0415243394.Routledge.Hume.on.Causation.Sep.2006.pdf

HUME ON

CAUSATION

‘This is a sophisticated and sustained discussion of Hume on causal

reasoning and the idea of necessary connection. . . . The various issues

and authors are always handled with skill, and the main interpretations

of Hume’s meaning are treated intelligently and fairly.’

Stephen Buckle, Australian Catholic University

Hume is traditionally credited with inventing the ‘regularity theory’ of causation,

according to which the causal relation between two events consists merely in the

fact that events of the first kind are always followed by events of the second kind.

Hume is also traditionally credited with two other, hugely influential posi-

tions: the view that the world appears to us as a world of unconnected events,

and inductive scepticism: the view that the ‘problem of induction’, the problem

of providing a justification for inference from observed to unobserved regulari-

ties, is insoluble.

Hume on Causation is the first major work dedicated to Hume’s views on causa-

tion in over fifteen years, and it argues that Hume does not subscribe to any of

these three views. It places Hume’s interest in causation within the context of his

theory of the mind and his theory of causal reasoning, arguing that Hume’s

conception of causation derives from his conception of the nature of the infer-

ence from causes to effects.

Helen Beebee argues that Hume’s interest in inductive reasoning is an interest

in the psychological process involved in inferring effects from causes, and not in

the epistemological ‘problem of induction’ as traditionally conceived. She also

motivates and develops a projectivist interpretation of Hume’s theory of causa-

tion, according to which our causal talk is an expression of our inferential habits,

and argues that for Hume the projection of those habits affects not only how we

conceive of the world, but also how we see it.

Helen Beebee is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham.

HUME ON

CAUSATION

Helen Beebee

First published 2006

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s

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or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,

now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,

or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in

writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Beebee, Helen.

Hume on causation / by Helen Beebee.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-415-24339-4 (hardback: alk. paper) 1. Hume, David, 1711-1776.

2. Causation. I. Title.

B1499.C38B44 2006

122.092——dc22

2005032017

ISBN10: 0–415–24339–4 ISBN13: 978–0–415–24339–1 (hbk)

ISBN10: 0–203–96660–0 ISBN13: 978–0–203–96660–0 (ebk)

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