如何正确理解心身因果关系--戴维森的“异常一元论”及其争论

How to Understand the Causal Relation Between Mind and Body:Davidson's Anomalous Monism and Related Debates

传统的唯物主义意识论对心身因果关系的理解,要么是属性二元论,要么是还原论。戴维森的异常一元论在扬弃这二者的基础上独辟蹊径:在坚持物理主义的前提下,既维护了心理因果性的常识观念,又保存了心理属性的独特性,为心身因果关系构建了一幅新图景。然而,这种新图景下的心理属性被误认为是副现象,它的因果有效性的资质,遭到了因果相关性反对意见、偶然关联论证和排除论证等反对意见的质疑。根据戴维森独特的形而上学,"异常一元论"对这三种反对意见进行了有效的回击。

The understanding of the casual relation between mind and body from the traditional materialists' view of consciousness is either property dualism or reductionism,both of which are rejected by Davidson.He proposes a new approach,i.e.anomalous monism.It not only protects the common sense of mental causation within the framework of physicalism,but also reserves the distinctiveness of mental property.This solution to mental causation,however,encounters three objections as follow:causal relevance objection,accidental connection and causal exclusion arguments.According to Davidson's distinct metaphysics,anomalous monism replies to these objections effectively.