Evidence and Causality (Hume)

Believed fact: what is believed to be true
Evidential fact: the fact that it is supposed provides evidence, or reason to believed the believed fact.

Hume claims that the believed fact and the evidential fact are related through a supposed causal connection.

"All reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be founded on the relations of Cause and Effect ... If you were to ask any man, why he believes any matter of fact, which is absent ... he would give you are reason; and this reason would be some other fact ... And here it is constantly supposed that there is a connection between the present fact [what I call the "evidential fact"] and that which is inferred from it [which I call the "believed fact"].... If we anatomize [i.e., analyze] all the ... reasonings of this nature, we shall find that they are founded on the relation of cause and effect ..." (IP3 108af)

Three cases:

  1. The believed fact causes the evidential fact.
  2. The evidential fact causes the believed fact.
  3. The believed fact and evidential fact are collateral effects of the same cause.


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Richard Lee, rlee@uark.edu, last modified: 3 November 2004