Lori Marlene Nash

Commentators generally agree that the Second Analogy of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is meant to be an answer to Hume’s problem of causality. But because there is not agreement about how many principles of causality Hume attacks, there is not agreement about which principle of causality the Second Analogy is meant to address. Some commentators believe that Hume attacks the principle that whatever begins to exist must have a cause. Others claim that Hume attacks the principle that similar causes produce similar effects. In this paper, I examine two interpretations of Kant’s answer to Hume. The first is Henry Allison’s defense of Kant’s response to Hume as presented in _Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defence_. The second is Arthur Lovejoy’s critique of Kant as presented in “On Kant’s Reply to Hume.” I argue that even though Allison is successful in defeating some of Lovejoy’s attacks on Kant, he fails to defend him against the destructive non-sequitur charge. The problem with Allison’s interpretation, I argue, is that it does not maintain a transcendentally idealistic framework. Moreover, it fails to take into account Kant’s assertion that the concept of causality is both necessary and universal. I offer an interpretation of the Second Analogy that avoids the slide into transcendental realism. I argue that the purpose of the Second Analogy is to establish the law of universal and uniform causation and that Kant’s proof of this principle is not subject to Lovejoy’s non-sequitur charge.