Explain David Hume Causality Theory
David Hume’s Causality Theory.
To begin with, David Hume starts by noting that all humans have a sense of causality. He then delves into the idea that although we have the notion of causality. To begin with, he starts by discussing single impressions; which is the most straightforward notion of causality. According to him, it is not possible to form a causal relationship from one event. When we experience something for the first time, we have no prior knowledge or experience of the sort. As such, we do not have any claims to make about what happens next. We lack a framework or expectations. The only thing that can be drawn from a single experience is physical properties. These physical properties are said to be incomplete in as afar as drawing a causal relationship is concerned. “these qualities are all complete in themselves, and never point out at any other event which may result from them.” (Blocker. Et al., 271).
Hume then claims that regardless of the number of times we experience events, we cannot develop any other experience beyond what we already have. He uses the example of a game of billiards. If we were to play multiple games of billiards, all we would come out with would be a vast “ball striking experience”. We would learn that if one ball strikes another, the result is the ball that has been hit rolling away. We cannot predict how the shots will move in future; there is no rational basis for predicting that all balls must move away when struck. This is because we lack the physical foundation from which to hinge our claim, that the ball that is hit will subsequently move. As a result, we learn from experience the “conjunction” of objects, even though we may lack the comprehension for the “connection “between the two actions. (Blocker, Et al., 271)
This lack of a reason for what causes things to happen as they do; also known as causation, leads us to search elsewhere for answers. According to Hume, we end up looking into the mind for the explanation; in this case, the “imagination”. When our brains form a “habit” by seeing a pair of events occur in a specific sequence, we begin to expect them always to follow one another in the sequence. After multiple repetitions of witnessing such incidents being repeated, we begin to see the events flow into the next by itself, and this is because our minds have developed a “habit”. We thus expect things to happen in a certain way naturally; we feel a connection between the two events as a result of experiencing the repeated actions and consequent effect. Thus although experiences of these repeated actions create and reinforce a feeling of causality, they do not necessarily explain. The explanation only occurs due to our minds trying to form a connection. This connection cannot be rationally proven to exist and nor can it be predicted because there is no physical rationality to back it up.
The types of judgements.
To begin with, according to Kant, the judgement refers to a type of cognition. Cognition is described” as a conscious mental representation of an object”. The mind is always active and essential because of its cognitive capacity to form determinate conscious knowledge that generates objective images of specific kinds under specific conditions. Put merely; judgment is classified in terms of logical form and semantic content.
A Priori judgement
Judgment is a term that refers to a statement in which there are s subject and a predicate term, in which both could be true, or one could be false. Supporting acts by which we have come to understand to be right about the case are judgements. There are two ways in which these judgments can be said to be true or not: the a priori and posteriori knowledge. The a priori judgement refers toa judgment that is arrived at without necessarily relying on the senses; he refers to these judgments as accurate entirely.
Posteriori judgements
Then there are the posteriori judgments that are knowledge arrived at while relying on the senses.
In a priori judgments, Kant emphasizes that they cannot be affected by sensory experiences. For a judgment to be classified as a priori, it’s truthfulness or falsehood cannot be hinged upon knowledge. For instance, in a Mathematical calculation, the answer to a problem is not dependent on experience. The experience does not and cannot affect the judgment. Thus according to Kant, a priori judgment is, in a sense “pure”, because no amount of experience can falsify the understanding (Blocker Et al. , 272).
A posteriori knowledge, on the other hand (also known as empirical knowledge), refers to judgments made dependent on an individual’s experiences. This means that their truth is hugely reliant on sensory experiences. Therefore facts are not very dependable; the prevailing sense experiences can easily falsify them. However, this distinction between priori and posteriori judgments only distinguishes them according to how they are known to be true or false.
Analytical judgments
These are statements whose predicate terms gives you more information that is not contained in the original data. Thus this information is ‘ampliative’ as it adds on to the knowledge existing in the subject. For example All sons are male.
Synthetic judgments
Synthetic judgments, on the other hand, refer to experiences or statements whose predicate does not add to the information conveyed by the subject term. For example, in the comments: all human beings are mammals, or the humidity is at 60%.
From this, therefore, we can come up with four distinct forms of judgements: The synthetic posteriori, the analytic a priori, the analytic posteriori and the synthetic a priori. Each of these categories bears the characteristics of the components of judgement and the contents of the predicate and subject respectively (Blocker, Et al. , 210).
Are priori judgments possible?
Priori Judgments can be synthetic or analytical. Analytical a priori judgments are always true everywhere and as such as necessary and thus possible. A priori judgments are reasonable because they provide a way of categorizing and comprehending the world in terms of quality, quantity, modality, among others. Therefore, this way of thinking simplifies the complex nature of the world and our experiences into divisions that the mind can understand. From this explanation, space and time are the purest forms of a priori perceptions; this is because they remain accurate and unchanged n matter the circumstances.
Through Kant’s theories, the way we perceive judgement moved from just the traditional rationalism and empiricism. Previously, the rationalists showed that our understanding of the world could be drawn from the use of reason. This was seen as a way of ensuring all doubt is eliminated.
Conversely, the empiricists propose that our knowledge is hinged on our experience. Thus, they take into consideration the practicality of the experience that has occurred. However, it did not take into account the level of certainty on anything based on experience. According to Kant, both the empiricist and the rationalists failed as they were based on assumptions that were mistaken. By coming up with the four forms of judgments, Kant was able to prove that a priori judgements are possible and thus provide a way of separating and distinguishing human knowledge into portions.
To some extent, some of these judgments are applicable and true. For instant, the a priori judgments that use mathematical examples such as “5+7=12”. This statement is true based on the information I received from my teacher as a child as a grown-up. I have applied this knowledge in different spheres and proven this to be true. Despite this, I have had experiences where I received information in places deemed to be trustworthy, but the report did not turn out to be true. Additionally, there are also many different experiences where I have received mathematical facts that I have had no way or experience of experimenting to determine whether it is true or not. If I had to deal with more significant figures such as counting to a 100, and only ended up counting till 99, I would doubt my counting ability rather than the idea that “50+50+100”.
Thus if I have knowledge of a specific statement, but the justification for “relying” on this knowledge depends upon sense experience, then this is a posteriori knowledge. The reverse is valid for a priori knowledge. Analytical statements do not add much information to the world. As such, they remain unchanged by our experience of the world. This is ordinarily considered factual. From the examples used, “All bachelors are men” it thus shows that there is no way the sex of bachelors would change; he is male. From this, we can denote that analytical statements are also, in essence, a priori. By the fact that the knowledge can only be arrived at based on reason thus shows how related they are to Hume’s empiricism.
Although Hume uses different terminology, in a way, he implied the existence of a priori knowledge, the only difference being that Hume’s statements were limited; they were statements only negated by contradictions. Hume targets “metaphysics”; comments that are known by reason and not based on a sensory experience. He extends to the laws of nature. According to him ‘all events have a cause”. To Hume then, a synthetic a priori knowledge is not possible, his claim that we know arithmetical truths based on reason alone, which negates Kant’s statement that this knowledge is synthetic, not analytical (Blocker et al. 273).
In conclusion, if Hume’s suppositions do not involve mathematics, then it can be classified as a synthetic a priori knowledge. In that case, a priori understanding of synthetic statements can only be classified as such if they relate to fundamental truths of our conscious experience of objects.
References
Petrik, J., Stewart, J. and Blocker, G. H. “Fundamentals of Philosophy” eighth edition. Pearson Education, Inc., 2013.