The Phenomenology of Causation: Whitehead and Hume

Abstract

Despite Whitehead’s notorious characterization of the history of philoso phy as a series of footnotes to Plato, it is striking how often the name of Hume recurs in his writings. This is especially so in Process and Reality and in a little but fundamental book, Symbolism. It is not difficult to see why this should be so: if a theory of monads along the lines indicated by Ward has to stand, it must be possible to work out a theory of intermonadic causation. Whitehead asks: ‘What is the nature of causation?’ In Hume he encounters a philosopher who forcefully argues that this question cannot be answered.