Abstract

Hume's lengthy analysis of the concept of causation ultimately results in two troublesome definitions of "cause". While universally acknowledged to be intensionally distinct, the question of the extensional equivalence of these definitions has been the subject of much debate. Because the judgements of various commentators regarding the status of these definitions have played a key role in subsequent attempts to interpret Hume's account of the cause/effect relation, it is important to Hume scholarship to attempt a resolution of this issue. ;I contend that Hume's definitions are extensionally equivalent and consequently that they ought both be taken seriously as intensionally distinct explicit definitions of "cause". This thesis is defended by appealing to an idealist interpretation of the term "object" as it is employed in Hume's definitions. Such an interpretation is justified on the basis of Hume's general theory of ideas and his views on meaning and definition which derive from it. The primary implication of this thesis is that there is no single "official" Humean theory of causation