The Debate on Mental Causation

The flurry of debates on mental causation in recent years has largely been occasioned by Donald Davidson's original and controversial views on the role of mind in the causation and explanation of behaviour. In his classic 1963 paper, “Actions, Reasons, and Causes,” Davidson argued, against the prevailing opinion of the Ryleans and later-Wittgensteineans, that in order to be genuinely explanatory of human behaviour, reasons must be causes; and in his equally influential and far more controversial 1970 paper, “Mental Events,” he undertook to show how reasons can be causes—how it is possible for our beliefs, desire, intentions, and the like, in terms of which we “rationalize” our behaviour, to be at the same time causes of our behaviour. While the basic thesis of the 1963 paper was widely accepted, setting a trend for much of the work on action theory for the following three decades, the account of the causal efficacy of mind in “Mental Events” generated a great deal of controversy. The debates continue, involving scores of participants but seldom Davidson himself. What makes the present collection of previously unpublished papers particularly interesting is that it contains Davidson's own reply to some of his most notable critics, together with their rejoinders; so we now have a contemporary perspective on the mental causation debate that Davidson initiated, unwittingly, a quarter of a century ago

Action (physics) · Causation · Epistemology · Perspective (graphical) · Sociology · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Psychology

• Metaphysics and Morality

  Torbjorn Tannsjo•Inquiry•1998

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• Mental Causation

  John Heil, Alfred R Mele et al.•Mental causation•1993

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• The Myth of Nonreductive Materialism

  Jaegwon Kim•Proceedings and Addresses of the…•1989

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• Essays on Actions and Events

  Donald Davidson, Donald Herbert Davidson•Essays on actions and events•2001

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• Mental Quausation

  Terence Horgan•Philosophical Perspectives•1989

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• Type Epiphenomenalism, Type Dualism, and the Causal Priority of the Physical

  Brian P Mclaughlin•Philosophical Perspectives•1989

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• Psychophysical supervenience and nonreductive materialism

  Open Access•Ausonio Marras•Synthese•1993

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• Essays on Davidson

  Jennifer Hornsby, Bruce Vermazen et al.•The Philosophical Quarterly•1986

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• Actions, Reasons, and Causes

  Donald Davidson•The Journal of Philosophy•1963

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