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Full Idea
Davidson's anomalous monism says that events are causes, so we can identify mental and physical events without having to identify their properties.
Clarification
'Anomalous monism' means 'one substance which is a misfit within natural laws'
Gist of Idea
Anomalous monism says causes are events, so the mental and physical are identical, without identical properties
Source
report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Tim Crane - Elements of Mind 2.18
Book Ref
Crane,Tim: 'Elements of Mind' [OUP 2001], p.62
A Reaction
As Fodor insists, a thing like a mountain has properties at different levels of description. We can have 'property dualism' and full-blown reductive identity.
| 2307 | Anomalous monism says nothing at all about the relationship between mental and physical [Davidson, by Kim] |
| 5497 | Mind is outside science, because it is humanistic and partly normative [Davidson, by Lycan] |
| 4081 | Anomalous monism says causes are events, so the mental and physical are identical, without identical properties [Davidson, by Crane] |
| 2321 | If rule-following and reason are 'anomalies', does that make reductionism impossible? [Davidson, by Kim] |
| 3404 | Davidson claims that mental must be physical, to make mental causation possible [Davidson, by Kim] |
| 3963 | There are no strict psychophysical laws connecting mental and physical events [Davidson] |
| 3961 | Obviously all mental events are causally related to physical events [Davidson] |
| 3965 | Mental entities do not add to the physical furniture of the world [Davidson] |
| 2597 | Contrary to the 'anomalous monist' view, there may well be intentional causal laws [Fodor] |
| 7858 | If causes are basic particulars, this doesn't make conscious and physical properties identical [Papineau] |
| 6121 | There are many psychophysicals laws - about the effects of sweets, colours and soft cushions [Mellor/Crane] |
| 5339 | Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them [Flanagan] |
| 3530 | Denial of purely mental causation will lead to epiphenomenalism [Maslin] |