Anomalous Monism - Davidson's Classic Argument For AM

Davidson's Classic Argument For AM

Davidson makes what even his opponents have called an "ingenious" argument for his version of non-reductive physicalism. The argument relies on the following three principles:

  1. The principle of causal interaction: there exist both mental-to-physical as well as physical-to-mental causal interactions.
  2. The principle of the nomological character of causality: all events are causally related through strict laws.
  3. The principle of the anomalism of the mental: there are no psycho-physical laws which relate the mental and the physical as just that, mental and physical.

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