[hist-analytic] Hume Is Where The Heart Is

[Jlsperanza at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/9/2010 10:08:35 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
rbj at rbjones.com writes:

They say  that Hume (even if that's were
> your heart is) is wrong: 'cause' is not  as Hume thought it wasn't.

So he was right?
(all he said after all,  was that causal connections are not necessary, and 
by 
that he clearly(!)  meant, logically necessary)
 
---- 
 
I'm thinking of Gricean-type objections to the very idea of 'cause'. And  
that's pretty Humean of Grice, and rightly so, too!
 
He is considering utterances like:
 
  i. Decapitation was the _cause_ of Charles I's death.
 
as meaning, originally, or literally, or metaphysically, or  anti-Humeanly:
 
ii. Charles I's decapitation _willed_ his death.
 
(WoW:162).
 
While the phenomenalism (empiricist) thing concerned Hume, he was possibly  
thinking that 'cause' -- qua _term_ is misleading in that it infuses our 
talk  with an animistic ring to it, which is _NOT_ what a physicist is 
thinking when  he uses 'cause'. But then Heisenberg and his indeterminacy destroyed 
the last  hope?
 
Etc.

JL


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