Knowledge of Causality in Hume and Aquinas

KNOWLEDGE OF CAUSALITY IN HUME AND AQUINAS T HERE ARE MANY reasons why a re-examination of Hume's analysis of knowledge, especially insofar as this analysis bears upon the causal relation, is important . First of all, Hume's influence on contemporary thinkers, scientists as well as philosophers, is tremendous. His thought, to large extent, arms the logical positivists with the basic arguments which they employ to show that metaphysical statements are meaningless.1 His view, moreover, that all necessary propositions are nonexistential and that all existential propositions are contingent and nondemonstrative-to which his teaching on the causal bond is closely linked-is one of the reasons why the analytic philosophers are prevented beforehand from inquiring into inferences concerning God's existence.2 1 On this point, cf. Julius R. Weinberg, An Examination of Logical Positivism (Paterson, N. J.: Littlefield, Adams and Co., 1960), p. 3. Hume's position on the philosophical significance of the causal proposition is frequently reflected in contemporary philosophers, in particular, logical positivists and analysts. Moritz Schlick, for instance, writes: "Necessity means nothing more than universal validity: the sentence: 'A follows necessarily from B,' so far as content in concerned, is completely identical with the sentence: ' In every case where the state A occurs, the state B follows," and nothing more whatsoever" (The Philosophy of Nature [New York: Philosophical Library, 1949], p. 89). Wittgenstein puts it more succinctly: " A necessity for one thing to happen because another has happened does not exist. There is only logical necessity" (Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus [London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1949], 6.37, p. 181). For an example of Hume's pervasive influence on contemporary sciences, see 'Villiam S. Beck, Modern Science and the Nature of Life (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1961), passim, but especially pp. 174-175. An excellent survey of Hume's influence on the elimination of causality as a philosophically valid notion is provided by Gerald F. Kreyche in his article, " Some Causes of the Elimination of Causality in Contemporary Science," The Thomist XXIX, No. 1 (1965), 60-78. 2 That Hume's criticism of the philosophical viability of the causal proposition bas profoundly influenced both logical positivism and analytic philosophy on this f254 KNOWLEDGE OF CAUSALITY IN HUME AND AQUINAS 255 Thus, to understand some of the major trends in contemporary thought, an understanding of their Humean basis is essential. For a realist, an even deeper reason motivates a study of Hume. With Hume, the realist maintains that human knowledge is derived from experience, that it begins with the deliverances of the senses. Yet the realist, unlike Hume, holds that we can, through experience, come to know things as they actually are, that we can grasp at least some of the relations which really exist among the sensible beings of experience. Obviously " experience " leads Hume and the realist to opposing positions. Thus it is incumbent upon the realist to examine Hume's analysis of experience, to confront it with his own, and to show why Hume's inquiry fails to account for some fundamental data of experience. The present study, which falls into two parts, takes the form of a hypothetical meeting of the Edinburgh branch of the Scottish Philosophical Association in December, 1774. There David Hume, former Under-Secretary of State, presented a paper summarizing the chief points of his speculative philosophy . Thomas Davingwood, professor of antiquities in the University of Edinburgh, then replied to Mr. Hume's paper. Professor Davingwood's studies of the ancients had led him to examine the writings of some obscure medievalists, whose views, he discovered, had been " grossly and grotesquely distorted." * * * * * It is a pleasant honor to be invited to summarize for you question is abundantly clear from the literature. For instance, Diogenes Allen observes: " Logical Positivism and Linguistic Analysis have greatly altered the condition of the field of the philosophy of religion. Exponents of these philosophies would, for the most part, endorse the criticisms of Hume. . . . The upshot of Hume's criticism is that the grounds for the claim that there is a God are inadequate " (The Reasonableness of Faith [Washington: Corpus Books, 1968), pp. xv, xiv. Cf. also the debate between Eugene Fontinell ("Faith and Metaphysics...