Hume and the Problem of Causation (review)

BOOK ~EVIEWS 429 present reviewers thinks that it is a powerful formulation in bringing out the selective and dramatic characters of personal formation and the strategies of plans and life. The other thinks it is a misleading inversion, suggesting in its talk of action as embodied narrative that life takes its character from the demands of narration rather than narrative taking its character from life experience. ABRAHAM EDEL AND ELIZABETH FLOWER University of Pennsylvania Tom L. Beauchamp and Alexander Rosenberg. Hume and the Problem of Causation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. Pp. xxiv + 34o. $z3.5o. Beaucfiamp and Rosenberg have written an important but blemished book. I shall begin with the blemishes. Along with offering a systematic exposition and defense of Hume's theory of causation, Beauchamp and Rosenberg also spend a great deal of time furthering the general interpretative thesis that Hume was a naturalist and not a skeptic. In fact, he was both. But this is not the place to argue this at large, so, instead, I shall concentrate on the most striking instance of this thesis: their claim that Hume was not, as almost everyone has thought, a skeptic with regard to induction . Here is what they say: Hume repeatedly argues that induction is nondemonstrative; his model of a demonstrative argument is one that proceeds from self-evident a priori premises to a conclusion certified by deductive logic.... IT]he larger purpose of Hume's treatment of induction is to attack this rationaIistic conception of reason (43)Later they escalate this claim by indicating that this "larger purpose" is, indeed, "... the whole point of his "critique" of induction' (43)Until now, I think that most commentators have attributed a two-stage argument to Hume. He first argued that there can be no demonstrativejustification of induction and then added that there can be no probabilisticjustification either. According to Beauchamp and Rosenberg, this involves a misreading of the text, for, if we are to believe them, the second stage of the argument does not occur. Well, they are simply wrong about this. Here is what Hume himself said on the matter in his Abstract of the Treatise: 'Tis evident, that Adam with all his science, would never have been able to demonstrate , that the course of nature must continue uniformly the same, and that the future must be conformable to the past. What is possible can never be demonstrated to be false; and 'tis possible the course of nature may change, since we can conceive such a change. Nay, I will go farther, and assert, that he could not so much as prove by any probable arguments, that the future must be conformable to the past. The great strength of Beauchamp and Rosenberg's examination of Hume's theory of causation, and this completely outweighs its shortcomings, is that it presents Hume's position as a serious candidate for acceptance. This is a two-stage process. First they restate and, in places, fill out the theory so that it meets contemporary 430 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY standards of clarity and rigor. This is particularly true of their discussion of the nature of causal relata in chapter seven. Here Beauchamp and Rosenberg are not so much explicating the text which, to be charitable, is underdeveloped on these matters , but showing how Hume's fundamental notions can be developed within the general framework of the Humean position. In chapters three and four, the authors undertake the important philosophical task of defending Hume against standard criticisms. In chapter three they take over an argument from Donald Davidson in order to show how a Humean can respond to the claim that a causal relation can hold in a particular case without instancing any general law. The answer, which is short, sweet, and correct, is that a singular causal judgment does imply, on Hume's analysis, the existence of some regularity which this sequence instances, but it does not entail that the predicates used to describe or pick out the causal terms themselves always specify the appropriate covering law. Chapter four deals with the problem of how a Humean can distinguish causal from accidental regularities. This is transformed into the different but related question...