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Full Idea
If mental events are causally efficacious only by virtue of their physical features and not their mental ones, …then anomalous monism leads straight to ephiphenomenalism.
Gist of Idea
Denial of purely mental causation will lead to epiphenomenalism
Source
Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 7.6)
Book Ref
Maslin,Keith: 'An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind' [Polity 2001], p.203
A Reaction
As epiphenomenalism strikes me as being incoherent (see Idea 7379), what this amounts to is that either mental effects are causally efficacious, or they are not worth mentioning. I take them to be causally efficacious because they are brain events.
Related Idea
Idea 7379 If an epiphenomenon has no physical effects, it has to be undetectable [Dennett]
| 3517 | 'Ontology' means 'study of things which exist' [Maslin] |
| 3518 | I'm not the final authority on my understanding of maths [Maslin] |
| 3540 | If we are brains then we never meet each other [Maslin] |
| 3520 | Token-identity removes the explanatory role of the physical [Maslin] |
| 3523 | Shadows are supervenient on their objects, but not reducible [Maslin] |
| 3525 | Strict laws make causation logically necessary [Maslin] |
| 3528 | Causality may require that a law is being followed [Maslin] |
| 3527 | Strict laws allow no exceptions and are part of a closed system [Maslin] |
| 3530 | Denial of purely mental causation will lead to epiphenomenalism [Maslin] |
| 3538 | Analogy to other minds is uncheckable, over-confident and chauvinistic [Maslin] |