Michael Pruess
												Philosophy 25B
												5/05/09
												Th 10-11 Section
Things Happen. In order.

“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
- Rita Mae Brown
	In Section II of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume attempts to prove the proposition that it is "impossible for us to think of any thing, which we have not antecedently felt," that is, that we cannot have ideas of things which we have not experienced, or which are not comprised of things we have experienced. Building off of this proposition in Section VII, Hume goes on to launch an attack against our ability to understand "necessary connection"—some power or quality, as he puts it, "which binds the effect to the cause." After explaining how we are able to understand things, he shows us very simply that it is impossible to understand necessary connection.
	On page 41, Hume goes over some basic mechanics of understanding: 

"By what invention can we throw light upon these ideas, and render them altogether precise and determinate to our intellectual view? Produce the impressions or original sentiments, from which the ideas are copied."
Hume claims, in Section II, that we can't have an idea of heat until we have felt it. Now, given given the above quotation, he is indicating that in order to "throw light upon" or understand heat, we must examine that original feeling. He seems to be saying that unless we can recollect impressions of something, we cannot know it. He makes sure to cover both "external [and] internal senses" when he says that we can only think of things we've felt, so this applies equally to heat and emotions, and, in theory, anything we are capable of knowing. If we can't feel it, we can't truly know it exists or understand it. 
	Still on page 41, Hume continues on to say that in order to become "fully acquainted" (that is, to understand) the idea of necessary connection, we must examine the associated original impression. The reasoning here is fairly simple: given that we have ideas of things that we feel, we must have felt necessary connection in order to have an understanding of it. In the space of a few succinct sentences, Hume explains what it is that we feel when we see a causal relationship between two things, his example being that of a billiard ball hitting another. To our external senses, he says, all there is is one billiard ball hitting another and then that other ball moving—we see one thing happen and then another thing happen, but we don't see or hear or feel anything else: necessary connection is not tangible. Our internal senses provide even less data: none. "The mind feels no sentiment or inward impression from this succession of objects."
	If we form ideas of things by copying impressions of them, and if we feel necessary connection neither externally nor internally when observing causal relationships, then how could we possibly have an idea of necessary connection? Hume's response is simple: we can't. "Consequentially," he writes, "there is not [...] any thing which can suggest the idea of [...] necessary connection." His conclusion is blunt and, bluntly, convincing. It is true that when I observe one thing "causing" another I do not sense "causation." 
	The only objection I can come up with is based on experience and experimentation. Because the second billiard ball has always moved, I might think that it will always move, and that it will be moving because the first will be hitting it. If this always happens, then I might be justified in believing that the impact from the collision is what causes the second ball to move. However, as Hume argues elsewhere in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, I can't know that it always happens; inductive reasoning is fallacious because the future doesn't need to be similar to the past (inductive reasoning only makes sense, according to Hume, if the future is similar to the past, which can only be concluded through inductive reasoning). If inductive reasoning doesn't work, then I can't very easily rely on my experiences or on the scientific method of experimentation to show that necessary connection exists. I've always felt it had to, given my experience and experimentation, but Hume dismisses that feeling as nonsense, and I'm convinced.
	David Hume concisely explains that we only have ideas of things we've felt and that, as we can't feel necessary connection, we have no way of understanding it. I can only contest his conclusion that necessary connection is beyond us by using inductive reasoning, which he dismisses earlier in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. While I've always subscribed to Rita Mae Brown's saying of insanity being "doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results"—a saying that is counter to Hume's belief that we can never know what the future has in store with us—I find myself convinced by Hume's line of argument.