Donald Davidson’s Mental Events, challenges how we discuss mind-body interactions. The thesis presented by Davidson, is that of Anomalous Monism, which attempts to answer the causality of mental and physical events. Differing from forms of the more common Dualism, Davidson accepts monism as the best way to describe the mind-body relationship. Meaning he accepts token identity and rejects type-identity. Davidson’s argument consists of three key principles. The first being the Principle of Causal Interaction which states that at least some mental events interact causally with physical events. The second is the Principle of the Nomological Character of Causality, where there is causality there must be law (Deterministic law). The third is…show more content… Essentially, he is saying that the mental-physical relationship is dependent on an identity that is not connected by psycho-physical laws but on the properties of the two terms. Thus, The Principle of Causal Interaction states that at least some mental events interact causally with physical events. Therefore, the principle is saying that some mental events do not causally interact with physical ones, which differentiates Anomalous monism from other theories on psycho-physical causation.
The Principle of the Nomological Character of Causality, is Davidson’s second principle for Anomalous monism. As we review the next two principles we will run into many seemingly contradicting points that can be argued in favor anEd against Davidson’s Anomalous monism. The second principle states that, where there is causality, there must be law: events related as cause and effect fall under strict deterministic laws. Right away we can recognize the contradiction with the first principle of causal interaction. According to the first principle of casual interaction there are no psycho-physical laws in which we can define mental and physical term, but in the second principle it relies on strict deterministic laws. The principles appear to begin to contradict each other but Davidson depend on his specific explanations to make sense of his seemingly opposing
