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Content and Causal Powers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Eric Saidel
Eric Saidel*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Texas A&M University
*
‡Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, 510 Blocker Building, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4237, USA.
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Abstract

Owens (1993) argues that a tension exists between our commonsense view of mental states and the scientific view that psychological explanations not contradict supervenience. He suggests that one cannot accept the anti-individualistic conclusions of Twin-Earth thought experiments and continue to use folk psychological states to explain behavior. I argue that his conclusions are based on individuating content widely and causal powers narrowly, and that such individuation violates consistency assumptions about the terms of his discussion. Thus, I argue, the tension he points to evaporates when we adopt either a consistently wide view or a consistently narrow view.

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 61 , Issue 4 , December 1994 , pp. 658 - 665
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1994

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Footnotes

†

I am indebted to Larry Shapiro, Doug Smith, and Brian Brost for their comments and discussion.

References

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