| dc.description.abstract | The main aim of this dissertation is to offer, and to defend, an interpretation of Donald Davidson’s classic paper “Mental Events” which interpretation I take to be identical to Davidson’s intended interpretation. My contention is that many readers misunderstand this paper. My method for showing this will be, first, to give a brief summary of the surface structure, and the core concepts, of “Mental Events”. I will then begin to canvas exemplars of the main lines of (alleged) objection to what “Mental Events” has been supposed to contend. I intend to argue that these objections misunderstand either Davidson’s conclusions, or his arguments, or they require material additional to the position that Davidson actually lays out and argues for in “Mental Events” in order to follow. In the latter case I shall attempt to show that these additions are not contentions which Davidson shares by referencing further materials from Davidson’s work. My claim is that in describing anomalous monism Davidson sets up a genuinely novel position as regards the mental, the physical, and relations between them. This position allows genuine causal interaction between mental and physical events. It is consistent with the naturalistic view that every causal relation falls under maximally explanatory and predictive laws, under some description of the events in question. It also explains why mental descriptions of events cannot be nomologically reduced to physical descriptions. I shall be considering three exemplars of lines of argument against “Mental Events.” First, I shall consider the claim that the arguments of “Mental Events” require an unwarranted claim about nomologicality and causality as exemplified by G.E.M. Anscombe’s claim in “Causality and Determination”. Secondly, I shall examine the claim that the arguments of “Mental Events” entail epiphenomenalism concerning the mental, rather than the supposed novel position of anomalous monism, a claim presented in the arguments of Jaegwon Kim, across multiple papers. Lastly, I shall consider the argument that “Mental Events” commits a conceptual error in addressing what should be an empirical question (whether there are any social scientific laws) in a priori terms. This last objection I take to be exemplified by Lee McIntyre in his paper “Davidson and Social Scientific Laws”. My contention is that we dissolve the apparent threat of these objections by following Davidson in keeping clear which theses in “Mental Events” concern ontology, which theses concern explanations, and which theses concern descriptions. | |
