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PHIL 151 History of Modern Philosophy

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Title: PHIL 151 History of Modern Philosophy


1
PHIL 151 History of Modern Philosophy
  • Dr. Martin Godwyn
  • Fall 2008
  • WEEK 9 Locke, Berkeley and Hume on Substance and
    Causality

2
This Week ...
  • Last week we examined Hume, and a number of
    metaphysical issues have been bubbling to the
    surface.
  • Two central issues concern the nature of
    substance and the nature of causality.
  • This week we examine how the empiricists handle
    these issues.

3
Substance
  • Minds and/or bodies are claimed by dualists and
    monists alike to be a kind or kinds of substance
    (or more colloquially, stuff). But what is
    substance? The concept has a long history in
    philosophy.
  • Most of the philosophers covered by this course
    have something to say concerning substance, but
    their views are often so incongruous with each
    other that one might wonder whether they are
    talking about the same thing.

4
Primary Substance
  • As with many other areas in philosophy Aristotle
    was the first to lay out an account is a more or
    less systematic way.
  • Aristotle (in his Categories) talks of primary
    substance as a concrete, individual, persisting
    thing.
  • For example a particular rock, house, tree, man,
    or mind.

5
Secondary Substance
  • Aristotle distinguishes primary substances from
    secondary substances kinds of things (species,
    genera, etc.) to which primary substances belong,
    such as human.
  • Individual Socrates, Mt. Baker.
  • Kind philosophers, mammals, men, humans, Greeks,
    mountains.
  • Individuals belong to many different (sometimes
    nested) kinds. Kinds can themselves be individual
    members of broader kinds.

6
Substance vs. Property
  • Substance is usually contrasted with properties
    (variously, also called attribute, mode, or
    quality)
  • A property is said to be possessed by or inheres
    in some substance.
  • Consider The apple is round. Here, the
    property is that of being round, and the
    substance is the individual apple.

7
Subject-predicate form
  • Notice that any proposition seems to conform to a
    subject-predicate form. The predicate names the
    property that is attributed to something (the
    subject).
  • Propositions always say of something that it has
    some property. Thus, all true propositions would
    seem to commit us to two metaphysically distinct
    elements the thing and its properties.

8
Change over time
  • Another reason for insisting on the metaphysical
    distinction between substance and property is
    that objects persist under change.
  • A particular tomato changes its properties from
    green to red as it ripens, all the time remaining
    (in some significant sense) the same particular
    tomato.
  • Note Not all philosophers share this intuition.
    Heraclitus was famous for insisting that you
    cannot step into the same river twice, precisely
    because it changes every instant.

9
Essence vs. Accident
  • Not all change preserves substantial identity.
    Some changes result is the destruction or
    coming-into-being of individual substances.
  • Take an atom of mercury and knock a proton out of
    the nucleus and it literally becomes an atom of
    gold. The mercury atom ceases to exist and the
    gold comes into existence.

10
Essence vs. Accident
  • Properties that something has without which it
    would cease to be that thing, are its essential
    properties (sometimes called attributes).
  • Those which can change without affecting identity
    are called accidental properties (sometimes
    called modes).

11
Form and matter
  • A complication is that it often takes more than
    being some particular collection of stuff (or
    matter as Aristotle calls it) to be a
    particular individual.
  • A house and a pile of rubble might be constituted
    by the same basic stuff (bricks, mortar, etc.),
    but the latter is not a house.
  • Hence, sometimes form (the relation or
    arrangement of parts) seems to play a central
    role in making something a particular thing.

12
Locke on substance
  • Locke, in some measure, takes up Aristotles idea
    of primary substance.
  • He characterises substances as things subsisting
    by themselves. That is, they do not depend on
    anything else for their existence.
  • He thinks of material substances as naturally
    occurring kinds of material (corporeal) stuff.

13
Real essence
  • Locke distinguishes between real essence and
    nominal essence.
  • Substances are metaphysically distinguishable by
    their real essences. A real essence is that
    property or properties that makes it the thing
    that it is and gives it its sensible properties.
  • For example, the real essence of water, we now
    know, is being H2O.

14
Nominal essence
  • A nominal essence is, roughly, how we think about
    a kind of thing what we mean when we use a word.
    These are the properties through which we
    identify something.
  • The nominal essence may vary from person to
    person (might include being wet, being a liquid
    at room temperature, etc.).

15
Locke on Body and Mind
  • Locke extends Descartes analysis of the ideas of
    body and mind by adding in causal motive power
    connecting substance with causality
  • Body is an extended solid substance, capable of
    communicating motion by impulse.
  • Mind is a substance that thinks, and has a
    power of exciting motion in body, by willing or
    thought. (2.23.22)

16
Locke on the Mind-Body relation
  • However, Locke remained largely agnostic on how
    or whether matter and spirits were substantially
    related.
  • The hypothesis that they are ultimately the same
    substance (with different real essences) or
    ultimately different substances is something he
    thinks cannot be known through experience, and
    hence, cannot be known. (2.13.16-18)

17
Substrata
  • Locke argues that qualities (properties) cannot
    exist in, as it were, a free-floating way. In
    other words, qualities are ontologically
    dependent on substance onto which they are
    anchored. Qualities are always qualities of
    something.
  • Not imagining how ... simple ideas can subsist
    by themselves, we accustom ourselves to suppose
    some substratum, wherein they do subsist.
    (2.23.1)

18
What is this substratum
  • Locke faces up to an embarrassing and surprising
    consequence of his position.
  • 1. Qualities are not the substratum (substance).
  • 2. All thought or perception has as its immediate
    object, ideas.
  • 3. Ideas are ultimately resemblances of primary
    qualities (in the case of our ideas of primary
    qualities) or the causal result of primary
    qualities in the object (in the case of our ideas
    of secondary qualities).
  • 4. Thus, we cannot form any idea of this
    substratum (substance).

19
Something I-know-not-what
  • So that if anyone will examine himself
    concerning his notion of pure substance in
    general, he will find he has no other idea of it
    at all, but only a supposition of he knows not
    what support of such qualities which are capable
    of producing simple ideas in us ... If anyone
    should be asked, what is the subject wherein
    colour or weight inheres, he would have nothing
    to say, but the solid extended parts. (2.23.2)
  • He goes on to liken it to saying the world rests
    on the back of an elephant. What does the
    elephant rest on? The back of a tortoise, etc.

20
Stuff without properties?
  • Related to this is that it is difficult to see
    how the substratum could itself have any
    qualities. If it did, then there would have to be
    a yet more basic substratum in which those
    properties inhered.
  • Thus, according to Locke, substance the stuff
    of which the universe is made would seem to be
    both unthinkable and to have no properties!

21
Berkeley and Hume
  • Both Berkeley and Hume reacted against this
    Lockean view of substance and thought his
    position untenable it implies a material
    something I know not what to use Lockes own
    words.
  • Berkeley, as weve seen, focussed his attack on
    the Lockean idea of material substance, and
    argued that the very idea was incoherent, but he
    still kept that idea of mental substance pure
    minds as that in which ideas inhere.

22
Humes view on minds
  • Berkeley, therefore, is not opposed to the notion
    of substance as such only material substance
    external to the mind. He seems quite comfortable
    with the idea of mental substance (minds, in
    other words) as the substance in which ideas
    inhere.
  • Hume argued that Berkeley should have gone one
    step further. Mental substance is as incoherent
    (from an empiricists perspective) as is material
    substance.

23
Humes bundle theory of mind
  • Thus, Hume has no time for Berkeleys half-way
    house what goes for Lockes corporeal substance
    goes for mental substance too
  • When I enter most intimately into what I call
    myself, I always stumble on one particular
    perception or other, of heat or cold, light or
    shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never
    can catch myself at any time without a
    perception, and never can observe any thing but
    the perception. (Hume, Treatise of Human Nature,
    Book 1 part 4 section 4)

24
Bundle theories
  • Just as Berkeley thought of matter as just
    bundles of ideas, Hume thought of minds, for all
    we can know, are the same.
  • Bundle theories reject the claim that properties
    require some metaphysical stuff to inhere in.
  • On such a view, there neednt be any substrata or
    substance, there might only be bundles of
    properties that, so to speak, hang around
    together. The world would be made of properties,
    not stuff.

25
Knowledge of mental substance
  • Berkeley suggests that we nevertheless have a
    notion of mind or spirit as a causal power.
  • What he seems to mean by this is that we
    understand words such as mind or soul as a
    coherent metaphysical possibility of causal
    power. Even though we do not directly perceive
    it, Berkeley seems to think the notion of it is
    coherent. By contrast, Berkeley argues, the idea
    of material substance is not coherent.

26
A rationalist concession?
  • Moreover, Berkeley suggests, this notion is known
    immediately and reflexively. (Locke makes a
    similar suggestion).
  • A rationalist critic might suggest that the
    Berkeleyan notion is, to all intents or
    purposes, precisely what rationalists call
    objects of the understanding i.e., concepts
    understood by reason rather than sensation.
    (Compare Descartes on the 1000-sided chiliagon
    (Med 6))

27
A problem with such views
  • Is Hume right? A deep puzzle for bundle theories
    is accounting for why properties hang around
    together at all. Doesnt that fact require some
    explanation? Isnt the claim that the ideas
    inhere is a single substance the simplest
    explanation?
  • Why does (say) the colour and the weight of the
    green apple not simply come apart and occupy
    different portions of space if there is not
    something in which both these properties inhere?

28
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29
The active mind
  • Perhaps Berkeleys strongest argument for minds
    suggests that ideas of sensation or perception
    are entirely passive and inactive
  • there is nothing of power or agency included in
    them. So that one idea or object of thought
    cannot produce, or make any alteration in
    another. (273)
  • Therefore, ideas are not, strictly speaking, the
    cause of anything. To explain how ideas come into
    being we require a mind a mental substance to
    activate and configure ideas.

30
Other minds
  • Berkeleys theory of minds as the sole causal
    force also allows him to defend himself against
    charges of solipsism.
  • Solipsism, recall, is the view that all that
    exists is oneself ones own mind and its
    contents. Berkeley, by contrast, thinks that
    there are other minds but why?

31
Other minds
  • Berkeleys argument appears to be an inference to
    the best explanation.
  • We perceive bodies (meaning here, ideas, of
    course, not material substance) and their
    behaviour is outside the control of our will.
  • The existence of minds outside of ourselves is
    the best explanation for their behaviour.

32
Minds and Ockhams razor
  • Why is it the best explanation? Well, we know
    from direct introspection that we can bring ideas
    of imagination into existence by the will of our
    mind.
  • Positing another mind that wills our perceptual
    ideas into existence is the simplest hypothesis,
    since, by Ockhams Razor, it requires us to posit
    no additional kinds of entities other than what
    we already know to exist minds.

33
Causation
  • Thus Locke and Berkeley have very different views
    concerning causation
  • Locke Causation proceeds by impulse particles
    (corpuscles) bumping into other particles.
  • Berkeley Causation proceeds by the will of
    minds. Either our minds (imagination) or the mind
    of God (perception).

34
Causation
  • Humes account of causation is complex.
  • Recall Humes arguments concerning our perception
    of causation. Hume argues that we cannot perceive
    any necessary connexion (i.e., a causal
    relation) between events A and B, no matter how
    hard we look.
  • All we can ever perceive in one event happening,
    and then contiguously in time and space
    another event happening, but we never experience
    any causal connection connecting the two events
    or objects together.

35
What is a cause?
  • In addition, Hume argues that our tendency of
    believing in cause and effect relation is
    therefore a product of our natural mental habits.
  • This conclusion forces Hume to adopt a very
    thin notion of causation indeed, Hume gives
    us at least two (and arguably three)
    substantially different definitions of causation.

36
Humean causation
  • Hume defines causation as
  • 1a an object, followed by another, and where
    all the objects similar to the first are followed
    by objects similar to the second. 1b Or, in
    other words, where, if the first object had not
    been, the second never had existed. ... 2 an
    object followed by another, and whose appearance
    always conveys the thought to that other. (356)
  • These Ill refer to as the constant
    conjunction, the counterfactual and the
    psychological definitions of causation,
    respectively.

37
The psychological definition
  • 2 an object followed by another, and whose
    appearance always conveys the thought to that
    other
  • Definition (2), whether adequate or not, seems to
    be nothing more than a description of human
    habits of thought.
  • But for Hume, there is nothing odd about this.
    Humes entire approach is intended as scientific
    or experimental and based in how we happen to
    think and our cognitive capacities.

38
The psychological definition
  • Recall that Hume has argued that we can never
    perceive a necessary connexion between one
    experience and another, and given his empiricist
    commitment to the claim that all knowledge comes
    from experience, it follows that causation is not
    something that we perceive.
  • Since no valid reasoning establishes cause-effect
    relations, it must be nothing but the
    psychologically unavoidable result of our habits
    of thought. When we perceive things as being
    constantly conjoined, we just cant help but
    come to expect the effect when we perceive the
    cause.

39
The constant conjunction definition
  • 1a an object, followed by another, and where
    all the objects similar to the first are followed
    by objects similar to the second.
  • The first definition (1a) defines causation in
    terms of what our causal beliefs are actually
    about rather than why we believe in it
    causation is nothing more than a regular
    succession (constant conjunction).

40
One damned thing after another
  • This view of causation is very deflationary in
    that it strips the notion of causation of much of
    the metaphysical bite that is usually attached
    to it.
  • Consider the following suppose that there is a
    fair die that is rolled 100 times and lands 6
    every time, and also a loaded die that I throw
    and which does exactly the same. Both exhibit a
    constant conjunction.

41
One damned thing after another
  • On Humes definition (1a), it would seem that
    there can be no metaphysical difference between a
    coincidental correlation between events and a
    lawful correlation between events.
  • This strikes many as mistaken. But why? Is there
    a difference between coincidental correlations
    and lawful ones?

42
Chance and probability?
  • Many peoples intuitions are that the fair die
    landed 6 100 times in a row by chance
    whereas the loaded die did not do so by chance
    at all it was forced to land that way.
  • Similar intuitions suggest that the chances of
    the fair die landing 6 100 times in a row are
    very low. But what does that mean? It isnt
    simply a matter of how it actually behaves,
    because it actually lands 6 100 times in a row.

43
Counterfactuals
  • In other words, the loaded die was caused to
    land 6 by whatever internal feature loads it
    not by the details of my throw.
  • In other words, had I thrown the fair die
    differently, it would (or at least could) have
    landed differently. Whereas the loaded die
    would have landed 6 no matter what the details
    of my throw.
  • This is where definition (1b)comes to the fore.

44
The counterfactual definition
  • 1b where, if the first object had not been, the
    second never had existed.
  • This definition of causation focuses on
    counterfactuals (contrary to fact relations)
    and are expressed as subjective conditionals
    If A had been so, then B would have been so.
    Notice that this is about non-actual
    possibilities.
  • In the case of the fair die, if I had thrown
    the object differently (or at least in a
    relevantly different way), it would have landed
    differently.

45
A Humean puzzle
  • Curiously, Hume apparently treats his definitions
    (1a) and (1b) as equivalent (in other
    words...). Few join Hume in this, and it is
    perhaps notable that in his earlier and more
    voluminous Treatise on Human Nature, he presents
    versions only of (1a) and (2).
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