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Davidson on the Identity Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 1975

Bernard D. Katz
Bernard D. Katz*
Affiliation:
Erindale College, University of Toronto
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Extract

Donald Davidson has advanced a novel argument for the psychophysical identity theory, the view that mental events are identical with physical events. Davidson contends that the truth of this theory can be inferred from three principles: (1) at least some mental events interact causally with physical events; (2) events related as cause and effect fall under strict deterministic laws; and (3) there can be no strict deterministic laws on the basis of which mental events can be predicted or explained (pp. 80–81).

Davidson's contention is striking, quite aside from the question of whether (1), (2), and (3) are correct. For it is commonly assumed that discoveries in the empirical sciences—in particular, the discovery of psycho-physical laws—would be prerequisite for establishing a version of the identity theory. Davidson's argument is successful only if there can be no such discoveries: the third principle precludes the possibility of there being (strict) laws linking the mental and physical.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 81 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1977

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References

1 Davidson, Donald “Mental Events,” Experience and Theory,ed. Foster, Lawrence and Swanson, J. W. (The University of Massachusetts Press, 1970), pp. 79– 101.Google Scholar Page references will be inserted in the text.

2 Davidson says: “from the fact that there can be no strict psycho-physical laws, and our other two principles, we can infer the truth of a version of the identity theory … “ (p. 81). He contends that the claim that there can be no strict psychophysical laws on reasonable assumptions entails (3). I am not concerned here with that inference, and in any case (3) entails the claim that there can be no strict psycho-physical laws.

3 Of these principles no doubt (2) and (3) are most likely to be controversial. (2) is elaborated in Davidson's, “Causal Relations,” The Journal of Philosophy, LXIV (1967), pp. 691–703Google Scholar, and (3) is discussed and defended in the second and third parts of the paper under discussion.

4 I am indebted to Jaegwon Kim for emphasizing this point.

5 Following Kim, Jaegwon “Materialism and the Criteria of the Mental,” Synthese, XXII (1971), pp. 323-45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Kim distinguishes two approaches toward characterizing the mental and the physical: “the linguistic approach attempts to characterize linguistic units … as mental or physical, and the ontological approach deals directly with nonlinguistic entities … “ (pp. 324–50).

6 A slightly different route to this conclusion would be via Davidson's causal criterion of event identity. According to that criterion, “events are identical if and only if they have exactly the same causes and effects” (“Individuation of Events,” Essays in Honor of Carl Hempel, G. ed. Rescher, N. et al., Dordrecht 1969, p. 231Google Scholar). On this criterion any event will be describable in terms of, what Davidson calls, its unique position in the framework of causal relations between events. If so, there does not appear to be any reason why every mental event could not be described solely in terms of its relations to physical events.

7 The procedure is, of course, an application of Davidson's instruction on other matters. In a paper on agency, for example, he says: “Of course, the describing trick has been turned by describing the actions as the movements with the right effects; but this does not show the trick has not been turned“(” Agency,” Agent, Action, and Reason,ed. Binkley, Robert eta al. [Oxford: Blackwell, 1971], p. 14)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 It would be amazing, I think, if there were linguistic criteria for classifying events. As Kim observes, if there were logico-grammatical properties of linguistic items which would yield the desired ontological criterion “it would be a fantastic fact that would require a philosophical and linguistic explanation; we are used to thinking of the relation between language and the world as conventional, at least to an important extent, and it would be surprising if we discovered that there was a strict correspondence between some logical property of sentences and whether these sentences are about (designate, describe, pertain to, etc.) psychological phenomena” (“Criteria of the Mental,“ p. 329).

9 Descriptions such as ‘(1X) (Px ᐱ S)’ no doubt appear artificial. The important point, however, is that the open sentence’ (Px ᐱS)’ is a mental open sentence (on Davidson's criterion), and it is true of just that event designated by ‘( 1 x) (Px).’ The upshot of this is that we can show that every event is mental. Davidson is well aware of this. He allows that “we have obviously failed to capture the intuitive concept of the mental,” and says, “we can afford Spinozistic extravagance with the mental since accidental inclusion can only strengthen the hypothesis that all mental events are identical with physical events” (p. 85). My immediate concern is not so much with the intuitive concept of the mental, as it is with Davidson's delineation of the extension of the physical.

10 For helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper, I am indebted to Jaegwon Kim, Herbert Hochberg, and Paul Horwich.