COMMENTS ON ANGELA COVENTRY’S HUME’S THEORY OF CAUSATION: A QUASI-REALIST INTERPRETATION

Resumo

Angela Coventry addresses Hume’s solution to the problem of causation, which she, along with others, considers the most influential single contribution to the topic. The problem is here understood as: “[i] what we mean when we say that the cause brings about the effect and [ii] what is the nature of the connection between cause and effect” (p.2). She seeks the answer to these two questions in the Treatise, the Enquiries, and “Of the Standard of Taste”, in recent scholarly debate, and her own original intuitions. As a result, we are given a splendid book – coherent, consistent, and structured; entirely at ease with and well supported by the primary bibliography; wide reaching and inquisitive towards the secondary bibliography. Most importantly, the book not only offers a plausible solution, but also, by exploring the concept of ‘standard’ in the context of Hume’s philosophy, and drawing the character of a ‘delicate and practiced causalist’ renders the debate more refined, as well as more intriguing to all participants.