The Secret Connexion: Causation, Realism, and David Hume - Softcover

Strawson, Galen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0198240384 ISBN 13: 9780198240389

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1992

Synopsis

It is widely supposed that David Hume invented and espoused the "regularity" theory of causation, holding that causal relations are nothing but a matter of one type of thing being regularly followed by another. It is also widely supposed that he was not only right about this, but that it was one of his greatest contributions to philosophy. Strawson here argues that the regularity theory of causation is indefensible, and that Hume never adopted it in any case. Strawson maintains that Hume did not claim that causation in the natural world is just a matter of regular succession, that such a dogmatic metaphysical claim about the nature of reality would have been utterly contrary to his fundamental philosophical principles, and that he rightly took it for granted that there was more to causation than regularity of succession, claiming only that regularity of succession was all that we could ever know of causation.

About this title

About the Author:

Galen Strawson is author of Freedom and Belief (ClarendonPress, 1986) and Consultant Editor of The Times Literary Supplement

Review:

`is a comprehensive and persuasively argued position. ... The book is exceptionally well written. Strawson keeps his main arguments clear and concise by relegating related, but tangential, issues to footnotes. He has also written and organized the book in a manner that makes it useful and
instructive both to readers with different main interests and to readers with different degrees of technical expertise.'
International Studies in Philosophy, Vol XXV/I 1993

`I find Strawson's case for the sceptical realist interpretation thoroughly convincing.' London Review of Books

`beautifully argued' Philosophy

`an important book' Times Higher Education Supplement

`beautifully argued book'
Times Literary Supplement

`it stretched me till I twanged' Craig Raine, Observer

'His style is lively, even impassioned. Best of all, he shares the reader's amusement at his own fevered combing of the text ... so thorough in his attempt to turn the Treatise into an expression of a decently naturalistic metaphysic that we can learn, as a result of reading his text, that it
just cannot be done. For, if it could be done, Strawson with his inexhaustible persistence would have done it.'
Adrian Heathcote, University of Sydney, Australian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 71, No. 2, June 1993

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0198240384
• ISBN 13: 9780198240389
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 306