Davidson Donald (b.1917), American metaphysician and philosopher of mind and language. His views on the relationship between our conceptions of ourselves as persons and as complex physical objects have had an enormous impact on contemporary philosophy. Davidson regards the mind–body problem as the problem of the relation between mental and physical events; his discussions of explanation assume that the entities explained are events; causation is a relation between events; and action is a species of events, so that events are the very subject matter of action theory. His central claim concerning events is that they are concrete particulars – unrepeatable entities located in space and time. He does not take for granted that events exist, but argues for their existence and for specific claims as to their nature. In ‘The Individuation of Events’ (in Essays on Actions and Events, 1980), Davidson argues that a satisfactory theory of action must recognize that we talk of the same action under different descriptions. We must therefore assume the existence of actions. His strongest argument for the existence of events derives from his most original contribution to metaphysics, the semantic method of truth (Essays on Actions and Events, pp. 105–80; Essays on Truth and Interpretation, 1984, pp. 199–214). The argument is based on a distinctive trait of the English language (one not obviously shared by signal systems in lower animals), namely, its productivity of combinations. We learn modes of composition as well as words and are thus prepared to produce and respond to complex expressions never before encountered. Davidson argues, from such considerations, that our very understanding of English requires assuming the existence of events. To understand Davidson’s rather complicated views about the relationships between mind and body, consider the following claims: (1) The mental and the physical are distinct. (2) The mental and the physical causally interact. (3) The physical is causally closed. (1) says that no mental event is a physical event; (2), that some mental events cause physical events and vice versa; and (3), that all the causes of physical events are physical events. If mental events are distinct from physical events and sometimes cause them, then the physical is not causally closed. The dilemma posed by the plausibility of each of these claims and by their apparent incompatibility just is the traditional mind– body problem.
Davidson’s resolution consists of three theses: (4) There are no strict psychological or psychophysical laws; in fact, all strict laws are expressible in purely physical vocabulary. (5) Mental events causally interact with physical events. (6) Event c causes event e only if some strict causal law subsumes c and e. It is commonly held that a property expressed by M is reducible to a property expressed by P (where M and P are not logically connected) only if some exceptionless law links them. So, given (4), mental and physical properties are distinct. (6) says that c causes e only if there are singular descriptions, D of c and DH of e, and a ‘strict’ causal law, L, such that L and ‘D occurred’ entail ‘D caused D”. (6) and the second part of (4) entail that physical events have only physical causes and that all event causation is physically grounded.
Given the parallel between (1)–(3) and (4)– (6), it may seem that the latter, too, are incompatible. But Davidson shows that they all can be true if (and only if) mental events are identical to physical events. Let us say that an event e is a physical event if and only if e satisfies a basic physical predicate (that is, a physical predicate appearing in a ‘strict’ law). Since only physical predicates (or predicates expressing properties reducible to basic physical properties) appear in ‘strict’ laws, every event that enters into causal relations satisfies a basic physical predicate. So, those mental events which enter into causal relations are also physical events. Still, the anomalous monist is committed only to a partial endorsement of (1). The mental and physical are distinct insofar as they are not linked by strict law – but they are not distinct insofar as mental events are in fact physical events.
See also ACTION THEORY, CAUSAL LAW, EVENT, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND , SUPERVE – NIENCE TRUT. E.L.