Abstract
In this chapter, I discuss the second metaphysical implication of the Idealist reading, pertaining to causation. Spatial contiguity seems to be one of the three conditions Hume discerns for causation in his analysis of the concept. Furthermore, Hume thinks causes precede their effects. This means, for the Idealist, that the requisite contiguity is between objects in successive impressions. But this condition, I argued, is never satisfied. So the Idealist is seemingly committed to there being no causal relations even of the constant conjunction kind. In response, I argue that Hume’s Idealist is not saddled with this disastrous claim. While accepts the supposition that causes must precede their effects, he rejects the contiguity requirement, and for good reason.
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Notes
- 1.
I have modified Hume’s reductio conclusion somewhat. He concludes that “all objects must be co-existent”. But the universal simultaneity of causes and effects only guarantees the simultaneity of the elements within causal chains, leaving open the possibility that the simultaneous members of one causal chain precede (all of the) members of another. But the modification is innocuous in our context: we observe causal, not just temporal, succession.
- 2.
Like other assumptions made in Newtonian mechanics, this is an idealisation. But it is legitimate by way of showing the compatibility of causal successions with (some cases of) simultaneous causation, because it doesn’t contravene anything essential to causation.
- 3.
Russell adduces them to discredit the notion of causation. He argues that no supposition about the temporal relation between cause and effect is acceptable.
- 4.
Confusingly, Hume uses similar wording when he argues that causes occur just before their effects: “nothing can operate in a time or place, which is ever so little remov’d from those of its existence”. But Descartes’ argument purports to support simultaneity.
- 5.
§45 of the reply to Leibniz’s fourth letter, The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, H.G. Alexander (ed.), Manchester University Press, 1956.
- 6.
The contiguity claim doesn’t make sense if we assume, contra Hume, that space is infinitely divisible, an assumption the Materialist may well accept. Newtonian Mechanics and Euclidean geometry both accept it. And there aren’t adjacent points in a space that is not discrete. Between every two points, there is another point.
Bibliography
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Ehring, D. (1987). Non-Simultaneous Causation. Analysis, 47, 28–32.
Munsat, S. (1971). Hume’s argument that causes must precede their effects. Philosophical Studies, 22, 24–26.
Russell, B. (1918). On the notion of cause. In B. Russell (Ed.), Mysticism and logic. Pelican. 1953.
Stroud, B. (1977). Hume. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
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Weintraub, R. (2024). Consequences of the Idealist Interpretation for Causation. In: Humean Bodies and their Consequences. Jerusalem Studies in Philosophy and History of Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50799-1_6
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