PHL105Y November 28, 2005

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PHL105YNovember 28, 2005

• For Wednesday, read up to page 53 (the end of
  VII) of Humes Enquiry Concerning Human
  Understanding (if you havent do so already)
• Next Monday will be a review class
• For Friday, write a page on one of the following
  questions (it will be collected)
• 1. What point is Hume trying to make in his
  discussion (p.60) of the prisoner who considers
  it easier to scrape away at his iron cell bars
  than to try to persuade his jailer to release
  him?
• 2. Hume notices (p.61) that people have expressed
  reluctance to see human actions as necessitated,
  and have tended to affirm the opposite. How does
  he account for this?

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Section 7

• Of the idea of
• necessary connection

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Where ideas come from, again

• all our ideas are nothing but copies of our
  impressions it is impossible for us to think of
  any thing, which we have not antecedently felt,
  either by our external or internal senses (41)

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Where ideas come from, again

• Even complex invented ideas (with no
  corresponding complex impressions), are
  ultimately composed of simple ideas, and so can
  ultimately be traced back to simple impressions
  Hume thinks that going back to the original
  impressions can cast light on any complex idea

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So, where do we get the idea from?

• Single observations of causation just show us one
  event, then the other, without making the bond
  between them visible
• But what about repeated observations of events of
  type A followed by events of type B?
• (How could repetition yield anything new?)

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So, where do we get the idea from?

• After repeated observations of events of type A
  followed by events of type B, the mind is
  conscious of something new the mind itself has
  changed, following the course of experience, and
  feels the force of custom or habit pushing it to
  think of B when it sees A

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Where we get the idea of cause

• after a repetition of similar instances, the
  mind is carried by habit, upon the appearance of
  one event, to expect its usual attendant, and to
  believe, that it will exist. The connection,
  which we feel in the mind, this customary
  transition of the imagination from one object to
  its usual attendant, is the sentiment or
  impression, from which we form the idea of power
  or necessary connection. (50)

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What we really mean when we say A causes B

• When we say, therefore, that one object is
  connected with another, we mean only, that they
  have acquired a connection in our thought.
  (50-51)
• So the only difference between the match striking
  causing the flame and a pair of causally
  unrelated events happening one after the other is
  that in the causal case I feel an easy, customary
  transition in my own thinking

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Our surprising ignorance

• And what stronger instance can be produced of
  the surprising ignorance and weakness of the
  understanding, than the present? For surely, if
  there be any relation among objects, which it
  imports to us to know perfectly, it is that of
  cause and effect. On this are founded all our
  reasonings concerning matter of fact and
  existence. (51)

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Scepticism about causes

• As far as causal connections are concerned, we
  are not detecting anything really out there in
  nature we are not calculating anything about
  what is really out there in in nature we are
  just feeling something in ourselves.
• Does this mean we should stop thinking things are
  causally connected? Is our causal thinking
  invalid?

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Causes and reasons

• Even if our causal thinking is not founded on any
  reasoning about how things are in the world, we
  cannot stop seeing things as causally connected
  it is natural or instinctive for us to do so. We
  feel that nature is full of causal connections,
  that things must happen in this order, even
  though we are unable to construct rational proofs
  to support these feelings of ours.

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Causes and reasons

• Although we cant prove that nature is governed
  by causal necessity, we instinctively feel that
  it is these feelings of ours in fact enable us
  to go on and reason about nature.
• So, buried at the heart of science is a deep
  assumption that is not founded on reason our
  acceptance of the Principle of the Uniformity of
  Nature is thoroughly instinctive. (But this
  doesnt mean we should give it up and in fact
  we cant give it up, if Hume is right.)

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Section 8

• Of Liberty and Necessity

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The problem of freedomPhilosophical, not
practical

• Hume contends that in daily life we have a clear
  understanding of liberty and necessity, and the
  relation between them
• Philosophical theories of freedom have left us
  confused because the terms freedom and
  necessity have been misused and poorly defined

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How we reason about nature

• If nature kept changing so that every event was
  totally different from every past event, wed
  never get the idea of necessity or causation.

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How we reason about nature

• If nature kept changing so that every event was
  totally different from every past event, wed
  never get the idea of necessity or causation.
• Regular, recurring patterns give us the feeling
  of causation and enable us to reason about nature.

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Physical nature and human nature

• We are able to reason about nature because it is
  uniform and regular nature is under thorough
  causal necessity

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Physical nature and human nature

• We are able to reason about nature because it is
  uniform and regular nature is under thorough
  causal necessity
• We are able to reason about human nature because
  it is uniform and regular human nature is under
  thorough causal necessity

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Human nature is predictable

• The same motives always produce the same
  actions The same events follow form the same
  causes. Ambition, avarice, self-love, vanity,
  friendship, generosity, public spirit these
  passions, mixed in various degrees, and
  distributed through society, have been, from the
  beginning of the world, and still are, the source
  of all the actions and enterprises, which have
  ever been observed among mankind. (55)

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Human nature is predictable

• Would you know the sentiments, the inclinations,
  and course of life of the Greeks and Romans?
  Study well the temper and actions of the French
  and English. (55)

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Character as well as circumstance

• Ones behaviour is determined not simply by ones
  outward setting, but also by ones internal
  character (also conceived causally)
• Custom, education, training, etc. control how we
  will respond (so men and women might react
  differently in the same setting or members of
  different cultures) (57)

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Deviations from character?

• Nice people can sometimes be mean, suddenly
• Stupid people can sometimes be lively and charming

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Deviations from character?

• Nice people can sometimes be mean, suddenly
• when they have toothaches
• Stupid people can sometimes be lively and
  charming
• when they have just won the lottery

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Matter and action

• Hume argues for a complete parallel between the
  total causal order we see in physical nature and
  causal determination of our actions we expect
  uniformity in both cases, and we steadily make
  causal inferences (unsupported objects will fall,
  people prefer more money to less, etc.)

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Matter and action

• Where we see apparent failures of uniformity, or
  where our inferences go wrong, we dont suppose
  that theres no causal order we suppose that
  there are some hidden factors we havent yet
  spotted. Erratic behaviour in humans is treated
  just as we treat erratic phenomena in geology (we
  dont in fact suppose that people act uncaused).
  See p.60.

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True or false?

• If you leave a 50 bill unattended on a table in
  The Meeting Place for an hour during lunch rush,
  the odds that it will still be sitting there at
  the end of the hour are about the same as the
  odds that the table will have floated into space

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True or false?

• If you leave a 50 bill unattended on a table in
  The Meeting Place for an hour during lunch rush,
  the odds that it will still be sitting there at
  the end of the hour are about the same as the
  odds that the table will have floated into space
• Human actions obey some laws of gravity as much
  as tables do.

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What is liberty?

• Why dont we want liberty or free action to be
  uncaused action?

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What is liberty?

• Why dont we want liberty or free action to be
  uncaused action?
• Notice in particular, that there is a problem if
  free actions are not connected to our motives or
  desires

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What is liberty?

• a power of acting or not acting, according to
  the determination of the will.
• You have this unless you are physically
  restrained from doing what you want to do.
• (Are there any problems with this definition of
  liberty?)