Hume's Scepticism With The Claim example essay topic

Why according to Hume, must Humans inability to fully understand Cause and Effect in the world result in scepticism? Explain Kant's position on the problem. Through the process of this essay, I will attempt to explain the reasoning behind Hume's theory of causation and scepticism. I will then describe the thought of Kant on the topic.

The reason that Hume believes that human's inability to understand causation must result in scepticism can be seen through the following claim. "Upon the whole, there appears not, throughout all nature, any one instance of connection which is conceivable by us. All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them. They seemed conjoined, but never connected. And as we can have no idea of any thing which never appeared to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the necessary conclusion seems to be that we have no idea of connection or force at all, and that these words are absolutely without meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasoning or common life".

(Hume, 1737) He asserts that we never see causal necessity, and therefore that the idea of a necessary causal connection is meaningless. This can be more precisely explained if the claim is analysed in individual parts. The first part of Hume's claim can be seen as being an obvious truth. We can never see causal necessity, as we never have perceptions that tell us that, under the same conditions, a given cause must be followed by its usual effect. All we have is perceptions of things called causes followed by perceptions of things called effects. Let us look at an example to examine this notion more clearly.

Take for instance, if we were to videotape a sequence of events involving cause and effect, e.g. A golf club hitting a golf ball, which is initially at rest. If every frame of the videotape is examined, we will not find a frame that shows the 'necessary connection' between the impact of the golf club on the ball and the spatial displacement of the ball. All we will see is the golf club undergoing spatial displacement followed by a frame of the golf club right up against the ball, and subsequently, a frame showing the displacement of the golf ball. We do not observe anything in this video that we can identify with causal necessity, so if causal necessity does exist at all, according to Hume, it is not perceptible, at least through vision. Hume correctly explains that Humans do not know the 'Necessary Connection' between objects and thus do not know the relationship between Cause and Effect. This quite simply is the Problem of Causation- that until we know 'what exists' and the 'necessary connections' between these things that exist, then it is impossible for Humanity to have certainty of knowledge.

This leads us to the second section of Hume's claim, which states that, because this causal necessity cannot be perceived by us, we have no reason to believe that such a thing exists. This can be seen as the 'Problem of Induction'. If we do not know the a priori cause of events, then we simply are left with no Principles from which we can logically deduce any conclusions. What we are left with is simply the observation that one event follows another. These events seem connected, but we do not have knowledge of how or why. Therefore, we must depend upon repeated observation or Induction as a means of determining the Laws of Nature and hence we are left with just the bare assumption, without any reason, that the future will be just as the past was.

It can be seen as simply the human instinct to presume that the events that have occurred in the past, in everyday life will again manifest themselves in the same way in the future. Hume believes that this experience that we hold should not be substituted for the notion of a necessary causality, as we cannot, through our sense perceptions, prove that the same events from the past, will with all assurance, occur again. Hume sums this up in the following quote; "All arguments concerning existence are founded on the relation of cause and effect; that our knowledge of that relation is derived entirely from experience; and all our experimental conclusions proceed upon the supposition that the future will be conformable to the past... Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of every matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses". (Hume, 1737) This realisation from Hume, that the whole notion of Causal necessity is flawed leads to much broader consequences than us merely being unable to prove the connection between something as presumably trivial as golf club and its impact on a ball.

Hume tells us that"; It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future; since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance. (Hume, 1737) According to Hume, all philosophical thought, which stems from the notion of necessary cause must be void, as they all rely on this idea that what has happened before will happen again. This is where the 'Problem of Induction' really comes into play. How can we have true Knowledge of reality if we cannot truly know what is going to occur next or how objects will react in the world around us? We are merely allowed to describe probable events rather than predict them. This problem can again be demonstrated using Hume's simple example of dropping a stone such that when I let go of the stone it falls to earth.

I can then repeat this experiment any number of times but despite this number of repetitions does this logically (inductively) infer that the stone must fall the next time I let it go. Hume argued that it does not, that it is simply a habit of thinking and that it is quite possible that at some stage in the future the stone will not fall. This leads to the realization that the logic of induction depends upon repeated observation and thus the assumption that the future is like the past. Thus, whether we like it or not, scepticism must ensue. This scepticism is valid and has subsequently plagued the world of philosophy and indeed all science with a shroud of doubt. Ultimately, all manner of scientific thought is based on the assumption that the world 'is what it is' and observation of the world has constantly been used as a source of knowledge.

Because of this, many people have tried to solve Hume's problem in a bid to try to salvage our bid to understand the world. One of these people was Immanuel Kant. Kant's fundamental interest was concerned with how we can know that two events are causally connected, rather than finding out what is the nature of that causation. Hume criticized the human notion of causation and effect as being conventional and conservative. He therefore rejected metaphysical thinking as being based on custom and habit. Kant challenged Hume's theory.

Traditional interpretations of Kant's argument place him very distant from Hume on the subject of Causality. Generally speaking, Kant is seen as giving an answer or refutation to Hume's scepticism on Causation. So what exactly did this answer entail, and how did Kant fare in doing this? As we have already seen, by Hume's account, all that we can know is through sense experience, of which sense experience can only show us two individual events that are constantly conjoined.

Because of this, we do not experience the cause of the two events, and so we are led to scepticism. As traditional interpretations would have it, Kant replies to Hume's scepticism with the claim that, in order to have any coherent experience at all, the mind must have imposed certain rules, or categories, on our own perceptions and experience. We can see this in better detail through looking at Kant's analogy. His argument can be seen step by step. 1.

I must be able to identify objects. 2. In particular, I must be able to identify objectively successive events. 3. The ground for such identification must be in my experience. 4.

The ground in question is that successive perceptions of objectively successive events are necessarily connected, occurring in a necessary order. 5. A concept that carries such necessity is a pure concept of the understanding, in this case the concept of causality. 6. Thus successive perceptions of objective sequences are necessarily connected according to a rule, the rule of cause and effect. 7.

Thus, there must lie, in whatever precedes an event, the condition of a rule according to which the event invariably and necessarily follows. 8. That is, all objective events obey the Universal Law of Cause and Effect. This is Kant's take on the subject of Causality.

There are some flaws in Kant's argument as a refutation to Hume's theory. Kant cannot really be said to be answering Hume effectively, and we cannot claim for certain that Kant has an answer or refutation for Hume. But it is possible to see Kant as offering an alternative explanation to the overall conception of causality. In conclusion, we can see Hume's reasoning behind the theory that Humans inability to understand cause and effect must lead to scepticism. Our inability to perceive the effect that one object has on another led Hume to believe that there is no logical reason that this effect is taking place at all. This leads into the great problem of scepticism.

Kant, among other philosophers have tried to solve this question but it remains a puzzle today.

Bibliography

1. A History of Philosophy, Frederick Cop elston, Volume VI, Burns and Oates, 19602.
Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant, Everyman press, 19933.
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: A Commentary for Students, T.E. Wilkerson, Bristol, England; Thoemmes Press, 19984.