num_pages: 312
description: It is widely supposed that David Hume invented and espoused the regularity theory of causation holding that causal relations are nothing but a matter of one type of thing being regularly followed by another. It is also widely supposed that he was not only right about this but that it wasone of his greatest contributions to philosophy. Strawson here argues that the regularity theory of causation is indefensible and that Hume never adopted it in any case. Strawson maintains that Hume did not claim that causation in the natural world is just a matter of regular succession that sucha dogmatic metaphysical claim about the nature of reality would have been utterly contrary to his fundamental philosophical principles and that he rightly took it for granted that there was more to causation than regularity of succession claiming only that regularity of succession was all that wecould ever know of causation.
language: English
title: The Secret Connexion: Causation, Realism, and David Hume
publisher: Oxford University Press