There is no object that can afford us a reason for drawing a conclusion beyond it
We certainly look beyond an object when we draw conclusions from cause to effect
These statements form a main part of Hume’s argument against being able to make immediate objective empirical sense of how a cause could be connected to an effect.
In ‘of scepticism with regard to the senses Hume asks what causes induce us to believe in the 1)continued and 2)independent existence of body. He says these are two questions that are intimately connected, but which should be considered separately. I suggest that the reason we believe in the continued existence of body is because this gives an explanation of our environment in terms of objects we don’t have to draw conclusions beyond. Further more I claim we can make immediate objective sense of causal relations if we concentrate on how shapes and associated properties could continue into, or be found in, situations where occurrences equivalent to the properties are found. This means we are not trying to draw conclusions beyond objects or factors, as is claimed by Hume’s second quoted statement. Both explanations seem based on the principle that if we can avoid drawing conclusions beyond objects, or ‘factors’, as a situation develops, then since we don’t have to draw conclusions beyond them those objects or factors must themselves appear sufficient to produce the developments or states concerned. This, I claim, forms an absolute standard of explanation, which thus has an independent justification from whether it is how we normally do tend to try and factually explain and understand things.
The question 'whether we have to draw a conclusion beyond some state or object' is a different one from whether whatever we do or think may be ceratin, or probable. it can be considered seperately from any such consideration. Another range of Hume's arguements against knowledge of objective causes are based around the absence of any certainty that, for example, we know there must always be a cause for any change. But the above does not depend on certainty, so showing there is no certainty does not show the above is not possible, or that it does not in fact hold.
One state of affairs may necessitate another, without making it certain that there is any relationship between the 'two'. For there to be certainty we must not be able to imagine any other possibility--even in principle. But for there to be objective necessity, objectively some states must bring about some state where there is no way of stopping it. This seems quite compatible with our being able to imagine all sorts of other possibilities. (But, I am suspicious of this point, because it seems like drawing conclusions from the logical ideas of 'certainty' and 'necessity', which is just the sort of thing I don't like about much modern philosophy. As if these 'concepts' exist all ready in some sort of quasi Platonic state within our language. Instead I could say 'why should, or how could any object or factor that continues rule out any other relationships we might imagine between the various stages we can distinguish of 'it' by comparison with changes noticeable in the situation? a factors continuing would have nothing to do with such ruling out. So certainty and objective necessity don't mach up as at all the same thing.)
This judgement about whether we need to draw a conclusion beyond an object or factor has nothing to do with anyone’s intentions even if you must have the intention to judge this in order to make the judgement. Normally it is thought that objects come with significance and theoretical baggage, which is extra to what is experienced, but, if they are to be real in the sense that they produce what happens without going beyond them, so that they are themselves sufficient, we are not going beyond these objects. Following Hume it was thought that the theoretical content of ‘objects’ could not be derived from the experience of them, but nevertheless they came with this theoretical content, so what is experienced couldn’t be distinguished from ‘experience plus theoretical content’, so we get ‘intentional objects’, and experience as a state can’t be distinguished neat. And experience becomes intentional. Instead, we try to avoid drawing conclusions beyond objects. This objective is quite difficult. The difficulty makes us concentrate more closely on the factors in the environment we want to avoid drawing beyond, this distinguishes what we are experiencing, in the environment, more clearly. If we make progress with how to avoid going beyond the factors, like finding our way around an unfamiliar building, the orientation to the successive experiences required becomes more familiar, so we recognise more readily our train of experience as they continue, or how one part of the environment leads to another. But this ‘familiarity’ has to do with the continuation, or continuation of the conglomeration, of factors in the environment, it is not an element that must be added to them to find their reality. It is an increased ability to find their reality, when we could be doing all sorts of other things, and when that reality consists in not having to go beyond them.
To take the case of becoming familiar with a building or town again; first of all you don't know your way around a building, then various parts of it gradually become familiar, and it becomes familiar from each part which bits come next, but in all this "becoming familiar" the same parts are unfamiliar and then familiar, they don't change, otherwise we wouldn't gradually get familiar with the same building, and know it was the same building. We would have the unfamiliar, and familiar building, which would be to our experience two different buildings. Similarly with the duck/rabbit, we know its the same marks in each case, otherwise we wouldn't suppose we can see, the same thing, now as a duck now as a rabbit. This is how we can distinguish what is there from an interpretation of what is there. But sometimes an interpretation seems to be what is there, as with absolute space for example; noticing there is no such thing observable and how to avoid introducing it makes an advance in apparent objective understanding. It seems as though such advances in understanding require that we progress to a more sophisticated description of the subject. But on the contrary, we are getting rid of something we think must form part of 'our description of the subject', i.e. absolute space, but which can't be observed in the subject. Because it can't be observed this is a reason for saying it is a description added to the subject. So getting rid of it does not add a description to the subject, but sticks more faithfully to what can be found in the subject, without going beyond it. This is a reason for saying it REMOVES a level of description from the subject.
On the view that in order for some group of phenomena to explain some other phenomenon the first group must be themselves sufficient to produce the other phenomenon, and the way they can be that is if we don’t have to go beyond them to get the thus explained phenomenon; if mostly empty space interspersed with the odd atom is to be an adequate explanation of the solidity of my table it can’t be that the solidity of my table is “really” an illusion, because there is “really” only mostly empty space, with the odd atom. On the contrary there may be mostly empty space and the odd atom, but in such a way it leaves me with the property of my solid table exactly as if I always found it. This point seems similar to the analytical justification of logical deduction; just as in a valid logical deduction what is asserted in the conclusion cannot go beyond what is already found asserted in the premises, and if the premises are to be capable of validly sustaining a conclusion there can't be anything in the conclusion that isn't found combined within them, so also some things can't be said themselves to properly account for, or explain, something else unless it is shown how those explaining states can leave us with the explained state complete and entire. But whereas analytical logical deduction depends on what is 'contained in' the meaning of words and phrases, and would define all facts as essentially separate from each other, because we couldn't use any such fact as a premise and hope to find the idea of any other fact external to the first within it, without 'drawing our conclusion beyond the first', by making comparisons of objects in a situation we are not concentrating on anything overtly linguistic and could find that all the objects involved seem unaltered in themselves (as far as we can tell), and yet they can still make some various things that are conglomerations of them in a changed order, as with the ancient atomism, without anything new at the atomic level being involved. However, since what is required is a putting together of these (same old) factors in a new arrangement this would traditionally, following Kant, be classed as a 'synthetic' way of reaching a conclusion. What a muddle that seems!--first of all we have analytical deduction, with its supposed corresponding certainty, promoted to the ideal of reasoning, and so consequently to this every other form of reasoning must be thought faulty, and so in need of some other support. This support is found in the 'synthetic a-priori'. But if things aren't certain, this does not show they can't be necessary, and if things appear necessary, the way this appears to be the case does not mean the necessity requires any other support or justification. We can understand how a house is built from various windows and bricks etc. continuing in a spatial situation to the finished house, and how, if these things do continue (which isn't certain) to that configuration a house must result, but this does not mean that there must be something else involved in justifying these judgments than a comparison of the various factors, altogether, with the final result, or that, if it seems that we don't have to go beyond these factors to get the result that there is any justification to suppose that objectively there must be anything else involved than the continuation of these factors, to produce the house.--We have just landed ourselves with an unrealizable ideal of reasoning, the analytic (although like freewill this is useful up to a point), and an unnecessary layer of explanation, in the synthetic.
If factual explanation depends on a DN model, where a particular truth is subsumed under a general truth we must be able to regonsie instances as falling under that general truth. So we must be albe to recognise instances as similar to one another, but in that case we can use a particular instance A to explain some other particular instance B; B is what would happen if A, or something causally equivalent to A were placed in the B situation. This means we don’t need the general truth to explain things factually. But the general run of experience was supposed to supply a motivation from experience for having some attitude to a particular instance, as it is found in fact, or as it might be found. this is why the general case is supposed to be required. However another possible motivation for having the attitude to a particular instance that it can, or should, be used as a model for explaining other particular instances, even if we don't feel we understand it, can be realism; the contents of a situation are responsible (are themslves sufficient) to produce what occurs or results from it. if therefore we have two situations that appear indestinguishable, they should both produce the same results, or else there should be some difference between them after all.
Take for example fire. Niavely, where does fire come from, and where does it go to? Fire does not continue always the same but changes constantly. But once we have seen a fire, and noticed the effects with it, if we suppose it is a recognisable something in the situation, then if we can recognise it on a new occasion, it should have the same effects. If it doesn't have the same effects then there should be something different about it after all. This reasoning seems to suppose that fire is something in the objective situation that is involved with bringing about its effects. Even if we don't know how it does this, on the presumption that it is such a thing, we can understand what would happen, in some other situation if this state of affairs were present in it. This is consequently a way of making an induction to that new case. We don't need to understand how fire works in order to do this, and we don't need it to be universally true that something that looks similar to 'this' always acts in the same way in order to reason like this. Discovering cases where this doesn't happen, if that leads to closer investigation of them, so they become distinguishable after all, is another way of extending our knowledge and learning through these closely examined experiences. We need an experience of something we can recognise again, and if a similar effect doesn't follow, with an attitude of realism to the phenomona, this will raise a puzzle to try and distinguish in experience where a difference could be. Empiricism claims we can't make sense of how fire has its properties, or why we think, given another example it will have those properties. But we can make sense of how fire has its properties in the same way we can make sense of what would happen in a situation if there was a fire in it; that is we can annalise the constituents of a fire and see how they combine to produce a fire, just as we can annalise a situation into its various parts and see how fire contributes to the overall effects. There is nothing grand, metaphysical, or ultimate in this approach. It is an empiricle approach, intimately bound up with experience, but on a presumption of realism which motivates the further examination of situations. On this view, experiments are designed to distinguish the various parts of situations more clearly. They are not designed to try and raise a universal statistical truth, or probability for such a universal occurence of such a statistical conjunction. And the general view results from these examinations of the particular. Understanding of the particular is not something imposed form the general statistical case without any rout to that from the particular.
Feynman and Popper. Feynman said he thought he could make an analogy between anything and anything else, and such analogies were worthless, Popper complained about various pseudo sciences being able to describe everything in their preferred terms and so make them a case of the truth of their 'science'. But with the present attitude to experiences, we are not trying to describe them, we are comparing them to see if there is any difference. This is a critical attitude, not a creative attitude. Take for example the analogy between selection under domestication and selection in nature. It seems clear that if selection in nature is to have the required explanatory power it can't depend at all on the analogy between it and selection in domestication. All that the analogy can do is draw attention to what must be found in nature independently of any such analogy, if the theory is to be viable.
It seems a bit inconsistent to base explanation of an independent world on an ideology. If such an independent world exists, it can have nothing essentially to do with us or any ideology we may have, or what we may agree to be knowledge claims that are ‘in order’. How do you know this isn’t just what our culture accepts as being in order? This also does not explain how such an independent world might be possible, or how we could suppose such a thing exists independently of ourselves or any of our concerns. It is one thing to continually say that the world is independent, that you have ‘no problem’ with its independence, or that it must be independent etc. but another thing to show how to make sense of such a world.
If we try to avoid drawing conclusions beyond elements we experience this is different from trying to describe them, it is in fact antithical to placing any description on them. The only way of doing it will be by making comparisons. But these comparisons can’t be confused with making analogies between experiences because there is a difference apparent between the things of an analogy. Normally they involve what are taken to be different types of thing, but which are claimed to be in a sense similar, or suggestive of one another. Trying to avoid drawing conclusions beyond ‘factors’ cannot be concerned with anything that is only ‘in a sense similar’. Take for example an object that appears a different size at different distances, if it is to be the same object it can’t be in a sense similar. What is required is in going from ‘one’ to ‘the other’ we never have to go beyond the first one. There are some different ways of satisfying ourselves of this. For instance, if we move so that the putative object returns to the position it was previously it may return to its previous appearance, and so does not appear to have altered. Other surrounding items alter in the same way as our object, and return to their original state in the same way. There does not appear to be anything in the situation capable of producing the perceived alteration except the perceived difference in distance, but it is hard to see how that could make a real alteration in the object and change it back again, especially when others report no change if they travel with it.
There are several ways what we are doing might be said to involve a description, even though no such thing may be involved;
If we have two different ways of handling a subject, either may be called a description by comparison with the other. But this does not prove that either particular one does involve adding anything to the subject being handled. If all that is involved in one way of handling the subject are attempts to avoid going beyond factors in the subject, and supposing these attempts may be successful, more or less, then that way of handling the subject has not added anything to it, apparently. Nevertheless, by contrast with the alternative way of handling the subject it might still be referred to as ‘under that description’ or ‘by that way of describing the subject’, but this would carry an unnecessary implication.
Alternatively if whatever way we try to handle a subject there remains always the risk that it could be wrong, then in this sense it could be referred to as a description, or a possible description, even if there is no alternative ‘description’ known.
It may be that the plain man eventually comes to attempt to avoid drawing conclusions beyond objects in his understanding of his environment. Some of this may be due to instinct, some of it may be what he is driven to in attempts to adequately explain what happens. But he doesn’t have to do this. He can pray. He could take up tea leaf reading. The apparent point of trying to avoid drawing conclusions beyond objects is not that it falls in with the plain man’s view, but the plain man’s view does to a significant extent appear to fall in with and be a consequence of it.
It may be that everyone recognises such knowledge claims as Moore makes as in order, but that does not explain exactly what the claims amount to, and if what they amount to are claims about a essentially independent reality, or have such a claim associated, or embedded, in them, what that in turn can consist in or how it is possible.
Its going to be a difficult task to ‘describe’ advances in factual understanding as getting rid of things that seemed necessary to ‘describe’ the subject, e.g. epicycles in astronomy, or absolute space or time in kinematics. But then there is a cart coming to a stop when its no-longer pushed. Any alteration in position seems a change, so if we are trying to avoid change it might seem best to suppose the natural state of an object is rest. But we are trying to see how the contents of a situation explain/produce what happens. There is friction in the situation of a cart coming to rest, if we remove the friction, which is something, a factor, that can be noticed in the situation as it is experienced normally, if you look at it closely—I mean by this that if we take an abstract mathematical point of view and describe the situation from this point of view and from the point of view that rest is natural, it may be possible to ignore friction palpably involved in situations, when closely examined, but that is an unempirical approach and not what we are trying to do.—if we remove the friction, roughness of the axel, wind, roughness of the road, the cart comes to a stop more and more slowly, and in this way we can see how things in the situation are stopping the cart, so if we remove them, it shouldn’t stop. Then we can remove God from the apparent design in nature through natural selection; removing the apparent requirement for God shows the natural world as self sufficient, whereas previously it was thought to require something else, i.e. God. But as I say, it’s going to be a fairly difficult task showing how far advances in understanding seem to show our world to be more self sufficient, by not having to go beyond factors found in the situation. And so, since not going beyond factors found in the situation in our handling of it is in effect removing layers of (artificially added) descriptions from our handling of the situation. And any description of what we are up to in our attempts at understanding will be likewise a description amongst any number of other such descriptions, which has to be justified in terms of its convenience, pragmatic considerations etc. like any other, with no neutral standpoint outside such considerations from which it could be judged. But that is not true of this, my, approach, because the objective is to try and see how the contents of a situation could produce what happens in it themselves, independently of any consideration about ourselves or what we might find convenient, or like. This is done by trying to see how the contents of a situation could themselves be sufficient, which requires that we don’t have to draw conclusions beyond them. But sticking to them we can see how they would do it. Since this method is trying to depend entirely upon them, the contents of the situations, and not at all on us, it is trying to realise what would be an independent point of view. But since this point of view is not judged by certainty, it is judged by trying to avoid going beyond ‘objects’ and does not generate any certainty, it cannot be known, with any certainty that it is just that independent point of view we despaired of ever finding. It just apparently is such an independent point of view as far as we are successful with it.
The starting point of mathematics, or arithmetic is some sort of tally mark system. This is a system that seems useful for recording items and comparing groups and items recorded at the same or different times. This is made easier by replacing the tally marks with an ordered series of names. But in this way a basic use of arithmetic would be the comparing of things with themselves and each other. This sort of comparing is something required if we are to judge whether we have gone beyond factors in an environment.