The Three Concepts Of Donald Davidson's Anomalous Monism

To strength his initial claim, he goes onto show that the baseball does not cause the actions of any of the atoms arranged to form the ball. This is a rejection of downward causation and an advocation for bottom-up metaphysics, according to which, “the final and complete causal stories will involve only the entities over which physics quantifies (pg.60) ”. A baseball is not an entity over which physics quantities, its atoms are; a such, it is clear that the baseball does not exercise downward causation upon their atoms. Nor is a baseball an intermediary in a causal chain, nor is a baseball a partial cause, alongside its atoms, of the windows shattering. From this, he argues that it is clear that his first premise is true, that is, the baseball

In the critique of pure reason, Kant states, “All alternations occur in accordance with the law of the connection of cause and effect.”1 This statement is interpreted in two different ways: weak readings and strong readings. The weak readings basically suggest that Kant's statement only refer to “All events have a cause”; however, the strong readings suggest that “the Second Analogy is committed not just to causes, but to causal laws as well.”2 To understand the difference between the readings, it is helpful to notice Kant's distinction between empirical laws of nature and universal transcendental principles. Empirical laws have an empirical element that universal transcendental principles cannot imply. On the other hand, empirical experiences require necessity to become a law, accordingly, “the transcendental laws “ground” the empirical laws by supplying them with their necessity.”3In this paper, according to this distinction, I first, argue that the second analogy supports the weak reading, second, show how in Prolegomena he uses the concept of causation in a way that is compatible to the strong reading, and third, investigate whether this incongruity is solvable.

The mind-body problem is an age-old topic in philosophy that questions the relationship between the mental aspect of life, such as the field of beliefs, pains, and emotions, and the physical side of life which deals with matter, atoms, and neurons. There are four concepts that each argue their respective sides. For example, Physicalism is the belief that humans only have a physical brain along with other physical structures, whereas Idealism argues that everything is mind-based. Furthermore, Materialism argues that the whole universe is purely physical. However, the strongest case that answers the commonly asked questions such as “Does the mind exist?” and “Is the mind your brain?” is Dualism.

One of the most talked about concepts of philosophy is that of the mind-body problem. In short, the mind-body problem is the relationship between the mind and the body. Specifically, it’s the connection between our mental realm of thoughts, including beliefs, ideas, sensations, emotions, and our physical realm, the actual matter of which we are made up of the atoms, neurons. The problem comes when we put the emphasis on mind and body. Are the mind and body one physical thing, or two separate entities. Two arguments have stood amongst the rest, Interactionism and physicalism. Interactionism claims that mind and matter are two separate categories with a casual integration between the two. By contrast, physicalism draws from the idea that all aspects of the human body are under one physical being, there are no nonphysical connections that come into play. While both state a clear and arguable statement regarding mind-body problem, Interactionism gives a more plausible answer to the mind-body problem because although it may seem like we are tied as one, our minds have a subconscious that influence our thoughts, actions, ideas, and beliefs, which is completely independent from the realm of our physical matter.

Now in order for this to be cognized as determined, the relation between the two states must be thought in such a way that it is thereby necessarily determined which of them must be placed before and which after rather than vice versa. The concept, however, that carries a necessity of synthetic unity with it can only be a pure concept of understanding, which does not lie in the perception, and that is here the concept of the relation of cause and effect, the former of which determines the latter in time, as its consequence, and not as something that could merely precede in the imagination (or not even be perceived at all). Therefore, it is only because we subject the sequence of the appearances and thus all alteration to the law of causality that experience itself, i.e., empirical cognition of them, is possible; consequently they themselves, as objects of experience, are possible only in accordance with this law.”(B233-234)

Consequently, there’s no need to introduce a mental event in order to solve the mind and body problem, and the dualistic interactionism is debatable. Second, materialists argue that from everyday experiences, the systematic coincidence is rare. Thus, if there’s a systematic wide-spreading multi-causing coincidence, dualists need to explain that. Yet, dualists can’t give an explanation about that. Therefore, the dualistic interactionism is problematic.

Anomalous monism is a theory that attempts to explain the mind – body dualist view. Donald Davidson coined the term and is the most notable contributor behind its inception. The theory has two major points that it addresses. Firstly that mental events and interactions produce physical events. Secondly, that mental events do not abide by physical laws or guidelines. We will look at Davidson’s theory in detail as well as explore his defensive arguments throughout the course of this paper.

Examining all three premises together Davidson argues “...Anomalous monism: monism because it holds that psychological events are physical events, anomalous, because it insists that events do not fall under strict laws when described in psychological terms” (davidson2).

The mind is a complex myriad of thoughts and psychological systems that even philosophers today cannot entirely grapple. It is composed of the senses, feelings, perceptions, and a whole series of other components. However, the mind is often believed to be similar or even the same as the brain. This gives rise to the mind-brain identity theory, and whether there exists a clear distinction between the physical world and the non-material mind. In this paper, I will delineate the similarities and differences between mind and brain, describe the relevant ideas such as functionalism and materialism, and provide explanations on how these theories crystallized. Further, I will discuss the differing views of this concept from multiple philosophers’ perspectives and highlight the significance of each. Ultimately, I will defend the view that the mind-brain identity theory is false by analyzing its errors and examining the invalid assumptions it makes about consciousness.

This paper focuses on the ideas of David Hume and his work concerning cause and effect. Firstly, I am going to explain impressions and ideas and why we cannot have the idea of power. Secondly, I am going to explain why Hume declares that there is a perception necessary connection between events. Thirdly, I will explain Hume’s definitions of causation and the conclusion he cones up with that states that cause is the conjunction that reinforces our ideas. Fourthly, I will point out that Hume’s idea of necessary connection has altered the causation debate. Lastly, I will raise two objections that question that viability of his causality argument.

ABSTRACT: Many philosophers have lost their enthusiasm for the concept of supervenience in the philosophy of mind. This is largely due to the fact that, as Jaegwon Kim has shown, familiar versions of supervenience describe relations of mere property covariation without capturing the idea of dependence. Since the dependence of the mental on the physical is a necessary requirement for even the weakest version of physicalism, it would seem that existing forms of supervenience cannot achieve that for which they were designed. My aim is to revive the concept of supervenience. I argue that if we construe supervenience along Davidsonian lines — as a relation connecting predicates rather than properties —

For example, in the event of a cue ball colliding with another ball, causing it to change location, every thinking and perceiving human would reasonably see the necessary connection between cause and effect without having known the details of Newton’s 3rd law. The perceived nature of this event is cognized on the basis that our fundamental conditions allow for the concept of causation to be firmly entrenched a priori. The idea of causation is not provided by empirical data, but rather empirical data in

He acknowledges that there are a great deal of possible ways that we could assign our native language to the language and behavior of another to come about an understanding. He relates this to the measurement of weight in the sense that no matter what system you use for measurement; kilograms, pounds ounces, etc., the invariable factor, in this case the actual weight of the object, is the fact of the matter, not the arbitrary units of measure. His point is that there will likely always be indeterminacy in our translations, but we will often get the general idea. He also believes that there are no strict laws that connect mental states with physical ones, stating that such laws can exist “only when concepts connected by the laws are based on criteria of the same sort” (Davidson, pg. 215).

Ryle argues that, according to the traditional theory of the mind, mental acts are regarded as causing and

Act and potency and their distinction are an important and fundamental theory in philosophy. It helps approach questions in metaphysics concerning substance, essence, and causation. In this essay, I will be using this theory of act and potency to show how the four causes and the theory relate to each other. Thus, the four causes: formal cause, material cause, efficient cause, and final cause are related to each other and can be explained through the theory and concepts of act and potency.