About Hume, causality and modern science
  • hwyl
    88
    I just find that Hume's sceptical account of everyday causality, very true in itself, doesn't really take into account the advances of modern science, say like theoretical physics. It's not about any crude empirical observations about repeating things, it's getting into the actual structure and nature of physical processes, making predictions that have been impossible to test in their time and only long afterwards verified. Having theorems that might actually be permanently impossible to test empirically. I think this is a category rather separate from things regularly falling from heights in the late 18th century.

    Though I suppose on some exceedingly remote metaphysical and unreal "ultimate" level we still are observing objects seemingly regularly repeating things, but is it really very insightful to say that as long as we will remain human that there will be room for doubt? That should surely be pretty much self-evident by now.
    hwyl Options
  • L'éléphant
    1.7k
    I just find that Hume's sceptical account of everyday causality, very true in itself, doesn't really take into account the advances of modern science, say like theoretical physics. — hwyl
    You just pinpointed what is Hume's empirical observation -- it's not about theory or logical deduction. It's about an ordinary person's direct experience or observation at the moment.

    So if that's your criticism on Hume's skeptical account of causality, then you're not disagreeing with him.
    L'éléphant Options
  • BC
    14.1k
    just find that Hume's sceptical account of everyday causality, very true in itself, doesn't really take into account the advances of modern science, say like theoretical physics. — hwyl

    Hume died in 1776; he wasn't in a very good position to account for developments in physics (relativity, all that) which began around 1900.
    BC Options
  • SophistiCat
    2.4k
    Though I suppose on some exceedingly remote metaphysical and unreal "ultimate" level we still are observing objects seemingly regularly repeating things, but is it really very insightful to say that as long as we will remain human that there will be room for doubt? — hwyl

    Hume was an austere kind of empiricist (not unlike Logical Positivists in the 20th century, who valorized him). He accepted that we could, albeit fallibly, discover laws of nature through observation, but he rejected theorizing about ultimate natures ("hypotheses non fingo," as Newton put it and Hume agreed). Along the same lines, he was an anti-realist about unobservable theoretical entities like force and energy, accepting them only as a theoretical convenience.

    None of this is in serious tension with modern science - indeed, there are contemporary philosophers who are Humean to some extent. And besides, Hume lived right smack in the middle of the Newtonian revolution. I can think of few examples from the history of science that had as much intellectual impact as that. Darwin comes to mind; Einstein and quantum mechanics - probably not as much.
    SophistiCat Options
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