Humes Analysis of Cause and Effect - Essay Example

of Hume’s Analysis of Cause and Effect David Hume forms his theory of perceptions,which involves two major components: ideas and impressions. He uses this to form the very basis of his empiricist rule, which states that where there is an absence of an impression, the idea is meaningless. Hume also spoke of the workings of the human mind, which involves three laws of association of ideas: resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect, with causality being the most powerful of them all. Hume claims that cause and effect plays a dominant role in all our thinking about factual matters.

But from what impression does our idea of causality stem from? Our idea of causality arises from our impressions of three kinds of relations between objects: first, the relation of contiguity or contact, and second, temporal priority. These two, when taken together, Hume calls conjunction. The third kind of relationship that must also be present in our idea of cause and effect, is necessary connection. By necessary connection, Hume means the relation between cause and effect wherein the cause necessarily produces the effect.

But from what impression do we derive the idea of necessary connection between cause and effect? Hume claims that there is no rational basis for the causal principle; it is a mere habit of the mind. We have the idea of a necessary connection between a cause and an effect after we experience their conjunctions repeatedly. This he calls constant conjunction. Hence, Hume dismisses the idea of necessary connection because each impression is a separate experience; what happens in the past may not necessarily happen in the future.

Thus, causation only happens in the mind. It is no other than a psychological law of association, a mere habit of the mind. Therefore, it does not exist.