Abstract
Alongside the concept of space and time, the concept of causation is important for the understanding of our surroundings. As a naturalist, Hume already argued that this concept is grounded in our experience of succession and regularity but he also added that the idea of necessity among causally connected events belongs to our mental habits. The evolutionary naturalist agrees. Higher animals other than humans also have a primitive causal understanding due to some innate cognitive schemata by which they connect their sense impressions. The modal elements, which are ingrained in human imagination, have a natural origin in our ability to interact and manipulate with the world. Hume, being also an empiricist, ignored what the bodily engagement with the world means for the construction of our notions such as necessity and possibility.
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Notes
- 1.
van Fraassen (1989), p. 213.
- 2.
Ibid., p. 214.
- 3.
Faye (2014), pp. 138–42. On page 136 I say “In Kantian terms the notion of causation is a posteriori for the species but a priori for the individual.” By this I meant that the schemas of causation are innate and that an individual organism’s actual notion of causation is its behavioral expression of the innateness of this capacity of forming causal beliefs.
- 4.
Michael Ruse (1986) expresses the problem very nicely: “Certainly there are causal connections, and only a fool would ignore them. The point is that causes are not things (over and above the physical world), like powers or invisible fluids or such phenomena—though we have a tendency to think they are. Nor are there metaphysical hooks, or any such things, binding causes and effects. The world works in a regular way. It is in our biological interests to take note of this, and so as an adaptive response we tend to make something out of the regularities. But, as philosophers, we should not try to make more out of regularities than they are. Causes are projected into the world by us, through our epigenetic rules. The human who believes in real connections has the biological edge over the human who sees only contingency” (p. 174). I agree completely.
- 5.
Faye (1989, 1994).
- 6.
Hume (1748), sect. VII, part II, p. 76.
- 7.
Mackie (1972), 62 f.
- 8.
Hume (1748), sec. VII, part II, p. 76.
- 9.
Hume (1740), p. 77.
- 10.
Blackburn (1993), pp. 94–107.
- 11.
Cartwright (1989), p. 187.
- 12.
Lewis (1973), pp. 16–18.
- 13.
Faye (1989), pp. 65–74
- 14.
Ibid., pp. 160–163.
- 15.
Faye (1994), pp. 143–147.
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Faye, J. (2016). Causality and Counterfactuality. In: Experience and Beyond. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31077-0_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31077-0_9
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