How Does Hume Argue that there Is No Such Thing as Cause and Effect?

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Hume doesn’t claim that there is no necessary connection between cause and effect; he claims that we do not and cannot know what it is because we can only know empirically ascertainable facts and a small number of relations of ideas known a priori.

Hume argues that the“power” effecting any cause-and-effect relation is permanently concealed from human observation, so it cannot be known empirically.

Neither can the “power” of cause-and-effect be a relation of ideas because, if it were, then the negation of any proposition asserting it would produce a contradiction.

An example of a proposition asserting a cause-and-effect relation might be “Exposure to sunlight causes skin cancer.” The negation of that proposition may be true or false, but it is not a contradiction: “Exposure to sunlight does not cause skin cancer.”

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So, according to Hume, if the cause-and-effect relation is neither a matter of empirical fact, nor a relation of ideas, then it is not an object of human cognition.

In a position that looks oddly similar to Kant’s, Hume claims that we supply the “power” of the cause-and-effect relation ourselves and call it “custom” or “habit.”

In making such a claim, Hume acknowledges the existence of “power,” but dogmatically asserts that it lies forever beyond human understanding.