Abstract
Two criticisms of Davidson's argument for monism are presented. The first is that there is no obvious way for the anomalism of the mental to do any work in his argument. Certain implicit premises, on the other hand, entail monism independently of the anomalism of the mental, but they are question-begging. The second criticism is that even if Davidson's argument is sound, the variety of monism that emerges is extremely weak at best. I show that by constructing ontologically ``hybrid'' events that are consistent with the premises and assumptions of Davidson's argument, but entail ontological dualism.
My guess is thatif you want to get a lot of physicalism out [ofDavidson's argument], you're going to have to put a lot of physicalism in.Jerry Fodor 1989, 159
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Chalmers, D.: 1996, The Conscious Mind, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Davidson, D.: 1980, Essays on Actions and Events, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Davidson, D.: 1985, 'Reply to Quine on Events', in E. Lepore and B. McLaughlin (eds.), Actions and Events, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Davidson, D.: 1987, 'Knowing One's Own Mind', Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 60, 441–458.
Davidson, D.: 1989, 'The Myth of the Subjective', in M. Kransz (ed.), Relativism: Interpretation and Confrontation, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame.
Davidson, D.: 1993, 'Thinking Causes', in J. Heil and A. Mele (eds.), Mental Causation, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Davidson, D.: 1995, 'Laws and Cause', Dialectica 49, 263–279.
Davidson, D.: 1999a, 'Reply to Bjørn Ramberg', in L. Hahn (ed.), The Philosophy of Donald Davidson, Open Court, Peru, Illinois.
Davidson, D.: 1999b, Reply to Bruce Vermazen', in L. Hahn (ed.), The Philosophy of Donald Davidson, Open Court, Peru, Illinois.
Dretske, F.: 1995, Naturalizing the Mind, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Fodor, J.: 1989, 'Making Mind Matter More', Philosophical Topics 17, 59–80.
Johnston, M.: 1985, 'Why Having a Mind Matters', in E. Lepore and B. McLaughlin (eds.), Actions and Events, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Kim, J.: 1998, Mind in a Physical World, MIT Press, Cambridge.
McLaughlin, B.: 1985, 'Anomalous Monism and the Irreducibility of the Mental', in E. Lepore and B. McLaughlin (eds.), Actions and Events, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Quine, W.: 1985, 'Events and Reification', in E. Lepore and B. McLaughlin (eds.), Actions and Events, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Stanton, W.: 1983, 'Supervenience and Psychophysical Law in Anomalous Monism', Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 64, 72–79.
Tye, M.: 1995, Ten Problems of Consciousness, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Antony, M.V. Davidson's Argument for Monism. Synthese 135, 1–12 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022986117864
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022986117864