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Full Idea
Our inference of like effects from like causes is so essential to the subsistence of human creatures that it is unlikely to be trusted to the fallacious deductions of reasoning, which are slow, develop late, and are liable to error.
Gist of Idea
Our awareness of patterns of causation is too important to be left to slow and uncertain reasoning
Source
David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], V.II.45)
Book Ref
Hume,David: 'Enquiries Conc. Human Understanding, Morals', ed/tr. Selby-Bigge/Nidditch [OUP 1975], p.55
| 2212 | An object made by a saint is the best way to produce thoughts of him [Hume] |
| 2214 | Our awareness of patterns of causation is too important to be left to slow and uncertain reasoning [Hume] |
| 14870 | We experience causation between willing and acting, and thereby explain conjunctions of changes [Nietzsche] |
| 8329 | Either causal relations are given in experience, or they are unobserved and theoretical [Sosa/Tooley] |
| 4769 | It is hard to analyse causation, if it is presupposed in our theory of the functioning of the mind [Psillos] |
| 17527 | Causation seems to be an innate concept (or acquired very early) [Bird] |