PHIL 105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Empiricism, Emor
16 Jan 2016
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Dr mc"s philosophy 001 (1157) part notes, 12#2 . Token event c cause token event e (particular event cause particular effect) You might think that you can just observe causation as it happens. Empiricists think that senses are the primary source of our knowledge. Rationalists think that reason is the primary source of our knowledge. Hume is famous for his scepticism about causation. (never see the causing) All we see is one event followed by another. If we often see events of the first type followed by events of the second, we form a habit . But constant conjunction does not license claims about causation thought. One can reject his sceptical conclusion while accepting that one does not observe causation directly. Our knowledge of causation is not innate or just common sense . A correlation is a starting place for a causal argument. There are four possible explanations for a correlation:
