Hume’s An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature wrestles with the goal of simplifying A Treatise of Human Nature’s main points. One major point from the work that Hume chooses to focus on is the relationship between cause and effect. Hume discusses that the main going of logic is to explain the principals of reason that govern our perceptions and organizations of the innate and physical world. Hume asserts that perception is what governs reason, and that we can never think of something which we have not seen with out us or felt within us. Hume breaks perception into two categories: ideas and impressions. Ideas come from a reflection on a passion or an object that is not present. Impressions are the immediate experience and are more “lively and strong”. Hume states that when an idea is obscure one should refer back to the original impression; if the impression can not be produced then idea becomes insignificant.
Hume then goes on to state that reasons which concern things that are “matter of fact” are founded upon the relationship between cause and effect. He uses the idea of transference of motion as a cause effect example. The reasoning that leads one to believe the cause and the effect are related is made through the senses and through experience. He states this effect of transference can be seen in contiguity of time and place, priority in time and constant conjunction between the cause and its subsequent effect. With out experience it is impossible to make inferences. Reason shows us nothing innate in the cause from which to derive its effect. Only with a comparison of ideas can the inference be made that the cause and effect are related. However an inference made from compared ideas is not sufficient to lead to a demonstration of what will happen in the future.
Metaphysically we can conceive anything and the concepts can not be proved untrue until a demonstration contradicts them. Cause and effect relationship, as stated earlier, is based off of experience. Experience is based upon the supposition that the “course of nature” will continue uniformly throughout time. There is no way to prove that the course of nature will remain uniform, it could change because we can conceive the change. There is nothing that states that the future is bound to the experiences of the past. Past experience makes no concrete statements about the future. The assertion of the cause and effect relationship is based in custom alone. Through this course of logic Hume states that “custom” is more a guide to life than “logic” and also that the cause effect relationship is not a concrete but only a concept that has yet to be proven as untrue. This also leads to the conclusion that there is no such thing as “matter of fact”.
2 comments:
Well, in the sense in which you mean "matters of fact," Elizabeth, you are right, this is what Hume is arguing. That is, I take it that you believe "matters of fact" to be matters of which there can be no doubt. However, what he means by "matters of fact" follows wholly from this argument. That is, "matters of fact" are things about which we can only have probable inferences based on the experience of the past, but without any guarantee that these matters will follow so in the future. Thus, Hume would say that there are and are only matters of fact.
I am not sure about the posting etiquette but I just wanted to jump in because I am a huge fan of David Hume. I have always felt the most interesting element of his conception of causality is our customary belief in the uniformity of nature. While there may be many experiences (from science and history, for instance) that suggest temporal or spatial uniformity to nature, Hume makes an excellent argument that there is no rational principle which supports such uniformity continuing, only probabilities. A brief commentary I once read on Hume notes his attacks on inductive reasoning, the basis for many of our conclusions, again because of our inability to experience all of nature as uniform. As Elizabeth noted, experience is the basis for any claim we can make according to Hume.
I hope this is not improper that I didn't wait for Elizabeth to respond to Professor Vaught. If so please just ignore me.
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