David hume: Objects and Power

A central feature of Galen Strawson's argument is an analogy between David Hume's attitude to Causation and his attitude to external objects. This chapter includes some doubt on Strawson's claim that the second thesis that philosophers' ordinary causal talk refers to Causation despite its being 'unintelligible' to philosophers––has historical precedents in the work of Locke and George Berkeley. The chapter argues that Causation––but not belief in external objects––is similarly cognitively idle for Hume. Strawson likens Hume's position on causation to Locke's position with respect to real essences. Pace Strawson, the fact that Hume "does not make positive claims about what definitely does not exist" is not "enough to refute any attribution of all that causation actually is, in the objects, is regular succession to him". Locke's commitment to real essences plays no role in his account of the legitimate use of substance names, and, as philosophers have seen, this is precisely because real essences are unintelligible.