Trivializing the Problems with the 'Causal Efficacy' of Mental Events

シンテキ デキゴト ノ インガテキ コウリョク オ メグル イチレン ノ モンダイ オ サマツカ スル

カシワバタ, タツヤ

Kashiwabata, Tatsuya

オオサカ ダイガク ニンゲン カガクブ シャカイガク ニンゲンガク ジンルイガク ケンキュウシツ

英語

非法則的一元論

心的因果性

因果的説明

Donald Davidson

anomalous monism

mental causation

causal explanation

Donald Davidson's "anomalous monism" has been faced with the criticisms that according to his theory, mental events cannot be causally efficacious with respect to their alleged effects. In this paper, I will show that these kind of criticisms are irrelevant by arguing the following points: (i) In this context what 'causal efficacy' means is no more than the explanatory power of the mental descriptions of events in the causal explanation. So the problem is whether anomalous monism allows for the mental descriptions of events to have such explanatory power. (ii) But anomalous monism does not deny the causal explanatory power of the mental. That is, anomalous monism is not inconsistent with the fact that the mental descriptions of events to have such explanatory work. (iii) Further, it is not the duty of anomalous monism to answer the question why the mental can causally-explanatorily work. We must distingush what is the premise of a theory from what the theory explains. This fact is rather a (sound and necessary) premise of anomalous monism.

英語