Causation Part 2

Recall Hume's Negative Thesis: We Never Observe Any Causal Power

"All events seem entirely loose and seperate. One event follows another; but we can never observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined, but never connected. And as we have no idea of any thing, which never appeared to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the necessary conclusion seems to be that we have no idea of connexion or power at all, and that these words are absolutely without any meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasonings, or common life"

Groping Toward The Positive Thesis: When Do We Use Causal Talk?

"But there still remains one method of avoiding this conclusion, and one source which we have not yet examined. When any natural object or event is ever presented, it is impossible for us, by any sagacity or penetration, to discover, or even conjecture, without experience, what event will result from it... But when one particular species of event has always, in all instances, been conjoined with another, we make no longer any scruple of foretelling one upon the appearence of the other ... We then call the one object Cause; the other, Effect. We suppose, that there is some connexion between them; some power in the one, by which it infallibly produces the other, and operates with the greatest certainty, and the strongest necessity."

The Difference That an Observed Series Of Regularly…