Anomalous monism

« Anomalous monism Anomalous monism, proposed by Donald Davidson in 1970, implies that all events are of one fundamental kind, namely physical.

But it does not deny that there are mental events; rather, it implies that every mental event is some physical event or other.

The idea is that someone's thinking at a certain time that the earth is round, for example, might be a certain pattern of neural firing in their brain at that time, an event which is both a thinking that the earth is round (a type of mental event) and a pattern of neural firing (a type of physical event).

There is just one event, that can be characterized both in mental terms and in physical terms.

If mental events are physical events, they can, like all physical events, be explained and predicted (at least in principle) on the basis of laws of nature cited in physical science.

However, according to anomalous monism, events cannot be so explained or predicted as described in mental terms (such as ‘thinking', ‘desiring', ‘itching' and so on), but only as described in physical terms.

The distinctive feature of anomalous monism as a brand of physical monism is that it implies that mental events as such (that is, as described in mental terms) are anomalous - they cannot be explained or predicted on the basis of strict scientific laws.

1 Psychophysical identity and strict laws Davidson proposed the following argument for a psychophysical identity thesis: let m be any arbitrary mental event that causally interacts with some physical event p.

Events related as cause and effect fall under strict laws.

But if m and p fall under a strict law, that strict law is a physical law as all strict laws are physical laws.

If an event falls under a strict physical law, then it is a physical event.

Hence, m is a physical event.

As Davidson points out, if one makes the plausible assumption that every mental event causally interacts with some physical event, one can arrive by the same reasoning at the more general conclusion that every mental event is a physical event.

Although questions can be raised about various steps in this argument, its conclusion is fairly widely accepted (see Mind, identity theory of).

The focus of attention has been on his claim that although mental events are physical events, there are no strict psychological laws (psychological anomalism) and there are no strict psychophysical laws (psychophysical anomalism) - the doctrines that make his version of monism count as a version of anomalous monism.

Before discussing the anomalism theses, let us turn to the notion of a strict law itself.

According to Davidson, laws are true general statements that support counterfactuals and other subjunctive conditionals (see Counterfactuals), and which are confirmable by their positive instances.

Strict laws are sometimes claimed to be laws that contain no escape clauses such as ‘other things being equal', or ‘typically', or ‘for the most part', or the like.

However, Davidson appears to have a stricter notion of law in mind than that.

For the statement ‘All sentient beings are mortal' contains no explicit escape clauses and expresses as exceptionless a law as one can hope to find, yet it appears that Davidson would not count it.

His notion of a strict law is one that is as explicit, precise, and exceptionless as nature permits, or that can be refined into such a law by the addition of further explicit provisos and conditions stated in the same theoretical vocabulary as the original law statement.

In contrast, nonstrict laws can be made exceptionless only by explicitly citing probabilities in the law itself, or, at the cost of explicitness and precision, by adding ceteris paribus clauses or hedges, or else by employing predicates (like 'sentient' and 'mortal') whose analyses require appeal to ceteris paribus clauses or hedges that cannot be fully spelled out in the same theoretical vocabulary as the original law statement.

This difference between strict and nonstrict laws, according to Davidson, is due to the fact that strict laws, unlike nonstrict ones, are couched in the vocabulary of a closed, comprehensive theory.

A theory T is closed if and only if events within the domain of T causally interact only with other events within the domain of T.

A theory T is comprehensive if and only if every event within its domain satisfies a unique T-description under which it is subsumed by one of T's laws.

Davidson allows that while strict laws are, or can be refined into, laws as exceptionless as nature permits, a strict law, even fully refined, may prove to be probabilistic; but if it does, there will be no law covering exactly the same causal transactions it covers that is more explicit, precise, and has fewer exceptions.

Nonstrict laws, Davidson says, can support causal claims concerning individual events.

But they do so, he maintains, by providing evidence that there is a strict law at work that is free of either explicit or implicit escape clauses, and that precisely states all the causal factors at work in the particular causal transactions in question.

Davidson's notion of a strict law remains a subject of interpretation.

The following is textually defensible.

A strict law is a law that is couched solely in a basic vocabulary of a closed, comprehensive theory, or in terms that can be defined by terms logically constructible from such a basic vocabulary, or be reduced by bridge laws to terms so constructible; a nonstrict law is a law not couched in such terms, or solely in such terms.

A set of terms is a basic vocabulary of a closed comprehensive theory if and only if it is a set of terms sufficient for the formulation of a closed comprehensive theory, and no proper subset of it is.

2 Psychological anomalism Davidson argues as follows for psychological anomalism. Psychology is not a closed theory; and, further, psychological terms cannot be incorporated by reductive bridge law or definition into the vocabulary of a closed, comprehensive theory.

Therefore, there are no strict psychological laws.

Psychology is indeed not closed; there is overwhelming empirical reason to believe that there are nonmental events that causally interact with mental events.

To be sure, biology is not a closed theory either; indeed, none of the special sciences is closed.

Davidson tells us that most of science employs only nonstrict laws.

He holds, however, that strict laws can be found in physics, either in current physics, or, if it falls short of what it promises to be (that is, closed and comprehensive), then in some (as yet unstated, perhaps never to be stated) improved version of current physics.

All strict laws are either laws of physics or laws that can be refined to laws of physics by appeal to reductive laws and/or definitions, and (if necessary) adding physical provisos.

Some philosophers maintain, on the following grounds, that special science laws, including even chemistry, are typically not strict since they cannot be so refined: the event and state types cited in special science laws are, typically, widely and multiply realized by the event and state types cited in physics, and hence the former cannot be reduced to the latter.

Davidson has, however, marshalled reasons for holding that certain mental predicates, in particular, cannot possibly be reduced to physical predicates, reasons which make no appeal to the notion of realization.

The predicates in question are ones that contain essential occurrences of propositional attitude verbs such as ‘believes', ‘desires' and the like (see Propositional attitudes).

Davidson maintains that propositional attitude concepts are such that predicates that express them could not possibly be reduced to physical predicates.

His reasons are discussed. »