Abstract

Do Hume and Kant hold strongly divergent views about the causal principle, viz. the principle that every event or change of state in nature must have a cause? It has traditionally been held that they do, and on the ground that while Hume claims that there is no justification for the principle’s acceptance, Kant claims that the principle can be shown to be necessary for the possibility of experience. However, I argue that, on Hume’s account of how we come to believe in the existence of external objects, it is not possible for us to perceive any external object that is changing its state randomly or acausally. Accordingly, Hume is no position to deny that the causal principle can be justified, given he acknowledges, like Kant, that we do believe ourselves capable of perceiving events, or changes of state, in nature. Equally, Kant is no position to claim to have answered Hume’s scepticism about the causal principle given he acknowledges, like Hume, that the objects of the senses are, in reality, merely appearances and not things in themselves.