CRITIQUE OF HUME ON CAUSATION

Paul Gerard Horrigan, Ph.D., 2018.

Hume on Causation

David Hume (1711-1776) attacks the objective validity of efficient causality operating in
extra-mental reality: he denies the affirmation that objective efficient causes are truly, actually
operative in the extra-mental world.1 For Hume, efficient causality “is nothing but a complex
1
Studies on Hume’s views on causation: H. W. JOHNSTONE, Hume’s Arguments Concerning Causal Necessity,
“Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,” 16.3 (1956), pp. 331-340 ; J. W. LENZ, Hume’s Defense of Causal
Inference, “Journal of the History of Ideas,” 19.4 (1958), pp. 559-567 ; M. O’DONNELL, Hume’s Approach to
Causation, “Philosophical Studies (Maynooth),” 10 (1960), pp. 64-99 ; J. A. ROBINSON, Hume’s Two Definitions
of ‘Cause,’ “The Philosophical Quarterly,” 12 (1962) ; T. J. RICHARDS, Hume’s Two Definitions of ‘Cause,’ “The
Philosophical Quarterly,” 15 no. 60 (1965), pp. 247-253 ; J. A. ROBINSON, Hume’s Two Definitions of ‘Cause’
Reconsidered, “The Philosophical Quarterly,” 15 (1965), reprinted in Hume: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited
by V. C. Chappell, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN, 1966 ; C. J. DUCASSE, Critique of Hume’s
Conception of Causality, “The Journal of Philosophy,” 63.6 (1966), pp. 141-148 ; W. E. MAY, Knowledge of
Causality in Hume and Aquinas, “The Thomist,” 34 (1970), pp. 254-288 ; D. W. LIVINGSTON, Hume on Ultimate
Causation, “American Philosophical Quarterly,” 8.1 (1971), pp. 63-70 ; D. GOTTERBARN, Hume’s Two Lights on
Cause, “The Philosophical Quarterly,” 21 no. 83 (1971), pp. 168-171 ; J. ARONSON, The Legacy of Hume’s
Analysis of Causation, “Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 2.2 (1971), pp. 135-156 ; T. L.
BEAUCHAMP, Hume’s Two Theories of Causation, “Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie,” 55 (1973), pp. 281-
800 ; G. E. M. ANSCOMBE, ‘Whatever Has a Beginning of Existence Must Have a Cause’: Hume’s Argument
Exposed, “Analysis,” 34.5 (1974), pp. 145-151 ; M. MANDELBAUM, The Distinguishable and the Separable: A
Note on Hume and Causation, “Journal of the History of Philosophy,” 12.2 (1974), pp. 242-247 ; P. GOMBERG,
Coherence and Causal Inference in Hume’s Treatise, “Canadian Journal of Philosophy,” 6.4 (1976), pp. 693-704 ;
A. PARUSH, Is Hume a Sceptic About Causation?, “Hume Studies,” 3.1 (1977), pp. 3-16 ; B. STROUD, Hume on
the Idea of Causal Necessity, “Philosophical Studies,” 33.1 (1978), pp. 39-59 ; T. L. BEAUCHAMP and A.
ROSENBERG, Hume and the Problem of Causation, Oxford University Press, New York, 1981 ; J. BROUGHTON,
Hume’s Scepticism about Causal Inferences, “Pacific Philosophical Quarterly,” 64.1 (1983) pp. 3-18 ; A. J.
JACOBSON, Does Hume Hold a Regularity Theory of Causality?, “History of Philosophy Quarterly,” 1.1 (1984),
pp. 75-91 ; P. RUSSELL, Hume’s ‘Two Definitions’ of Cause and the Ontology of ‘Double Existence,’ “Hume
Studies,” 10.1 (1984), pp. 1-25 ; B. ENÇ, Hume on Causal Necessity: A Study from the Perspective of Hume’s
Theory of Passions, “History of Philosophy Quarterly,” 2.3 (1985), pp. 235-256 ; A. D. KLINE, Humean Causation
and the Necessity of Temporal Discontinuity, “Mind,” New Series 94 no. 376 (1985), pp. 550-556 ; H. O.
MOUNCE, The Idea of a Necessary Connection, “Philosophy,” 60. no. 233 (1985), pp. 381-388 ; D. R. SHANKS,
Hume on the Perception of Causality, “Hume Studies,” 11.1 (1985), pp. 94-108 ; A. J. JACOBSON, Causality and
the Supposed Counterfactual Conditional in Hume’s Enquiry, “Analysis,” 46.3 (1986), pp. 131-133 ; T. F.
LINDLEY, David Hume and Necessary Connections, “Philosophy,” 62 no. 239 (1987), pp. 49-58 ; G.
STRAWSON, The Secret Connexion-Causation, Realism, and David Hume, Oxford University Press, Oxford and
New York, 1989 ; A. SCHWERIN, The Reluctant Revolutionary: An Essay on David Hume’s Account of Necessary
Connection, Peter Lang, New York, 1989 ; M. J. COSTA, Hume and Causal Realism, “Australasian Journal of
Philosophy,” 67.2 (1989), pp. 472-490 ; J. BROACKES, Did Hume Hold a Regularity Theory of Causation?,
“British Journal for the History of Philosophy,” 1 (1993), pp. 99-114 ; D. GARRETT, The Representation of
Causation and Hume’s Two Definitions of ‘Cause,’ “Noûs,” 27.2 (1993), pp. 167-190 ; M. BELL, Hume and Causal
Power: The Influences of Malebranche and Newton, “British Journal for the History of Philosophy,” 5.1 (1997), pp.
67-86 ; M. BAÇ, Is Causation ‘In Here’ or ‘Out There’?: Hume’s Two Definitions of ‘Cause,’ “History of
Philosophy Quarterly,” 16.1 (1999), pp. 19-35 ; K. LEVY, Hume, the New Hume, and Causal Connections,
“Philosophy,” Hume Studies,” 26.1 (2000), pp. 41-75 ; P. K. STANFORD, The Manifest Connection: Causation,
Meaning, and David Hume, “Journal of the History of Philosophy,” 40.3 (2002), pp. 339-360 ; H. BEEBEE, Hume
on Causation, Routledge, London, 2006 ; F. W. DAUER, Hume on the Relation of Cause and Effect, in A

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idea. It is fabricated by the human subject and is not an extramental reality. One can never know
a priori what will eventuate. Experience shows the movement of two billiard balls but never any
causal action, any transmission of movement: nothing is observed but the succession of two
things moving. Then Hume makes his sweeping extrapolation and generalization: therefore, the
principle of causality is nothing but an association of successive impressions. Through habit and
custom, those telling words that Sextus Empiricus used long ago, men come to expect that the
succession will take place; in reality, however, there is no necessary connection. Once the habit
is acquired, one cannot think any other way.”2 “For Hume, all we really observe is succession.
When we experience a given succession with some degree of regularity, we are seized by a
feeling of expectancy whereby we look for a given event to take place as soon as we have
experienced another event previously observed as associated with it. According to Hume this is
all that the concept of causality entails; we are incapable of observing any real connection aside
from that of purely temporal sequence. ‘There is nothing else’ behind our notion of causality. As
a result, the traditional concept of cause is ‘absolutely without meaning.’3”4

So, what is this efficient causality that the metaphysicians boast about? Simply a
subjective product of habit. We have gotten so used to seeing fire burn that, by habit, we say that
fire causes the burning; but since Hume states that we cannot sense this causing, this causing can
be but a subjective product of the imagination.

The common man in the street observes a ‘constant conjunction’ of A and B in repeated
instances, where A is contiguous with B and is prior to B, and so he calls A the cause and B the
effect. Hume writes in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: “When one particular
species of events has always, in all instances, been conjoined with another, we make no longer
any scruple of foretelling one upon the appearance of the other, and of employing that reasoning
(casual inference) which can alone assure us of any matter of fact or existence. We then call the
one object cause, the other effect.”5 “Suitably to this experience, therefore, we may define a
cause to be an object, followed by another, and where all the objects similar to the first are
followed by objects similar to the second. Or, in other words, where, if the first object had not
been, the second never had existed.”6

For Hume, causation can be considered either as a philosophical relation or as a natural

relation. Considered as a philosophical relation, he defines cause as follows: “A cause is an
object precedent and contiguous to another, and where all the objects resembling the former are
placed in like relations of precedency and contiguity to those objects that resemble the latter.”7

Companion to Hume (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy), edited by E. S. Radcliffe, Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken,

NJ, 2008 ; P. MILLICAN, Hume, Causal Realism, and Causal Science, “Mind,” 118-Issue 471 (July 2009), pp. 647-
712 ; J. S. MARUŠIĆ, Hume on the Projection of Causal Necessity, “Philosophy Compass,” 9.4 (2014), pp. 263-
273 ; G. DE PIERRIS, Ideas, Evidence and Method: Hume’s Skepticism and Naturalism Concerning Knowledge
and Causation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015 ; C. SANDIS, Character and Causation: Hume’s Philosophy
of Action, Routledge, New York and London, 2018.
2
R. CHERVIN and E. KEVANE, Love of Wisdom, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1988, pp. 243-244.
3
D. HUME, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding with Selections from A Treatise on Human Nature,
Open Court, Chicago, 1907, p. 76.
4
J. HIRSCHBERGER, The History of Philosophy, vol. 2, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1959, p. 234.
5
D. HUME, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, VII, 2, 59.
6
Ibid.
7
D. HUME, A Treatise of Human Nature, I, 3, 14.

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As a natural relation, Hume defines cause thus: “A cause is an object precedent and contiguous
to another, and so united with it that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of
the other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other.”8 Hume observes
that “though causation be a philosophical relation, as implying contiguity, succession and
constant conjunction, yet it is only so far as it is a natural relation and produces a union among
our ideas, that we are able to reason upon it or draw any inference from it.”9

It is thus that Hume gives an answer to his question “why we conclude that such
particular causes must necessarily have such particular effects, and why we form an inference
from one to another.”10 Our pan-phenomenalist empiricist gives us a psychological reply,
referring to the psychological effect of observation of instances of constant conjunction. This
observation produces a custom or propensity in the mind, an associative link, whereby the mind
passes in natural fashion from, for example, the idea of a flaming torch to the idea of heat or
from an impression of a flaming torch to the lively idea of heat.

In keeping with his immanentist phenomenalism, Hume denied the affirmation that
objective efficient causality truly, actually, operates in the extra-mental world, reducing efficient
causality affirmed by methodical realism into nothing but a mere succession of phenomena put
together by the associative force of habit, a mere product of our imagination. When we observe,
for example, a lighted torch and then feel heat we are accustomed to conclude a causal bond. But
in fact, Hume points out, it is the imagination, working by habit, that conjures up this causal
bond from what is in fact a mere succession of phenomena: “We have no other notion of cause
and effect but that of certain objects, which have been always conjoined together…We cannot
penetrate into the reason of the conjunction. We only observe the thing and always find that from
the constant conjunction the objects acquire a union in the imagination.”11 Attacking the
objective validity of efficient causality in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, he
states: “When we look towards external objects, and consider the operation of causes, we are
never able, in a single instance, to discover any power or necessary connection; any quality,
which binds the effect to the cause, and renders the one an infallible consequent of the other. We
only find, that the one does actually, in fact, follow the other. The impulse of one billiard-ball is
attended with motion in the second. This is the whole that appears to the outward senses. The
mind feels no sentiment or inward impression from this succession of objects: consequently,
there is not, in any single, particular instance of cause and effect, any thing which can suggest the
idea of power or necessary connection.”12

In the pan-phenomenalist theory of knowledge of Hume, we learn to associate the glaring

noonday sun with heat, in our assocation among ideas, but according to Hume, we are mistaken
in affirming that the sun really, objectively, causes heat, or possesses the power which produces
heat, in the extra-mental world apart from our states of consciousness. For this sensist pan-
phenomenalist there is merely a repetition of two incidents so that the effect habitually attends
the cause but is not a necessary consequence of it. Describing Hume’s attack on objective

8
Ibid.
9
D. HUME, op. cit., I, 3, 6.
10
D. HUME, op. cit., I, 3, 3.
11
D. HUME, A Treatise of Human Nature, I, 3, 6.
12
D. HUME, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, VII, 1, 50.

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efficient causality operating in the extra-mental world, Thonnard writes: “At first, it was by
means of the principle of causality that philosophers flattered themselves into thinking that they
could attain objects beyond experience. Thus, Locke and Berkeley elevated themselves by its aid
to God’s existence as the foundation of religion and of morality. Hume, in the name of
empiricism, begins by reducing their pretentious thoughts to nothingness. How can the principle
that everything which began has a cause, be justified? It is not evident by intuition or by
demonstration. Sensible intuition does not certify a necessary connection between two facts, but
only their succession; for instance, one perceives the visual impression of a flame, then the
tactual impression of a burn. But the causal link totally escapes the senses. Rational
demonstration of this principle, by the method of the clear idea, is impossible. For, in looking for
all the simple ideas which are constitutive of an effect, one does not find therein that of the
cause, or, in the cause, that of the effect. ‘It will be easy for us to conceive any object to be non-
existent this moment, and existent in the next, without conjoining to it the distinct idea of a cause
or a productive principle.’13 Consequently, it is impossible to demonstrate, a priori, through the
simple analysis of ideas, the necessity of a cause to explain that which happens. This relation,
Hume concludes, through which one infers to the existence of a distinct cause from the existence
of an effect, or through which the presence of the same cause makes us admit the necessary
existence of the same effect, has no speculative value, since it is beyond experience…One should
not, however, proscribe it completely, but delimit its value by explaining its origin.

“By psychological analysis we are aware of a triple element in the relationship of

causality which we employ. a) There are two successive facts of experience intuitively known
through an actual impression or at least reproduced by memory; for instance, the movement of a
billiard ball, followed, after contact, by the movement of another. b) One can then certify that the
same experiences repeat themselves and one acquires a habit of association which makes the
succession constant and practically necessary, so that the sight or the memory of one of the facts
invariably invokes the attention to the other, even in the future. When we see the player hit the
first ball, we are sure, that if it meets the second, this one will, in turn, move. c) Finally, we
consider this second fact so grasped not only as an idea, but as having real and independent
existence, due to a transfer of assent or of belief. It is by this final element that the relation of
causality is distinguished clearly from any other association of ideas; as re-enforced by habit, it
becomes not only a constant succession, but a necessary bond in virtue of which one real object
produces another. There but remains a determination of the value of this belief in order to know
the value of causality.

“Belief, for Hume, is nothing else but the assent given to the existence of the object of a
perception. This assent or judgment of existence is attached to certain ideas which are thus
distinguished from fictions of the imagination; it always accompanies our impressions of
sensation. But, according to the principle of empiricism, we have no right to admit anything real
but perception itself. We do not have infallible certitude of the existence of a reality distinct from
the fact of consciousness. ‘The idea of existence, then, is the very same with the idea of what we
conceive as existing. To reflect on any thing simply, and to reflect on it as existing, are nothing
different from each other.’14 If then, we admit by belief to a double existence, one of ideas or
impressions, then that of exterior objects, this latter is but an uncontrollable hypothesis. But

13
D. HUME, A Treatise of Human Nature, I, 3, 3.
14
D. HUME, op. cit., I, 2, 6.

4
belief has no need of this hypothesis in order to be explained; it is engendered by the especially
high degree of vividness which a perception enjoys. ‘The incredulous and the believing have the
same ideas in their spirit; but, in the believer the ideas have more force, vividness, solidity,
firmness and stability.’15 For this reason, it is normal that every impression is accompanied with
belief.

“Now the impression has this property of communicating to ideas which are in
connection with it, something of its own vigor and vividness…more precisely, causality
establishes between the impression and the idea a more narrow connection; thus, aided by this
very strong association, the belief which determines the ‘reality’ of one of two facts is
spontaneously transported to the other…

“As a consequence, the total necessity of the principle of causality is referred to the
stability of a psychological habit, often strengthened by heredity, but which could, without
absurdity, actually change. This habit, for Hume, justifies the usage of the notion of cause in
daily life, but not in the sciences. That which remains speculatively indubitable and definitively
true is, uniquely, the fact of consciousness, the subjective phenomenon taken either in itself, or
as an element of various groups. Every attempt to go beyond this object is condemned…”16

B. A. G. Fuller explains that, for Hume, “the causal tie and the necessary connection
supposed to subsist between cause and effect exist, so far as knowledge is concerned, entirely in
the mind. They cannot be said to exist in the external world, because, in the first place, we have
no certain knowledge that such a world exists and no knowledge of what it is like if it does exist.
Nor are they in themselves impressions or qualities of impressions, as we have already pointed
out. Our ideas of them are drawn from a feeling, which arises from a custom or habit of
association. But it guarantees nothing. We cannot know for certain that in the past or in the
future given antecedents will have the consequences they now have.”17 “Il fondamento della
relazione causale è dunque soltanto psicologico e consiste in una ‘credenza’ (belief) sulla quale
poggia la vasta costruzione per associazioni della conoscenza umana.”18 “Ogni inferenza che
l’uomo realizza a partire dall’esperienza è effetto del costume e non dei ragionamenti.
L’inferenza o connessione causale di ogni questione di fatto o di esistenza reale deriva sempre da
qualche oggetto presente alla memoria o ai sensi, e da una congiunzione abituale fra questo
oggetto ed un altro; d’altro canto, quando la mente giudica, in realtà crede. L’inferenza causale è
il risultato della credenza e della congiunzione abituale fra due oggetti.”19 Efficient causation, for
the pan-phenomenalist Hume, is not objective and metaphysical, actually occuring among extra-
mental things in the world (for the immanentist Hume the extra-mental world of things is
unknowable), but something merely subjective and psychological, restricted to the immanent
sphere of our subjective perceptions. Owing to the laws of the association of ideas,20 it is

15
E. BRÉHIER, Histoire de la philosophie, vol. 2, Paris, 1932, p. 410.
16
F.-J. THONNARD, A Short History of Philosophy, Desclée, Tournai, 1956, pp. 636-639.
17
B. A. G. FULLER, A History of Philosophy, Book II, Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1957, p. 100.
18
G. PAGANINI, Hume, in L’Enciclopedia della filosofia e delle scienze umane, De Agostini, Novara, 1996, pp.
421-422.
19
M. FAZIO and D. GAMARRA, Introduzione alla storia della filosofia moderna, Apollinare Studi, Rome, 1994,
p. 183.
20
“A prominent part of Hume’s philosophy is his theory of associationism. We speak, for example, of the principle
of causality, and consider it to be a universally and necessarily valid axiom that ‘Every effect must have a cause.’

5
believed (felt) that a certain phenomenon is caused by another, because, by habit, we have grown
accustomed to believe it. “‘La necessità ed efficacia delle cause non va posta né nelle cause
stesse, né in Dio, né nella collaborazione tra loro due; ma va posta solo nella mente che
considera l’unione tra due o più oggetti nei casi precedenti. È qui che si deve riporre l’efficacia,
la connessione e la necessità delle cause.’21

“Da tutto quanto è stato sin qui detto appare evidente che la connessione causale (la
relazione tra causa ed effetto) ha un valore solamente soggettivo. Non si tratta, infatti, di una
proprietà dell’oggetto ma d’una disposizione, d’una abitudine del soggetto: l’abitudine di
attribuire la relazione di causalità a oggetti che si susseguono, dopo avere constatato vari casi del
loro succedersi.”22

For Hume, one cannot affirm that objective efficient causality truly, actually occurs in
extra-mental reality (what occurs in extra-mental reality is, for him, unknowable; what we know
are our subjective perceptions, internal states of consciousness, and not extra-mental things23).
With his immanentistic, phenomenalistic and subjectivistic doctrine against objective efficient
causation, Hume dismisses the traditional a posteriori demonstrations of the existence of God as
being devoid of demonstrative capacity.24 James Daniel Collins plainly states that, for Hume,

Hume claims that this axiom is derived from experience. What we perceive is an invariable sequence of events: one
thing invariably follows an antecedent event, and from this sequence we conclude that the antecedent event ‘causes’
the one that follows as an ‘effect.’ We do not perceive anything like the ‘production’ of one thing by another. From
his phenomenalistic, sensationalistic standpoint, Hume could not admit real ‘causation.’ Whenever we observe one
event to occur, we feel the mental compulsion to assert that the other will follow. But whence the mental compulsion
to conjoin just these two events as ‘cause’ and ‘effect’? Hume gives as the reason that ‘the mind is carried by habit,
upon the appearance of one event, to expect its usual attendant and to believe that it will exist.’ In other words, it is
the association of ideas which compels us to formulate necessary and universal judgments, axioms, and principles.
Such judgements, axioms, and principles have no objective value, but are mere associations of impressions derived
from the succession of phenomena”(C. BITTLE, The Whole Man: Psychology, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1945, p. 317).
21
D. HUME, A Treatise of Human Nature, Everyman's Library, London-New York, s.d., pp. 162-164.
22
B. MONDIN, Corso di storia della filosofia, vol. 2, Massimo, Milan, 1993, p. 237.
23
F. COPLESTON, A History of Philosophy, Book II, vol. 5, Image Doubleday, New York, 1985, p. 293: “The
main difficulty, Hume says, which arises in connection with our notion of a world of permanently existing objects
independent of our perception, is that we are confined to the world of perceptions and enjoy no access to a world of
objects existing independently of these perceptions. ‘Now since nothing is ever present to the mind but perceptions,
and since all ideas are derived from something antecedently present to the mind, it follows that it is impossible for us
so much as to conceive or form an idea of anything specifically different from ideas and impressions. Let us fix our
attention out of ourselves as much as possible; let us chase our imagination to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of
the universe; we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can we conceive any kind of existence, but those
perceptions which have appeared in that narrow compass. This is the universe of the imagination, nor have we any
idea but what is there produced.’(D. HUME, A Treatise of Human Nature, I, 2, 6, pp. 67-8).”
24
“Having eliminated an objective origin for the idea of active power and the causal bond, Hume had to trace them
to purely subjective conditions within the perceiver. The objects of perception are atomic, unconnected units which
may, nevertheless, follow one another in a temporal sequence and pattern. Through repeated experience of such
sequences, the imagination is gradually habituated to connect antecedent and consequent objects in a necessary way.
The necessity does not arise from any productive force or dependence on the side of the objects so related but comes
solely from the subjective laws of association operating upon the imagination to compel it to recall one member of
the sequence when the other is presented. The causal bond consists entirely in our feeling of necessity in making the
transition, in thought, from one object to the other. The philosophical inference from effect to cause is abstract and
empty until it is strengthened by the natural relation set up by the workings of habit and association upon the
imagination. Given this all-embracing psychological basis, however, causal inference can have nothing stronger than
a probable import. Absolute certainty cannot be achieved, since the mind is not dealing with dependencies in being,

6
“there can be no demonstrative knowledge of God.”25 Copleston writes that Hume “refused to
recognize the validity of metaphysical arguments for God’s existence; that is to say, he refused to
allow that the existence of God is demonstrable.”26 “…given Hume’s philosophical principles,
especially his analysis of causality, he could not admit any cogent proofs of theism in a
recognizable sense.”27 Chervin and Kevane write that Hume’s sensist phenomenalism asserted
“the inability of human understanding to ascend from the level of sense experience to establish
the existence of a cause that exists and operates in an order of reality above the sensory level.
Thus all metaphysics is condemned and removed at one stroke, with its ontology, the principles
of existence, and its natural theology…Plainly, for Hume human reason cannot prove the
existence of God: the ascent of the mind is blocked. And why? The reason is clear: for Hume,
there is no power of insight and understanding in a human being that differs in kind from the
bodily senses.

“The negation of God is intrinsically linked with this Empiricist reduction of man from
the power of intellectual understanding, which had been recognized as his specific qualitative
difference…Hume makes visible in explicitly stated teaching, therefore, the philosophical
apostasy from God…he will apply this doctrine of his An Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding to the realm of revealed religion. This he does in his Natural History of Religion
and in Dialogues on Natural Religion, his personal favorite…”28

Collins describes and critiques Hume’s immanentistic phenomenalist and sensist views
on the a posteriori demonstration of the existence of God as follows: “He applied to this instance
his two general theses – that all demonstrative reasoning is nonexistential and that causal
reasoning about existents is never more than probable.29 Since he limited demonstration to the
mathematical analysis of quantitative relations, he could find no place for any sort of existential
demonstration, especially when it seeks to transcend the quantitative sphere in the direction of
God. The proof of God’s existence is doubly handicapped, since it is not only existential but also
causal reasoning.

“Having eliminated an objective origin for the idea of active power and the causal bond,
Hume had to trace them to purely subjective conditions within the perceiver. The objects of

on the side of the real things, but is confined phenomenalistically to its own perceptions and their relations. It is very
likely that our habitual connection among ideas corresponds to some causal link among real things, but this can
never be verified. Hence causal inference can yield only probability and belief, not certainty and strict knowledge.
Hume rigidly applied this conclusion to the a posteriori argument for God’s existence, maintaining that it is, at the
very most, a probable inference and nowise a demonstration”(J. D. COLLINS, God in Modern Philosophy, Regnery,
Chicago, 1967, p. 117).
25
J. D. COLLINS, op. cit., pp. 117-120.
26
F. COPLESTON, op. cit., p. 310.
27
F. COPLESTON, op. cit., p. 311.
28
R. CHERVIN and E. KEVANE, op. cit., p. 244.
29
For these doctrines, cf. A Treatise of Human Nature, I, iii, 1-8 (Selby-Bigge), 69-106); An Enquiry Concerning
Human Understanding, IV-VII (Selby-Bigge, 25-79). The application to proofs of God’s existence is made in
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, IX, edited by N. K. Smith, 189-190. The direct object of Hume’s attack
was the set of proofs offered in Samuel Clarke’s Boylean Lectures and the theistic interpretation of Newton’s system
by Colin Maclaurin. The historical background of Hume’s Dialogues is treated by A. Leroy, La critique et la
religion chez David Hume, 113-115, 248-265, and R. Hurlbutt, David Hume and Scientific Theism, “Journal of the
History of Ideas,” 17 (1956), pp. 486-497.

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perception are atomic, unconnected units which may, nevertheless, follow one another in a
temporal sequence and pattern. Through repeated experience of such sequences, the imagination
is gradually habituated to connect antecedent and consequent objects in a necessary way. The
necessity does not arise from any productive force or dependence on the side of the objects so
related but comes solely from the subjective laws of association operating upon the imagination
to compel it to recall one member of the sequence when the other is presented. The causal bond
consists entirely in our feeling of necessity in making the transition, in thought, from one object
to the other. The philosophical inference from effect to cause is abstract and empty until it is
strengthened by the natural relation set up by the workings of habit and association upon the
imagination.

“Given this all-embracing psychological basis, however, causal inference can have
nothing stronger than a probable import. Absolute certainty cannot be achieved, since the mind is
not dealing with dependencies in being, on the side of the real things, but is confined
phenomenalistically to its own perceptions and their relations. It is very likely that our habitual
connection among ideas corresponds to some causal link among real things, but this can never be
verified. Hence causal inference can yield only probability and belief, not certainty and strict
knowledge. Hume rigidly applied this conclusion to the a posteriori argument for God’s
existence, maintaining that it is, at the very most, a probable inference and nowise a
demonstration…

“Critique of Hume’s Views. Hume’s dialectical use of a restricted historical situation to

establish his own position is clearly illustrated by his method of disqualifying all the objective
sources of the idea of active, causal power. Only within the context of the Cartesian definition of
matter as inert extension and the occasionalist analysis of finite consciousness as noncausal
thought does it seem that the causal relation has no other knowable source than our own mental
habits. Hume also relies upon his limitation of the understanding to its own perceptions. Since,
by definition, the latter are noninformative about any distinct existent thing, a sheer analysis of
them can never reveal the real composition of existential act and nature which supplies the
metaphysical groundwork for the causal inference to God. But Hume does not criticize his own
phenomenalist limitation of the human understanding to its own impressions and ideas. The only
warranted result of his dialectic is the statement that real causation and a real basis for the causal
inference to God cannot be obtained either within the framework of the rationalist conception of
bodies and minds or within the empiricist conception of the direct object of the understanding.

“Hume performed a definite service in stressing the unique significance of the existential
judgment and the need to have a basis in sense experience for all our existential knowledge. The
a priori proofs of God’s existence and the use of essential principles to predetermine the nature
of the actual world were procedures resting on a confusion between mathematical reasoning and
the human way of approaching existence. Nevertheless, the Humean critique of rationalism on
this score was not as radical as the problem required. It stopped short with the observation that
existential meaning is achieved when our ideas are referred to sense impressions or at least to the
systematic connections rendered stable by association and habit. Hume refused to press the
empirical analysis beyond the ‘ultimates’ of the laws of association and mental impressions, but
the meaning intended in our existential judgments does not respect these artificial boundaries.
These judgments express an act of being that is more than just the condition of being perceived.

8
Hence the meaning of existence is not confined to the percept-object of Hume’s philosophy but
breaks through to the thing exercising its act of being as distinct from our perception of it.
Existential knowledge is the precise point where a man discovers that to know a being is to grasp
it in its otherness or its own act of existing. Hume’s phenomenalist premise blinded him to the
ultimate basis for the irreducibility of existential knowledge: the irreducibility of the act of
existing either to essence (as rationalism hoped) or to the conditions of perception (as empiricism
suspected).

“Given Hume’s commitments on cause and existence, his appraisal of the a posteriori
demonstration of God’s existence was inevitable. He had to restrict demonstrative reasoning to
the abstract, mathematical realm because his theory of experience embraced only the percept-
object and not the existing being of material things. This led him to adopt a highly rationalistic
conception of demonstration: ‘Nothing is demonstrable, unless the contrary implies a
contradiction. Nothing, that is distinctly conceivable, implies a contradiction. Whatever we
conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no Being, therefore, whose
non-existence implies a contradiction. Consequently there is no Being, whose existence is
demonstrable.’30

“This theory of demonstration is proportioned to the essentialist view of the object of

knowledge and is not applicable to the existential order, whose distinctive character Hume
sought to defend. Counterfactual propositions which are conceivable but not experientially
warranted do not render existential demonstration impossible. For the latter is not based upon the
mind’s ability to conceive of a percept-object as existent or nonexistent. It rests on the mind’s
discovery of the implications in a given finite existent which compel recognition of the present
existence and causal action of some other being. Just as the given existent does not dissolve
under the mental experiment of distinctly conceiving it as nonexistent, so does the causal
inference to an existing agent not dissolve in the face of a mental experiment about this agent’s
nonexistence. The a posteriori inference of God is not wiped out by application of the rationalist
test of conceiving the opposite, since it rests upon the actual composition of a finite existent and
not upon an abstract conception of opposing relations among concepts and essential possibilities.

“Finally, Hume himself falls back upon the a priori form of reasoning when he tries to
rule out beforehand any causal demonstration of God’s existence. He permits his position to
solidify too rapidly and too simply by way of partial contrast with contemporary rationalists. His
instances of supposed proofs are taken exclusively from the Cartesian writers and Samuel
Clarke. He has no difficulty in showing that their claim to have mathematical demonstration of
God’s existence is contradictory in view of the nonexistential nature of mathematical thinking.
But he is not equally critical of the rationalist assumption that the only kind of necessary
inference is based on essential relations and that causal reasoning belongs to this class if it has a
real foundation apart from our mind. Since he can find no experiential source containing the type
of essential necessity claimed by the rationalists for the causal relation, Hume concludes that its
only accessible basis is in our psychological associations.

“What the empirical orientation of this thought called for, however, was a thorough
revision of the meaning of causal necessity and a new rooting of it in sensible beings. Hume’s
30
D. HUME, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, IX (Smith, 189).

9
phenomenalism blocked this revision, leaving him with only mental propensities which
obviously could not be applied with certainty in the inference to God. Since his account of
experience did not extend to a grasp of the participated act of being on the part of a finite
sensible thing, he missed the experiential source of a necessary causal relation leading
demonstratively to God. Hume’s philosophy remained too closely specified by the rationalist
doctrine on existence and cause instead of transcending the split between reason and experience,
essence and existence, and doing so in the sphere of speculative knowledge of experienced
beings.”31

Critiques of Hume’s Attack on Objective Efficient Causality Operating in the

Extra-Mental World

Bittle’s Critique. Criticizing Hume’s sensist and immanentistic pan-phenomenalism,

Celestine Bittle notes a number of things: “First, Hume’s explanation of ideas as faint images of
sense-impressions is totally inadequate. Since both are of a sensory character, they are concrete
and individualized. Our ideas, however, are abstract and universal. There is, as we have shown, a
radical difference between ‘sensations’ and ‘images’ on the one hand and ‘intellectual ideas’ on
the other. To ignore or deny these differences is a serious error. Second, Hume’s explanation of
universal ideas is totally inadequate.32 The process of forming universal ideas is not at all the
way Hume pictures it. We acquire them by a process of abstraction, taking the objective features
common to a number of individuals and then generalizing the resultant idea so that it applies to
the whole class and to every member of the class. It is not a question of merely labeling objects
with a common name. Intellectual insight into the nature of these objective features, not ‘custom’
or habit, enables us to group them together into a class. Third, Hume’s explanation of the origin
and nature of the necessarily and universally true axioms and principles, such as the principle of
causality and the principle of non-contradiction, is totally inadequate. He explains their necessity
and universality through association. Now, the laws of association are purely subjective laws
with a purely subjective result. Consequently, the ‘necessity’ which we experience relative to the
logical connection between subject and predicate in these principles would not be due to
anything coming from the reality represented in these judgments, but solely to the associative
force existing in the mind. It is a subjective and psychological, not an objective and ontological,
necessity. The mind does not judge these principles to be true because it sees they cannot be
otherwise; it cannot see them to be otherwise because the mind in its present constitution must
judge them to be true. So far as objective reality is concerned, 2 + 2 might equal 3 or 5 or any
other number; and there might be a cause without an effect, or an effect without a cause. If
Hume’s contention were correct, that our observation of ‘invariable sequence’ is the reason for
assuming an antecedent event to be the ‘cause’ of the subsequent event, then we should perforce
experience the same psychological necessity of judgment in all cases where we notice an
invariable sequence in successive events. Experience, however, contradicts this view. For
instance, day follows night in an invariable sequence; but nobody would dream of asserting that
the night is the ‘cause’ of the day. In an automobile factory one car follows the other on the belt

31
J. D. COLLINS, op. cit., pp. 117-120.
32
Describing Hume’s nominalism, Bittle writes: “Relative to universal ideas, Hume maintains that we find a
resemblance between objects and apply the same name to them; then, after a ‘custom’ of this kind has been
established, the name revives the ‘idea,’ and the imagination conceives the object represented by the ‘idea’(C.
BITTLE, The Whole Man, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1956, p. 317).

10
line in invariable sequence; but this association does not compel us to think that the preceding
car is the ‘cause’ of the one following. Reversely, when an explosion occurs but once in our
experience, we search for the ‘cause’ of this ‘effect’ and are convinced there must be a cause
present; here, however, there can be no question of an ‘invariable sequence’ of events. Fourth,
Hume’s theory, if accepted as true, must destroy all scientific knowledge. The very foundation of
science lies in the principles of non-contradiction, sufficient reason, and causality. If these
principles are valid only for our mind and do not apply with inviolable necessity to physical
objects in nature, the scientist has no means of knowing whether his conclusions are objectively
valid. His knowledge is nothing but a purely mental construction which may or may not agree
with extra-mental reality. But science treats of physical systems and their operations, not of
mental constructions. Since, according to Hume, we can know nothing but our internal states of
consciousness, we could never discover whether the external world and other minds exist at all;
driven to its logical conclusions, such a theory can end only in solipsism or in skepticism.”33

Gerard Kreyche’s Critique of Hume on Efficient Causality

Gerard Kreyche explains that “it is primarily by Hume that the major attack is launched
upon efficient causality. According to Hume, man knows only his ideas and images directly, and
not the world of reality. Mind is, for him, simply a state of successive phenomenal impressions,
and judgment is replaced by association. In asking whether causality can be justified, Hume
requests that one show how its most important characteristic, necessary nexus, is grounded in
experience. Not finding it rooted there, he concludes that the necessary connection between
cause and effect is psychological, having its ground in custom and the association of ideas.
Cause thereupon becomes a relationship among ideas, and no longer an influence of one thing
upon the other in the real world…The principal shortcoming of Hume’s view stems from his
empiricism and nominalism. He attemped to have the senses detect, in a formal way, causality
and necessity per se – something that those powers are incapable of doing. Aquinas had himself
observed that not even substance is sensible per se, but only per accidens. Since he did not admit
abstraction of an intellectual nature, Hume was consistent within his own system in rejecting
causality and substance. And, unable to justify causality ontologically, he did the next best thing
in justifying it psychologically.”34

Benignus Gerrity’s Critique of Hume on Efficient Causality

Benignus Gerrity’s Critique of Hume’s Rejection of the Affirmation that Objective

Efficient Causality Truly Operates in Extra-Mental Reality: “1. Sensism. Hume’s original error,
which led to his rejection of substance and causality as valid philosophical concepts, was
sensism. He considered experience as the sole ultimate source of valid human knowledge, which
it is, but by experience he meant pure sensation, or at very best perception, and nothing more.
Impressions of sense and their less vivid relics in the mind, namely, ideas, are the only data of
knowledge for which experience vouches, according to Hume. We have no impression of
causality or substance; therefore, he argues, these are not given in experience.

33
C. BITTLE, op. cit., pp. 317-319.
34
G. F. KREYCHE, Causality, in New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 3, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1967, p. 346.

11
 “Hume mistakes an analysis of the factors in perception for an account of the perceptive
act. The data of pure sensation are, as he says, fragmentary and intermittent sense impressions.
But the act which he is analyzing is not an act of pure sensation. What I perceive is not these
fragmentary impressions, but the things of which they are accidents. It is doubtful that even
animals perceive merely sensory qualities. Substances (i.e., particular, concrete) are the data of
perception. They are incidental sensibles immediately perceived by means of internal sense co-
operating within external sense. In his analysis Hume takes as the immediate datum of
perception something which is actually known only as a result of a difficult abstraction, namely,
the pure sensation. Then his problem is to discover how, starting from pure sensations, we come
to believe in objective substances which exist unperceived and permanently. It is a false problem.

“2. Human Experience Includes Understanding. Hume is right in saying that we never
have a sensory impression of causality or substance. But he is wrong in saying that we never
experience causes or substances. Efficient causes are immediately experienced every time we
observe anything physically influencing anything else, every time, for example, we see a
hammer driving a nail. But the cause qua cause is never sensed directly; cause, like substance, is
only sensed per accidens. The cause as a sensible object, its movement, and the subsequent
movement of the object acted upon are the immediate data of sense. But to limit experience to
the sensible data perceived is to imply that man perceives without ever at the same time
understanding what he perceives. When I perceive a hammer descending upon a nail and the nail
moving further into the wood, I also understand that the hammer is something and is driving the
nail into the wood. Both perception and understanding are equally parts of the experience. To
exclude the understanding is to reduce all human experience to uncomprehending sense
awareness. Not only is this not the only kind of human experience, but, at least in the case of
adults, it never normally occurs at all. We simply do not perceive without some understanding of
what we are perceiving; we do not perceive phenomena without perceiving them as the
phenomena of something; nor do we perceive one thing acting upon another without at the same
time understanding the former as a cause of the effect produced in the latter.

“3. Understanding in Perception. There is surely a crystal-clear distinction between mere

perceiving and understanding. The domestic animals of the battlelands of Europe are no more
spared the bombing and the fire, the hunger and the cold, the noise and the stench, than are their
human owners. But they have no understanding of what is going on; no reason for what is
happening is known to them, and none is sought. Their minds do not grope for reasons the way
their parched tongues crave for water. The darkness that their eyes suffer when they are driven in
the midst of the night through strange lands is matched by no darkness of intellect seeking a
reason which it cannot find – that awful darkness which is so often the lot of man. Failure to
understand could no more be a privation and a suffering in man if his intellect were not made for
grasping the reasons and causes of things, than blindness would be a suffering if sight never
grasped the visible. A man who does not understand feels frustrated, because his mind is made
for understanding; he suffers when he cannot grasp the reason, because he knows that there is a
reason. Perception is not understanding; but normally some understanding occurs together with
perception: we could not possibly have the experience of failing to understand what we perceive,
if we did not have the prior experience of understanding what we perceive.

12
 “4. Cause is ‘Given’ to the Intellect. Cause is something that we grasp intellectually in
the very act of experiencing action – whether our own action or another’s. We understand the
cause as producing the effect: the hammer as driving the nail, the saw as cutting the wood, the
flood as devastating the land, the drill as piercing the rock, the hand as molding the putty,
ourselves as producing our own thoughts, words, and movements, our shoes as pinching our feet,
a pin as piercing our finger, our fellow subway travelers as pressing our ribs together. We do not
think that the nail will ever plunge into the wood without the hammer, the marble shape up as a
statue without a sculptor, the baby begin to exist without a father, the acorn grow with no
sunlight; if something ever seems to occur in this way, we do not believe it, or we call it a
miracle (i.e., we attribute it to a higher, unseen cause). In a similar manner, substance is given
directly to the intellect in the very act of perception; the substance is grasped as the reason for the
sensible phenomena.

“5. The Subjectivistic Postulate. The arguments of Hume are based on the subjectivistic
postulate, namely, that we know nothing directly except our own ideas. From this starting point,
certitude about real causality can never be reached. The only causality that could ever possibly
be discovered if the primary objects of our knowledge were our own ideas would be the causal
relations among the ideas themselves. No such relations are as a matter of fact found, since none
exist and since the subjectivistic postulate is false to begin with. Causal relations exist between
objects and the mind, and between the mind and its ideas, but not between ideas and ideas. Hume
places causality in our mind, as a bond between ideas, when he accounts for our idea of causality
by attributing it to mental custom. Whatever his intention, he actually presents similar
successions of ideas as the cause of our ideas of causality and the principle of causality. As a
matter of fact, such causality would not account for our belief in causality, because it would
never be an idea, but only an unknown bond connecting ideas. It is only because Hume is already
in possession of the concept of causality gained through external experience that he is able to
formulate the theory that invariable succession of ideas produces mental custom, which in turn
gives rise to the idea of cause.

“6. Imagination and Causality. It is, perhaps, this locating of causality among our ideas
that leads Hume to a very peculiar argument against the principle of causality: ‘We can never
demonstrate the necessity of a cause to every new existence, or new modification of existence,
without showing at the same time the impossibility there is that anything can ever begin to exist
without some productive principle…Now that the latter is utterly incapable of a demonstrative
proof, we may satisfy ourselves by considering, that as all distinct ideas are separable from each
other, and as the ideas of cause and effect are evidently distinct, it will be easy for us to conceive
any object to be non-existent at this moment, and existent the next, without conjoining to it the
distinct idea of a cause or productive principle. The separation, therefore, of the idea of a cause
from that of a beginning of existence, is plainly possible for the imagination; and consequently
the actual separation of these objects is so far possible, that it implies no contradiction nor
absurdity; and it is therefore incapable of being refuted by any reasoning from mere ideas;
without which it is impossible to demonstrate the necessity of a cause’(D. HUME, Treatise of
Human Nature, I, 3, 3).

“This argument, even if we overlook the flagrant petitio principii in the statement that ‘all
distinct ideas are separable from each other,’ is no argument at all. What Hume says is nothing

13
more than that he can imagine a thing beginning to exist without a cause, and that consequently
no argument from mere ideas can ever prove the necessity of a cause. We can agree with him
that no argument from mere ideas can ever prove real causality; but we will add that that is why
Hume could never prove it – he started with mere ideas, or rather images. Aside from this, the
argument is utterly unrelated to the subject of causality. Imagination has nothing to do with
causes or with beginnings of existence. I never imagine anything as beginning to exist, or even as
existing; I simply imagine the thing, and in my image there is no reference to existence. The
thing which I imagine may as easily be a fire-breathing dragon as my own brother. The reference
to existence lies in thought, not in imagination. The words of Hume, ‘The separation, therefore,
of the idea of a cause from that of a beginning of existence, is plainly possible for the
imagination,’ have no real meaning, because the imagination never possesses the idea of a
beginning of existence. Thought judges whether a thing conceived exists or not, and thought
(even Hume’s ‘natural belief’) judges that nothing begins to exist without a cause. Surely, I can
imagine a situation in which a certain thing is not an element and then a situation in which it is.
To do this is not to conceive the thing as beginning to exist; it is merely to imagine it after not
imagining it. Such imaginative play has no connection with causality, except in the obvious
sense that I could not imagine anything, to say nothing of making imagination experiments, if I
had not the power of producing, that is, causing images in my mind; and presumably that is not
the sense in which Hume intended his illustration to the interpreted.

“7. Loaded Dice. The subjectivistic postulate prejudices the whole issue as to the reality
of causes before examination of the question even begins. If knowledge cannot attain to anything
real and extramental, it cannot attain to real, extramental causes. The only causality it could
possibly discover would be causal relation among images in the mind. If the object is read out of
court by the postulate that we know only our ideas, objective causality is read out with it. It is not
surprising that sensism and subjectivism should lead to the explicit denial of the principles of
causality, sufficient reason, and substance, since they begin with their implicit denial. Sensations,
impressions, images, separated from any being arousing them must be viewed by any intelligent
mind as so many phenomena without any sufficient reason for existing. Normal men cannot
abide sensory experiences without objective reasons. They regard a person who has such
experiences as a psychopathic case; they say, ‘He imagines things,’ and suggests a psychiarist.”35

Miccoli’s Critique of Hume on Efficient Causality

Paolo Miccoli critiques Hume on efficient causality in his Storia della filosofia moderna
as follows: “Tutta la filosofia di Hume ruota attorno allo scardinamento del principio di
causalità. Tale scardinamento è perseguito a prezzo di notevoli contraddizioni. La valenza
ontologica di tale principio viene negata in nome del problema mal posto, in quanto si confonde
legge di contiguità e legge di causalità e si parte dalla causa, aprioristicamente assunta, per
arrivare all’effetto, mentre dovrebbe essere il contrario. C’è di più: negando gnoseologicamente
il principio di causalità, lo si dissemina capziosamente in tutto il discorrere humeano: le
impressioni sono ‘causate’ dagli oggetti, le idee dalle impressioni, l’associazione delle idee ha la
sua causa nell’abitudine, e via dicendo.”36

35
B. GERRITY, Nature, Knowledge, and God, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1947, pp. 337-341
36
P. MICCOLI, Storia dellla filosofia moderna, Urbaniana University Press, Vatican City, 1999, p. 222.

14
 Alessi’s Critique of Hume on Efficient Causality

Adriano Alessi critiques Hume on efficient causality in his Sui sentieri dell’essere as
follows: “La critica di Hume. Tra le obiezioni più dure mosse al principio di causalità figura la
contestazione humiana. Punto di partenza è il presupposto che unica fonte valida di conoscenza è
rappresentata dall’esperienza sensibile. Ne consegue che tutto ciò che non è dato nell’empiria
non ha valore conoscitivo o di verità.

“Ora, il nesso causa-effetto non è un dato empirico: non è in alcun modo sperimentabile.
L’esperienza sensibile, sia interna che esterna, offre unicamente la succesione di fatti, non mai la
loro connessione necessaria. L’esperienza empirica testimonia solo un hoc post hoc (questo
evento avviene «dopo» quest’altro), non mai un hoc propter hoc (questo fatto avviene «a causa
di» quest’altro). L’idea di causalità non ha, pertanto, valore oggettivo. Il nesso causa-effetto non
s’impone neppure sotto forma di principio analitico. Non è tematizzabile in una proposizione la
cui negazione comporti contraddizione in termini. Al contrario, è perfettamente possibile pensare
senza contraddizione che una cosa cominci ad esistere anche senza principio produttore.

“Donde, dunque, la nozione di causa? L’origine dell’idea di causalità si spiega come

risultato dell’abitudine. È il fatto di constatare che posto un evento ne segue un altro che fa sì che
siamo indotti a ritenere la circostanza anteriore come causa e quella posteriore come effetto.37

“Insufficienza della prospettiva humiana. Quanto alla concezione di Hume, oltre ai limiti
insiti nella formulazione proposta, si rivela insufficiente sopratutto a motivo dei presupposti
empiristi che la determinano. Tale inadeguatezza si manifesta in modo particolare nell’incapacità
di comprendere il nesso causale in modo metaempirico. Si rivela, cioè, nel fatto di ridurre il
rapporto causa-effetto a semplice correlazione tra eventi contigui nello spazio e nel tempo, senza
cogliere la problematicità metafisica introdotta dall’irruzione della novità dell’essere.

“La spiegazione che Hume dà dell’insorgere della nozione di causalità è, inoltre,

gravemente insufficiente. Anzitutto, non è vero che l’esperienza presa nella sua «datità»
comporti connessioni costanti. Si direbbe, anzi, che gli avvenimenti si succedano in maniera
disordinata. Un medesimo effetto può fare seguito ad una molteplicità di fatti profondamente
diversi. Un suono lo si può ottenere per percussione, per sfregamento di una corda, per
vibrazione di una lama metallica, per emissione d’aria. A nessuno, inoltre, osserva giustamente
Hamelin, è mai venuto in mente di considerare la notte causa del giorno per il fatto che alle
tenebre notturne fanno seguito i raggi dell’aurora.38”39

Mondin’s Critique of Hume on Efficient Causality

Battista Mondin critiques Hume on efficient causality in the second volume of his Corso
di storia della filosofia as follows: “In primo luogo, Hume imposta male il problema: parte dalla
causa per arrivare all’effetto, mentre per noi uomini è necessario seguire il processo inverso.

37
Cfr. D. HUME, A Treatise of Human Nature, I, 1, p. 3, pp. 69-179.
38
Cfr. O. HAMELIN, Essai sur les éléments principaux de la représentation, Paris, 1907, p. 207.
39
A. ALESSI, Sui sentieri dell’essere, LAS, Rome, 2004, pp. 299-300, 305-306.

15
 “In secondo luogo, la sua concezione della causalità sopprime una distinzione che noi
tutti facciamo: quella tra relazione di contiguità e relazione di causalità, una distinzione già nota
a Socrate.40

“Infine, a proposito della causalità, Hume cade spesso in gravi contraddizioni. Prima,
quando dice che le sensazioni sono causate da un non so che, e poi, quando dice che le
impressioni di sensazione sono causa di quelle di riflessione, non intende forse parlare di un
nesso causale effettivo? Possiamo affermare che tutta la ricerca humiana riguardante il principio
di causalità è una stridente contraddizione. Infatti, Hume intende provare il valore puramente
soggettivo del principio di causalità e dare allo stesso tempo una spiegazione oggettiva (valida
per tutti, assoluta) della causa della nostra convinzione sull’esistenza dei nessi causali.”41

Tyn’s Critique of Hume on Efficient Causality

Tomas Tyn, O.P. critiques Hume on efficient causality in his Metafisica della sostanza as
follows: “La negazione del principio di causalità. Mentre il realismo epistemologico distingue la
contrarietà propria del pensiero dalla contraddizione del reale, così da scorgere nel principio di
non-contraddizione un perentorio richiamo alla sottomissione della mente all’essere,42 il
fenomenismo al contrario riduce le leggi della realtà alle pure condizioni della sua pensabilità;
ma così non si vede come possa ancora valere il principio di non-contraddizione, dato che i
contrari sono perfettamente pensabili, ma ciò dovrebbe portare a concludere che la loro mutua
esclusione non derivi dal pensiero in quanto pensiero, bensì dal pensiero in quanto
rappresentativo dell’essere reale.

“È nella linea soggettivistica e fenomenistica che Hume esclude il principio di causalità,

perché l’inizio di una cosa nell’essere è pensabile senza la dipendenza da un’altra cosa.43 Ogni
idea è un assoluto, è separabile da ogni altra e non implica relazioni essenziali a un’altra. E la
solita tesi nominalistica: la relazione non ha consistenza reale. Se una cosa implicasse altre cose,
così afferma Hume, si avrebbe una colossale contraddizione, perché allora tutto sarebbe tutto e
nulla potrebbe essere concepito distintamente.

“E di nuovo constatiamo la dissoluzione soggettivistica dell’analogia: il pensiero il

quanto pensiero o riesce a isolare ogni cosa da ogni altra (equivocità pura) o, se non ci riesce,
deve dichiarare l’identità di ogni cosa non ogni altra (univocità dell’essere genere che, data
l’identità del genere con la specie e l’individuo, coincide realmente con tutte le cose). Ora, Hume
è convinto della distinzione del pensiero che, abbiamo visto, per salvarsi, deve escludere ogni
relazione «per sé», sia essa trascendentale sia predicamentale, con tutte le altre idee; siccome poi
la realtà è data nel pensiero e solo in esso, dato che le idee sono degli assoluti separati, anche il
reale sarà un insieme di esistenti slegati l’uno dall’altro e, in quanto tali, perfettamente equivoci.

40
Cfr. PLATONE, Fedone, 99. ss.
41
B. MONDIN, op. cit., p. 242.
42
Già S. Tommaso fa notare che se l’oggetto della conoscenza fosse l’idea, sì che l’essere si riducesse all’essere
pensato, allora il reale dovrebbe essere contradditorio, dato che in due menti diverse possono esistere due giudizi
opposti sulla medesima cosa (Summa theologiae, I, q. 85, a. 2).
43
Cfr. D. HUME, A Treatise of Human Nature, 1, 3, 3 e 6, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, Oxford, 1951, pp. 80 e 86-87.

16
 “Non c’è dubbio che, date le premesse, la causalità ne esce malconcia, poiché, dato che
l’esistenza d’una cosa è sempre pensabile senza un’altra, non si vede come una cosa possa
realmente dipendere da un’altra. Questo anti-platonismo dell’idea soggettivizzata e assolutizzata
«in basso», nel singolo, è assai significativo. Esso condiziona la risoluzione di ogni proposizione
necessaria in mera tautologia del tutto sterile da una parte e la dissoluzione di ogni proposizione
sintetica nell’arbitraria «rapsodia» della contingenza.

“Che invece il predicato proprio, pur appartenendo al concetto del soggetto, ne espliciti
un qualcosa di radicalmente nuovo sul piano del conoscere e che, sul piano del reale, anche il
contingente partecipi del necessario e rinvii ad esso, sfugge interamente a questa mentalità
dicotomica che da tempo, ci sia permesso di dire, da troppo tempo, effligge e sconcerta il
pensiero umano. In realtà la causalità risulta principio evidente non certo, come esige Hume,
perché l’esistenza d’una cosa ne implici un’altra, ma perché il divenire d’una cosa, in quanto la
cosa è precisamente diveniente, suppone una dipendenza dell’essere (l’essere del divenire è
dipendente per essenza); similmente, tale principio trova costante riscontro empirico in quanto
ogni contingente come tale rinvia a una necessità partecipata e questa a un qualcosa di cui è
partecipazione (l’ente finito è propriamente, anche se non costitutivamente, un ente causato e
l’ente causato è l’ente derivante da una causa).

“Ora invece per Hume l’esistente non solo è separabile da ogni altro quanto all’inizio
della sua esistenza, ma, rigorosamente parlando, persino i diversi momenti della sua stessa durata
sono concepibili come durate distinte così da costituire una vera e propria soluzione di
continuità. È un dato di capitale importanza, poiché qui si trova dinanzi alla comune radice del
soggettivismo e dello storicismo. L’immaginazione costituisce un «passaggio liscio» (smooth
passage) di percezioni simili, ma nel contempo l’apparire di tali percezioni al conoscente è
decisamente discontinuo.44 Vi è dunque una strutturale aporia nella stessa impressione sensitiva
che sotto un aspetto si insinua come continua, sotto un altro invece manifesta il suo carattere
disparato. A questo punto interviene una netta propensione del soggetto a favore della continuità,
così da mettere in parentesi il momento della sua soluzione, dimodoché la nostra mente finge, si
persuade e finisce col credere alla persistente durata di ogni cosa nella sua esistenza.

“Tale persuasione, radicata, come s’è visto, nell’immaginazione, trova la sua ultima
spiegazione nella memoria che compie una duplice opera di «superamento» nei riguardi della
lacerazione delle percezioni susseguentisi senza nesso interiore: una, più immediata, che si
colloca sul piano stesso del dato esperienziale, consiste nel tener presente dati simili a quello
attualmente percepito così da identificare le percezioni interrotte come se non fossero che una
sola percezione d’un solo e identico dato; l’altra, più derivata perché più teorica, è quella di
stabilire perentoriamente l’ipotesi di esistenza continua delle cose in modo tale da conferire ad
esse quella unità che sola permette di risolvere la apparente contraddizione insita nelle percezioni
interrotte.

“Come si vede agevolmente, la dissoluzione dell’essere avviene sia sul piano dell’essenza
e delle sue proprietà, e delle relazioni «per sé» che collegano un ente con un altro, sia all’interno
dello stesso ente, tramite la negazione del supporto sostanziale che sfascia l’ente in una sequela
disparata di percezioni che, com’è ovvio, non sono colleggate tra loro, dimodoché, dato che le
44
Treatise, 1, 4, 1, pp. 205-208; Cfr. COPLESTON, A History of Philosophy, vol. 5/2, p. 101.

17
leggi dell’essere seguono quelle delle percezioni, nulla garantisce la durata dello stesso esistente
il quale si dissolve in esistenti molteplici e temporalmente distanziati.

“Il dualismo humiano si pone sul piano della distinzione tra passaggio da idea a idea e
quello da percezione a percezione. Nel primo si dà perfetta e ineccepibile univocità in quanto
ogni idea è collegata con ogni altra in virtù di sé medesima come avviene appunto in
mathematicis, mentre nell’ambito empirico, quello delle «matters of fact», si assiste a un
tentativo simile di passaggio, ma questa volta illegittimo e infondato, quello mediato dal ricorso
alla causalità. Come la sostanzialità pretende conferire unità e durata continua all’esistente, così
la causalità vorrebbe stabilire nessi tra un esistente e un altro.

“Il fondamento della credenza, è il caso di chiamarla proprio così, nella causalità, sta
nella convinzione dell’uniformità della natura. Da questa si inferisce quella mediante un’analogia
di proporzionalità: come un evento è seguito da un altro, così un evento simile al primo è seguito
da uno simile al secondo e così in ogni altra istanza. La definizione che Hume dà della causalità
ha sia la caratteristica dell’apriorismo (iniziando dalla causa e postulando l’effetto) che poi
significativamente condurrà al determinismo, sia quella della manifestazione del fondamento
consistente nel postulato dell’uniforme somiglianza (unità ordinata) delle cose. «(Causa è) un
oggetto seguito da un altro là dove tutti gli oggetti simili al primo sono seguiti da oggetti simili al
secondo. Ossia, in altre parole, là dove, se il primo oggetto non ci fosse, nemmeno il secondo
sarebbe mai esistito».45

“Orbene, secondo Hume, il fondamento in questione non è dimostrabile e quindi non lo è

nemmeno la causalità stessa che poggia su di esso e non ha senso senza di esso. Infatti, il
cambiamento nel corso della natura non è contradditorio: è infatti concepibile dalla mente e
quindi nulla vieta che sia possibile. In tal modo l’uniformità della natura non è deducibile a
priori. Ma non è nemmeno inducibile a posteriori, poiché, e qui Hume anticipa largamente Kant,
ogni nostra esperienza è da noi elaborata in chiave di uniformità, la quale allora, essendo il
presupposto di ogni esperienza, non è derivabile come un risultato da essa. Il dualismo
esperienza-concetto cui fa riscontro quello di equivocità-univocità non potrebbe essere più
esplicito. Da un lato vi è il procedere in base ai puri concetti che nulla hanno a che fare con la
realtà, ma ci informano esclusivamente sulle leggi del nostro stesso pensiero, dimodoché, in
questo campo, ciò che è possibile logicamente (in quanto non-contraddittorio), lo è anche
realmente e la discontinuità della natura essendo pensabile, può anche realmente esistere.
Insomma il pensiero ripiegato su se stesso rigetta la realtà e la lascia alla sua contingenza e
molteplicità. Dall’altro lato l’esperienza, di cui surrettiziamente si suppone la profonda
discontinuità, se presenta tratti di uniformità, li possiede non come sue proprietà, bensì come
condizioni della sua rappresentabilità soggettiva, come un apporto della mente all’esperienza e
non già come un ricavato della mente dall’esperienza. Insomma, come la ragione rigetta il reale,
così l’esperienza in sé si sottrae alla ragione e quel che ha di unitario non le compete per sé, ma
solo in virtù della mente umana che la ordina in tale determinato modo.

“Non v’e nessuna necessità metafisica che l’inizio d’un esistenza sia assistito da un
oggetto che si potrebbe chiamare causa,46 un’affermazione che potrebbe far credere nella totale

45
Enquiries, 7, 2, 60; COPLESTON, p. 86.
46
Cfr. Treatise, 1, 3, 14; p. 172.

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contingenza della causalità: ma nulla sarebbe più sbagliato. Anzitutto, Hume non nega tale
principio sic et simpliciter, anzi, è ben convinto che esso goda d’un consenso del tutto universale.
Non si può nemmeno dire che quella causalità che Hume ammette sia contingente: ben al
contrario, ogni causalità, se è veramente tale, non può non essere assolutamente necessaria e
determinata.47

“La critica che Hume rivolge all’ignoranza del volgo il quale, ignaro delle sottili
motivazioni degli eventi, s’impossessa della causalità per poi ostentarla come una specie di deus
ex machina dinanzi a tutto ciò che rimane ignoto (mentre di fatto di altro non si tratta se non
d’una pretesa panacea da somministrare per coprire la nostra ignoranza), tale critica ricorda le
più virulenti polemiche sul tema da parte di un pensatore determinista della statura d’uno
Spinoza. La causalità dunque esclude casualità e come tale è assolutamente necessaria. Come
può però Hume mantenere da una parte il suo determinismo e negare la causalità come principio
necessario dall’altra? Ebbene, di fatto, Hume non nega la necessità della causalità stessa, bensì, e
ciò costituisce una cosa bene diversa, la necessità della sua conoscenza come principio
metafisico.

“Eppure, se la causalità esiste ed è addirittura necessaria, dovrà pure apparire in qualche

modo alla nostra mente. Se non si impone con necessità metafisica, essa domina il nostro
pensare e il nostro agire in virtù dell’abitudine psicologica che, a sua volta, pur non essendo
ineccepibile in sé, tende tuttavia a consolidarsi quale tendenza irresistibile e istintuale a pieno
titolo. La causalità, in sé necessaria, non è presente nelle cose, ma nel soggetto, e lo è in un modo
contingente, psicologico e non razionale e apodittico. Com’è noto, sarà su quest’ultima parte
dell’asserzione che Kant cercherà di correggere Hume nel tentativo di abbandonare, sì,
l’oggettività della causalità, ma salvandone nel contempo la necessità razionale.

“Naturalmente la riduzione della causalità a mera consuetudine psichica fa crollare tutto

l’edificio della teologia razionale, la quale poggia interamente sulla causalità che permette di
raggiungere, a partire dalle creature, il Creatore. Per quel poco che la causalità vale, essa non è
applicabile, secondo Hume, in modo che, partendo dall’effetto, si pretenda di risalire alla causa.48
Infatti, la causalità necessaria, deterministica, è quella che comincia da sé ed esige i suoi effetti,
quegli effetti che, una volta data la causa, essa necessariamente pone. Eppure, rigorosamente
parlando, non vale nemmeno il procedimento a priori, dalla causa all’effetto, ma è piuttosto
richiesta l’osservazione della congiunzione di entrambi i suoi termini.

“Ebbene, Dio ci è ignoto e le cose sperimentabili sono comunque sperimentabili,

qualsiasi ipotesi razionale noi facciamo. Qui si vede ancora una volta dove conduce lo sfascio
della partecipazione dell’ente: il dato sensibile posto come assoluto nella sua molteplicità
preclude la strada all’assolutamente Uno che in tal modo diventa il grande Ignoto. Ma, anche se
per assurdo l’applicazione a posteriori della causalità ci conducesse a Dio, noi non sapremmo
nulla di nuovo rispetto a ciò che già sappiamo, perché comunque non potremmo rifare la strada
alla rovescia ridiscendendo da Dio ai suoi effetti: sapremmo solo che tali effetti, così come sono,
derivano da Dio. Interessante questa immodesta pretesa di poter rivedere le cose come Dio
causalmente le vede, pretesa che, una volta delusa, conduce alla non meno immodesta lamentela

47
Cfr. Enquiries, 8, 1, 74; p. 95.
48
Cfr. Enquiries, 11, 114; p. 148: “I much doubt, whether it be possible for a cause to be known only by its effect.”

19
che allora non conosceremmo comunque nulla di nuovo, come se riconoscere la necessità
dell’esistenza di Dio fosse poca cosa! Alcuni tomisti moderni, seguaci della corrente esistenziale,
direbbero che Hume si pone sul piano dell’essenza e quindi diventa agnostico e sprezzante
quanto all’essere. Eppure le cose non stanno semplicemente così, perché, checché ne dica
Heidegger, l’essenza non cela, ma svela essere, supposto ovviamente che sia metafisicamente
compresa come potenza dello stesso atto entitativo.

“E infatti il diffetto di Hume non sta nell’accentuare l’essenza a scapito dell’essere, ma

nel porre esclusivamente il dato sensibile, il fenomeno, a scapito dell’essenza e dell’essere in pari
tempo. Desiderando un legame tra i fenomeni che la causalità non sembra offrirgli, egli trascura
quell’altro legame che essa invece svela, cioè il legame del molteplice/contingente con
l’uno/necessario e di questo, inteso come essenza finita, con l’impartecipato e l’incausato, con
quella Essenza che è solo e unicamente Essere.”49

Dougherty’s Critique of Hume on Efficient Causality

Kenneth F. Dougherty critiques Hume on efficient causality in his Metaphysics (1965) as

follows: “John Locke endeavored to keep the notion of causality because nothing comes from
nothing. Yet he taught that we can never come to an understanding of causality because all that
the senses can report upon are a succession of data. This is the teaching of empiricism that
human knowledge of reality is limited to the contingent concrete order of sense data.

“David Hume was to push Lockean empiricism to its logical conclusion in the denial of
the objectivity of causality. He denied the real value of universal principles. Hume gives a
subjective or psychological explanation to the principle of causality. We are naturally inclined to
conjure it up. For example, we see flame, we feel heat and we are accustomed to conclude to a
causal bond. ‘We have no other notion of cause and effect but that of certain objects, which have
been always conjoined together…We cannot penetrate into the reason of the conjunction. We
only observe the thing and always find that from the constant conjunction the objects acquire a
union in the imagination.’50

“Nineteenth century empiricists principally John Stuart Mill continued in the Humean
rejection of the objectivity of causality. With some minor modifications it still continues in the
writings of the logical empiricism of A. J. Ayer51 and the naturalists John Dewey, John Randall,
Morris Cohen and others.

“All of these thinkers criticize what they consider to be the principle of causality as
conceived by them within the framework of their respective systems. They all have this in
common, that they are not coming to terms with the real notion of causality. The Humean charge
that causality connotes a succession of phenomena to which the mind introduces out of a habit a
cause-effect conjunction is not the true notion of causality. As was evident from the distinction
between a cause and a principle there is far more to the notion of causality than a succession of

49
T. TYN, Metafisica della sostanza, Fede & Cultura, Verona, 2009, pp. 311-316.
50
D. HUME, A Treatise of Human Nature, I, 3, 6, J. M. Dent and Sons, London, 1939, p. 95.
51
Cf. A. J. AYER, Language, Truth and Logic, Golllancz, London, 1953, pp. 54, 55.

20
things, a mere relation between what precedes and what follows. From the Humean analysis of
cause one could not properly distinguish a cause and a condition.

“The inability of Hume and empiricists in general to come to real terms with the notion of
causality is understandable because they do not have a philosophy of being. The study of finite
being in the light of potency and act, essence and act of being (esse), is paramount to a
philosophical understanding of causality. The mere observation of succession of phenomena
cannot satisfy the requirements for knowing causes. Rather one must come to understand the
insufficiency of finite being, its imperfection as being, that its essence is not esse and so it must
receive esse from another. One must grasp the inherent potentiality of the finite which requires
that it be actualized from without, since it is not itself sufficiently in act.

“Empiricists would have us believe that they begin with facts and do not go beyond the
facts. This is simply untrue. They begin with certain notional assumptions which are purely
assumptions. Thus Hume assumes that all necessary propositions are nonexistential and that all
existential propositions are contingent and non-demonstrative.52 Hume sets up this division on
the assumption that the only necessary propositions are the analytical statements in logic and
mathematics, which he held to be the work of the mind. His education was lacking in
metaphysics, which he simply dismisses as unreal. In reference to contingency he fails to make a
distinction between contingent being and contingent premises. If one starts with contingent
beings, it does not necessarily follow that one starts with contingent premises. There can be
judgments stating necessary truths about contingent beings and their causality. For example,
every contingent being is imperfect and every contingent being is caused. In this case the
necessity is not due to a formal analytical relation made only by the mind due to rules of
grammar, or of concepts of the mind or of abstract number but rather from the very nature of the
contingent being as given in its kind of being.”53

Hart’s Critique of Hume (and Kant) on Efficient Causality

Describing the erroneous subjectivist explanations of causal necessity in Hume and Kant,
Charles Hart writes: “Various purely subjective explanations are offered to explain the necessity
or invariability of the cause-effect sequence. For Hume it was due entirely to force of habit or
custom, which it would be entirely possible to set aside. We could indeed conceive an absolute
beginning of being from nothingness. He says: ‘As all distinct ideas are separable from each
other, and as the idea of cause and effect are separable from each other, it will be easy for us to
conceive any object as non-existent this moment, and existent the next, without conjoining to it
the distinct idea of cause or producing principle.’54 For Kant it is due to an a priori form or
category of necessity innate the intellect which imposes the note of necessity on certain
sequences presented by the senses. On others, the innate form of contingency or nonnecessity is
imposed.55

52
Cf. D. HUME, op. cit., I, 3, 1, pp. 73ff.
53
K. F. DOUGHERTY, Metaphysics, Graymoor Press, Peekskill, New York, 1965, pp. 140-142.
54
D. HUME, Treatise on Human Nature, p. 381.
55
Cf. I. KANT, Critique of Pure Reason, Part II, Transcendental Logic, 1, 1.

21
 “Hume and Kant have this in common: They reject the intellect’s metaphysical report of
efficiency in terms of being simply as existing and communicating existence. They accept only
the sense report of causality as a sensible sequence of events in time and place. Any necessity
whereby the intellect declares this effect must have an adequate cause comes entirely from the
mind’s own action, from the force of habit or custom according to Hume, from the imposing of
an innate form according to Kant. But such an explanation is quite evidently unsatisfactory. If
the intellect itself is the sole source of the necessity, how are we to account for the distinction the
mind makes between necessary or causal sequences and nonnecessary, and therefore noncausal
or casual sequences?

“In either the Humean or the Kantian explanation the distinction must be attributed to the
arbitrary action of the mind since from the standpoint of sense data alone both the causal and the
noncausal or casual sequences are quite similar. This common-sense distinction thus becomes a
complete mystery for empiricism and Kantianism. On the other hand, from the metaphysical
standpoint of a realistic philosophy such as that of St. Thomas, the distinction is based on the
compulsion, not of the mind itself, but from that of the realities involved. Going beyond the
sense data and considering the various sequences from the standpoint of the existence of the
beings concerned, the intellect is compelled to say that certain sequences are causal and others
noncausal, or casual, because the different realities involved compel such distinction.”56

Gilson’s Critique of Hume (and Kant) on Efficient Causality

Étienne Gilson critiques Hume (and Kant) on efficient causality as follows: “Causal
efficiency is a fact experienced by sense knowledge…This position is safe against the various
criticisms of the notion of efficient causality made by Malebranche, Hume, and their many
successors. The criticism of Hume is directed against the illusion that we can form a mental
representation of the sort of energy whereby the efficient cause brings about the being of its
effect. Hume also denied that the relationship of efficient cause to effect can be conceived as a
purely analytical one – that is, as a consequence of the principle of contradiction alone. The
proper answer to Hume is that efficient causality is a relationship experienced in sense
perception and intellectually explicated in the abstract notions of cause and effect as well as in
the intelligible laws that preside over their relations in general. As to the way these laws
themselves are formulated, it must be said that they obey strictly the exigencies of the first
principle of all judgments – namely, the principle of contradiction. But this does not mean that
effects follow analytically from their causes in the same way as consequences follow from
principles. An abstract principle is not an efficient cause. Everything happens in conformity with
the requirements of the first principle of knowledge (i.e., being and the principle of
contradiction), but from the first principle of knowledge alone, nothing follows in reality. The
error of Kant was not that for him causality was synthetic knowledge but rather that causality
was an a priori synthetic judgment. It is, precisely, as an a posteriori synthetic judgment whose
terms are synthetically united in the sense experience of efficient causality. Let us not forget that
sense experience has its own evidence, and that, in their own way, sensations themselves are
principles.”57

56
C. HART, Thomistic Metaphysics, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1959, p. 293-294.
57
É. GILSON, Elements of Christian Philosophy, Mentor-Omega, New York, 1963, pp. 77, 322-323.

22
 Kreyche’s Critique of Hume (and Kant) on Efficient Causality

Robert J. Kreyche critiques Hume (and Kant) on efficient causality in his First
Philosophy (1959) as follows: “Throughout the history of philosophy various opinions have
prevailed on the question of our knowledge of causes. Indeed some thinkers, like David Hume,
have denied that we have any such knowledge at all, in the sense of its being objective
knowledge. In Hume’s opinion, our notion of causality has no real basis in things and is purely
psychological in origin. Due to the psychological laws of association we tend to ‘read’ causes
into nature, but under no circumstances do we have any ‘experience’ of a cause. All that we do
experience are antecedents and consequents, like a lighted candle and then paper burning, but we
never experience any causal connection that is alleged to exist between these events.

“Much the same principle appears in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Even though
Kant made a searching attempt to counteract the skepticism of Hume, for Kant as for Hume our
notion of cause is not something taken or derived from experience. In his doctrine, the notion of
cause is an a priori form: it is a subjective concept that we superimpose upon the disorganized
contents of experience.

“Besides Hume and Kant there are others who deny that we have an objective knowledge
of causes. However, even among those thinkers who hold that we have such a knowledge, some
give a wrong explanation of its origin or source. Hence we find, even among realists, certain
thinkers who begin with a preconceived notion of cause, and then attempt to ‘prove’ that this
notion has an objective correspondence in things. Such a view, however, represents a mistaken
approach to the subject, since our knowledge of causes is from its very inception drawn from the
contents of experience. We do not, as it were, begin with a concept of cause and later attempt to
verify it. Rather, our understanding of cause is in the very first instance taken from things
themselves.

“The Existence of Causes: A Fundamental Datum of Experience. Our knowledge of

cause, like our knowledge of being and substance, is fundamentally based on our knowledge of
sensible things. Consider, for the moment, a person who is shaking the dust out of a rug. Can we
truthfully say, as we observe what this person is doing, that we perceive him to be acting as a
cause? Some thinkers of a sophisticated cast of mind would say ‘no.’ According to them, all that
we do perceive is a ‘correlated series of events’ in which one thing ‘happens’ after something
else – that is, first the movement of the arms and then the ‘cloud’ of dust. Under no
circumstances, however, are we aware (in their view) of any ‘mysterious’ causal link by which it
is known that one thing depends on another; in short, we have no ‘experience’ of a cause.

“In regard to this view, we can only point out that it is an essentially distorted notion of
the nature of human experience. For if ‘experience’ meant nothing more than a purely sensory
knowledge of objects, then we could never know causes as causes. The experience of a dog, for
example, as it witnesses an automobile accident is a purely sensory experience which is limited
to sense data as such. Although a dog may witness such events – that is, on the level of sensory
perception – it has no knowledge of them in terms of their causal relations. However, the case is
different with human beings.

23
 “A typically human experience is at one and the same time both sensory and intellectual.
Whenever we perceive an event (such as a person putting on his shoes) we are engaged in
something more than a mere activity of the senses. Through our power of understanding we are
able to abstract certain intelligible data that are given in that event, so that we know what is
‘going on’ in experience. Human experience (of whatever sort) involves an intellectual grasp,
however vague or imperfect, of the very factors involved in that experience, and one of these
factors is the knowledge that some things are operative as causes.

“Reality, then, is no mere patchwork of essences. The real world is one of existing things,
and in the realm of existing things there are many things that act, and as a result of what they do
something happens in a being distinct from themselves. A carpenter pounds a hammer, and as a
result a nail is driven into the wood; an ice pack is applied to one’s head, and as a result there is
a change in the temperature of one’s body; a boy gets bitten by a dog, and as a result his finger
begins to bleed. In all such instances we bear witness to an elementary fact of experience: that
the activity of certain agents causes other things, affected by those agents, to change.”58

58
R. J. KREYCHE, First Philosophy, Henry Holt, New York, 1959, pp. 208-210. Kreyche then proceeds to give an
explanation of the metaphysics of the predicamental efficient causality of becoming, as well as a transcendental
metaphysical causality of being in his same book, First Philosophy, from pages 210-245. For explanations of the
nature of efficient causality and the various types of efficient causes, see: T. ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL, and T.
MELENDO, Metaphysics, Sinag-Tala, Manila, 1991, pp. 175-191, 201-218 ; T. ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL, T.
MELENDO, Metafisica, EUNSA, Pamplona, 2001, pp. 197-213, 223-240 (Spanish) ; T. ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL,
T. MELENDO, Metafisica, Le Monnier, Florence, 1987, pp. 155-170, 178-192 (Italian) ; L. CLAVELL and M.
PÉREZ DE LABORDA, Metafisica, EDUSC, Rome, 2006, pp. 257-281, 287-316 ; C. FERRARO, Appunti di
metafisica, Lateran University Press, Vatican City, 2013, pp. 325-332, 337-347. For the application of efficient
causality in the a posteriori demonstrations of the existence of God, see: L. ROMERA, L’uomo e il mistero di Dio,
EDUSC, Rome, 2008 ; M. PÉREZ DE LABORDA, La ricerca di Dio, EDUSC, Rome, 2011 ; C. FERRARO, Le
cinque vie tommasiane, Edizioni Tomismo Intensivo, Rome, 2017.

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