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Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
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February 11, 2008
of Power and Causation by Kile Jones
Abstract: Hume, as is well known, was eager and earnest in responding to the metaphysics of his early predecessors and contemporaries. The metaphysics of Descartes, Locke, Malebranche, and Newton were the context through which Hume constructed his sceptical philosophy. A majority of the teachings of Hume only make sense in light of this; for Hume's responses can only truly be understood when we understand what exactly it was that was responded to. This paper aims to clarify what Hume responded to by presenting the metaphysics of power and causation of Descartes, Locke, Malebranche, and Newton. After this Hume's responses will be analyzed in order to see whether they accurately deal with the metaphysical system he inherited. Descartes' theories of mechanics, dynamics, and physics were widely popular amongst his philosophical successors. His lasting influence can mainly be seen in his construction of the famous Three Laws of Nature, specifically the Principle of Conservation, where Garber (1992) notes that it "received its canonical statement in Sir Isaac Newton's Principles... enshrined as the principle of inertia."[1] These laws attempted to explain the movement of body from one location to the other without the need of a vacuum or void. Descartes puts this simply: "That is to say, when a body leaves its place, it always enters into that of another, and the latter into that of still another, and so on down to the last, which occupies in the same instant the place left open by the first" and "that all those spaces that people think to be empty, and where we feel only air, are at least as full, and as full of the same matter, as those where we sense other bodies."[2] Descartes simply defines motion as "the passing of one part of matter, or of one body, from the vicinity of those bodies which immediately touch it."[3] The fact that there even is something as motion in this closed system is not due to the inherent nature of bodies, as some of the schoolmen had said, rather, it is due to the 'laws of nature' governing such bodies. These 'laws of nature' have a necessary character to them because they reflect the unchanging nature of God, a God who providentially upholds His creation. Descartes puts this plainly while discussing his first two laws:
All of these various teachings make Descartes a firm supporter of the Uniformity of Nature, to such a point, that if you deny it you are also denying God. Motion, Nature, and Causation must always remain uniform, for they are 'Laws', in the strict sense of the term. If any of these were to seem stochastic, or non-uniform, it would not be due to the breaking of the laws of nature, but a limitation in our own understanding; for by definition these 'Laws' cannot be broken. From an epistemological standpoint, Descartes thinks these laws of nature can be discovered apriori. In fact, the whole Cartesian project is to exhaust apriori knowledge prior to any empirical verification. Thus, these laws are proven in a deductive and fashionably Thomist manner; the argument runs thus:
The first point Descartes thought to be proven ontologically and causally. There are of course numerous arguments against this, but suffice it to say that this was Descartes starting point. The second point seems to follow logically from the first; it is only sensible to think that an immutable and truthful God would construct a world that reflects His consistency. The third point likewise follows from the first two, and so we are left with a world that has immutable laws governing it. If all of this is accepted, then believing that the laws of nature are immutable is as simple as believing that 2+2=4, or any other tautology. Nature has officially become mathematized. It is not as if Descartes was opposed to empirically based knowledge per se, for after his great episode of doubting he constructs his epistemology using some empirical methodology; the problem was that empirically based knowledge only yields a 'hypothesis' and cannot provide certain [or as he put it, eternal] truths. However this does not mean that empirical experience cannot yield valuable and trustworthy knowledge. Descartes, in fact, believes that we can know that causation occurs because we directly experience our minds causal relationship with the actions of our bodies:
In believing this Descartes takes the step from thinking that since mental causation is known by experience, causation in the physical world is known much the same way. Descartes most likely thought of the former as intuitive and the latter as demonstratively known. In this sense, Descartes argues for causation in both apriori and aposteriori ways for either way Descartes needs causation to be 'law-like' and epistemically accessible. In this view, causation is not some 'secret', 'hidden', or 'mysterious' process that cannot be discovered, rather, it is an obvious phenomenal and physical fact which is easily accessible.[6] Another very straightforward Cartesian teaching is known as representationalism. Our ideas, according to this view, are representations of a mind-independent world, caused by a mind-independent world. Descartes, according to Larmore (1980), "believed he could prove [apriori] that the causal dependence of perceptual ideas on external objects is just as clear and distinct as our having such ideas at all."[7] For Descartes, knowing that these ideas are accurate representations of the external world depends upon the minds construction and ability to perceive clear and distinct ideas, which ultimately rests on Theistic assumptions. God has constructed our minds in such a way that when they are functioning properly, and being used correctly, they deliver ideas which correspond to the external world. This allows Descartes to escape idealism, subjectivism, and scepticism; though one must first accept Descartes' theology to accept his epistemology. Descartes influence can be seen clearly in the quasi-rationalism of John Locke. Though comparably different in many ways, Locke builds upon a Cartesian philosophy adding to it stronger empiricist conclusions. For Locke metaphysics helps to explain epistemology, specifically the origin of ideas as they relate to the natural world. Whereas Descartes deconstructed and rebuilt, Locke's project is to explain; explain the genesis of our ideas, how they relate to substance, and the extent to which they convey accurate knowledge. In Locke we find a tension which exemplifies the purpose of this paper and the epistemological debates of the early modern period, namely, how knowledge of the workings of the external world can be acquired if all that is directly experienced is mental, and thus subjective. This tension has lead to numerous debates over whether Locke fits better as a rationalist or as an empiricist; needless to say, Locke is an obvious symbol of the 'coming to age' time between Descartes and Hume. Locke spends enough time on the concept of power to infer his metaphysics from, but insignificant time in comparison to the massive size of his Essay. He defines power in a modal sense as "twofold, viz. as able to make, or able to receive any change: The one may be called Active, and the other Passive Power."[8] Wax, for instance, has the passive power of being able to melt, and the Sun has the active power in its ability to melt wax. Thus power, as an Idea, can be abstracted as a logical concept devoid of concrete applications. Where we get the idea of power will be discussed later, as it relates to Locke's view of mind. Not only does power have a certain modal status, it also "includes in it some kind of relation" which is between "Figure and Motion", and more specifically between "Bulk, Figure, Texture, and Motion of the Parts."[9] Power then is the modal and relational character between two objects, located within objects. The Sun has a specific power relationship to wax when it melts it, as wax has in being melted. This all seems quite simply a realist view of external objects, yet there are difficulties with attributing realism to Locke when he discusses how we acquire knowledge of power and motion. Scholars like Richard Watson (1993) and John Yolton (1970) suggest that Locke is in harmony with Hume by concluding that we cannot acquire the idea of power from bodies since external objects afford us no such concept.[10] This view, which has become the standard interpretation, comes from passages where Locke speaks about the obscurity of our idea of active power and how this obscurity stems from reflection of bodies at rest.[11] Others, specifically Angela Coventry (2003), feel that this standard interpretation goes wrong because although Locke does "emphasize the obscurity of our idea of power in external bodies" he nonetheless "does allow that we possess some idea of power in external bodies."[12] Regardless of where you find yourself in this debate it is still quite obvious that Locke thinks volition provides a much clearer idea of power than external bodies. The ability of the mind to cause the body to move Locke calls 'will' and 'volition'. Locke feels that this natural ability is "evident" in that we "find in our selves a Power to begin or forbear, continue or end several actions of our minds, and motions of our Bodies, barely by a though or preference of the mind ordering."[13] The idea of power, as it relates to the beginning of motion, is clarified by mental causation: "The Idea of the beginning of motion, we have only from reflection on what passes in our selves, where we find by Experience, that barely by willing it...we can move the parts of our Bodies."[14] These and many more passages seem to indicate that Locke held to a traditional Cartesian view of causation where cause and effect are directly experienced and confirmed by clear evidence.[15] Where Locke parts ways with Descartes is in his scepticism towards any ability to observe causation in external bodies; he says, for instance, that
Here is where Hume is going to pick up his central critique of causation and conclude that by observation we can never 'see causation', in the strict empirical sense of seeing, but that is for later discussion. What Locke does is waver between realism and the naturally sceptical conclusions of empiricism, finding a balance in his hybrid philosophy of science. Locke's philosophy, though, is riddled with tension whenever he tries to promote realism and empiricism at the same time. His views of power and causation are straightforwardly realist but his epistemology, specifically as it attempts to locate our knowledge of power and causation, does not provide sufficient reasons for believing in realism. Thus our idea of power is 'obscure' and though we can experience causation internally, we can never establish its veracity in external objects because our senses are not 'acute enough' which leaves us 'ignorant of their properties and operations'. M.R. Ayers (1991) finds in Locke a patently Kantian bifurcation between the observable and the 'hidden' or 'secret' workings of nature, where Locke thinks the former gives rise to our ideas of power and causation and the latter remind us of the epistemological gap between our ideas and the functions of the things-in-themselves, he says:
This interpretation of Locke has two promising features: it explains why Locke so often waivers between realism and empiricism, and it puts Locke within a historical framework; specifically a 17th-18th century framework which saw the debates over phenomena and noumena as pivotal in the construction of a consistent metaphysic. This means that although Locke thinks of power and causation as self evident, they are only this way as far as our mind understands them. We can now see how doubt about power and causation as they are in the objects could begin to take hold. It seems that there might be a need for a more radical answer to this epistemological question, and this is precisely what the next author brings. Malebranche, the French Classicist, entered the pre-modern metaphysical debates promising a solution to the problem of causation. He saw inconsistencies in Descartes' dualism on the one hand, and with the naturalistic, and thus reductive, accounts of the emerging scientific philosophers. What he retained from the Cartesian system was enough to classify him as a French Classicist, though not enough to label him a 'Cartesian' of any sort.[18] What Malebranche adds to the debates of his time, is a stronger and clearer emphasis on God's providence and action in the material world. This will become evident the more we analyze his views of power and causation. Malebranche, along with Descartes, believed that extension is the essence of matter: "I do not think that, after some serious thought on the matter, it can be doubted that the mind's essence consists in thought, just as the essence of matter consists only in extension."[19] In other words, for matter to be what it is, it must have extension. This means that any quality of matter conveyed by the senses, such as color, motion, bulk, figure, texture, density, etc., is not needed for matter to be what it is. In fact, Malebranche, along with Locke, thought these qualities where not in matter but in our senses. Only by ideas can our minds grasp what are truly inherent properties of matter, for sense-data only conveys the subjective secondary qualities of objects which refer only to objects as we sense them. What can be discovered about matter from a purely mental process is that it is infinitely divisible:
Since the essence of matter is extension and matter is infinitely divisible, Malebranche concluded that matter, in itself, is inert. Steven Nadler (2000) reveals the arguments logical form:
Because matter is inert, Malebranche accounted for power, force, and motion by means of a Being who is over and above matter, i.e. God. God is the one who moves matter, causes events to occur, and causes finite minds to perceive relations amongst material objects. This radical rationalism is a far cry from the attempts of men like Locke who sought empirical verification for hypothesis about objects. Malebranche argues against the thesis that material objects can be genuine causes, i.e. 'natural causation', in a couple different ways. He firstly posits an epistemic condition on causation, which says that any cause must have knowledge of its effect and all the intermediary processes it takes to bring it about.[22] One example of this is a section where Malebranche explicitly attacks mind-body causation:
Since nobody has the amount of knowledge needed to bring about an effect, it must be that they are not true causes. But who could possibly have all the knowledge needed to bring about any effect? Malebranche's answer is simple: "Therefore, men will to move their arms, and only God is able and knows how to move them", and "it is only God who is the true cause and who truly has the power to move bodies." There are obvious problems with this line of reasoning. You may ask why there needs to be such a rigid epistemic condition for causation at all. When a rock rolls down a hill and collides with another and causes it to move, would we say that the rock has knowledge of its effect? Needless to say, Malebranche concluded that because this epistemic condition could never be met by a finite mind, that only an infinite mind could be the one causing events to occur. Another argument Malebranche uses is over the idea of necessary connection. Malebranche assumes that genuine causation implies a necessary connection between a cause and its effect: "A true cause as I understand it is one such that the mind perceives a necessary connection between it and its effects."[24] This view of causation leads one to believe that natural causation, i.e. the causation found in the physical world, is logically necessary, and that all true causal events are instances of strict natural laws. In this sense, Malebranche's definition of causation is similar to Descartes', in that physical causation reveals the nomological character of nature which God has established. The problem with this, according to Malebranche (and as we will see, Hume), is that you cannot ground logical necessity in brute, physical facts, for it is always logically possible for physical events to be other than what they are. Based on empirical verification alone, you cannot say that it is logically necessary for the Sun to rise tomorrow, for it is possible that the Sun could explode or burn out. What Malebranche does with this tension is conclude that because causation implies a necessary connection, and this connection cannot be found in brute physical facts, that therefore, physical objects do not possess true causation. But because God is by nature a necessary being, and there is true causation in the world, then God must be the one causing events to occur. With Malebranche and other theologically minded philosophers attempting to ground power and causation in the existence and workings of God, there became an increasing tension between the theological kind of answers about causation and the up-and-coming answers of the scientific community. Yet it was not as if these scientists were anti-religious or atheistic, most of them, in fact, were devout Christians, but they were devout Christians struggling to combine theology and the new science. One such Christian (although with Deistic leanings) was Sir Isaac Newton. Newton, the famous philosopher of science who captured the scientific community with his 'Three Laws of Motion' and insights into optics, has had great and lasting effects within both the philosophical and scientific community to such a point that a few years ago (2005), he was voted more influential than Einstein by a poll given by the Royal Society.[25] Notes: 1. Garber, Daniel, "Descartes' Physics," published in The Cambridge Companion to Descartes, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pg 315. 2. Descartes, Renee, The World, Abaris Books, 1979, pg 27, 29. 3. Descartes, Renee, Principles, II, pg 25. 4. Descartes, Renee, The World, Abaris Books, 1979, pg 69. 5. Descartes, Renee, Oeuvres de Descartes, Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, ed., 11 vols., J. Vrin, 1996, pg 5, 222, Italics mine. Another explicit statement like this is when Descartes says that "we have such a close awareness of the freedom and indifference which is within us that there is nothing which we can grasp more evidently or more perfectly. (Ibid, pg 8A, 20) There are numerous debates over what kind of causation Descartes believed in; whether he was an Overdeterminist, Concurrentist, Occasionalist, Compatibilist, or believed in Simultaneous Causation. For discussion see: Geoffrey Gorham, "Cartesian Causation: Continuous, Simultaneous, Overdetermined," Journal of The History of Philosophy, vol. 42, 2004, pp. 389-423; Daniel E. Flage and Clarence A. Bonnen, "Descartes on Causation," The Review of Metaphysics, 50, 1996, pp. 841-872; Kenneth Clatterbaugh, "Descartes's Causal Likeness Principle," Philosophical Review, 89, 1980, pp. 379-402. 6. This is a similar view to Reid's physical causation expounded in his Essays on the Active Powers. 7. Larmore, Charles, "Descartes' Empirical Epistemology," published in Descartes: Philosophy, Mathematics, and Physics, The Harvester Press, 1980, pp. 16-17. 8. Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Clarendon Press, 1975, pg 234. 10. Watson, Richard, "Malebranche, Models, and Causation," in Causation in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. by Steven Nadler, Pennsylvania University Press, 1993; Yolton, John, Locke and the Compass of Human Understanding: A Selective Commentary on the Essay, Cambridge University Press, 1970. 11. For instance when Locke says that "Neither have we from Body and Idea of the beginning of Motion. A Body at rest affords us no Idea of any active Power to move" and "it seems to me, we have from observation of the operation of Bodies by our Senses, but a very imperfect obscure Idea of active Power", Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Clarendon Press, 1975, pg 235. 12. Coventry, Angela, "Locke, Hume, And The Idea Of Causal Power," Locke Studies, vol. 3, 2003, pg 110. 13. Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Clarendon Press, 1975, pg 236. 15. John Dewey concluded something similar when he said that Locke "retained the old concept of causation as well as of independent substances". Dewey, John, "Substance, Power, and Quality in Locke," published in John Locke: Critical Assessments, ed. by Richard Ashcraft, Routledge, 1991, pg 54. 16. Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Clarendon Press, 1975, pg 556. 17. Ayers, M.R., "The Ideas of Power and Substance in Locke's Philosophy," published in John Locke: Critical Assessments, vol. 4, Routledge, 1991, pg 102. 18. He retained, for the most part, Descartes view of body, substance, the denial of a void, and God. 19. Malebranche, Nicolas, The Search after Truth, ed. by Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J. Olscamp, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pg 198. 21. Nadler, Steven, "Malebranche on Causation," published in The Cambridge Companion to Malebranche, ed. by Steven Nadler, Cambridge University Press, 2000, pg 120. 22. Arnold Geulincx, another seventeenth-century occasionalist, held the same view, he said "It is impossible for someone to bring about something if they do not know how it is to be brought about…You are not the cause of that which you do not know how to do." Metaphysica vera, Part I, Geulincx, 1892, vol.2, pg 150. 23. Malebranche, Nicolas, The Search after Truth, ed. by Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J. Olscamp, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 449-50, Italics mine. 25. For those who do not know, the Royal Society is a society of top scientists throughout the U.K. The results of the poll are located in the November 25th, 2005 Press Release titled 'Einstein versus Newton'.
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