Hume: Necessary Connection
Jac Brueneman
Hume and Kant
Hume Essay
In David Hume’s masterful argument, Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding, he addresses the foundation and processes of our epistemology through both empirical and applied epistemology. In this argument he addresses the issue of what, exactly, necessary causation is, its importance to our epistemology, and whether or not we are able to truly understand it. While Hume’s argument concerning necessary connection is strong there are flaws in it regarding necessity, what exactly Hume is arguing, and contradictions regarding his argument. Hume begins his discussion of necessary connection by suggesting that there are no ideas in metaphysics as obscure as the idea of necessary connection. He states that, “it is impossible for us to think of anything that we have not antecedently felt, either by our external or internal senses.”(62) Our complex ideas are the sum of our simple ideas and our simple ideas are made up of impressions which we have “antecedently felt.” These impressions are not unclear in anyway, they elicit no doubt concerning their meaning. When we experience an instance of what we believe to be cause and effect, we experience the cause and the effect. We do not, however, experience the impression of necessary connection. In Hume’s example of the billiard balls we experience one billiard ball striking the other and the other seems to move as a result of the one’s strike. What we do not experience, Hume argues, is the necessary connection that causes the first billiard ball to move the other. We do not experience the actual relationship that the two have in that one moment that causes the effect to result. We cannot elicit the impression of necessary connection from our outward experiences, yet can we acquire the impression of necessary connection from our reflection of the operations of our mind and body? Hume would argue that we still to do not gain any sort of impression from the interaction of
Hume and Kant
Hume Essay
In David Hume’s masterful argument, Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding, he addresses the foundation and processes of our epistemology through both empirical and applied epistemology. In this argument he addresses the issue of what, exactly, necessary causation is, its importance to our epistemology, and whether or not we are able to truly understand it. While Hume’s argument concerning necessary connection is strong there are flaws in it regarding necessity, what exactly Hume is arguing, and contradictions regarding his argument. Hume begins his discussion of necessary connection by suggesting that there are no ideas in metaphysics as obscure as the idea of necessary connection. He states that, “it is impossible for us to think of anything that we have not antecedently felt, either by our external or internal senses.”(62) Our complex ideas are the sum of our simple ideas and our simple ideas are made up of impressions which we have “antecedently felt.” These impressions are not unclear in anyway, they elicit no doubt concerning their meaning. When we experience an instance of what we believe to be cause and effect, we experience the cause and the effect. We do not, however, experience the impression of necessary connection. In Hume’s example of the billiard balls we experience one billiard ball striking the other and the other seems to move as a result of the one’s strike. What we do not experience, Hume argues, is the necessary connection that causes the first billiard ball to move the other. We do not experience the actual relationship that the two have in that one moment that causes the effect to result. We cannot elicit the impression of necessary connection from our outward experiences, yet can we acquire the impression of necessary connection from our reflection of the operations of our mind and body? Hume would argue that we still to do not gain any sort of impression from the interaction of