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Random David Hume quotation

  


Hume on causation. 

We may define a cause to be ‘An object precedent and contiguous to another, and where all the objects resembling the former are plac’d in like relations of precedency and contiguity to those objects, that resemble the latter.’ If this definition be esteem’d defective, because drawn from objects foreign to the cause, we may substitute this other definition in its place, viz. ‘A cause is an object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it, that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other.’ 

Treatise of Human Nature. 

This may lead you to reply: Huh? 

By "object" in the above I think we should generally understand "event." The object of the touch of a lit match to kindling is both precedent and contiguous with the ignition of that pile of kindling. There may be exceptions, as where the kindling is wet so the fire-setting effort expires. Still, if we work on the particularity of it we can get to universality, I.e. every lighting of the sort described will prove to precede and be contiguous with the broader fire. 

Note that Hume offers his two definitions as equivalent.  The second, though, is expressly about causation as an idea in the mind. The first is about causation in the world of lit matches and kindling. On their face they are different subjects. Yet for Hume, it appears, they were not all that different. 

 Tomorrow, I expect, I'll offer an equally random quotation from another philosopher of note, Thomas Reid. 

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  1. HenryDecember 17, 2025 at 6:52 AM

    In his book, "The Secret Connexion: Causation, Realism, and David Hume," Galen Strawson "challenges the standard view of Hume, according to which he thinks that there is no such thing as causal influence, and that there is nothing more to causation than things of one kind regularly following things of another kind. He argues that Hume does believe in causal influence, but insists that we cannot know its nature. The regularity theory of causation is indefensible, and Hume never adopted it in any case." I quote from the blurb at amazon.com.

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    1. ChristopherDecember 19, 2025 at 6:09 PM

      I read the book Strawson book, and generally have a high opinion of Strawson. I don't know if I got it from a library. If not, if I purchased it, then it should be around here somewhere although I wouldn't want to have to put my hands on it. IIRC, he attributes the conventional view of Hume on causation to Ernst Mach, and he thinks Mach was wildly wrong, both in thinking it a defensible view and it attributing it to Hume. BUT ... that above passage for one seems perfectly consistent with a Machian conception of Hume: cause simply is a misleading name for regularity of succession.

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