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Full Idea
There are no strict psychophysical laws (that is, laws connecting mental events under their mental descriptions with physical events under their physical descriptions).
Clarification
'Strict' laws allow no exceptions
Gist of Idea
There are no strict psychophysical laws connecting mental and physical events
Source
Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231)
Book Ref
'A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind', ed/tr. Guttenplan,Samuel [Blackwell 1995], p.231
A Reaction
This is clearly open to question. It may be just that no human mind could ever grasp such laws, given their probable complexity.
| 3965 | Mental entities do not add to the physical furniture of the world [Davidson] |
| 3960 | There are no such things as minds, but people have mental properties [Davidson] |
| 3964 | If the mind is an anomaly, this makes reduction of the mental to the physical impossible [Davidson] |
| 3961 | Obviously all mental events are causally related to physical events [Davidson] |
| 3963 | There are no strict psychophysical laws connecting mental and physical events [Davidson] |
| 3966 | The correct conclusion is ontological monism combined with conceptual dualism [Davidson] |
| 3962 | Cause and effect relations between events must follow strict laws [Davidson] |
| 3969 | There are no ultimate standards of rationality, since we only assess others by our own standard [Davidson] |
| 3968 | Propositions explain nothing without an explanation of how sentences manage to name them [Davidson] |
| 3967 | Absence of all rationality would be absence of thought [Davidson] |
| 3970 | Thought is only fully developed if we communicate with others [Davidson] |
| 3971 | There is simply no alternative to the 'principle of charity' in interpreting what others do [Davidson] |
| 3972 | Truth and objectivity depend on a community of speakers to interpret what they mean [Davidson] |
| 3973 | Without a teacher, the concept of 'getting things right or wrong' is meaningless [Davidson] |
| 3974 | Our meanings are partly fixed by events of which we may be ignorant [Davidson] |