ABSTRACT
A similar difficulty arises in connection with the category of cause (or Causation and Dependence). Although Hume conceded that the idea of causation is the idea of a necessary connection between events, he denied that this idea is what it appears to be. Since there are no necessary connections in nature or in our experience, we have no experience of a necessary connection and therefore, in a strict sense, no idea of a necessary connection either. On the other hand, if we have observed a constant conjunction between events of kind C and kind E, we will expect to observe one of kind E when we observe one of kind C, and the experience (or "impression") of expecting this will yield a corresponding idea, which will be joined to the idea of the constant conjunction between C and E. This resulting idea will be OUr non-strict idea of necessary connection between C and E.19 Clearly, it will not apply to an actual necessary connection. Kant did not agree with Hume that the necessity here is only apparent; as he saw it, the concept of a cause is applicable to x only if something y follows from x necessarily and in accordance with an absolutely universal rule.20 Since, like Hume, he thought it is impossible to prove empirically that something is a cause in this sense, he had to agree that the application of the concept cause to experience requires justification.
