PHIL 100W Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Compatibilism, On Liberty, Incompatibilism
1 Mar 2017
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However, there remains a further problem for hume. Recall the copy thesis: all simple ideas are copies of simple impression s. Hume denies that we have any impression of a necessary connection between a cause and an effect. But he does not deny that we have the idea of necessary connection: we can intelligibly talk about necessary connections, even if we cannot find any in our experiences. Hume means this to apply not to the idea of necessary connection, but also to other ideas traditionally associated with causal powers: power, force, energy, mechanism, etc. Hume has already rejected the idea that we acquire the idea of necessary connection (or power or force) from an external impression. Some philosophers (notably locke) have held that we acquire such idea from internal impressions: from our impression of the will acting on the body in order to produce motion in the body.
