Hume causality
Thus, we cannot actually get any sense experience of causality. The balls could be moved in a similar way by magnets under the table, and in that case the movement of the second ball would not be caused by it’s being struck by the first - yet, the phenomenon would be similar to that that would obtain were the first ball to actually strike the second. When we see a billiard ball roll across a table and strike another billiard ball, we see the one ball touch the other ball and then see the other ball roll, but we don’t actually see the causal connection between these events. Causality is a concept we impose on our experience, not something we actually experience. Essentially, we see events happening one after the other and simply assume necessary connection between them, even though we have no sense impression of such necessary connection in the form of causality. It is more plausible to argue that an understanding of causation is derived from our bodily encounters with material objects.David Hume, who along with Berkeley remains the profoundest of empiricists to this day, made a very famous argument against causality. However, he was wrong in suggesting that this experience might be the source of our understanding of causation since intentional action already presupposes that understanding and cannot provide it. Schopenhauer quite plausibly located an immediate experience of causation between at least some kinds of motives and our consequent actions. In this chapter, the author argues that this claim can be defended against Hume’s well-known objections because they are based on a volitional theory of voluntary action, which Schopenhauer rightly rejected.
HUME CAUSALITY FULL
One aspect of Schopenhauer’s doctrine that the world is will, which can be assessed independently of his more ambitious metaphysical ideas, is the claim that our own agency provides us with a full understanding of causation which then permeates and structures our experience of the world in general. The Next Metaphysical Mutation: Schopenhauer as Michel Houellebecq’s Educator.Schopenhauer’s Fin de Siècle Reception in Austria.Post-Schopenhauerian Metaphysics: Hartmann, Mainländer, Bahnsen, and Nietzsche.The Inscrutable Riddle of Schopenhauer’s Relations to Jews and to Judaism.Schopenhauer and Confucian Thinkers on Compassion.Schopenhauer’s Moral Philosophy: Responding to Senselessness.