claims that Hume’s “attack is mainly directed to the empiricists’ theory of causality, but in a sense can be shown to have bearing on the rationalists’ as well” (viii). “Hume’s destructive outlook on causality purports mainly to show that causal relation does not involve necessary relation in the rationalists’ sense or in the sense of implying power, force, energy or activity” (viii). Hume “applies a new meaning to the term ‘necessity’ and thus saves it from being condemned altogether” (viii). “[I]n order to do justice to Hume’s argument, it is necessary that we should know Hume’s views regarding impressions and ideas, his celebrated distinction between relations of ideas and matters of fact and his all-important theory of association of ideas” (viii). Hume declares that the sciences that mention relations of ideas are demonstratively certain (Enquiry, 40). Relations of ideas are primary and certain (self-evident), whereas matters of fact are secondary and known by and through experience(s). Hume spares no pains in pointing out that causation merely means repeated succession or customary conjunction of events and that “the conjunction may be arbitrary and causal” (Enquiry, 56). Hume’s challenge to refute the universal correspondence between and impression and an idea ‘by producing that idea… which is not derived from this source’ makes no sense, according to Chakraboti (15). “For ideas are, according to Hume, mental images. As mental images, ideas are private and not public at all. And whatever is private cannot be produced for public inspection. Hence Hume’s claim is not only extravagant, but also misleading” (Chakraboti, 15). The association of ideas is important within Hume’s theory of causality in particular, and Hume’s thinking in general. In fact, “it appears to be the guiding principle of Hume’s psychology and philosophy” (Chakraboti, 19). In Book-1, Section IV of the Treatise, Hume presents his theory of the connection or association of ideas. He attempts herein to explain how thinking (imagining) foloows an orderly sequence. Whereas imagination is free from external control, Hume posits that memory is not. Memory preserves, orders, and positions ideas, whereas imagination does not. So then, there is an inseparable connection of ideas within memory, but there is not an inseparable connection of ideas within the imagination. This “bond of union” (Enq, 31), or “the uniting principle” (Treat, 10) is what Hume refers to as the association of ideas. For Hume, experience generates our order of thoughts, and therefore there is no inherent, apriori rational faculty of the mind that explains our thoughts. But he does preserve some order of freedom in our thinking, as he contends that this “association of ideas” (Treat, 10) is a “gentle force” (ibid), exerting gentle guidance to our thoughts, and not determining them. Hume’s formulation of this principle of “association seems to be descriptive rather than explanatory” (Chakraboti, 20), as he seemingly tells us why these ideas are associated, but not how, as per se. Hume introduces in both the Treatise (Book I, Sect. IV), and in the Enquiry (Sect. III), three principles of association. In the Treatise, he lists resemblance, contiguity in time or place, and cause and effect. These are the “qualities … from which this association arises, and by which the mind is after this manner convey’d from one idea to another” (Treat, 11). In the Enq, Hume refers to these three qualities as “three principles of connection among ideas” (32). Notice the heavier “guiding” influence of this connection in the Enq, as opposed to the Treatise (principle vs. ‘gentle force’). According to Chakraboti (26), Hume’s theoy of causality is “strikingly novel and certainly more illuminating than that of his predecessors.” He strikes “at the root of our common sense notion” (26) of causality, and analyzes the situation more thoroughly than any before him. He and his predecessors were basically at one with another, but differ widely at times in respect to the formulations of their respective theories. This is especially evident with respect to “the views of causality upheld Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz” (27). Descartes view of causality is derived from his view of metaphysics and physics. Descartes held to three explicit views of causality: a general principle which held that every effect needed a cause (nothing comes from nothing), that there must be as much reality (or perfection) in the cause as there is in the effect, and that causality is temporally sequenced (ref. Meditations on the First Philosophy by Descartes, translated by John Veitch, 104-105). But according to Spinoza, causality is not a temporal relation, but logical instead. Spinoiza contends that God, being the infinite entity, is causa sui, or self-caused (Ethics by Spinoza, i, 15). Moreover, “everything that is, is in God, and without God nothing cab be or be conceived” (ibid). God therefore is, according to Spinoza, the essential heart of all things, deus sive substantia (NOTE THAT THIS GIVES ME SUBSYTANCE FOR MY PANENTHEISTIC UNDERSTANDING OF THE SPIRIT IN RELATION TO THE WORLD VIA SDC!!!!!!!!!).
The Empiricist’s View of Causality
The Empiricist’s View of Causality is adequately expressed by Hobbes, who stressed sense over rationality. Thus, they exalt sense-experience over and above ratiocination. Hobbes and Bacon are the “harbingers of this movement” (Chakraboti, 34). For Hobbes, cause is equal to power. Power, according to Hobbes, is the agent that produces an effect (Chakraboti, 35-36). Hobbes does make some distinction in power and cause, however, as evident by his assertion that “cause is so called in respect of the effect already produced, and power in respect of the same effect to be produced hereafter; so that cause respects the past, power the future” (The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, ed. by W.M. Bart, pg. 127-128). Moreover, for Hobbes, every effect has a necessary cause, without which nothing happens, “for nothing can happen fortuitously or by chance” (Chakraboti, 35). A cause can never be contingent, according to Hobbes, though it may appear undeterminable (ref. The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, ed. by W.M. Bart, pg. 123). So then, we may, according to Hobbes, “fail to ascertain with certainty what is the cause of a given event… but it inconceivable that the given event has no necessary cause” (Chakraboti, 35).
Power is also an important part of Locke’s philosophy, as well. For Locke, similarly, all notions regarding cause and effect are based upon experience (empirical, i.e.). According to Locke, “that which produces any simple or complex idea we denote by the general name, cause, and that which is produced, effect” (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Vol. I, 270-272). So then, a “cause” is that which makes another thing, according to Locke, and an effect is that which had its beginning in another thing. Locke, it could be said, would support the notion that since causation ultimately involves will, mind or spirit must be regarded as the only ultimate cause (SDC, SDC, SDC!!!). In Locke, we find: “We find in ourselves a power to begin or forbear, continue or end several actions of our minds and motions of our bodies, barely by a thought of preference of the mind ordering or, as it were commanding, the doing or not doing such or such a particular action” (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Vol. I, 195). To Locke, God is the only efficient cause that produces actions in physical objects or starts motion in them.
Bishop Berkeley, building upon Locke, “denies activity to physical objects and strictly maintains that we should not even speak of them as active causes at all” (Chakraboti, 38). Rather, motion is always an effect, and never a cause, as per se, for a cause must be active, and activity entails willing. Thus, for Berkeley, “the only efficient cause is… no other than God Himself” (Chakraboti, 38). Whereas Leibniz posits a highly deistic God, Berkeley, in contrast, posits an utterly immanent God. Berkeley maintains that all of nature is a system of signs, a visual language, if you will. He writes, “this visual language proves, not a creator only, but a provident Governor” (Berkeley, Alciphron, ed. by Luce and Jessop, pg. 160). Berkeley denies any material thing to have any causality (with him, I here agree), for Berkeley contends that material objects are passive and inactive. Hence, spirits are alone the true active agents and true causes (SDC, SDC, SDC!!!). But Locke does grant some material causality, for he grants material objects some power and activity. But Hume “for the first time in the history of philosophy examines the notion of power and declares it to be spurious” (Chakraboti, 52). For Hume, the notion of power is more commonsensical than philosophical, and moreover, the term power connotes efficacy, agency, power, force, or energy, according to Hume.
Criticism of the Rationalists’ Position:
Descartes is generally perceived as a Rationalist. Of all the Rationalists, Descartes alone contends that causal relation is temporal between the fin=ite world and the infinite (Chakraboti, 41). But this temporal distinction between cause and effect is not only a severance regarding time, but it also severs all connection between them. Hume would agree with Descartes in this temporal relation of causality, but would disagree regarding in assigning any reality to God, for with Hume all causal sequences transpire at the phenomenal level and not at any suprasensuous level. The idea of ground and consequent also would not be liked by Hume, for that would smack of a necessary connection between causal relations (Chakraboti, 45). For Hume, cause and effect are separate and distinct events, and as such, one cannot be in the other (Chakraboti, 45), for if one were in fact in the other, no place would be left to speak of separate causes and effects, but only of one continuous process. For Hume, the idea of production is the same as that for causation (cite the Treatise, “Shou’d any one… pretend to define a cause…”, pg. 77). According to Hume’s thinking, no one can intuit what effects will follow from any cause without the help of previous experience (cite Hume’s ref. to Adam and suffocation by water in the ENQ, pg. 42). Contrary to Mr. Hume’s argument in the Treatise, pages 81-82, the cause of something does suggest an effect, and vice-versa (cite Hume, “Tis sufficient only to observe….”)! Hume explicitly denies any notion of power or activity.
Hume’s Two Theories of Causality: Positive and Negative:
Hume negatively argues against the causality theories of the past, and the constructively proffers his own positive theory of causality in the Treatise, as well as the ENQ. And although the analysis of causality by Hume is different in the Treat versus the ENQ, the conclusion is essentially the same. Hume’s comments about “hearing of an articulate voice and rational discourse in the dark assures of the presence of some person” (ENQ, 41), attempts to support a theory that is in truth not supported. Instead, his examples only provide a hypothesis to be tested and verified, but it is unfortunately used as a fact to base the rest of his elaborate argument upon, which is truly a “weak foundation” (Chakraboti, 55). Hume attempts to display that all of our reasonings of and knowledge of cause and effect is not attained by reasonings apriori. Indeed, he writes, “Causes and effects are discoverable, not by reason, but by experience” (ENQ., 42). Hume’s argument, meant to displace the Rationalists’ position, in fact acts as sort of a boomerang that cuts his own view, and makes it not palatable. Indeed, [f]or does not Hume hold that causal relation is an inference from experience through the analysis of the sensible properties of things and events” (Chakraboti, 57)?
Hume’s argument is not convincing, for it is psychologically and subjectively based, and it is not supported by the evidence. Indeed, Hume makes conceivability a criterion of determining whether an argument is demonstrative, but this criterion is psychological, and not logical (Chakraboti, 58). Moreover, Hume makes clearness and distinctness as criteria of existence, which are subjectively determined. And it is untrue that it is logically possible that any effect can follow from any cause, as there are manifold examples within nature that prove that certain causes invariably lead to particular effects, and hence his argument is not supported by the facts. Instead, there is a “fixed and unalterable relation between what we call cause and effect” (Chakraboti, 58). Indeed, if the Uniformity of Nature at all changes, all experience becomes useless can give rise to no inference or conclusion at all. The principle of Uniformity, then, lies at the basis of all probable reasoning. However, Hume presses on and attempts to conclude that causal reasoning is derived solely from our experience of particular objects constantly conjoined with one another. Hume deals with the nature of contiguity and temporal priority of the cause at length in the Treatise. “The idea, then, of causation, must be deriv’d from some relation among objects”, Hume opines (Treatise, 75). But Hume does not think that spatial contiguity is essential to the idea of causation, note. Hume observes the priority of time as being essential to the relation between cause and effect, as he contends that the cause must happen prior to the effect (BUT PROLEPSIS DEBUNKS THIS, NOTE!!! SDC!). So then, I do not contend that causation necessarily involves succession, as per se, but co-existence instead. So then, since cause and effect are co-existent, there is no reason to state that the cause must necessarily precede the effect (ref. Hume in the Treatise, pg 76).
According to Hume, there are three necessary components of causation: necessary connection which is sufficient, and contiguity and succession which are necessary but not sufficient conditions of causation (Chakraboti, 62). Moreover, according to Hume, it is not enough for cause and effect to be contiguous and successive, but they must also be constantly conjoined (Treastise, 88). For Hume, our knowledge of cause and effect is not only based on experience, Chakraboti claims (64), but also on empirical evidence. Hume attempts to show that causal reasoning cannot be proven on the basis of an unproven principle. Yet, if the principle of Uniformity is not accepted, no one could act outside of the sphere of pure mathematics, and all of humanity would be left in a perpetual paralysis of indecision. Therefore, I do not agree with Hume in saying this “supposition that the future resembles the past is not founded on arguments of any kind, but is derived entirely from habit, by which we are determined to expect for the future the same train of objects to which we have accustomed” (Treatise, 134).
The stages of Hume’s argument are 3: 1) That reason unassisted by experience cannot determine us to make the necessary transition to the idea. 2) That reason, even assisted by experience, cannot determine to make the transition from one to the other, and 3) that it is not reason at all, but custom only which determines us to make this inference from the impression to the ideas. (Chakraboti, 77). Hume’s analysis is that “our idea… of necessity and causation arises entirely from the uniformity observable in the operations of nature” (ENQ, 92). Hume does not deny necessary connection in causation, it seems to me. Hume in fact offers three different definitions of “cause” in his ENQ, as opposed to only two in the Treatise. Hume does not explicitly offer the third definition, but it can nonetheless be ascertained from the ENQ that it is distinct. Instead, he offers two formulations of the first definition within his ENQ, and expects them to be considered as equivalent. However, they are not equivalent, and therefore must be treated separately. Unlike in the TREAT, the definitions of cause within the ENQ do not contain any reference to contiguity to time or space. Moreover, the hesitations within the TREAT re: definitive statements of “cause” are gone within the ENQ, as Hume is more pointed and forceful. Hume offers two definitions within the Treatise himself (1. “We may define a CAUSE…”, 170; 2. “A CAUSE is an object…”, 170). The 1st definition is a philosophical relation, whereas the 2nd definition is a natural relation.
However, in he offers 3 definitions within the ENQ: 1). A cause is “an object followed by another, and where all objects, similar to the first, are followed by objects similar to the second”, 87. 1.1). A cause is an object followed by another, and “where, if the first object had not been, the second never had existed”, 87. 2). A cause is “an object followed by another, and whose appearance always conveys the thought to that other”, 87. According to Chakraboti (87), it is apparent that definitions 1 and 1.1 are Not the same, nor equivalent, and that thus the ENQ has 3 definitions of “cause”.
Note that Kant virtually inverts Hume’s argument, for the law of causation is is the basis of objective succession, and is apriori. Thus, the law of causation is not derived from our experience of objective succession, as Hume proposed, but instead is the very presupposition of such experience. Thus we should presuppose the notion of causality and find its uniform application in our experience. Indeed, experience would be meaningless without presupposing the law of causality, so its validity is beyond refutation. For A.N. Whitehead, causal relation is an objective relation (The Interpretation of Science, 100). Whitehead contends that Hume fails to provide experience with any objective content (Chakraboti, 95). Laden with irony, Whitehead writes, “The rational conclusion from Hume’s philosophy has been drawn by those among the lilies of the field, who take no thought for the morrow” (The Interpretation of Science, 119-119). Whitehead also writes, “causation has emerged from its treatment by Hume like the parrot after its contest with the monkey” (The Interpretation of Science, 57). In Chapter VIII, Section III, of Process and Reality, Whitehead examines Hum’es theory of causality. In it, he argues against Hume in reference to reflex actions, etc.
S. Alexander notes that Hume’s greatest service lies in having purified the notion of cause from all anthropomorphic and mysterious associations (Space, Time, and Deity, 290). Alexander notes that the continuity of cause and effect is indubitable (291). Another defect of Hume’s theory, according to Alexander, is that his theory diverts attention “from the nature of causality itself to the nature of the conditions under which we can succeed in discovering causal laws” (ibid, 294).