Kant attributes Hume as his inspiration to the critique of pure reason as Hume’s work motivated him to prove Hume wrong. Specifically, Kant worked against Hume’s concept of causation. Where Hume found no necessity in causation nor of causation, Kant found causation necessary in both senses- otherwise no one would be able to navigate the world. However, Kant’s critique of Hume is much more general than causation, Kant through causation is asserting the existence of synthetic a priori judgements. Causation as a synthetic a priori principle asserts the necessity of and in causation as precondition to navigating the world.
In his second Analogy, Kant presents the argument for the objective reality of cause and effect. Were one to accept Hume’s …show more content…
Kant finds that it is only through the content of time, through perception of objects or through the synthesis of imagination combining concepts and intuitions, that one can determine the passage of time. “This progress in time determines everything and is in itself determined by nothing else; that is, the parts of this progress are given only in time and through the synthesis of time, but not time before this synthesis.” (A210- 211/ B255-256). Events have a determinable location in the continuum of time. Kant asserts that an individual can recognize, at least to some extent, an objective succession of events correctly, but the apprehension of the multitude of experiences is always collected with the events successively. Since time must be experienced as a successive collection of events then there is no way only the existence of succession can signify a distinction between an individual’s subjective sense of the passage of time or the objective passage of time. “Their objective meaning cannot consist in their reference to another …show more content…
By Hume’s definition, causation is actually, but a constant conjunction of events. By constant conjunction he means a regular succession an observer experiences and out of the consistency of the two events occurring successively (with the perceived cause consistently having a temporal priority) the observer develops a habit of understanding the conjunct as a cause and effect. So, the ability for one to know that one event will occur after another has no necessary rule behind it, but rather it is a deduction made from experience that the mind mistakenly attaches as an attribute of the objects when it is really a product of the mind. “…in like manner the necessity of power, which unites cause and effect, lies in the determination of the mind to pass from the one to the other.” (1.3.14 SBN 89). Thus causation does not have an effect on the objects causation is being assigned to, but the mind. The imagination connects cause and effect, but objectively there is no reason to associate the two. So Hume feels there isn’t even a necessity in causation between whether an effect must follow a cause as it is just a mental faculty. Further Hume denies that it is even necessary for every event to have a cause at all, or that there is a necessity of causation. He expresses that an object with no cause is conceivable so if it is possible to conceive of a cause not occurring than it must not be necessary. T 1.1.3 (SBN 44). Against both of these
In his second Analogy, Kant presents the argument for the objective reality of cause and effect. Were one to accept Hume’s …show more content…
Kant finds that it is only through the content of time, through perception of objects or through the synthesis of imagination combining concepts and intuitions, that one can determine the passage of time. “This progress in time determines everything and is in itself determined by nothing else; that is, the parts of this progress are given only in time and through the synthesis of time, but not time before this synthesis.” (A210- 211/ B255-256). Events have a determinable location in the continuum of time. Kant asserts that an individual can recognize, at least to some extent, an objective succession of events correctly, but the apprehension of the multitude of experiences is always collected with the events successively. Since time must be experienced as a successive collection of events then there is no way only the existence of succession can signify a distinction between an individual’s subjective sense of the passage of time or the objective passage of time. “Their objective meaning cannot consist in their reference to another …show more content…
By Hume’s definition, causation is actually, but a constant conjunction of events. By constant conjunction he means a regular succession an observer experiences and out of the consistency of the two events occurring successively (with the perceived cause consistently having a temporal priority) the observer develops a habit of understanding the conjunct as a cause and effect. So, the ability for one to know that one event will occur after another has no necessary rule behind it, but rather it is a deduction made from experience that the mind mistakenly attaches as an attribute of the objects when it is really a product of the mind. “…in like manner the necessity of power, which unites cause and effect, lies in the determination of the mind to pass from the one to the other.” (1.3.14 SBN 89). Thus causation does not have an effect on the objects causation is being assigned to, but the mind. The imagination connects cause and effect, but objectively there is no reason to associate the two. So Hume feels there isn’t even a necessity in causation between whether an effect must follow a cause as it is just a mental faculty. Further Hume denies that it is even necessary for every event to have a cause at all, or that there is a necessity of causation. He expresses that an object with no cause is conceivable so if it is possible to conceive of a cause not occurring than it must not be necessary. T 1.1.3 (SBN 44). Against both of these