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Anomalism and Supervenience: A Critical Survey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Oron Shagrir
Oron Shagrir*
Affiliation:
Departments of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, The Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem, 91905, Israel
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Extract

The thesis that mental properties are dependent, or supervenient, on physical properties, but this dependence is not lawlike, has been influential in contemporary philosophy of mind. It is put forward explicitly in Donald Davidson's seminal ‘Mental Events.’ On the one hand, Davidson claims that the mental is anomalous, that ‘there are no strict deterministic laws on the basis of which mental events can be predicted and explained’ (1970, 208), and, in particular, that there are no strict psychophysical laws. On the other hand, he insists that the mental supervenes on the physical; that ‘mental characteristics are in some sense dependent, or supervenient, on physical characteristics’ (1970, 214).

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , June 2009 , pp. 237 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2009

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