Donald Davidson's position, set out in his 1970 paper Mental Events, that every mental event is token-identical to some physical event, so that monism is true, while no strict psychophysical laws link mental and physical event-types, so that the mental is anomalous, lawless when described in mental vocabulary. Davidson argues for this from the interdependence of the principle of causal interaction between mind and body, the principle that causally related events fall under strict laws, and the anomalism of the mental, the claim that no strict laws connect mental and physical predicates. The position lets Davidson affirm physicalism without reductionism, at the cost of denying mental properties any strict causal-explanatory laws of their own.
Facts
Origin YearDonald Davidson, Mental Events, in Experience and Theory (1970). Connections
Associated With
Source Anomalous Monism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
In Branch
Sources
1. Anomalous Monism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Anomalous Monism
Anomalous Monism is a theory about the scientific status of psychology, the physical status of mental events, and the relation between these issues developed by Donald Davidson.
Anomalous Monism, bibliography citation Davidson 1970
Davidson 1970
- Associated With: Donald Davidson
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.