Causes, Energy and Constant Conjunctions

Abstract

Most contemporary philosophers writing on causality proudly declare their adoption of a Humean framework. But many who ostensibly write from an anti-Humean perspective also adopt Hume’s main tenets about the nature of causality. This is the case even with Kant and those who believe that we have a definite concept of causal necessity on a par with the concept of logical necessity. To be sure, these opponents of Hume do disagree with him on very important issues. Yet their disagreements with Hume are not for the most part about the structure or nature of causality. The disagreements are, rather, about the origin of the concept of cause, or about the constitution of the mind that has the concept of causality, or, in the most radical cases, about the metaphysical source of causality, but not about the causal connection itself.