The Projectivist Account of Hume

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  • Created by: A. Person
  • Created on: 22-03-16 16:34

Hume, Projectivism, and Thick Causal Connections

  • The positivist view holds Hume to be a reductivist about causation
  • Blackburn doesn't agree but doesn't want the alternative to be sceptical realism

Thick Concept of Causal Dependence

  • This is a concept of one event causing another that involves something in the events beyond regularity
  • Positivists - Hume strips out this thick element
  • Sceptical realists - deny that Hume offered a reductive analysis; he fully embraces thick causation, even if its nature alludes us

A problem for sceptical realism:

  • It implies an understanding of thick connection, while remaining ignorant of its nature
  • But Hume claims no impression = no idea...

Here, then, is the problem:

1. We have no ideas except through impressions

2. We have no impressions suitably related to the idea of thick causation

3. Yet we have an idea of thick necessary connection [this is denied by positivists]

Relative Ideas

  • Craig and Strawson - Hume non external bodies... supposition versus conception.
  • We can suppose there are external bodies without a strict idea or conception of what we're suppposing.
  • Similarly - relational idea of a thing whose specific difference from other things is unknown. They pick stuff out via its role - so, an unknown x which bears a relation to some part of the world

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