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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] |