Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Conceptions of Causation

Abstract

Hume begins his famous discussion of causation in the Enquiry with these words. “There are no ideas, which occur in metaphysics, more obscure and uncertain, than those of power, force, energy, or necessary connexion, of which it is every moment necessary to treat in all our disquisitions” (VII, pp. 61–2). It is well-known how he goes on to subject these ideas to a ‘sceptical doubt’, arguing that they are incoherent because they do not have their origins in any kind of sensory impression. Hume’ s own ‘sceptical solution’ to this doubt is also well-known: he argues that the only sensorily verifiable definition of causation must be drawn from things “extraneous and foreign”, in particular, from the relations of temporal priority, spatial contiguity and regularity. He argues that the conception of the causal relation as consisting in a necessary connexion is due to our projecting onto the world a “felt determination of the mind” to pass from cause to effect.

Versions of this paper have been read at Monash University, November 1995, the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, December 1995, and at a special symposium on laws and causation held as part of the June 1996 meeting of the Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science at the University of Melbourne. I am indebted to the following people for comments and questions that have helped me clarify my ideas: David Armstrong, Simon Blackburn, Karen Green, Frank Jackson, Rae Langton, David Lewis, Daniel Nolan, Philip Pettit, Huw Price, and Denis Robin­son. Thanks also to Howard Sankey for organising the special symposium on laws and causation at the AAHPSSS meeting.