Hume's Analysis of "Cause" and the 'Two-Definitions' Dispute

Notes and Discussions HUME'S ANALYSIS OF "CAUSE" AND THE 'Two-DEFINITIONS' DISPUTE. 1 ON OCCASION,HUMESEES HIS ANALYSISof causation as an inquiry into the meaning of the words "cause" or "necessary connexion." This is the case, for example, in this passage from Section VII of the Enquiry, "Of the idea of Necessary Connexion ": The chief obstacle, therefore, to our improvement in the moral or metaphysical sciences is the obscurity of the ideas, and ambiguity of the terms.., we shall, therefore, endeavor in this section to fix, if possible, the precise meaning of these terms...2 We should be careful however not to over-state Hume's interest in language, and his affinities with contemporary methods of linguistic analysis. His method is in general psychological rather than linguistic, 3 and his analysis of causation is paradigmatic of this: we explain the nature of causal inference, the origin of our beliefs about causal connexions, our knowledge of causes, and even the meaning of the word "cause", by giving a psychogenetic account of the mind's determination, under the influence of custom, to pass from the idea of the first object to the idea of the second. In short, Hume attempts to fix the meaning of important terms in the language without examining the ways in which these words are employed. I shall argue in this paper that this distinctive approach has not been fully appreciated by Hume's commentators, and that the recent dispute concerning Hume's "two definitions" has arisen as a result of this neglect. Hume provides the following definitions of "cause" in the Treatise: 1 I am indebted to A. G. N. Flew, Raymond Martin, and S. L. Varnedoc for their criticisms of an earlier version of this paper. 2 An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. L. A. Sclby-Bigge (2rid Edition, 1962), pp. 61-62. Subsequent references to the Enquiry and Treatise o! Human Nature, (ed. Selby-Bigge)will be in the body of the paper. On those occasions when Hume does examine language, he shows little interest in its details. In distinguishing between virtues and talents, defects and vices, Hume claims that: "A moral, philosophical discourse needs not enter into all these caprices of language, which are always so variable in different dialects, and in different ages of the same dialect." (E, p. 314) [3871 388 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Dr: An object precedent and contiguous to another, and where all objects resembling the former are placed in like relations of precedency and contiguity to those objects, that resemble the latter. (T, p. 170) Dz: An object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it that, the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other. (ibid.) These two definitions are said to be "only different by their presenting a different view of the same object, and making us consider it either as a philosophical or natural relation..." (ibid.) But, as J. A. Robinson was the first to argue, how can one relation, the causal relation, be defined in two ways, if the definitions are neither intensionally nor extensionally equivalent? 4 That DI and De differ in meaning is obvious from the consideration of ideas and the determination of the mind in De and the absence of any such notions in D1. That they pick out different events as causes is shown by Hume's admission of "secret causes" which satisfy the conditions of temporal precedence, contiguity, and constant conjunction of DI but, as they are unobserved, fail to be conditions of psychological association for any observer as required in D2. 5 Further, cases of "mistaken expectations" occur where the psychological association of D2 obtains but is not conjoined with the constant conjunction condition of Dx. Here again, an event would satisfy one definition of "cause" but not the other. How are we to explain two non-equivalent accounts of the same notion? There are several alternatives. Drawing upon Hume's distinction between philosophical and natural relations, Robinson argues that D1 is really Hume's only definition of "cause" (i. e. a definition of the...