Kant, Hume, and Our Ordinary Concept of Causation

Abstract

1. The recent philosophical literature bears ample testimony to the current popularity of regularity analyses of causation.1 In this paper, I offer no opinion as to the philosophical worth of these analyses. In fact, such an opinion would be extremely difficult to render, for the worth of an analysis can only be evaluated with respect to the philosophical problems it is supposed to solve, and, unfortunately, much of the philosophical literature on causation is silent with respect to what the philosophical problems are in this area. A related observation is that philosophers who present regularity analyses of causation often fail to say whether their analysis is supposed to constitute a faithful description of the concept of causation we all actually employ in ordinary, everyday (i.e., nonphilosophical) contexts, or whether it is supposed to constitute a modification, or explication, of the ordinary concept, which need not be synonymous with it.2 The point I wish to make here is that regardless of whether regularity analyses of causation provide satisfactory 'analyses' of causation in the latter sense of the term, they clearly do not pro-