Hume “Treatise” Book short essay
Outline Hume’s account of causation in I.3 of the Treatise. Points to explain: Why does he think the relation of causation is important? What does he find puzzling about the relation? Why does he think that reason is not responsible for human thinking involving causation? What happens, according to Hume, when we make a causal inference? Explain his account of the idea of the necessity associated with the idea of cause and effect.
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Hume conveys causation as one of the seven relations in philosophy which include identity, resemblance, time-place relations, the degree of a particular quality, contrariety, quantity or numeric proportions and causation. He further divides the seven into two categories. One class comprises of four relations, which he portrays to depend on comparable ideas for change and the other three whose changes is independent of the changes in ideas. In the third section of part III of his book, Hume posits the necessity of a cause, and thus the importance of the relation of causation. The outstanding evidence of the importance of causation to Hume is based on the general maxim in philosophy that everything that exists must have a cause for its existence.
(595 words)