 Menau Cymru hyn o'r hyfforddty iawn i wybod yn idith o 13. Diolch yn d gwbl 13-14. Dyma gwrthiwyrf o staysiaid y Gredbu Bwc I is ar y. Mae'r ystyried pendantos â'r ystafell ar raid yma. Well, I'm leaving out in treaties with treaties 1, 3 and 9 to 13 are mainly discussions of various types of rational or irrational beliefs, humans theory of probability and a lot of discussion of associational processes. Those sections are commonly ignored. I think it's regrettable that they are ignored as much as they are, but they will play a role later when we come back to discuss humans scepticism, Roedd yn rhan oedd yn cwrwp hwnnw o'r tariff ar y Maeridau 13. Y rhan oedd yma yn cael ei gweithio i'r problemau yma ar y 14 yma y twbl yn ei gweithio'r gwneud'r cwrwp hwnnw. Felly efallan o'n rhan o'r tariff yma yw'n ei gweld yma. Yn y twbl 132, Hulwm yn ydydd y ddisgwch ar y twbl i'r gwneud yw'r gwneud yw'r gwneud. Roedd yna yn gwneud, yw'r gwneud, yw'r gwneud, yw'r gwneud. Felly ei wneud o'r ffordd o casodd, gyda'r cymdeithasol, ein bod yn cymdeithasol, os yw'r ffordd o'r llwyddiad, o'r credu cael gwion. A sy'n ddyn nhw, fe gwybod y cymdeithasol yn ystafell ar hynny. Yn gyfrifio, yw'r llwyddiad, mae'n mynd o'r prinsibl fath. Yr prinsibl fath, all y rhai cyflawn maen nhw yn ysgrifennu. Mae'r llwyddiad yn cyfrifio Gwennod dda ni's wacko'u gwahan o'r gallu gwahanol. Felly chi'n gallu ffilm gyda'r gwahanol yn ei wahanol yn ei gwybod, felly ei dda i fod yn ei wahanol. Yng nghyrru, encrypted dda'r gwahanol ei wahanol er mwyn diolch o'r optych. Felly yn Lain Oeddon pwg i 1-314, y tu sticker ydyn ni ydy o'r ymgyrch yn ei gwahanol nad yw'r gwahanol yn ei gwybod yn ei gwybod. The very first paragraph of it actually gives a preview of the entire argument that it's well worth looking at. Now it's a well-known section, as I say, one of the best-known sections in Hume's writings. But actually there are some real puzzles with it and I'm going to address those in what follows and try to make sense of what's going on. Some of this is a bit speculative, but I shall give you the arguments for it. I think the result is an interpretation of Hume which makes pretty good sense of what's happening. So he starts off by observing that the terms of efficacy, agency, power, force, energy, necessity, connection and productive quality are all nearly synonymous and therefore it is an absurdity to employ any of them in defining the rest. So other philosophers have tried to explain the idea of necessary connection in terms of things like productive quality. What is it for one thing to be necessarily connected with another? Well it's for the one to produce the other, to cause the other, to have an efficacy to bring the other one about and Hume is just saying that's no good. They're all basically synonymous. Now there's two puzzles here. Why does he assume that all of these terms are virtually synonymous? And why does he say that it's going to be impossible to define necessary connection in other terms when consistently with the copy principle necessary connection could turn out to be a complex idea? And Hume seems to assume that it's a simple idea. Why? Well I've got a suggested solution to that. The suggested solution is that Hume's interest here lies in a single common element of all these ideas. So when he talks about efficacy, agency, power, force, energy and so on he doesn't necessarily need all of those to be literally synonymous. The crucial point is that he wants a single simple element of all of them. The element that is in common to all of them. And I've coined a term for that, consequentiality. Think of one thing following another by some kind of necessity or force or energy. That basic idea Hume takes to be simple. A third puzzle. He's saying that necessary connection is a key component of our idea of a cause. Now if that were so it should mean that anyone who believes that A causes B should believe that A necessitates B. But we find that when Hume discusses the views of the vulgar in the treatise you can see this is 1312 in the sections we've skipped over he actually talks about them as believing in causes but a chancey that don't act reliably. The vulgar attribute the uncertainty of events to such an uncertainty in the causes as makes the latter often fail of their usual influence. So an ordinary person finding that their watch isn't working says oh sometimes it doesn't work. They think there's chancey causation whereas the philosopher knows better. The philosopher knows that when you investigate these things you always find that there's some hidden cause which is responsible for the irregularity. Okay. Hume is obviously aligning himself with the philosopher here but the puzzle is that if necessity is part of the concept of cause then how can the vulgar even believe in a non necessitating cause? Now again I suggest that this is explained by my hypothesis that Hume is not literally looking for the origin of the idea of necessity just that specific idea. He's looking for a more generic idea. I've said I've called it consequentiality and the thought is that that might not be compelling. Now that has one particularly nice feature in that Hume explains the idea of probability as coming about from a sort of dilution of necessity. When we make inductive inferences we are making inferences that involve the idea of necessary connection. When we make probable inferences probable in the strict sense that is without certainty where we are foreseeing A possibly being followed by B possibly C followed possibly D that idea is supposed to be derived from the same source. So if that source is not something as strict as necessity but rather a general notion of consequentiality that could explain how Hume sees the idea of probability as ultimately coming from the same source. OK. Now Hume's section 1314 is entitled of the idea of necessary connection. Section 7 of the inquiry which is the equivalent of very similar argument is also entitled of the idea of necessary connection. But there's a little bit of a surprise here if you actually analyse the statistics of the words that are used because Hume refers to the ideas of power and efficacy around three times more often than he does to the idea of necessity or necessary connection. Now why is that going on? Well I suggest that if what he's after is the general idea of consequentiality then power is actually more appropriate than necessity. Necessity is a pretty extreme form of consequentiality. It's one thing with absolute certainty being followed by the other whereas power is more of A. You can imagine a power that is not inexorable. You can't imagine a necessity that isn't inexorable. So I'm suggesting that Hume's real interest is in this more generic idea what I've called consequentiality. Why you might ask then why does he put as the title of the section of the idea of necessary connection? Well I think that's because of what he wants to do with it. Why is Hume interested in the idea of necessary connection? Well one answer is no doubt that he's done this taxonomy of the different ideas. He's found causation to be a particularly interesting relation and so off he goes looking for its origin. The kind of thing that might interest a 20th century analytic philosopher who just wants to find out about the origin of ideas, the nature of meanings. But actually Hume's got a much more significant quarry in mind. He wants to understand what necessary connection is in order to shed light on liberty and necessity, free will and determinism. And that is the most important issue where he will actually apply the results of the idea of necessary connection both in the treaties and in the inquiry. So the suggestion is that although it's called of the idea of necessary connection the real quarry that Hume's after is a much more generic, less specific idea. And the reason he dresses it up as concerning necessity in particular is because he has another job that he wants to do with this analysis. Okay, as I say that's speculative. But if you don't accept that speculation you've got three puzzles there to deal with and they are quite tricky. I think this solution quite neatly ties them all together. Okay, so how does the argument go? Well, Locke suggests that we can get the idea of power from new productions in matter. We see certain things happening in the material world and we think that there is some power that brings them about. That gives us the idea of power. And Hume says that's no good. You have to have the idea of power in order to be able to speculate about a power bringing something about. You can't get a new simple idea from an argument. Malabrash gets appealed to at this point. Malabrash of course wants to deny that material things are real causes. He wants to say that the only cause in the world is the will of an omnipotent being, God. So he's quite a useful person to appeal to at this point. If you look at material objects you won't see any power there. But Malabrash thinks he can make sense of power in God. And Hume says that's no good. How can you do that? You have to have the idea of power in order to form the idea of a powerful God. So you've just got just as much problem explaining the origin of the idea of power as anyone else. Powers can't be found among the known or perceived properties of matter. If we examine, say a billiard ball, see its colour, maybe feel its weight. You can hear the noise when it bashes into another one. All those sorts of things, you can see its shape. You can't see its power, nor if we think of our ideas can we be aware of their having any power. Why does one idea follow another in my mind? Well, they do seem to follow each other in a systematic way. But I'm not aware of the power that drives them. In all of these cases we can't find any specific impression of power. Well, trying to have an abstract idea of power then is going to be no better because Hume has said that the only way you can have a general idea, an abstract idea is by having specific instances. If you'd never come across the specific instances, you can't possibly have a general idea. Up till now, the origin of the idea of necessary connection seems to be a mystery. Hume's looked at it in bodies, in mind. He's looked at specific ideas, general ideas. None of them is giving any clue to the origin of the idea of necessary connection. The clue comes when he looks at repeated instances. Of course it's no surprise. We know from 136 that constant conjunction is going to turn out to be the key thing. And remember, Hume has said, perhaps it will appear in the end, that the necessary connection depends on the inference, instead of the inferences depending on the necessary connection. So when we see A followed by B repeatedly, we see an A, we infer a B, we immediately conceive a connection between them and draw an inference from one to another. This multiplicity of resembling instances, therefore, constitutes the very essence of power or connection and is the source from which the idea of it arises. Now, how exactly is that supposed to work? If I see A followed by B, moving billiard ball followed by another one moving, if that's repeated, I don't get any new kinds of impressions from the object, I just see more of the same. More colours moving, hearing of the similar sounds, etc. So how can repetition provide any new impression? Well, the only way it can is by changing our minds. So what Hume is saying is that when we make a causal inference, when we've seen A followed by B again and again, we see an A, we infer a B, a new impression appears in our mind. That, he says, is the origin of the idea of necessary connection. It's copied from that new impression. I think that's probably a good place to stop and we'll continue from there next time. Thank you. Righto, the handout there has, you'll find it's got three sheets. I'm going to try to get through most of the content of that. So it's going to be rather a rapid trip through what's going on with human causation. I hope by the end of the lecture you'll have a clear understanding of at least how I see what's going on there. So what I'm going to do now, Steve, is just continue from last time. OK, so Hume's concluded that we can't get any impression of power or necessary connection from single instances. And he goes on to say that it must be the repetition that is somehow the key. When we see A followed by B again and again, we see an A, it leads us immediately to form an inference to a B. And that, Hume says, gives us the impression of necessary connection. But it's not an impression that we get from the objects themselves. When we see A followed by B again, we just see the same things as we've seen before. The difference is in the mind. So it's an internal impression. And he remember back in treatise 136, he had said perhaps it will appear in the end that the necessary connection depends on the inference, instead of the inferences depending on the necessary connection. And what Hume seems to be saying is that when we see an A and we find ourselves inferring a B, it's that, that determination of the mind, as he calls it, that gives the impression of necessary connection from which the idea of necessary connection is copied. Now this is all a little bit puzzling. Here is a passage from the inquiry, which will be helpful for focusing on the problem. This 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. But what he seems to be saying there is that the customary transition of the mind is an impression. How does that work? We see an A, we find ourselves expecting a B, so our mind is making the transition from the impression of A to the idea of B to the belief in B, but that transition, Hume seems to be identifying with an impression. Now Stroud, quite influentially, suggested that what must be going on here is that Hume is supposing that when we make some such inference, there is a feeling of compulsion. We see an A and we feel our minds transferring to the expectation of a B. But that's rather odd for two reasons. First of all, Hume says that the inference typically is immediate. We see an A, we just find ourselves believing B. What ground has he got for supposing that there must be some distinctive feeling that arises then? And secondly, he gives arguments, I've put references there, which seem to suggest that a feeling can't possibly play the role that he wants the impression of necessary connection to play. A feeling would be just an impression of a feeling. It would give us the idea of a feeling, not the idea of necessary connection. So my suggestion here is that Hume may be misled by his theory of ideas. Because of his copy principle, he feels that he's got to find an impression to provide the source of the idea. And he's found something. He's found the tendency of the mind to draw an inference. He sees that as something extra and then says there we are, that's an impression. But I'm suggesting the reason he says it's an impression is because an impression is what he's looking for. If his theory of mind weren't so impoverished, if he had made more scope for reflection to play a role, if you remember in an earlier lecture, I mentioned that Hume's view of reflection seems to be treating it as like a sense. We just sense certain things by reflection. He hasn't made room for reflexive awareness of what's going on in our minds, at least he hasn't explicitly done so. Now I suggest that we get a more intelligible interpretation of Hume if we think in terms of reflexive awareness rather than feelings. So suppose I see an A, I infer a B. No need for any special feeling, but I am aware of what's going on in my mind. I'm aware that seeing an A is leading me to expect a B. I am inferring a B and I'm aware of that inference. Now suppose the awareness of that inference is playing the role of providing the source of the idea. That at least makes some sense because if what Hume is looking for, as I suggested earlier, is some idea of consequentiality, one thing following from another, then the mind actually drawing an inference from A to B is one thing following from another. And Hume sometimes suggests that it's the only kind of consequentiality that we can really intimately understand that has, if you like, enough mental reality for us to provide the origin of the relevant idea. So take this passage from the inquiry. That inference of the understanding, which is the only connection that we can have any comprehension of. So I think when Hume talks about the transition of the understanding or the determination of the mind as being the impression, we should take it that he means, literally, it is the inference, the awareness of the inference. It's not a feeling that accompanies the inference. It's actually awareness of the inference makes us realise that we are treating A as providing a ground for inferring of B. And that gives us the idea of consequentiality, one thing following from another. I don't think Hume should have called it an impression, but I think we can see why it's the closest Hume could get within his theory of mind to express what's going on here. Okay, so that's controversial. I mean, how one interprets that. There are clearly tensions within Hume's theory. Where he goes from it seems quite radical. So when you get the customary inference is the essence of necessity, necessity is something that exists in the mind, not in objects, nor is it possible for us ever to form the most efficient idea of it considered as equality in bodies. Necessity is nothing but that determination of the thought to pass from causes to effects and from effects to causes according to their experienced union. Similar quotation from the inquiry. Hume seems to be saying necessity is in the mind, not in objects. Now you can see why he says that. He's saying the impression of necessary connection is something that's going on in there. It's either the drawing of the inference or possibly a feeling. But it's something mental, something that can't exist out there. So Hume comes out with this rather radical claim that necessity isn't in objects, it's in the mind. What exactly does he mean by that? Well, you might think that what he's saying is that there is some kind of full, blooded, thick necessity. We'll come a bit later to what that might mean. But there's some kind of real necessity of the sort that previous metaphysicians thought there was, but it only exists in the mind, not in objects. I think that's definitely a mistaken interpretation. Rather, Hume is saying that the only understanding we can get of necessity comes from reflecting on what's going on in our own minds. Now, Hume remarks that that seems a very strange theory. Intuitively, it seems very difficult to accept. And he gives an account of that in terms of the mind spreading itself on external objects. He's suggesting that when we, for example, suppose we smell a fruit, we naturally attribute the fruit to the physical object, even though it's quite clear to us that the smell cannot actually exist in the object itself. And in the same sort of way, when we get this impression of necessary connection, we spread it on the objects as though it's part of them, when, in fact, it's within our minds. Now, there's a passage here in paragraph 26 where Hume imagines what an opponent might say. This is ridiculous. What the efficacy of causes lie in the determination of the mind, as if causes did not operate entirely independent of the mind and wouldn't continue their operation even though there was no mind existing to contemplate them. So he's imagining an opponent objecting to him and his reply holds his ground. I can only reply to all these arguments that the case is here much the same as if a blind man should pretend to find a great many absurdities in the supposition that the color of scarlet is not the same with the sound of a trumpet, nor light the same with solidity. So imagine a blind man. A blind man asks you, what's scarlet like? What's yellow like? What's blue like? And in order to give the blind man some sort of understanding of the relative impact of different colors, you might say, oh, well scarlet, yeah, that's kind of bright color, like the sound of a trumpet. And then the blind man thinks that he understands what scarlet is. But he doesn't. He's never had a scarlet impression. So he may think that he understands it, but actually when he uses the word scarlet, he's using it without any clear idea. So he doesn't know what he means. And Hume is saying in the same way if people attribute necessity to objects as though it was something that they know of from objects, they're using it without any appropriate impression and therefore without any appropriate meaning. But he does want to say that in a sense causation is objective. So immediately afterwards he says, yes, I accept that in a sense causes are objective, objects in the real world bear to each other the relations of contiguity and succession that like objects may be observed in several instances to have like relations. And all this is independent of and antecedent to the operations of the understanding. So objects are constantly conjoined in the real world whether we perceive them or not. In that sense causation is objective. It's the impression and hence the idea of necessary connection which we falsely attribute to objects themselves. So we end up with two definitions of cause. One of them is based on regular succession of cause and effect. One of them is based on the mind's tendency to infer one thing from another. So you can see these. One of them is focusing if you like on the external situation that A is followed by B repeatedly. One on the internal situation which gives rise to that impression and hence idea of necessary connection. So very famous passage. Two definitions may be given. We may define a cause to be an object precedent and contiguous to another and where all the objects resembling the former are placed in like relations of precedency and contiguity to those objects which resemble the latter. So in other words two things constantly conjoined but one definition. But the other definition is 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. So that is if I think of the cause that's likely to take my thought to thinking about the effect. If I actually see the cause then I will get a lively idea, in other words a belief of the effect I will expect the effect. Now we might think that we have some deeper understanding of causation. There is a vulgar idea of power when people think about one thing having a power to act on another. They tend to think that there's something more to it than constant conjunction and inference because there are various contaminants if you like. For example, if you try to lift a heavy object you get a feeling of strain and that can enter into it. You think somehow that when one object hits another it has a similar kind of strain trying to push the other. That's not really the case but it's natural to attribute those sorts of things to objects. Again, if you look at the reference I've given there in paragraph 25 of section 14 there's a footnote and if you follow the footnote it refers to the section of the immateriality of the soul 14513 where Hume quite clearly says if you attribute the taste of an object to the object itself you're making a mistake, you're trying to put taste and actually only exist in the mind you're trying to place it there in an object. You make exactly the same mistake if you have these feelings of effort or strain and you attribute those to objects. But there is a more precise idea of causation. We do not have to be misled in this way. That's very important. Hume is not saying that the idea of necessary connection is bogus and this is a crucially important point. His quest for the impression of necessary connection is a successful quest. He does actually manage to identify an impression which means that at the end of that he's got a bona fide idea. So don't get the impression from Hume's discussion of causation that he's rejecting the idea of necessity. He isn't. Partway through his discussion it can seem like he is but then he says it is probable that these expressions do hear lose their true meaning by being wrong applied that they never have any meaning and that's before he goes on to identify the impression as based on repeated conjunctions. So the idea of power or necessary connection is vindicated by Hume's analysis. It's not condemned. Now what exactly how should we understand the two definitions? There is a difficulty here and there's a lot of discussion in the literature. It seems to me that the most consistent way probably of understanding Hume I'll be saying a little bit more on this later is that we should apply the idea of necessary connection and causation according to constant conjunction but that applying it ipso facto involves some sort of willingness to make an inference. So what's going on with the two definitions I suggest is something like this that Hume has identified the circumstances in which we call something a cause as being a constant conjunction between A and B and he's noticed that the crucial factor that's involved in calling something a cause is the fact that we infer B from A and he seems to be saying just focus on those two features as the elements of causation and then you will have a precise clear refined idea of causation stripped of the misleading aspects that are there in the vulgar idea like effort. As I say we'll be coming back to that shortly. Hume ends with some corollaries of his definitions of cause all causes are of the same kind he rejects occasionalism notice if constant conjunction be implied in what we call occasion is a real cause if not is no relation at all. So where we get a constant conjunction of things the occasionalists want to say that's not a real cause God is actually the real cause when one billiard ball hits another one and the other one moves it's God who's doing the stuff is saying if there's a constant conjunction that's real causation there's only one kind of necessity the distinction between moral and physical necessity is without any foundation in nature one important caveat here I don't think Hume is being quite accurate on his own principles there are in fact two kinds of necessity the other kind of necessity is if you like logical or conceptual necessity here he's talking about causal necessity and saying there's only one type of causal necessity so where he's disagreeing with people at the time who are wanting to say that physical causation the sort of causation that is involved with billiard balls is completely different in kind from moral causation that is causation by reasons humans acting on reasons and Hume's saying basically no the kind of causation that's involved in the moral world in the human world is the same kind as in the physical world so that has very significant consequences for the discussion of free will and determinism he draws a couple more corollaries which I've noted there