The Normativity of Experience and Causal Belief in Hume’s Treatise

Abstract

What is the source of normativity in Hume's account of causal reasoning? In virtue of what are causal beliefs justified for Hume? To answer these questions, the literature appeals, almost invariably, to custom or some feature thereof. I argue, in contrast, that causal beliefs are justified for Hume because they issue from experience. Although he denies experience the title of justifying reason, for Hume experience has normative authority. I offer an interpretation of the source and nature of the normativity of experience in causal reasoning. I argue that the senses and memory have a special, positive status within the mind in virtue of their force and vivacity, which, on my reading, Hume identifies with a sense of presentness and a strong effect on the mind. Hume dignifies the system of memory and the senses with the title of reality because of these features. Causal beliefs are dignified as "realities" because they issue from reality. However, because the imagination can sometimes enhance the force and vivacity of ideas without the help of experience, Hume appeals to coherence and general rules as well.Hume famously argues that "'tis impossible for us to satisfy ourselves by our reason" why we draw the causal inferences we do, supposing the unobserved to conform to the observed (T 1.3.6.11; SBN 91).

Hume's emotivist theory of moral judgements

“…I shall henceforth assume that all the terms in question refer to the same property, which I shall call “vivacity.” Hume thinks that all impressions seem or feel more immediately real than any ideas or beliefs, although he does allow a “near resemblance in a few instances” (T 1.1.1.1, SBN 2). Although detailed interpretations of vivacity vary, I take it that any increase in a perception's vivacity involves (or, perhaps, is) an increase in the extent to which it seems really present (e.g., Boehm, 2013; Dauer, 1999; Waxman, 1994). Impressions are maximally vivid, so that we take them to be immediately and presently real rather than merely thought of or representative of something elsewhere, as we take ideas and beliefs to be.…”

Hume's Epistemology: The State of the Question

“…Such an account might be taken to constitute a merely pragmatic or ethical response to 25 Thus, Garrett sees Hume as being an early kind of Pryor-type dogmatist (see Pryor 2000Pryor , 2004Pryor , 2013. 26 Another broadly similar account is defended in Boehm (2013), which argues that the beliefs of the senses, the memory, and custom are justified in virtue of their force and vivacity. 27 In the Treatise, the criterion of mixing with propensities is required to avoid the skeptical conclusions of THN 1.4.1.…”

Universal Gravitation and the (Un)Intelligibility of Natural Philosophy

“…The latter are exceptionless regularities, so if a law‐breaking miracle takes place, we should conclude that something as improbable as a violation of exceptionless regularity happens (EHU 10.12; SBN 114–115). Nevertheless, Hume's argument relies on the normative authority of uniform experience (see Boehm, ), on the application of Bayesian conditional probabilities (see Owen, ), and on social epistemological considerations about the reliability of witnesses (Dicken, ), not on the argument that laws are somehow more reasonable or intelligible than exceptions to them.…”