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David Hume coined a sceptical, reductionist viewpoint on causality that inspired the logical-positivist definition of empirical law that "is a regularity or universal generalization of the form 'All Cs are Es' or, whenever C, then E". [1]
Hume's account of causality has been influential. His first question is how to categorize causal relations. On his view, they belong either to relations of ideas or matters of fact. This distinction is referred to as Hume's fork. [4] Relations of ideas involve necessary connections that are knowable a priori independently of experience.
Hume was born on 26 April 1711, as David Home, in a tenement on the north side of Edinburgh's Lawnmarket.He was the second of two sons born to Catherine Home (née Falconer), daughter of Sir David Falconer of Newton, Midlothian and his wife Mary Falconer (née Norvell), [14] and Joseph Home of Chirnside in the County of Berwick, an advocate of Ninewells.
Hume interpreted the latter as an ontological view, i.e., as a description of the nature of causality but, given the limitations of the human mind, advised using the former (stating, roughly, that X causes Y if and only if the two events are spatiotemporally conjoined, and X precedes Y) as an epistemic definition of causality. We need an ...
At 1740, David Hume [10] staked Hume's fork, [11] highlighted the problem of induction, [12] and found humans ignorant of either necessary or sufficient causality. [13] [14] Hume also highlighted the fact/value gap, as what is does not itself reveal what ought. [15] Near 1780, countering Hume's ostensibly radical empiricism, Immanuel Kant ...
David Hume, a Scottish thinker of the Enlightenment era, is the philosopher most often associated with induction. His formulation of the problem of induction can be found in An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, §4. Here, Hume introduces his famous distinction between "relations of ideas" and "matters of fact".
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Hume's introduction presents the idea of placing all science and philosophy on a novel foundation: namely, an empirical investigation into human psychology.He begins by acknowledging "that common prejudice against metaphysical reasonings [i.e., any complicated and difficult argumentation]", a prejudice formed in reaction to "the present imperfect condition of the sciences" (including the ...