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Abstract
Despite the fact that Davidson’s theory of the causal relata is crucial to his response to the problem of mental causation – that of anomalous monism – it is commonly overlooked within discussions of his position. Anomalous monism is accused of entailing property epiphenomenalism, but given Davidson’s understanding of the causal relata, such accusations are wholly misguided. There are, I suggest, two different forms of property epiphenomenalism. The first understands the term ‘property’ in an ontological sense, the second in a linguistic sense. Anomalous monism cannot plausibly be accused of either. The first cannot legitimately be applied to anomalous monism as it is incompatible with Davidson’s ontology. And accusations of predicate epiphenomenalism, although consistent with Davidson’s ontology, are ungrounded regarding Davidson’s anomalous monism. Philosophers of mind have mislocated the problem with Davidson’s anomalous monism, which in fact lies with the implausible theory of the causal relata upon which it rests.
Notes
1 I am indebted to Crane for initiating this line of thought. Crane (Citation1992: pp. 188–90) and (Citation1995: pp. 226–9) is one of the few philosophers to consider that accusations of this kind of property epiphenomenalism might be illegitimate when applied to anomalous monism, because they are incompatible with Davidson’s ontology.
2 See Davidson, Citation1980d, where he advances a weak understanding of Hume’s view that a causal law covers every causal claim.
3 For example, see McLaughlin (Citation1993: p. 33) and Kim (Citation1993c: p. 22) for this argument.
4 For example, see Davidson, Citation1993: pp. 7 and 13.
5 His assumption that, for example, given type physicalism mental properties would be causally efficacious would suggest that he understands the term in an ontological sense (1994: p. 470). His appeal to properties as the causal explanantia would suggest that he is interpreting the term in a linguistic sense.
6 See, for example, Davidson, Citation1980c.
7 For Kim’s principle of explanatory exclusion and his defence of explanatory realism, see Kim, Citation1990 and Citation1993b.
8 To quote Davidson: ‘Nothing … no thing, makes sentences and theories true’ (Citation1984b: p. 194).
9 For a defence of this point, see Davidson, Citation1967a, Citation1967b, and Citation1980c.
10 Given Quinean nominalism, one must offer ‘a semantical interpretation for sentences containing predicates in such a way that no extensions are assigned to the predicates’ (Eberle, Citation1970: p. 107). This is done by appealing to the relation of satisfaction: a predication claim is true if and only if there is an object within the domain of discourse that satisfies it.
11 See Davidson, Citation1980c.
12 I am grateful to an anonymous referee for raising this possible objection.
13 For a defence of the truthmaker principle see Armstrong, Citation1997.
14 For Davidson’s version of the ‘slingshot’ argument see Davidson, Citation1984c.
15 For example, see Davidson, Citation1984b: p. 194.
16 I would like to express my gratitude to an anonymous referee for some very helpful advice on how to improve this paper.