Re: [Critical-Realism] Also quick last re: Hume, etc.

["Ruth Groff" <RGroff1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

I wanted to emphasize that the point for Hume is that you can't - he thinks - actually observe causality itself.  You can only observe event a, followed by event b.  I used the example of paper burning.  I can see the paper; I can see the fire; I can see the ashes.  I can see the paper being tossed into the fire; I can see it burning.  But what I can't see is "causality."  So as I said, the referent for that, according to Hume, is my own feeling of anticipation regarding the expected outcome.  I project that, reify it -- and voila: something called "causality," supposedly indicative of a "necessary connection."

It is worth noting that Harre and Madden, following Roy Wood Sellars (don't know about his son, Wilfred, on this), one of an interesting bunch of philosophers in the early to mid 20th c. who called themselves "critical realists" -- Harre and Madden, in CAUSAL POWERS (1975), take Hume on directly on causality, but, unlike RB, their argument is that we do too experience causality directly.  (Sellars has the more interesting argument for it, I think ...)  But RB's response in RTS is to challenge the idea that the only things that we can say exist are things we can observe directly.  So, as we'll see, he introduces what he calls the "causal" criterion of existence, as a contrast to the "perceptual" criterion.

Given that Hume's line of argument is to say "We know things by observing them; we can't observe x; therefore we can't know that x exists," another important way to respond - taking the cue from Kant (or Hegel) - would be to say right off the bat "No, that isn't quite right, actually, with respect to how we know things; knowing is not simply passive reception of sensory input; therefore we can't rule out of existence those things that can't be known that way."  Of course RB does think this, but the response to Hume takes the form I said.  Horkheimer has useful things to say, too, about the non-passive character of knowing.  I say this only because I think that it is so important to see how all of this is part of a big on-going conversation, a point that I worry sometimes it's easy to lose sight of.  

Meawhile, the thing about empiricism that is interesting is that if it were true, everything would be very easy.  You can see the appeal.

I am sorry to be taking up so much air time.  I've just been trying to fill in what seems to me to be absolutely crucial background.  I'm sure that there won't be continued need for this.

r.
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