Causation Notes

Causation

Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding- David Hume

• “All reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be founded on the relation of cause and effect. By means of that relation alone can we go beyond the evidence of our memory and senses.”

• “If we would satisfy ourselves, therefore, concerning the nature of that evidence, which assures us of all matters of fact, we must enquire how we arrive at the knowledge of causes and effects.”

• Wants to argue “a general proposition, which admits of no exception, that the knowledge of this relation of cause and effect is not, in any instance, attain’d by reasonings a priori; but arises entirely from experience”

• “Let any object be present to a Man of ever so strong natural reason and abilities; if that object be entirely new to him, he will never be able, by the most accurate examination of its sensible qualities, to discover any of its causes or effects.”

• example of knowing that a billiard ball would transfer its momentum to another upon contact

• The mind “can never possibly find the effect in the suppos’d cause, by the most accurate scrutiny and examination. For the effect is totally different from the cause, and consequently can never be discovered in it.”

• “the utmost effort of human reason is, to reduce the principles, productive of natural phenomena, to a greater simplicity, and to resolve the many particular effects into a few general causes, by means of reasonings for analogy, experience, and observation. But as to the causes of these general causes, we should in vain attempt their discovery; nor shall we ever be able to satisfy ourselves, by any particular explication of them.”

• “the most perfect philosophy of the moral or metaphysical kind serves only to discover larger portions of our ignorance. Thus the observation of human ignorance and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us, at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to conquer, or avoid it.” Not relevant but still interesting.

• Even “Every part of mix’d mathematics goes upon the supposition, that certain laws are establish’d by Nature in her operations”

• “When we reason a priori, and consider mereal any object or cause, as it appears to the mind, independent of all observation, it never could suggest to us the notion of any distinct object, such as its effect; much less, show us the inseparable and inviolable connexion betwixt them.”

• Past experience can “give direct and certain information only of those precise objects, and that precise period of time, which fell under its cognizance”

• example of whether bread will always provide nourishment

• “”All reasonings may be divided into two kinds, viz. demonstrative reasonings, or those concerning relations of ideas, and moral or probable reasonings, or those concerning matter of fact and existence.”

• “whatever is intelligible, and can be distinctly conceived, implies no contradiction [even if contrary to experience], and can never be prov’d false by any demonstrative arguments or abstract reasonings a priori.”

• “If we be, therefore, engaged by Arguments to put trust in past experience, and make it the standard of our future judgment, these arguments must be probable only”

• “all arguments concerning existence are founded on the relation of cause and effect;...our knowledge of that relation is deriv’d entirely from experience, and...all our experimental conclusions proceed upon the supposition, that the future will be conformable to the past. To endeavour, therefore, the proof of this last supposition by probable arguments, or arguments regarding existence, must be evidently going in a circle, and taking that for granted, which is the very point in question.”

• Even when you say you infer a connection btw causes and effects after several experiments, “The question still recurs, on what process of argument this inference is founded; where is the medium, the interposing ideas, which join propositions so very wide of each other?

• Objects’ “secret nature, and consequently, all their effects and influence may change, without any change in their sensible qualities. This happens sometimes [e.g. when a machine breaks?], and with regard to some objects: why may it not happen always, and with regard to all objects? What logic, what process of argument secures you against this supposition?”

‘Causal Relations’ – Donald Davidson

I

Hume’s definition of causation “pretty clearly suggests that causes and effects are entities that can be named or described by singular terms; probably events, since one can follow another.”

But elsewhere he also seems to suggest that “it seems to be the “quality” or “circumstances” of an event that is the cause rather than the even itself, for the event itself is the same as others in some respects and different in other respects.”

“The suspicion that it is not events, but something more closely tied to the descriptions of events, that Hume holds to be causes, is fortified by Hume’s claim that causal statements are never necessary. For if events were causes, then a true description of some event would be ‘the cause of b’, and, given that such an event exists, it follows logically that the cause of b caused b.”

“To talk of particular events as conditions is bewildering, but perhaps causes aren’t events, but correspond rather to sentences. Sentences can express conditions of truth for others – hence the word ‘conditional’.”

“If causes correspond to sentences rather than singular terms, the logical form of a sentence like:

1. The short circuit caused the fire.

would be given more accurately by:

2. The fact that there was a short circuit caused it to be the case that there was a fire.”

“This approach no doubt receives support from the idea that causal laws are universal conditionals, and singular causal statements ought to be instances of them.

But there are difficulties.

If a causal law is just a universally quantified material conditional and if (2) is an instance of such, the italicized words have just the...

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