Claim
Anomalous monism
Overview
Anomalous monism is a philosophical thesis about the mind–body relationship. It was first proposed by Donald Davidson in his 1970 paper "Mental Events". The theory is twofold and states that mental events are identical with physical events, and that the mental is anomalous, i.e. under their mental descriptions, causal relations between these mental events are not describable by strict physical laws. Hence, Davidson proposes an identity theory of mind without the reductive bridge laws associated with the type-identity theory. Since the publication of his paper, Davidson refined his thesis and both critics and supporters of anomalous monism have come up with their own characterizations of the thesis, many of which appear to differ from Davidson's.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
Far less do I mean (as Dr. Whewell seems to suppose must be meant in an analogous case[9]) to indicate that as they are "_merely_ states of mind," it is superfluous to inquire into their distinguishing peculiarities. I abstain from the inquiry as irrelevant to the science of logic.
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic
States what Anomalous monism is.
They are represented as so many simple and irreducible data, imminent in the human mind by virtue of its inborn constitution. For this reason they are said to be _a priori_. Others, however, hold that they are constructed and made up of pieces and bits, and that the individual is the artisan of this construction.[15] But each solution raises grave difficulties. Is the empirical thesis the one adopted? Then it is…
Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
Close in meaning to Anomalous monism; the term itself is not named.
In regard to Desire, they will have to examine what objects we desire naturally, and by what causes we are made to desire things originally indifferent, or even disagreeable to us; and so forth. It may be remarked that the general laws of association prevail among these more intricate states of mind, in the same manner as among the simpler ones. A desire, an emotion, an idea of the higher order of abstraction, even…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
States what Anomalous monism is.
Related ideas
- Aristotelian physics
- Belief
- Mind–body problem
- Philosophy
- If and only if
- Mind–body dualism
- Mental event
- Monism
- Mind
- Scientific theory
- Holism
- Ontology
- Property dualism
- Physicalism
- Scientific law
- Interactionism (philosophy of mind)
- State of affairs (philosophy)
- Indeterminacy of translation
- Donald Davidson (philosopher)
- Infinite regress
- Empirical evidence
- Psychophysical parallelism
- Semantic holism
- Supervenience
Place in the tradition
Part of American philosophy.