ABSTRACT When Hume, in the Treatise on Human Nature, began his examination of the relation of cause and effect, in particular, of the idea of necessary connection which is its essential constituent, he identified two preliminary questions that should guide his research: (1) For what reason we pronounce it necessary that every thing whose existence has a beginning should also have a cause and (2) Why we conclude that such particular causes must necessarily have such particular effects? (1.3.2, 14-15) Hume observes that our belief in these principles can result neither from an intuitive grasp of their truth nor from a reasoning that could establish them by demonstrative means. In particular, with respect to the first, Hume examines and rejects some arguments with which Locke, Hobbes and Clarke tried to demonstrate it, and suggests, by exclusion, that the belief that we place on it can only come from experience. Somewhat surprisingly, however, Hume does not proceed to show how that derivation of experience could be made, but proposes instead to move directly to an examination of the second principle, saying that, "perhaps, be found in the end, that the same answer will serve for both questions" (1.3.3, 9). Hume's answer to the second question is well known, but the first question is never answered in the rest of the Treatise, and it is even doubtful that it could be, which would explain why Hume has simply chosen to remove any mention of it when he recompiled his theses on causation in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Given this situation, an interesting question that naturally arises is to investigate the relations of logical or conceptual implication between these two principles. Hume seems to have thought that an answer to (2) would also be sufficient to provide an answer to (1). Henry Allison, in his turn, argued (in Custom and Reason in Hume, p. 94-97) that the two questions are logically independent. My proposal here is to try to show that there is indeed a logical dependency between them, but the implication is, rather, from (1) to (2). If accepted, this result may be particularly interesting for an interpretation of the scope of the so-called "Kant's reply to Hume" in the Second Analogy of Experience, which is structured as a proof of the a priori character of (1), but whose implications for (2) remain controversial.

Das diversas teorias da causação existentes em nossos dias, Hume pode ser considerado o precursor de duas das mais influentes e aceitas: a teoria regularista, formulada claramente pela primeira vez por Thomas Brown, em 1822, e a teoria contrafatualista, proposta por David Lewis em 1973. Depois de um breve resumo dos méritos e dificuldades comparativos dessas duas perspectivas, passo a examinar se o tratamento de Hume da causação corresponde, na verdade a algum deles. Mostro que a sua primeira definição de causa, juntamente com suas regras para julgar sobre as causas e efeitos, contém elementos que, devidamente desenvolvidos, permitem-nos abordar com sucesso algumas dificuldades tradicionais da visão de regularista da causação sem recorrer aos recursos conceituais empregados na abordagem contrafatualista. Podemos, portanto, classificar corretamente Hume como um defensor da maneira de conceber a causação como regularidade, observando, porém, que o principal objetivo de sua pesquisa e definições do conceito foi o de fornecer, não tanto uma análise de causação, como tal, mas da causação tal como nós a apreendemos, como nossa capacidade de fazer inferências causais e refiná-las para alcançar os raciocínios causais mais sofisticados que são necessárias nas questões teóricas e práticas da vida.

Of the several theories of causation current in our days, Hume is said to be the inspiration of two of the most influential and accepted: the regularity theory, first clearly formulated by Thomas Brown in 1822, and the counterfactual theory, proposed by David Lewis in 1973. After a brief outline of the comparative merits and difficulties of these two views, I proceed to examine whether Hume's own treatment of causation actually corresponds to any of them. I will show that his first definition of cause, coupled with his rules by which to judge about causes and effects, contains elements that, properly developed, allow us to address successfully some traditional difficulties of the regularity view of causation, without resorting to the conceptual resources employed in the counterfactual approach. Therefore, we can properly classify Hume as an advocate of the conception of causation as regularity, noting however that his primary goal in his research and definitions of the concept was to provide not so much an analysis of causation as such, but of causation as we apprehend it, in the form of our ability to make causal inferences and refine them to reach the more sophisticated causal reasonings that are required in the theoretical and practical issues of life.

Ao ler o Contrato social de Rousseau, tendemos a nos concentrar em seu objetivo explícito, que é o de investigar e estabelecer uma regra de administração legítima e segura para uma comunidade política individual. Em conformidade com o próprio caráter abstrato da obra, somos levados a ver essa comunidade como alguma coisa pré-existente e isolada, sem perguntar o que já havia inicialmente de comum a esses indivíduos que decidem submeter-se à regra de sua vontade geral, e como esse corpo político assim constituído se relaciona com os que não são eles mesmos, mas "os outros", isto é, com as demais sociedades com as quais terá inevitavelmente de conviver. Tais questões tinham grande importância para Rousseau, e só o caráter fragmentário e inconcluso do Contrato social explica por que não receberam o tratamento aprofundado que lhes seria devido. Pretendo, em minha exposição, explorar alguns aspectos das soluções que Rousseau deixou esboçadas em outras obras, especialmente no Emílio e em seu Extrato e Julgamento, do projeto de paz perpétua do Abbé de Saint-Pierre, e que apontam para uma compreensão muito lúcida do problema das relações entre as nações, e para uma solução que tem, surpreendentemente, muito em comum com a que propôs, no Contrato social, para a questão das relações entre indivíduos. Pretendo mostrar que há, em Rousseau, o gérmen de uma concepção das relações internacionais que não as reduz ao mero jogo de forças proposto pelo "realismo" hobbesiano e, ao mesmo tempo, viabiliza a convivência civilizada e regulada, sem impor a uniformidade de valores e perspectivas característica do cosmopolitismo kantiano.

When we read Rousseau's Social Contract, we tend to focus on its explicit goal, which is to investigate and establish a safe and legitimate rule of administration for a single political community. In accordance with the abstract character of the work, we tend to see this community as something pre-existing and isolated, without asking what those individuals who decide to submit to the rule of his general will had initially in common, and how the political body thus formed is related to those who are not they themselves, but "the others", i.e., with other societies among which they will inevitably have to live. Such issues were of great importance to Rousseau, and only the fragmentary and inconclusive nature of the Social Contract explains why they did not receive the detailed treatment that would be due to them. In this paper I intend to explore some aspects of the solutions Rousseau left sketched elsewhere, especially in Emile and in the Extract and Judgment of the the Abbé de Saint-Pierre's project of perpetual peace, which point to Rousseau's very lucid understanding of the problem of relations between nations, and to a solution that has, surprisingly, much in common with the one that he proposed, in the Social Contract, to the problem of relations between individuals. I Intend to show that there is, in Rousseau, the germ of a conception of international relations that do not reduce them to the mere play of forces proposed by Hobbesian "realism" and, at the same time, allows a regulated and civilized coexistence without imposing the uniformity of values and perspectives characteristic of Kantian cosmopolitanism.