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Full Idea
The concept of cause is what holds together our picture of the universe, a picture that would otherwise disintegrate into a diptych of the mental and the physical.
Gist of Idea
Cause unites our picture of the universe; without it, mental and physical will separate
Source
Donald Davidson (Intro to 'Essays on Actions and Events' [1980], p.xi)
Book Ref
Davidson,Donald: 'Essays on Actions and Events' [OUP 1982], p.-6
A Reaction
Davidson seems to be the one who put mental causation at the centre of philosophy. By then denying that there are any 'psycho-physical' laws, he seems to me to have re-opened the metaphysical gap he says he was trying to close.
| 14042 | The soul cannot be incorporeal, because then it could neither act nor be acted upon [Epicurus] |
| 20816 | A body is required for anything to have causal relations [Zeno of Citium, by Cicero] |
| 3941 | How can that which is unthinking be a cause of thought? [Berkeley] |
| 22100 | Experienced time means no two mental moments are ever alike [Bergson] |
| 6383 | Cause unites our picture of the universe; without it, mental and physical will separate [Davidson] |
| 6620 | Davidson sees identity as between events, not states, since they are related in causation [Davidson, by Lowe] |
| 3438 | Reductionists deny new causal powers at the higher level [Kim] |
| 3440 | Without reductionism, mental causation is baffling [Kim] |
| 7856 | It is absurd to think that physical effects are caused twice, so conscious causes must be physical [Papineau] |
| 4073 | Overdetermination occurs if two events cause an effect, when each would have caused it alone [Crane] |
| 7012 | If a car is a higher-level entity, distinct from its parts, how could it ever do anything? [Heil] |
| 4596 | The appeal of the identity theory is its simplicity, and its solution to the mental causation problem [Heil] |
| 2535 | The main argument for physicalism is its simple account of causation [Sturgeon] |