ABSTRACT
In his main work Michotte has attem pted to study the impressions which we have of causality, and to this he has added further work on our impressions of purpose, reality and substantiality (for details of which see Vernon, op. cit., Chapter 9). In his work he has stood out in opposition to philosophers like Hume, who denied th a t we have any impressions of causality and asserted th a t the necessity which we attribute to causal connections is due to an idea in the mind which accompanies certain features of the events which we take as cause and effect-notably their constant conjunction. Michotte interprets this as saying th a t we have no immediate impression of causality, but he takes the word ‘impression’ to be used in its ordinary sense and not in Hume’s more technical sense. Because Hume used psychological terms there is some excuse
for thinking th a t he was talking psychology, but I think th a t it is truer to say th a t he was attem pting to provide an analysis of our notion of ‘cause5. Hume’s thesis is compatible with the thesis th a t in some sense of the word ‘impression5, we do have an impression of causality, bu t the main purpose of his investigation was not to pursue phenomenology; he was not primarily concerned with how things appear to us. When, however, Michotte says th a t our impressions of causality are immediate, he implies th a t there is no question of learning th a t the phenomena are causally connected. This seems to conflict with Hume’s demand for constant conjunction, and indeed with our ordinary beliefs on the m atter. Michotte’s position, then, is th a t under conditions which he has investigated we see one thing as causing effects in another, and in this we make no interpretations and no use in any way of past experience. For the perception is direct and immediate.
