The Projectivist Account of Hume
- Created by: A. Person
- Created on: 22-03-16 16:34
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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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