Did Hume Define Causation Twice Over Suggesting That Causation Can Be Analysed Counterfactually?

In this paper I challenge the popular belief that Hume provided two different definitions of causation in the Enquiry—one in terms of regularity, the other in terms of counterfactuals—allegedly opening up the possibility of a counterfactual account of causation. I propose instead that Hume was merely stating what had been the received view about causation for centuries. The evidence in favour of this reading is that his two ‘wordings’ bear remarkable similarity to several definitions of causation offered by writers we can assume Hume was familiar with, such as Galileo Galilei, Spinoza, and Hobbes. The view these writers express, is that causes are necessary and sufficient for the production of effects, from which it follows that effects are counterfactually dependent on their causes. If this reading is correct, contemporary counterfactual accounts are not exploring a hitherto unnoticed connection between causation and counterfactual dependence, but instead exploring the converse of what the above writers suggest; the possibility of grounding causation in counterfactual dependence instead of the other way around.