Essay about The Regularity View of Causation - 1721 Words

David Hume is a British empiricist which means that he thought that all knowledge is ultimately rooted in sense experience and that all of our ideas derive from preceding impressions of sense or reflection, this theory had a huge effect on Humes account of causation. In this essay I will look at Humes account of causation and examine if any version of the Regularity View of causation can be defended. Before we look at the Regularity View of Causation it is important to look at Humes Copy Principle as his view on causation is linked to this. Hume states that â€Å"all our ideas are nothing but copies of our impressions or in other words it is impossible for us to think of anything which we have not antecedently felt, either by our external or†¦show more content†¦Therefore Hume claims that there is no necessary connection, it is just that we infer the idea of necessary connection but in actual fact we never actually observe it directly in nature. Hume goes on to convince us that we cannot observe the act of causation, for example he points out that we are aware of our ability to move our body i.e. fingers, hands etc. but this does not make us aware of the connection between the act volition and the movement of our body. He points out that we are capable of moving our fingers at will but we have no control over our internal organs. Why is this? Hume believes that we are i ncapable of rationalising a causal connection and things happen according to some sort of law, however these laws and necessities are beyond our understanding. Causes contain nothing within themselves that could enable them to act on anything else. So in essence Hume is stating that A causes B if B temporally succeeds A, if A and B are spatially contiguous and if b always follows a. However this account does not seem plausible for example if we hear a rooster crow and see the sun beginning to rise, we cannot say that the rooster crowing causes the sun to rise. another example that that satisfies the criteria of the Regularity view of causation is if I always whistle while striking a match, we cannot say that the the whistling caused the match toShow MoreRelatedHumes and Anscombes View on Causation1227 Words   |  5 PagesIn this paper I discuss both Hume’s and Anscombe’s view on causation. I begin with Hume and his regularity theory; then I move onto Anscombe where I provide a rebuttal of Hume’s regularity theory, and later I explain how Hume would respond to Anscombe’s objection to Hume’s regularity th eory. Hume’s notion of causation is his regularity theory. 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