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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]
Followers and interpreters of Hume have sometimes used Hume's dictum as the metaphysical foundation of Hume's theory of causation. On this view, there cannot be any causal relation in a robust sense since this would involve one event necessitating another event, the possibility of which is denied by Hume's dictum. [8] [9]
The philosopher David Hume used the phrase frequently in his discussion of the limits of empiricism to explain our ideas of causation and inference.In An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding and A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume proposed that the origin of our knowledge of necessary connections arises out of observation of the constant conjunction of certain impressions across many instances ...
Hume situates his introduction to the problem of induction in A Treatise of Human Nature within his larger discussion on the nature of causes and effects (Book I, Part III, Section VI). He writes that reasoning alone cannot establish the grounds of causation.
According to Hume, we reason inductively by associating constantly conjoined events. It is the mental act of association that is the basis of our concept of causation. At least three interpretations of Hume's theory of causation are represented in the literature: [87] the logical positivist; the sceptical realist; and; the quasi-realist.
He describes two kinds of causation: nomic or generic causation and singular causation. Nomic causality means that cause and effect are linked by more or less certain or probabilistic general laws covering many possible or potential instances; this can be recognized as a probabilized version of Hume's criterion 3.
Hume and the Problem of Causation is a book written by Tom Beauchamp and Alexander Rosenberg, published in 1981 by Oxford University Press. Beauchamp and Rosenberg developed a single interpretation of David Hume ’s view on the nature of causation that rests on all of his works, and defended it against historical and contemporary objections.
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 ...