more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
In the seventeenth century the dominant idea that causation is collisionlike made mental causation almost impossible to envision.
Gist of Idea
In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible
Source
Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.136)
Book Ref
Flanagan,Owen: 'The Problem of the Soul' [Basic Books 2003], p.136
A Reaction
Interesting. This makes Descartes' interaction theory look rather bold, and Leibniz's and Malebranche's rejection of it understandable. Personally I still think of causation as collisionlike, except that the collisions are of very very tiny objects.
| 4862 | Can the pineal gland be moved more slowly or quickly by the mind than by animal spirits? [Spinoza on Descartes] |
| 5606 | Freedom and natural necessity do not contradict, as they relate to different conditions [Kant] |
| 2622 | Can one movement have a mental and physical cause? [Ryle] |
| 2318 | Agency, knowledge, reason, memory, psychology all need mental causes [Kim, by PG] |
| 3392 | Mind is only interesting if it has causal powers [Kim] |
| 3396 | Experiment requires mental causation [Kim] |
| 3397 | Beliefs cause other beliefs [Kim] |
| 4887 | We try to cause other things to occur by causing mental events to occur [Perry] |
| 7864 | Maybe mind and body do overdetermine acts, but are linked (for some reason) [Papineau] |
| 6120 | Causation depends on intrinsic properties [Mellor/Crane] |
| 5346 | In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible [Flanagan] |
| 4618 | If minds are realised materially, it looks as if the material laws will pre-empt any causal role for mind [Heil] |