Constancy and Coherence in 1.4.2 of Hume’s Treatise: The Root of “Indirect” Causation and Hume’s Position on Objects

Abstract

This article shows that in 1.4.2.15-24 of the Treatise of Human Nature, Hume presents his own position on objects, which is to be distinguished from both the vulgar and philosophical conception of objects. Here, Hume argues that objects that are effectively imagined to have a “perfect identity” are imagined due to the constancy and coherence of our perceptions (what we may call ‘level 1 constancy and coherence’). In particular, we imagine that objects cause such perceptions, via what I call ‘indirect causation.’ In virtue of imagining ideas of objects that have a perfect identity, our perceptions seem to be even more constant and coherent (what we may call ‘level 2 constancy and coherence’). Thus, in addition to seeing that Hume is presenting his own position on objects in this section of the Treatise, we see that he is working with a previously unrecognized kind of causation, i.e., indirect causation, and that he has two kinds of constancy and coherence in mind: level 1 and level 2.

Notes

1. Earlier versions of this essay were presented at New Philosophical Perspectives on Hume, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA (2007), NY/NJ Consortium in the History of Modern Philosophy, New York (2006), and at Upstate New York Early Modern Workshop, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY (2005). Portions of an earlier version of this article will appear in Stefanie Rocknak, Imagined Causes: Hume’s Conception of Objects.See, for instance, H. H. Price, Hume’s Theory of the External World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940); Jonathan Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971); Barry Stroud, Hume (London: Routledge, 1977); Mark Collier, “Filling in the Gaps: Hume and Connectionism on the Continued Existence of Unperceived Objects,” Hume Studies 25.1–2 (1999): 155–70; and Peter Kail, Projection and Realism in Hume’s Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007).

2. Kemp Smith, The Philosophy of David Hume: A Critical Study of its Origins and Central Doctrines (New York: Macmillan, 1964), 473.

3. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. D. F. Norton and M. J. Norton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 1.4.2.1; hereafter references to the Treatise are cited in the text.

4. Cf. Stefanie Rocknak, “The Vulgar Conception of Objects in ‘Of Skepticism with Regard to the Senses’,” Hume Studies 33.1 (2007): 67–90.

5. Moreover, any idea that we imagine to be invariable and uninterrupted is not actually invariable and uninterrupted, we just imagine that this is the case; recall of this essay.

6. Cf. Rocknak, “The Vulgar Conception of Objects.”

7. Cf. Rocknak, “The Vulgar Conception of Objects.”

8. Although, Hume points out, the philosophers do unknowingly appeal to the imagination (1.4.2.52).

9. For a more nuanced explanation of the relationship between these two pairs of properties, see Stefanie Rocknak, Imagined Causes: Hume’s Conception of Objects, The New Synthese Historical Library, vol. 71 (Dordrecht: Springer, 2012).

10. Cf. Smith, The Philosophy of David Hume, 473.

11. We may conclude that ‘suppose’ is interchangeable with ‘imagine,’ given Hume’s earlier claim that the properties of continuity and distinctness must be imagined (1.4.2.14).

12. In more detail, the first example proceeds as follows: Hume explains that he may conclude that the noise of a door indicates that someone (probably a porter) is on the other side of it, pushing it, although he did not actually see the door move: “I have never observ’d that this noise cou’d proceed from anything but the motion of a door; and therefore conclude, that the present phaenomenon is a contradiction to all past experience, unless the door, which I remember on t’other side of the chamber be still in being” (1.4.2.20; emphasis added). This claim is equivalent to the claim: If it is not the case that the door still exists, then what I have just experienced, and concluded as result of that experience, namely, the door existing, contradicts my past experience (recall that ‘unless’ can be interpreted as ‘if not’). Thus, in short, the causal relation derivative of Hume’s “past experience” here is: If I hear the sound of the door in my room moving, then there is a door moving, and so, the door exists. The second example proceeds as follows, in so many words: If it is the case that the stairs have been annihilated, then the porter must have somehow floated up to his room, an event that contradicts Hume’s past experience. Thus, the causal relationship that is derivative of Hume’s past experience here is: If the porter is in my room, then he must have used the stairs to do so, and so, these stairs exist. Third, Hume explains that in order for him to be reading a letter from a friend in a distant location, according to what is “comfortable to my experience in other instances” (1.4.2.20), it must be the case that posts and ferries brought him that letter, and so, these posts and ferries exist.

13. Bennett, Locke ,Berkeley, Hume, 324.

14. Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, 324.

15. Nor, we must assume, perfectly coherent, although Hume does not explicitly say as much here. However, he does just a bit further on (1.4.2.22).

16. And constancy; see 1.4.2.23.

17. Recall , where we discussed Hume’s claim that the coherence that admits of impressions “is the foundation of a kind of reasoning from causation” (1.4.2.19; emphasis added).

18. Granted, Hume only mentions coherence here. But shortly after this passage, he includes constancy as well (1.4.2.23).

19. Hume is admittedly vague here in regard to just how this inspiration works; however, he does write that “the explication of [this process] will lead into a considerable compass of very profound reasoning” (1.4.2.23), where that explication is given in Part 1 of his system.