Hume's Defence of Causal Inference

Evan Simpson is dean of Humanities at McMaster University and the editor
of Anti-foundationalism and Practical Reasoning: Conversations between
Hermeneutics and Analysis.

This big, provocatively titled book is the culmination of some 20 years
of scholarship on one of the famous problems of modern philosophy. Do we
have any sound reason to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow or to
rely upon any other observed regularity? The 18th-century Scottish
philosopher David Hume is widely considered to have assembled a
formidable case for skepticism about such inductive inferences, but Fred
Wilson challenges this view of Hume’s intentions. Employing
historical, exegetical, and analytical methods, Wilson reconstructs the
Humean position as actually defending scientific practices.

The central argument is that Hume defines a logical problem for
inductive reasoning by rejecting the Aristotelian and Cartesian position
that there are objectively necessary connections between events. But
Hume also solves this problem by showing that the practice of making
causal inferences is nevertheless a reasonable one and that the rules of
scientific inference in particular define a rational practice. The full
case is complicated, but it rests upon the proposition that “must
implies ought.” Roughly, if there is something that we must do, then
doing so is reasonable. Since human beings cannot avoid believing that
the sun will rise tomorrow, the practice of drawing such inferences from
previous experience is rationally justifiable. Our animal faith thus
supports an ethics of belief. Although this bold interpretation deserves
to be scrutinized carefully, Wilson develops it into a significant
contribution to a longstanding problem.

The discussion includes lengthy considerations of miracles, probability
theory, the validity of testimony, love of truth, and other matters.
Despite this richness of material, the book is sometimes repetitious and
longer than necessary. Nevertheless, it offers an account of the active
powers of mind that will require revision to standard views of Hume as a
skeptical philosopher. The general reader will find much of the text
hard going, but this is solid stuff for an academic audience.