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February 11, 2008
The
Metaphysical Context of Hume's Treatment
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.
The Initial Background: Cartesian
Physics
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:
- Now it is the case that these two rules
manifestly follow from this alone: that God is
immutable and that, acting always in the same
way, He always produces the same effect. For,
supposing that He placed a certain quantity of
motion in all matter in general at the first
instant He created it, one must either avow that
He always conserves the same amount of it there
or not believe that He always acts in the same
way.[4]
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.
The Mathematization of Nature: Apriori
Laws
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:
- God is Immutable;
- The Laws governing nature reflect His
character and/or are upheld by His
providence;
- Thus, these laws cannot change.
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.
Mind and Causation
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:
- That the mind, which is incorporeal, can set
the body in motion, is something which is shown
to us not by any reasoning or comparison with
other matters, but by the surest and plainest
experience. It is one of those
self-evident things which we only make
obscure when we try to explain them in terms of
other things.[5]
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.
Locke's Cartesian/Empiricist
Synthesis
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 on Power
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.
Locke on Mind and Causation
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
- We are destitute of senses acute enough to
discover the minute particles of bodies and to
give us the ideas of their mechanical
affections, we must be content to be ignorant of
their properties and ways of operation; nor can
we be assured about them any further than some
few trials we make are able to reach.[16]
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:
- He [Locke] argues that the ideas of
power and cause and effect arise simply as a
rational response to the phenomena, to reality
as we experience it. Consequently, while they
carry implications of the unknown
[things-in-themselves], they tell us
nothing directly about it.[17]
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 Theological
Response
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.
Physics and Ontology
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:
- We have clear mathematical demonstrations of
the infinite divisibility of matter, and
although our imagination is shocked at the
thought, this leads us to believe that there
might be smaller and smaller animals into
infinity.[20]
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 the notion of active causal power or
force cannot be reduced to or explained in terms
of shape, size, or divisibility-and these are
essentially passive features-it follows that
such an active power cannot be a property of
extended bodies. Bodies, therefore, are
essentially inert and inactive. They cannot
causally act on other bodies nor on
minds.[21]
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.
How Can We Move Our Arms?
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:
- For how could we move our arms? To move them
it is necessary to have animal spirits, to send
them through nerves toward certain muscles in
order to inflate and contract them
and we
see that men who do not know that they
have animal spirits, nerves, and muscles move
their arms, and even move them with more skill
and ease than those who know anatomy
best
.If a man cannot turn a tower upside
down, at least he knows what must be done to do
so; but there is no man who knows what must be
done to move one of his fingers by means of
animal spirits. How, then, can men move their
arms?[23]
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.
The Scientific Turn: Newtonian
Physics
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]
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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.
9. Ibid, 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.
14. Ibid, pg 235.
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.
20. Ibid, pg 26.
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.
24. Ibid, pg 450.
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'.
Because
The Radical Academy publishes essays and articles
on its website does not imply acceptance or
approval of the comments or opinions expressed by
the author of the material. Nor is the Academy
responsible for any misrepresentation of the facts
included. It is your job to be a critical
reader.
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