Anomalous monism

But on another occasion, when he is questioned about the compatibility of his anomalous monism and his criticism of the idea of conceptual scheme, Davidson says that a conceptual scheme, in the context of the above remarks, is supposed to correspond to a whole language ( Psychology , 243). 

The next Section is a brief introduction to what can be considered the main motivation for this chapter the prejudice that chemistry is reducible to physics. The following section critically reviews a number of proposals of how to understand interdiscourse relations (epistemic and/or ontological relations between different theories or disciplines), and settles down on the metaphysical model of anomalous monism (never before applied to chemistry and physics). Then I show in what way the (chemical) notion of pure substance is methodologically, epistemologically, and ontologi-cally independent of microchemistry and quantum mechanics and dependent on the manifest intuition of pure substance. 

Contemplating the intuitive meaning of dependence, covariance, and nonreducible suggests that the task set is not an easy one (if coherent at all). The solution I favor is that of anomalous monism (Davidson, 1970, 1993). It differs from each of the proposals for interdiscourse relations discussed so far on the following points (van Brakel, 1999a) ... 

This dissertation begins by discussing an issue that is central to all nonreductive materialist views - the problem of anomalous monism. Any nonreductive materialist view that does not want to accept the epiphenomenalism of mental properties must be able to show how irreducible mental properties can be causal properties. If the irreducibility of mental properties implies that there are no strict laws connecting mental properties to physical properties, then the question we must try to answer is how anomalous mental properties can be causal properties. In my first chapter, I submit an account of how anomalous mental properties can be causal properties. I argue that even if all events are backed by strict laws, strict laws do not always capture an event s unique causal properties. Thus, strict laws do not rule out irreducible anomalous mental properties as also being causally potent. 

This chapter will discuss the problem of how anomalous monism can accoimt for causation in virtue of mental properties. This is a pressing problem for nonreduetive materialists, sinee nonreduetive materialists generally hold that mental events and properties are anomalous (i.e. that there are no striet laws eonneeting mental types to physieal types). Donald Davidson holds the view of anomalous monism (AM), which is naturally seen as deriving fiom three premises (P). The three premises from whieh Davidson derives AM are is follows ... 

Davidson s solution to this problem is his anomalous monism ... 

So anomalous monism can account for how mental events can causally affect physical events. The problem (as suggested by Kim, McLaughlin, Sosa, and others) is... 

Notice that this is the same type of move that saves event causation for anomalous monism. Mental events are causal because each token mental event is identical with a physical event. The problem of property causation, however, is a challenge posed by the exclusion principle that the nonreductive... 

As simple and elegant as the above solution may seem, it is neither available to nor desirable for the nonreductive materialist. Although a Davidsonian anomalous monism can solve the problem of event causation, the nonreductivist still must give some account of property causation. Nonreductive materialists hold that mental properties are distinct from and irreducible to physical properties. So the nonreductivist cannot just reduce mental property M to physical property P and say that M causes P because it is really identical with or reducible to P. The nonreductivist needs to show how it is that both M and P, even though they are distinct properties, can be causally efficacious with respect to P. ... 

This should not be at all surprising after the discussion of Davidson s anomalous monism in chapter 1. Davidson clearly and correctly realized that the only way to save event causation for nonreductive... 

Now notice here that Kim refers to events and not properties in his statement of strong closure. If Kim were really just talking about events here, then strong closure would be completely uncontroversial and rmproblematic for any materialist. Nonreductive materialists could hold on to a Davidsonian anomalous monism, and hold that all causes of physical events are themselves physical events. This would still leave open the possibility that these physical events could have physically irreducible properties that are sometimes causally potent. 

Davidson s anomalous monism is usually thought of as a version of nonreductive physicalism. But its commitment to physicalism may be rather weak because, though Davidson does endorse the causal closure of physics, it is not clear that he agrees with the supervenience claim I call Jackson-Lewis physicalism since he denies that there are tight connections between the mental and the physical. 

Davidson, whose view Anomalous Monism is often thought of as a version of NRB was very skeptical about properties but seems to have given in to talking about properties (Davidson, 1995). Needless to say, except in a footnote, the view that predicates with nonanalytically connected meaning may correspond to the same property depends on a Fregean-like notion of meaning. 

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