Hume on Causality (27 February 2023; Hume)

In this essay, I will argue Hume’s position that an object can exist without cause is flawed, proposing instead that objects must owe their existence to some cause. I’ll consider Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) to discuss background information, and Lady Shepherd’s An Essay Upon the Relation of Cause and Effect (1824) to discuss a counterargument to Hume’s stance. First, I’ll provide background information on Hume’s view of cause and effect, describing its reliance on experience and disconnect from reason. Next, I’ll discuss Hume’s views on necessary connection, explicating its reliance on feeling rather than any particular impression. Finally, using Lady Shepherd’s essay (written in response to Hume’s Treatise, but still relevant to cause and effect), I’ll address the flaws presented in Hume’s reasonings regarding objects without cause and how Shepherd comes to the correct conclusion that a cause is necessary for any object.

Hume begins his inquiry into cause and effect with a curiosity concerning matters of fact. Because, unlike relations of ideas, the contrary of every matter of fact is possible, Hume is inclined to explore whether or not there is any real evidence concerning matters of fact beyond our present senses. Finding evidence of this nature may “[excite] curiosity and [destroy] that implicit faith and security which is the bane of all reasoning and free inquiry” (588).

Hume opens his dialect regarding cause and effect with the critically important claim that “All reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be founded on the relation of cause and effect. By means of that relation alone we can go beyond the evidence of our memory and senses” (588). It is important to note that this claim refers to reasonings stemming from cause and effect, rather than implying that cause and effect stems from reasonings. Essentially, as a response to his initial inquiry, he determines that cause and effect go hand in hand with matter-of-fact reasoning. Whereas relations of ideas reasoning can be performed regardless of the senses, matters of fact reasoning, and thusly cause and effect, are dependent upon information from impressions: “Knowledge of cause and effect [is] not attained by reasonings a priori, but arises entirely from experience when we find that any particular objects are constantly conjoined with another” (589). Cause and effect reasoning is one of three principles of connection, alongside resemblance and contiguity. Cause and effect is the principle which pertains to the constant or recurrent conjoinment of particular objects. 

Because matters concerning cause and effect cannot be resolved with a priori knowledge, Hume says that “No object ever discovers, by the qualities which appear to the senses, either the causes which produced it or the effects which will arise from it; nor can reason, unassisted by experience, ever draw any inference concerning real existence and matter of fact” (589). Regardless of how strong an individual's capacity to reason is, without discovering causes and effects through experience, they could have no idea how unfamiliar objects may interact. He uses the example of no man imagining the explosive properties of gunpowder or the attraction of a magnet. To explicate his point in greater depth, Hume uses the billiard ball example. We may think that an individual unfamiliar with the game of billiards (or anything of a similar nature that demonstrates the world's physical laws) could simply intuit that a billiard ball A striking another billiard ball B would propel billiard ball B. However, one would only be able to intuit this when familiar with the “laws of nature and all the operations of bodies” (589). This leads Hume to an important point, which I will reference later; if we were to be presented with an unfamiliar object and told to guess the effect of the object in a given circumstance, we would fabricate a baseless claim regarding the effect of that object. The effect can never be found “in the supposed cause by the most accurate scrutiny and examination… For the effect is totally different from the cause and consequently can never be discovered from it” (589). It's simply not possible to deduce what might occur in a single instance or intuit cause and effect without the experience that will help us in making those deductions. Thus, the relation between cause and effect does not depend on reason: instead, it is reliant upon experience.

At the outset of IV.ii, Hume summarizes that which I have already covered. He recalls that all reasonings concerning matters of fact are founded on the relation of cause and effect and that all our reasonings concerning cause and effect are dependent upon experience. However, an important question arises out of his prior conclusions: “What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience?” (591). His first claim towards answering this question is that despite experiencing cause and effect, the conclusions which follow are not reliant upon reason or understanding. It is necessary to understand that the qualities of an object which we perceive are found independent of an object's secret powers; by secret powers, Hume is referring to the intangible qualities of something, such as bread’s ability to nourish, regardless of what we may perceive its tangible qualities to be. A useful thought exercise in this regard would be to imagine a hypothetical object which would appear to be a chair, yet has the identical secret power to nourish as a loaf of bread. Hume’s next conclusion is that there is no reasoning which can possibly link any particular object to its particular effect, as well as the notion that we “foresee that other objects which are similar in appearance will be attended with similar effects” (592). Causes that seem similar naturally intuit within us the forecast that they will yield similar effects. The intermediate step, or necessary connection, or power of an object between its cause and its effect cannot be reasoned. 

Necessary connection is the quality of linking effect to cause, rendering one an infallible consequence of the other (604). Upon consideration of causes in the world, Hume thinks that we cannot determine the necessary connection between a cause and an effect; rather, one effect just follows a cause. In the case of a billiard ball, the striking of one and transfer of motion to the other is a whole operation, and cannot be split into cause-connection-effect. Before discovering what necessary connection relies upon, I’ll discuss at length that which it cannot rely upon: namely, contemplation of bodies, linkage of mind and body, and not when we contemplate our own ideas.

The qualities of an object do not necessarily inform us of what the effects of that object may be. For example, it is widely accepted that heat and flame go hand in hand with one another. When we see and feel a fire, we link the impression of the sight and feeling associated with it; however, the connection between the fire and the heat, we cannot know. The same could be said for the loaf of bread. While we know that bread nourishes us, and what bread looks like, we cannot know the link between the tangible qualities of bread and why it nourishes us. Hume concludes, “it is impossible, therefore, that the idea of power can be derived from the contemplation of bodies in single instances of their operation, because no bodies ever discover any power which can be the original of this idea” (604). To investigate whether or not these powers can be discovered through the examination of various causes and effects:

1. Hume turns his attention to whether or not necessary connection can be derived from reflecting upon the operations of our own mind and body, and whether or not it is a copy of an internal impression (604). He determines that despite the fact that our volitions in the mind can indeed move our extended body parts, we do not know what unionizes the soul and body; nor how to act on all organs of the body with the mind; and that it is muscles being activated, not the limb itself, cloaking the operation as an indivisible whole. Thus, necessary connection cannot be derived from the mind and body connection (605).

2. Next, Hume turns his attention toward the observance of our own ideas. We cannot know the power of the creation of a new idea in the mind; such knowledge would imply full acquaintance with the human soul. It is that of real creation, and cannot be felt/known/conceived by the mind. We only feel the effect of the creation by way of the resulting idea from the will, but not how the idea is created. Additionally, the “command of the mind over itself is limited, as well as its command over the body.” The limits of the mind cannot possibly be known through reason, only through experience. Also, the commands of the mind are different throughout a person's life: For example, a healthy man’s mind has more authority than a sick man’s mind. There is an inexplicable secret power within the mind which varies its self-commands. Thus, necessary connection cannot be derived from the ideas of the mind (606).

Evidently, we cannot know the necessary connection between bodies, nor the human mind & body. In single instances, the most we can discover is that one event follows the other; there is no reasoning which explains the nature of power or necessary connection between a cause and an effect.

So then, what does the idea of necessary connection rest upon? When a particular cause has always been conjoined with a particular effect, we assume a tie between the two. While multiple instances of the same cause and effect may differ slightly, habitually, the mind comes to expect a certain effect from the cause at hand: this leads Hume to a crucial point, “connection, therefore, which we feel in the mind… is the sentiment or impression from which we can form the idea of power or necessary connection” (609). From one occurrence, we cannot attain the idea of connection, but through witnessing several similar conjoinings of a cause and effect, we can begin to feel a connection between the two. Necessary connection, therefore, is nothing more than a feeling of connection within our own minds. 

Hume believes that cause is not a necessary prerequisite for beginning existence (he explicates this in detail in his Treatise). Lady Shepherd disagrees and asserts that everything that comes to be has a cause. She notes that “if objects usually considered as effects need not be considered as effects [if they were to enter existence without cause], then they are forced to begin their existences by themselves” (687), because it is indisputable that objects do begin to exist, and without cause, the alternative is entering existence by their own accord. Armed with this knowledge, she endeavors to answer the question, does “every object which begins to exist… owe its existence to a cause?” To this, Hume would answer no; he believes that it is “‘neither intuitively nor demonstrably certain that every thing which begins to exist must have a cause’” (688). Shepherd is rightly skeptical of this position, arguing that were we to suppose an object starting forth into existence without cause, we must question: what is this starting forth into existence “but an action, which is a quality of an object not yet in being, and so not possible to have its qualities determined, nevertheless exhibiting qualities?” (688). Here, Shepherd reasons that an action (starting forth) is a quality of an object; however, an object which begins without a cause cannot have qualities, as it does not exist. This implies a contradiction in terms, in which beginning to be and beginning an action are in conflict with one another. Beginning to exist is a nature making changes to the non-existent object and taking actions, while simultaneously not existing. An object must exist to possess a quality (action).  It is nonsensical to say that something which doesn’t exist performs an action (performative paradox). Thus, existence is “an effect predicated of some supposed cause… there is no object which begins to exist, but must owe its existence to some cause” (689). 

Though Hume’s philosophy offers key insights into human reason, particularly cause and effect & necessary connection in this essay, his reasonings concerning existence without cause fall short. Shepherd’s critique of Hume’s view concerning starting forth into existence offers a more reasonable philosophy on how things must come to be. Through her response, we may conclude once again that objects cannot exist without some cause.